Russia

When Putin came to power some 26 years ago, he said that the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the fall of the USSR and he set a goal to revive the past glory as he perceived it to be. His attempt failed and he now sees the futility of the Ukraine War and will not attempt to gain the upper hand by using tactical nuclear weapons. At age 73 and his influence waning a new group will take power. Their goal will also be to bring Russia back to its USSR position in the world but their approach will be much different. They will become part of the Western world economically and will begin to rebuild. By establishing an open society and conducting free and fair trading with Europe and the US they will revive their country. Europe can once again use cheap Russian natural gas and reverse their trend toward deindustrialization. The world will welcome the natural resources from Russia and will prosper. This means that NATO will become irrelevant and the EU will no longer depend on the US for safety from Russia.

Iran War

As the war in the Pacific was coming to a close, Japan wanted a negotiated settlement but Truman wanted unconditional surrender. The result was the dropping atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima causing millions of casualties to civilians. By today’s standards if Truman had agreed to a settlement some in the press would have reported that the US lost the war and Japan had won. It brings up the question of how the US should end the war in Iran. Should the lives of millions of civilians be sacrificed in order to have unconditional surrender or should a negotiated settlement be agreed to. Some will say this is apples and oranges because Japan directly attacked the US at Pearle Harbor but Iran has only indirectly attacked the US while pronouncing death to American for 47 years. While Iran would likely not directly attack the US, they might well have some proxy group sneak in a nuclear bomb to some major city and then deny any connection. The question remains, are their threats to America just talk or will they carry out some type of terror plan. Is there ever a time when a preemptive strike is warranted.

Morning after pill

While the number of abortions as held steady at around one million per year, many possible others are avoided using the morning pill. These are available to anyone any age and can be purchased on line at places like Amazon. The market size in 2024 was estimated at $3.7 billion. Generic Levonorgestrel ($11- $30) often found at Walmart, CVS and Rite Aid for $12- $25. If the average price were $20 then about 185 million pills were sold in 2024. There is no way of knowing how many pregnancies were avoided using these pills.

Rich people

There are rich people and there are rich people and it is important to differentiate between the two. Some like Warren Buffet make money by buying and selling stock or like the Walmart family members who make money from stock and hedge fund managers who make money from money. Then there are rich people like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. They create new businesses and provide new jobs and grow the economy. All of the rich people are helping in their own way. For those who make money using money they provide capital for new investment but those who are creative open the world to new adventures. Today, many of these creative types are building data centers which will power the creativity of the future and the number of new innovations will once again create new jobs and expand the economy. These innovators are just the seeds for others. Bill Gates is estimated to have created 12,000 millionaires primarily through stock options but these people went on to grow the economy further. These "Microsoft Alumni" have driven innovation in technology, philanthropy, and venture capital, with approximately 40% of surveyed alumni working on new business ventures.

Vote

Back in the day when affirmative action was popular some states used redistricting to increase Blacks in congress. District lines were drawn around Black populations and voters elected Black candidates. The Supreme Court ended affirmative action in 1997 when it upheld a lower court decision in California and this quickly spread to other states. The recent court decision in Virginia that reversed a state redistricting plan was based to some degree on the drawing of Black areas. Redistricting has gotten out of hand in recent years with state congressional representatives not matching the states voting records. Here are two examples to illustrate the point. In California 43 out of 50 districts (83%) voted for Harris who got 58% of the vote while in Florida, Trump won 20 of 28 districts (71%) and got 56% of the vote. Redistricting has skewed the popular vote.

Home ownership

Going all the way back to the 1930’s the Home Owners Loan Corporation set up what were called residential security zones, in 142 cities marking Black and immigrant neighborhoods as risky. In the 1970’s the FHA required a 3.5% down payment on a 30-year fixed interest loan. They also followed the 28 rule which meant the principal and interest along with the real estate taxes and home owners’ insurance and PMI could not exceed 28% of the borrower’s gross income. At that time 30-year fixed mortgage were 5% so person who wanted to purchase a $55,000 home which was the average home price in 1980, would have a monthly principal and interest payment of $1020. Real estate taxes added $70, homeowner insurance another $25 and PMI at $28 for a total of $1,143. This meant you had to have an income of $4,082 per month to qualify for a loan. In 1980 only 6% of households had that kind of income. Buyers often put 20% down and purchased starter homes at lesser value than the average. The average income in 1980 was $1,750 per month which meant they only qualified for a house valued at $25,000. The 28 rule kept people from getting in over their heads. I bought a $10,000 home in 1959 with $400 down and a 4.75% rate for 30 years and my monthly payment for everything was $90. My income was $260 but I worked 60 hours a week and that brought it up to $390. Studies were conducted during the 1960’s which showed that Blacks were disproportionately left out of the home mortgage market. When a person came into the bank to apply for a loan and didn’t meet the 28% rule the loan request was denied. In time the loan officers consider these applications a waste of time and began to draw a red line around Black neighborhoods and told people over the phone not to apply based on their address. This resulted in the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that prohibited racial discrimination in lending. While this meant that all applicants had to be accepted only a few qualified. Then in 1995 Clinton passed the Community Reinvestment Act which provided incentives for banks to offer loans to lower income people by relaxing the strict requirements. This opened the door to the American dream for many Blacks as they became eligible for home loans. When the mortgage crisis hit in 2008, Black and Hispanic communities faced significantly higher foreclosure rates, with reports suggesting up to 30% of their homes entered foreclosure, compared to 11% for white homeowners. Bank examiners would check the percent of loans given to minorities and if they were not high enough the banks were threatened with penalties.

Covid today

Now that some of the political heat about Covid has subsided, it is time for a review of some of the factors that turned out to be of little importance and in some cases not true. Getting the vaccine did not prevent getting the disease and this should have been obvious because that is the case with all vaccines. The same goes for spreading the vaccine after being vaccinated. Stay six feet apart was a rule based on no evidence of efficacy. This meant that half the students had to use home schooling because classroom size was limited. Closing schools when the risk to children was far lower than the normal flu risk saying they were protecting teachers. Children routinely expose teachers to many health hazards. While a surgical mask may be effective the paper masks used by most were not very effective. They interfered with communication and were a severe inconvenience in very young children. People were told to stay at home and were also told to go out in the fresh air Many people were banned from social media for saying things that were deemed misinformation when in fact they were true and others were allowed on social media to disseminate things that were not true. This is always the risk when the government tries to limit speech. The origin of the virus remains controversial because it has become political which means it may never be known. This is not the way science should work. Fear was used as a motivator to enforce many regulations which later proved to be unnecessary. This often happens with emotional responses.