Endless war

Turmp has put Europe in a quandary. They don’t have a central army but small armies in a dozen countries and no one country is in charge. The don’t have the military equipment nor the money to defend Ukraine against Russia so they hold meetings in the hopes of convincing America they are organizing to fight for Ukraine. They are not willing to sacrifice their social programs to build up defense, so their easy out, is to get the US back on track to aid Ukraine but Trump is not having it. Trump’s position is that he wants the war to end and will allow US private industry to invest in Ukraine, which means civilian Americans on the ground in Ukraine, which means that Russia will not attack for fear of starting a war with the US. Europe wants to continue the war but they want the US to lead the way with money and equipment. In other words, they are the globalists and they want to keep on with the old way of doing things. They want the US to give them protection and favorable trade deals. They haven’t figured out that those days are gone. Many oppose Trump’s plan but they have yet to come up with another plan. So far, their answer is to just continue the endless war.

K12

How have schools changed since 1950. In 1950 there were one million teachers in K-12 and the student/teacher ratio was 27. In addition, there were 200,000 non teacher employees. In 2022 there were 3.1 million teachers in K-12 and the student/teacher ratio was 15. Added to that were 4 million non-teacher employees. The population had doubled but the number of teachers tripled. The major difference is the number of non-teachers increased from 200,000 to four million. During this time the test scores declined and the racial gap increased. The US spends 6% of GDP on education which is in the top three in the world. In the 1950s, student test scores, particularly in math and science, were generally considered to be relatively high compared to later decades, with some data suggesting a peak in achievement around the mid-1950s. In spite of a lot of new technology designed to

Innovation

The US has the highest GDP per capita at $81,695. Europe is second at $60,350 US workers are considered highly productive due to a combination of factors including significant investment in technology and research and development (R&D), a culture of innovation and risk-taking, access to advanced capital equipment, a skilled workforce, and a business environment that encourages competition and adaptability, allowing them to produce more output per hour worked compared to many other countries. With the reshoring of manufacturing and the advances in new equipment along with AI the advantage that the US has will become greater. In 2023 the US spent $783 billion on R&D compared with $410 billion in Europe. Most new technology was invented in America -- from personal computers, lasers, mobile phones, video games, photocopiers, and even the internet.

Education

Senator Berney Sanders was on TV complaining that the rich people, like Elon Musk do not worry about public education because they send their children to private schools. In the 2021-2022 school years, about 9% of students were in private schools. This amounts to 4.7 million students. One part of this that is rarely mentioned is the number of teachers children who are in private schools. Public school teachers send their own children to private schools at a rate more than twice the national average–22 percent of public educators' children are in private schools compared to the national average of 10 percent. The department of education has once again come under attack. The department founded 45 years ago was an attempt to improve education and in particular to close the gap between White and Asian student’s vs Black and Hispanic. It has failed and there is a need to try a new approach. This is almost an act of desperation since most people realize that the problem starts in the home. Moving things back to the states will look like the government is taking action but it is not likely to have much of an effect on the test score gap. To talk about the home problems makes many people uncomfortable but until that happens there will be little progress made toward solving the problem. Most of the problems in schools are about discipline and discipline is learned in the home growing up. All too often, especially in minority homes there is no father.

Waste

Over the years congress has moved away from their oversight duties and allowed the bureaucrats to check on themselves. As if this weren’t bad enough the bureaucrats have joined forces with other parts of the economy. They have united with the universities, social media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the national press and much of the democratic party to help hide the distribution of government money. Now this cabal is faced with the uncomfortable scrutiny of DOGE. Slowly, day by day, new revelations of the misuse of government funds are being uncovered but so far most of the press is not revealing the waste. Fox News will daily expose some new bazar program but the rest of the media is only covering the loss of some benefit to some group. If DOGE is able to unravel the mess and the public is made aware, then the whole system will be in jeopardy. The key here is, will the public even know about this. The one thing DOGE has in its favor is Trump’s messages on Truth Social along with the bully pulpit.

Subsidies

Sunnova is the latest solar panel company to get into financial trouble. After receiving $3 billion from government, they are facing bankruptcy. Recall Solyndra that received $500 million and folded and First Solar who got $2 billion from the Investment Reduction Act and their stock rose to $300 last June and today it closed at $130. These companies cannot compete with Chinese solar panel companies but they keep getting subsidies. Investigations show that a lot of money was given back in the form of campaign contributions but much of the money is unaccounted for.

Cuts

The US has been protecting Europe since the founding of NATO in 1949. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 this was no longer necessary and Trump let them know it was time for them to provide for their own defense. The result was something that should have happened 30 years ago, Europe has” New plans from the European Union to increase defense spending could potentially mobilize as much as 800 billion euros ($841 billion), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday.“Europe is ready to massively boost its defense spending,” she said in a statement. This is only in the planning stage but it is a recognition that it is time for Europe to take some action to be less dependent on the US. The Trump policy is that the world can get along without the US be responsible for the world order. It means bringing home military personnel, closing basis, cutting back payments to NATO, the UN and other organizations like the WTO and the WHO. This reduction will include domestic spending as each congressmen’s pet project will be cut. The press which is part of the establishment will point out everyone who suffers from any cut and put pressure on maintaining the old way of doing business. Since congress has proven unable to cut it will be left up to the voters.