Here We Go...

Our new president has been in office for 120 or so days, so maybe it’s time to take a look at the nation and see what’s happened on Joe Biden’s watch. 

Let's look first at the job situation and the statistics for April. According to the Department of Labor, there were 8.1 million job openings which, by the way, is an all-time record. The companion statistic relates to the number of jobs filled, and was a paltry 266,000, far short of the one million expected by the “experts.” 

I actually expected something like this simply because I have never seen so many small and mid-sized businesses with “Help Wanted” signs taped to their windows and doors. I’ve noticed this here in Florida and we saw the same thing on a recent trip to rural Georgia. Stores, restaurants, bars, contractors, gas stations, supply companies...the signs are everywhere. 

Business owners and managers all attribute the labor shortage to the extraordinary unemployment benefits now being paid to those who are out of work. As one owner told me, “People who make less than 40 or 50 grand would be fools to take a job. They get as much or more with unemployment, and get to stay home.” Thanks to President Biden, those benefits will continue into September, despite a booming economy. Interestingly, the Secretary of Commerce said, “The reason people aren’t getting back to work is fear.” She apparently presumes that Americans are afraid to return to the workplace because of COVID, even though anyone can now get vaccinated easily. 

And then there’s the rest of the economy. If you lived through the Carter years, you’ll remember inflation and how thrilled you were to get a 16% mortgage. Well, today the Consumer Price Index popped up at an equivalent annual rate of about 7%. And the Dow? It  dropped over 1,000 points in two days. If you live in the southeast, you might have noticed the long lines at gas stations because of the hacking of the Colonial Pipeline by a group of Russian criminals. They are indeed criminals but our smart spooks know they’re also supported by the GRU, Russian military intelligence. The President, of course, is taking a hands-off approach since he really doesn’t care much for pipelines. 

Under President Trump we achieved American energy independence, but during this pipeline crisis, we’ve had to buy gasoline from Canada. Guess who the Canadians buy much of their oil from? You got it...Russia. Gas prices today are at the highest level since 2014. 

Almost 50 years ago, when I was in graduate school I took a few courses in macroeconomics and microeconomics and learned all kinds of wonderful things about supply, demand, inflation, and other boring stuff. But based on the little I still remember, I expect inflation to continue and stick around for a while. 

The problem is, when the government gives lots of money to people and then tells them not to work, we end up with a bunch of folks who produce nothing but have real purchasing power. And then, when that same government hammers those who actually produce goods and services by subjecting them to higher taxes, you get even far fewer goods. The result? Lots of money chasing fewer goods, so prices rise and we get inflation.

Interest rates anticipate all this and will likely last for quite some time. The value of assets will drop. Major tax increases will probably, but not surprisingly, lead to less tax revenue. And while all this is going on, the Fed will continue increasing the money supply and buying bonds. Combine all of this with the administration’s wild spending and destructive energy decisions, and the long-term effects can be disastrous. 

Keep your eye on interest rates and the price of gold, then watch out for the crash of the dollar. We just might see a return to the ugly economy of 1979. Fortunately, I'm pretty poor and have nothing to invest, so I really don’t have to worry too much about all this. 

Of course, all of this ignores the chaos on our southern border as well as the administration’s weak foreign policy and the apparent abandonment of our only real ally in the Middle East, Israel. This week Hamas launched over 1,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel. And who supplied them with these weapons? Iran, the same terrorist nation to whom we gave a billion or more in cash thanks to the firm of Obama, Biden, and Kerry.

Iran is testing President Biden in Israel and doing the same with its Revolutionary Guard gunboats. This week 12 Iranian gunboats swarmed 6 U.S. ships and a submarine in the Strait of Hormuz. Our response? Warning shots. So long as we respond in weakness, they will act with increasing aggression.

None of this even considers our two greatest enemies whom Joe Biden considers mere competitors: Russia and Communist China, who by the way are both supplying weapons to Iran. 

How did the old curse go? May you live in interesting times.

Science, Technology, and God

We hear a lot today about science, largely because of the pandemic and the calls from every quarter to “follow the science.” I could be wrong but I suspect the word science has been used by the media more during the past year than in the previous five years combined. There are people who actually check such things because other people apparently pay them to do so. I suppose they could discover if I’m right about the frequent use of the word science but I probably couldn’t afford to pay them. So I’ll just take a very unscientific approach, assume I’m correct, and move on. 

This, by the way, is not unlike the approach taken by many today who claim to speak for the scientific community. “Listen to the experts,” they demand, “they’re a lot smarter than the rest of us.” But if we’ve discovered one thing this year, it’s that the scientific community is not of one mind when it comes to science. Despite the president’s claim that no respected medical professionals disagree with his pandemic team’s draconian approach, so far over 32,000 medical doctors and other health scientists from around the world have signed a petition (the Great Barrington Declaration) against lockdowns put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, saying the measures cause irreparable damage. The declaration is co-authored by Dr. Martin Killdorff, a Harvard professor and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease; Dr. Sunetra Gupta, an Oxford University professor and epidemiologist with expertise in immunology; and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University Medical School professor and epidemiologist with expertise in infectious disease and vulnerable populations. I suppose the president doesn’t consider these folks respected medical professionals. Listen to the experts? Which ones?

As I mentioned in a previous post, regardless of the subject, the “science” is rarely, if ever, settled. Our understanding of the created universe changes constantly, and like the universe itself, our knowledge is always expanding. As for our knowledge of the coronavirus, it too has undergone much change. We know far more about this virus than we did a year ago, but there’s still much to learn. The problem, however, is that too many of our government officials, and even some of the experts themselves, seem unable or unwilling to apply this knowledge. Politicians just love to politicize everything, including science, because it provides a path to more power. Perhaps the most obvious example is the corrupt governor of New York who turned COVID-19 into a political and personal weapon that cost the lives of tens of thousands of elderly New Yorkers. But even scientists are susceptible because of one big, big reason: the money. Everyone tells us to “follow the science,” but in truth we would be better served to “follow the money.” For the new, improved Democrat Party, it’s all about power, and all that power is fueled by money.

Just consider what scientists — i.e. the “experts” — told us early last year and how their guidance has changed over time. “Don’t expect a vaccine for years,” we were told. Indeed, one expert actually claimed it wasn’t scientifically possible to develop and manufacture an effective vaccine in less than five years. But then President Trump kicked off Operation Warp Speed and within a year we had a selection of effective vaccines. Today tens of millions of Americans have been vaccinated and the numbers are growing by millions each day. This really bothers those who crave power and so they warn us against overconfidence, that things will likely get worse. 

Another example. Just a few weeks ago the ubiquitous but politically malleable Dr. Anthony Fauci told the nation that just because you’ve been vaccinated doesn’t mean you should relax your COVID protocols. Who knows? You might still spread the disease among your grandchildren. But then, on March 30, the director of the Center for Disease Control, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, stated publicly that "Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus or get sick.” She then added, “It's not just in the clinical trials, but it's also in real-world data." If this is true for someone like me who has been vaccinated — if I do not carry the virus and if I cannot get sick from the virus — then why do I still wear a mask? Is it just to make others feel better? Or maybe it’s to demonstrate the power of a government that’s been able to convince a majority of the population to do whatever they’re told. Perhaps it’s time for the people to reject politicized “science” and simply apply their common sense. 

On the same day the CDC director made her announcement, President Biden chastised governors who had relaxed their states’ mask and other protocols, even though these same states are experiencing significant decreases in COVID hospitalizations and deaths. Many have also demonstrated better “real world” results than states that have implemented the most stringent lock-downs. Yes, indeed, just “follow the science” once you’ve figured out exactly which science you’re supposed to follow.

But if want to see science run amok, turn to the People’s Republic of China, the official name of the country totally controlled by the Communist Party of China (CPC). Communist China is a country that takes its science seriously or, to be more accurate, it takes the science of other countries seriously through CPC-sponsored thievery. It steals everything and anything from anybody and everybody. And like all those on the political left, the CPC lies a lot. It has to because it celebrates policies of failure, policies it cannot defend with the truth...so it must lie.

Of one thing we can be certain, the CPC has no use for God. The CPC has expelled God not only from science but also from the very life of the Chinese people. They have removed Him from the law leaving behind the sham of a legal system with no moral foundation. Rejecting the limits of God’s natural and revealed law, their science and technology have become limitless, blind, and destructive. Today our technology leaders take much the same approach believing that because humanity has the capability to do something, it should do it. 

As for Communist China, the recent “investigation” into the origins of COVID-19, conducted by the Would Health Organization under the “guidance” of the CPC, demonstrated what we already suspected. The Chinese demanded and received veto power over the membership of the investigative team. They refused to share data from their Wuhan laboratory (the data that hadn’t already been destroyed) and controlled the team’s access. Their own researchers (the ones they hadn’t imprisoned for attempted whistle-blowing) were not allowed to speak with members of the team. There’s more, much more, but this is enough to prove to anyone but the most gullible that the virus not only originated in China but quite likely came from their Wuhan lab. Their guilt is as evident as their continued deception and lies. In the same way the CPC can justify its horrendous, genocidal treatment of the Uyghur people and other ethnic and religious minorities, and not fear reprisals from a world that has also forgotten God. 

We, too, are susceptible to these same societal sins when we accept the prevailing thinking that God is irrelevant to public life and try to construct a human community that excludes Him. Such attempts will fail because whenever a culture eliminates the “cult,” when it turns away from God, it self-destructs. And today, given the pace of change, such destruction will likely come quite quickly. 

You and I must continue to do our part but our battle is really against Satan, the father of lies. I accept that my small efforts will always be insufficient and have come to believe that the problem of the world’s agony must be left to our Creator. When we turn to the Old Testament we encounter many examples of a people who turned to their God in prayer and repentance when faced with threats to their very existence. Here’s a perfect example from the Book of Judith, at a time when the Israelites were threatened by a powerful army intent on destroying them:

“All the men of Israel cried to God with great fervor and humbled themselves...All the Israelite men, women, and children who lived in Jerusalem fell prostrate in front of the Temple and sprinkled ashes on their heads, spreading out their sackcloth before the Lord. The altar, too, they draped in sackcloth; and with one accord they cried out fervently to the God of Israel...The Lord heard their cry and saw their distress. The people continued fasting for many days throughout Judea and before the sanctuary of the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem” [Judith 4:9-13].

Perhaps today we, too, should devote ourselves to prayer and fasting, pleading with the Lord to save us from those who would lead the world away from Jesus Christ and His Church, and to save us also from ourselves. For faith is really the only alternative to the sinfulness of our age.

Communist China and Other Liars

There's a lot of public and private lying going on today. This always happens when a crisis arises. When the going gets tough, the incompetent and lazy and self-centered simply lie.

The lies of the self-important are usually designed to deflect attention from their current and past incompetence to the real or imagined mistakes of others. Once the crisis hits, they realize, or others make them realize, that their incompetence either caused or aggravated the crisis. Such knowledge, of course, must be hidden from the public. Hide the truth, identify a suitable scapegoat, and attack it aggressively. The truth, of course, is hard to hide, so this works for only a while. Eventually the truth becomes known. 

Sadly, the self-important, which include many politicians and most of the national media, are the least of our problems. The most dangerous of today's liars are not incompetent; they're simply evil. Perhaps the best example are the Chinese Communists.

The Chinese Communist Party really can't be called a political party because it's the only party permitted in China. Indeed, if you tried to start an actual political party in China, you would surely be arrested and likely imprisoned...if you were lucky. 

It's important to be aware of this, a key identifier of all totalitarian states. No totalitarian government, whether based on ideology or a cult of personality, can tolerate intellectual or political competition since it will always lose the argument. It must reject the very idea of truth, because it never has truth on its side. This is why those on the extremes must always distort history, creating fictional versions that support the ever-expanding structure of lies they want us to accept.

And here we encounter another key identifying trait of all extremist ideologies, whether national socialists like Hitler or international socialists like Lenin: their remarkable capacity for spreading lies. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, Fidel -- yes, the whole bunch and so many others -- all encouraged telling the lie so long as doing so aided the spread of their ideology. For them the end always justifies the means, any means. 

This might lead you to believe that such extreme ideologues are not unlike most politicians who tell lies so easily when it suits their purposes. Yes, indeed, most politicians lie on occasion, and the longer they've spent in politics, the more comfortable they become with telling the lie. This is why I try to avoid voting for any man or woman who's spent a long career in politics. But communists and other socialists are different from run-of-the-mill politicians. The latter lie occasionally, but the former lie constantly. They must because their failing policies are indefensible.

Communist China's a wonderful case in point. Every agreement, every treaty, every official statement made by the ruling Chinese Communist Party is based on and filled with lies. The lie is present even in the nation's official name: the People's Republic of China. The people have no say in their government which cannot be described, by any definition I'm familiar with, as a republic.

Just look at how the party has handled the virus. When COVID-19 began to spread in Wuhan, the authorities clamped down hard on the doctors who were telling the truth about the budding crisis. Most were arrested because in a socialist state the truth will get you imprisoned. (See this story: Los Angeles Times.)

Now, months later, when the party offers statistics on the spread of the Coronavirus in China, you can be certain the data are intentionally inaccurate. This week we've begun to hear reports of tens of thousands of cremations taking place in Wuhan, where the virus apparently originated, and this despite the "official" death toll of 3,305. (See this story: International Business Times.)

The Communist Party can't completely hide the truth, so it changes the conversation and offers the world a spectacular lie: the United States Army is responsible for introducing the virus into Wuhan Province. 

Interestingly, many politicians and members of the mainstream media accept the Chinese "data" without question and use it to attack their favorite target: the president. In other words, they base their own lies on the lies of those whom they know are lying. Yes, it's all very interesting, and would actually be entertaining were it not so serous and so deadly.