Politics – Blue Ocean Light

What if They were Black?

The bios that are emerging of those who have been arrested for breaking into the Capitol are grim. Some include association with QAnon (conspiracy theory). More than one were said to be white supremacists or white nationalists. Another was disapprovingly characterized as a neo-Confederate. Sky News reported that an Anti-Defamation League representative who was on the scene “saw members of several white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups among the pro-Trump crowds.”

All monsters, crazies, deranged lunatics. Easy to dismiss. Satisfying to see them get what’s coming. Whether or not they are a collection of deplorables, if they really did what they appear to have done (forcibly enter the Capitol, vandalize, steal, possibly murder), then peace-loving Americans should indeed relish in their capture and criminal prosecution. Let’s see what happens.

Inevitably, and quite understandably, there has been comparison between the Capitol riots and the BLM “mostly peaceful protests” of last summer. But some of the conclusions being made by some people on the left are not understandable. If the rioters were black, they would have been met with severe and brutal resistance by the police, goes one such narrative. OK. Well, one person was killed by the police at the Capitol. Have not heard much about that person: Ashli Babbit. She has not become an overnight cause. She has not been canonized or praised as a martyr. Nobody is demanding that we “say her name!” Nobody is demanding that the Capitol police be defunded. The scarce biographical information we find about Ms. Babbit informs us that she was a military veteran who, according to the New York Times, “delved into far right politics.” The Washington Post and other outlets have reported that she “avidly followed the QAnon conspiracy theory.”

That is all fine and well. But compare this to the media’s treatment of George Floyd, a deeply flawed human being whose criminal history includes armed breaking and entry for which he spent five years in prison. The media chose not to focus on Mr. Floyd’s criminal past, and drug abuse. Instead they talked about his personal struggles to overcome his past, his relationship with his children, and of course the final excruciating moments of his life, captured on video. They humanized him. Ashli Babbit has not been, and will not be (at least in the MSM), humanized. Ashli Babbit is a caricature, a paranoid nutcase. George Floyd a powerful and righteous symbol of presumed racial injustice in America. One is a joke. The other is a hero. One will be reviled, or at least dismissed, for what she thought. The other, celebrated, while people ignore the terrible actions he actually took.

So…If Ashli Babbit were black, and shot by the Capitol police, would she be as anonymous and dismissible as Ashli Babbit, the white female conspiracy follower?

None of this is to excuse Ashli Babbit for attempting to break into the Capitol. Nor is it to suggest that George Floyd deserved the painful death he suffered. This is simply to point out the hypocrisy of those who advance the absurd “what if they were black?” argument.

Trumpers Storm Capitol? Hmm…

Today (1.6.21) there was a rally in Washington DC. Trump spoke. Later in the day, several people, presumably from the rally, stormed the capitol. Senators were spirited away, hidden and protected. The invaders, seemingly unarmed, were on TV. One made himself comfortable in a senator’s office. National guard forces were deployed. One, a 14-year Air Force veteran, was killed. Some of the invaders appeared to be ANTIFA people. (Just an idea, of course… you know, like Marxism, or Naziism.) Fog of war upon us. But let’s see what facts emerge. Unlike Trump people to take to violence. I wonder what percentage actually were Trumpers. It will not matter to CNN’ers and MSNBC’ers. They will fight to keep the narrative of conservative violence. (That sounds odd writing it.) Likely there were ANTIFA-idea people mixed in, putting their ideas into action. The only question is: how many? All of them? Half? Just a few, disguised in MAGA hats, stirring the hearts of highly emotional and persuadable Trump supporters? Not saying it happened this way, but a very small number of savvy insurgents could probably know exactly the right tactics to target toward exactly the right people, to create exactly the right effect within a large and emotional crowd, to manipulate that crowd into the appearance of taking action it either did not in fact take, or did not take for the reasons that others perceive. I have heard that the ANTIFA-idea people actually infiltrated BLM peaceful protests to do just this. I wonder if the idea people are so discriminating in the company they keep that they would limit their violent interventions to BLM peaceful protests. Or might they also want to do the same at a Trump rally? We may never know. Hard to predict what story leads (like a man with an ANTIFA tattoo among Trumpers) will be investigated these days. But I’ll say this: whoever did that today, ANTIFA-idea people or Trumpers, or both, someone is now dead.

Climatechangists are Deniers

Climate Change is a state-sponsored religion, which denies alternative thought and denies ideas for creative solutions.

My news feed said that the weather across the Eastern United States is going to be cold this week. I took the bait and clicked on the link. Sure enough, the first two words of the story were Climate Change. Because I like pain, I entered those two words in a Google search. The top 10 headlines were about negative, apocalyptic consequences. No positive, optimistic interpretations. Not even a challenge to the incumbent thinking about this topic. Climate Change is a religion – and not one in which we may freely participate or freely criticize. It is a state-sponsored religion, and we are expected to follow its commandments unquestioningly.

Heretics, like me, do not necessarily disagree that the climate is changing. Without reading a single word of any UN report or open letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists, my natural instinct, my assumption, would be that the climate is changing. There is a much greater chance that the climate is changing than that it is staying exactly the same. The question is whether governments, or NGOs, should, or can, do anything about it. I think not. But this view is not tolerated. It is shouted down. The consensus is that the Earth is warming, and collective action must be taken, and those who don’t agree must be ignored and insulted.

My daughter asked why we even believe that global warming would necessarily be bad. Good question. If she ever asks her classmates, or any group of typically informed people, I just hope she is ready for the religious-style assault that will come her way. Her question is worth considering. The forecast is for flooded coastal areas, caused by rising oceans, caused by melting polar icecaps. Sounds bad. Let’s assume that will actually happen if the icecaps don’t stop melting. And let’s assume that on balance the world’s ice is indeed melting – meaning that every year, more water turns into ice than ice into water. Again – not hard to believe. What would be hard to believe is that the frozen to non-frozen water ratio is deadlocked and unchanging. So premise accepted. The earth is warming. No deniers here.

Back to my daughter’s question. Why would it be bad? Or, maybe a slight variation on her question. Would anything good come of it? Yes, probably. Can’t know for sure, but if I had to predict one way or another, I would predict that good would come of a warming planet – along with the bad. We might produce more food based on longer growing seasons. Maybe there would be more local sourcing, and less fossil fuel spent on planes and ships, because bananas and pineapples could be grown in Iowa. We might find that warmer weather makes for easier living than colder weather – less snow to shovel. Maybe something good even comes of the flooded coastal cities. Great new cities might be born to replace the old. This has happened before. What a tragedy it would be if future generations were denied the opportunity to build great cities. And maybe the architects of the future would design buildings that can withstand flooding, catastrophic storms, rising temperatures, and any other consequence of climate change. Maybe there would be floating cities. Imagine! Almost sounds exciting.

But, my girl, we are not encouraged to imagine when it comes to climate change. (At least not freely. Climate-changism devotees have imagined that climate change is responsible for racism and other social concerns.) We are expected only to self-indoctrinate, evangelize, and join the crusade to prevent end times. The crusade’s objective has been defined. The solutions are all derivatives of the Green New Deal, proposed legislation in the U.S. that would essentially eliminate the use of fossil fuels within 12 years. If we listen carefully, we can discern voices in the wilderness (like that of former Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore), who advise us that such a course would lead to mass starvation and death. Maybe that small group of contrarians are the ones who are wrong. But we will never truly have the debate. The momentum is strongly in favor of government and inter-government led solutions which all propose to save the planet by reversing the warming trend through controlling how and what people consume. So not only do they assume that climate change is a problem with no upside, but that there is only one way to prepare against it – and this one way, of course, is via coercion – on a scale never before seen on this planet. The religion of Climatechangism truly is the path to a one world government.

Here is another thought. If Climatechangism is not a religion, but just a well-intentioned movement that encourages people to prepare for an inevitable disaster, then we just each need to do what is best for ourselves, our families, our customers (if we have them). For example, if my home were along the waterfront, or in a place which is at, or below, sea-level, then I should sell my house and move to higher ground. If I am a real estate investor who owns buildings in Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, or any other city on the water, then I should consider divesting myself of those assets to lower my risk. If I run a business that depends on shipping, I should think about how earth’s increased water coverage will impact the way I do business. If I run a charity that is concerned about feeding impoverished people in areas where increased droughts will wipe out crops, then I should scratch my head, pull together a team of the most creative problem solvers I can find and say, “With all this extra water we are going to have, there must be a way to solve this drought problem.”

Even if the Climatechangists are genuine (meaning, their goal is truly to save the planet – not to rule it), a local, volunteer-based approach is much easier, and much more likely to achieve goals, than the coercive, global-scale approach which has been preferred so far. (They want every person in the world to believe only that climate change is bad, and believe there is only a single solution. Everybody. In the world. Then they want every person to change their behavior to enact the solution. Every person. All 8 billion people. Think about that.)

Meantime, believing that Climatechangism is something other than an organized movement, with a goal no more noble than power, control, and subjugation, is difficult when those who lead it continually deny the opportunity for debate and deny the power of imagination.

For my part, I am glad not to be a Climatechangist. I feel free. I feel able to think, even a little excited about what the world could look like when our best and brightest develop new ways to live in an inevitably changing world. I just hope that our best and brightest are not denied their chance.

Useful Idiot Crony Capitalist

Well, that was quick. Here comes the crony capitalist again! Or, is he a useful idiot? A mere two weeks after Amazon’s self-imposed $15/hour minimum wage took effect, Bernie Sanders co-sponsored a bill which, along with new rules on executive pay and stock buybacks, would force the same $15/hour standard on all companies with over 500 employees. The marquee target is in fact Walmart, on which the bill’s torturous acronym is based: Stop Welfare for Any Large Monopoly Amassing Revenue from Taxpayers (Stop WALMART).

As reported by The Washington Post, the cost impact to Walmart would be $3.8 billion, according to Ken Jacobs, chair of the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center. Mr. Jacobs characterized $3.8 billion as “a tiny, tiny fraction of their revenues.” He is mathematically correct. Walmart’s 2017 revenue was about $500 billion. But he is highlighting the wrong metric. The $3.8 billion cost increase comes with no associated revenue increase, and so every nickel of that would cut into profits. Walmart’s margins are quite thin – with only four cents of profit squeezed from every dollar of revenue. In 2017, this came to $20 billion, meaning that a $3.8 billion cost increase would wipe out nearly one-fifth of Walmart’s profits.

This probably still sounds like dismissible stakes to someone like Ken Jacobs. But that is $3.8 billion, which Walmart cannot invest in hiring more people, improving existing store conditions, building new stores, lowering merchandise prices for consumers, or any other tactic which would further enable them to best serve customers and…more effectively compete against other retailers.

Which brings us back to the October 28 BOL post. Any across-the-board increase in wages will be more costly to Walmart than to Amazon. Amazon’s decision to raise minimum-wage voluntarily to $15 an hour looks very shrewd exactly because it appears to have emboldened Sanders to propose this bill. With a Republican Senate, Stop WALMART is unlikely to become law in the short term, and the 77 year old Sanders knows this. But introducing the bill now is a short term maneuver in a longer term game. It keeps the minimum wage conversation alive even if nothing can happen in Washington for the moment.

Walmart must now be distracted with defending against the legislation or preparing for the eventual 3.8 billion cost increase. And that is just Walmart. Dozens of other Amazon competitors face the same dilemma. It’s good to be Amazon. They can keep focusing on their core business while this power-to-the-people, 1930s style Vermont socialist threatens to inflict more damage on their competitors than any Prime Day sale ever could.

Minimum Wage Gamesmanship and a Useful Idiot

On November 1st, Amazon’s voluntary $15 an hour minimum wage takes effect. A $15/hour minimum wage actually can help them. They can more easily afford it than their competition. By voluntarily adopting a $15/hour minimum wage, Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos increases pressure on competitors to do the same, and further emboldens the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders to mandate the higher minimum wage through legislation – potentially forcing other retailers to take on extra costs before they are ready.

So who is Amazon’s competition? Walmart. Like Amazon, Walmart has the financial strength to absorb an increase in labor costs, better than most. (In fact they just increased their own self-imposed minimum wage to $11/hour in January.) But not better than Amazon. Hourly wage labor is a bigger expense for Walmart than for Amazon. Walmart as of 2018, has almost 4 times the number of employees as Amazon (2.1 million to .56 million, although, of course, not all are hourly.)

Amazon’s comparative advantage in hourly wage labor cost is likely to grow stronger despite the voluntary wage increase. As they continue to automate processes, from robotic fulfillment and sorting to driverless delivery trucks to drones, their reliance on low skilled hourly labor, as a percentage of overall costs will fall. Walmart meanwhile will also certainly leverage technology to reduce reliance on such labor, but they will not beat Amazon at this game.

It is possible, but seems unlikely, that Amazon’s self inflicted wage increase is not, at least in part, a swipe at Walmart. Why not do it? Even if the move does not ultimately force Walmart to raise wages, or if it does, and Walmart handles it, the tactic is worth a try. There is virtually no downside. And there is upside – in the form of good press, and political favoritism – no matter what. And Walmart, at the very minimum, now must deal with this to some degree, in some manner – whether paying lobbyists to fight back against the useful idiot, Bernie Sanders, or paying more money to their employees. Maybe this is just a distraction, maybe it’s a significant, unplanned cost. Either way, it’s an obvious, easy play by Amazon.

Meantime, whether Bernie Sanders is a co-conspirator or a indeed useful idiot, he is carrying water for exactly the type of behemoth corporation he says is the problem.

Trump: Russia Narrative Buster

On July 16, during his summit with Vladimir Putin, President Trump said he does not believe that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 U.S. election. The implication (apparently) is that he is siding with a foreign government over the American government.

Universal outrage – as in coming from left, right, conservative, liberal – toward President Trump has been the reaction. This is a sign that something is not right. Information is missing. We are not seeing the whole picture. Or perhaps, the whole picture is yet to be revealed. No matter how rare and unusual Trump’s comments in Helsinki might have seemed to some people, the truly weird story here is that everybody from Chuck Schumer to Newt Gingrich to FOXNews to MSNBC is singing in unison. So, what is really going on?

The absence of analysis jumps out. Dramatic comparisons to past historical lows are filling the air, but nobody is offering any rationale for why the President would do something to cause (to pick one such comparison) the U.S.’s worst moment since 9/11. The popular sentiment, of course, is that Trump is an anti-cerebral publicity hound, with no strategic direction or plan. And perhaps there is some truth to that. On the other hand we have seen him look smarter than his critics once or twice as well: as with tariffs, which everyone said was bad (including me). But then China cut tariffs on American automobile imports and the European Union expressed openness better trade deals with the U.S.

So what might he be calculating with this latest comment? Maybe nothing. Sure, it’s possible. The point is nobody is even asking the question. Nobody is even considering that this could be part of a larger game, or whether his response was simply the best he could do in a bad situation.

One Chicago radio commentator offered reasons. Joe Walsh (WIND) suggested that Trump may be insecure about his own victory over Hillary Clinton, and doesn’t want to give his opponents any ammunition – to the point that he would disingenuously take Putin’s side in an international “scandal.” To be sure, Mr. Walsh was highly critical of Trump. But at least he offered some sort of analysis.

Mr. Walsh offered his perspective skeptically. Sure it’s a reason, but not a good one, not an excuse. But, maybe Mr. Walsh stumbled onto something, and too quickly discounted his own discovery. Consider the dilemma Trump faced. If he said the Russians meddled, he is indeed opening the door to the perception of self-incrimination. If, on the other hand, he says there was no meddling, well…

So what was Trump’s better option? This comes down to controlling the (oft under-valued and overlooked) narrative.

The President’s comment about election meddling was in response to a reporter’s question. What result was the reporter hoping for? Most certainly, he wanted Trump to say there was meddling. Could there have been a more perfect next chapter in the prevailing narrative? The villain Trump, sharing a world stage with the Russian dictator whom everybody knew, but could not prove, was Trump’s co-conspirator. The lights, the pressure, the weight of a thousand past denials finally crushing his moral conscience! The narrative-oriented reporter surely had in mind Jack Nicholson, as Colonel Nathan Jessup, during the climax scene of a few good men. He wanted, and probably expected, Trump to blurt out, “You’re goddamned right the Russians meddled in this election! And I colluded with them every step of the way!” The character, Trump, they have created is so egotistical that (like any stock criminal character in any throwaway Hollywood plot) being properly credited for his sinister deeds is more important than any personal consequence he would have to endure.

Whether Trump were to deliver such an admission with the same histrionics as Nicholson does not matter. All that was needed was the public admission. The reporters, pundits, and politicians would take care of the rest. Think of the headlines. Trump concedes Russia election meddling; Impeachment rhetoric heats up!

But Trump spoiled the narrative. Again. He probably asked himself what is the worst they could throw at him if he (as his critics regard it) took the Russian side on meddling. And he probably figured the worst they could do is to call him Hitler again, or accuse him of being treasonous again, or say this is the worst moment since 911, or whatever. So, rather than saying he spoiled the narrative, it is more accurate to say he took control of the narrative.

The narrative is precious. It has commercial value to reporters and bloggers, and political value to politicians. The narrative is really a product. A company may invest millions on developing products, most of which never grow profitable. When one finally finds traction in the market, the company does all it can to defend the product against competition, changes in consumer taste, and so on. Maintaining and enhancing an existing, proven product is always easier and less costly than inventing a new one.

The over the top outrage has nothing to do with defending American honor or some sacrosanct rules of diplomatic behavior for American presidents. This is about marketshare. It is about defending profitability of an incumbent product. It’s about the dividends of high cable TV ratings, and low presidential approval ratings.

In the end Trump’s choice was simple and logical and very likely calculated. And nobody’s going to impeach him for this and future students of history will not read about Trump’s latest unconventional moment in the same chapter as 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, or Watergate, or slavery.