AI hires

In economics 101 they teach that the two main drivers of the economy are labor and capital. In Europe’s social democracy they lean toward labor while in the US the emphasis is on capital. Both of these systems are based on consumption and thus both require population growth. Countries around the world, other than Africa, are in the throes of population decline meaning less consumption. Since consumers are also the producers, will automation be the solution. If there are fewer people and the productivity increases because of AI, will that balance the loss of workers. Just at the time when robotics can replace workers there will be fewer workers. Over the past year I have been to two eye doctors and working at both were a dozen young people, most of whom did not go to college. They were all trained on the job to use complicated electronic machines used to provide the doctor with information. This is the future of AI hiring and will occur in many businesses.

Nuke power

France and Germany are the two biggest economies in Europe and they border one another. France gets 70% of their electric power from 57 nuclear reactors at a cost of 26 cents per kWh. Germany shut down their 17 nuclear power plants and the cost of electric power is 38 cents per kWh. In addition, France exports electric power to Germany. Germany was controlled by the green movement which pursued a policy of denuclearization. This happened in the US in the 1960’s. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) projected in 1967 that by 2000 there would be 1,000 nuclear plants. If the greens had not interfered the US would never have gone down the road of trying to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar and would probably be close to achieving the goal of zero carbon. With the revitalization of nuclear power now underway the goal may still be achieved but not without interference from the green people who are mostly motivated by social change not climate change.

UFO

Visitors from outer space are once again in the news, as Trump prepares to release the UFO files. While those with romantic hearts long for company in this vast universe the odds are against any nearby intelligent life. The distances are just too great unless there are some laws of physics that remain unknown to science. The nearest star is Proxima Centauri and it is 4.25 light years away or 25 trillion miles. A space ship traveling at 100,000 miles per hour would take 28,000 years to get there. When looking at the entire cosmos the odds of finding intelligent life are a mathematical certainty since there are trillions of stars but they are just too far. Man’s best attempt is Voyager 1 which is 16 billion miles from earth and it has been moving at 34,000 miles per hour for almost 50 years. The first radio signals were sent out 130 years ago so if anyone in space heard them and responded they would have gone 65 light years out and 65 light years back. There are about 2,000 stars within that distance. 2,000 out of trillions would likely not have any intelligent life to answer our signal. Radio telescopes, designed to pick up signals for all of the 65 years have heard nothing. Whatever mysterious stuff is going on, it is originating from earth. The thinking of the dreamers is, why is there so much creation if we are alone.

China WTO

When China was allowed entry to the WTO in 2000, it immediately declared itself to be a developing nation which gave it special privileges. It then proceeded to disregard some of the basic conditions. One of the most egregious actions was the dumping of cheap products on the world market. Adding to this they used currency manipulation to lower the cost of their exports. A prime example is steel production. The government would subsidize the companies which would then sell steel at below production costs. Once the competition was eliminated the price would be raised. Bethlehem Steel was one of the western countries that fell victim to this

NY City

Republicans often refer to democrats as tax and spend and there is good evidence to support this and the latest example is NY City. The city has a population of 8.4 million and a budget of $127 billion while Florida with a population of 23.3 million has a budget of $117 billion. The Mayor of NY is facing a $5 billion deficit and is recommending an increase in property tax of 9%. He is cutting the police budget from $6.4 billion to $5.4 billion and placing a hiring freeze on police. Then he is proposing the city pay for free childcare.

MN fraud

Property taxes primarily fund local government services, with the largest portion typically going to public school districts (40 to 42%). These taxes support essential services, including police and fire departments, road maintenance, public libraries, parks, and sanitation. They also fund local infrastructure, community development, and administrative costs for county and municipal governments. The key phrase is community development. Ramsey County in MN collects $428 million in property taxes and they are asking for a 9% increase for this year. A citizens group using freedom of information ask for the expenditures on community development projects and found the county spent $34 million on 213 NGO’s. Some examples are Catholic charities, Regions hospital, Model Cities of St Paul and American Indian Family Center. The county was then asked how were these accounts audited and was told the state did that but when the state was contacted, they denied doing any audits saying that was the counties responsibility. This means that $34 million is being handed out to 213 organizations and there is no follow up to find out how the money is being spent. This is seen by many as an invitation to fraud. MN is currently being investigated for Medicaid fraud and brings up the question as to how these agencies are being audited.

Ukraine war talks