Life in the USA

A number of the presidential candidates are suggesting that the ills in our society are the result of the unfairness inherent in capitalism. It is for certain that the free market picks winners and losers but often times losers become winners and vice versa. While there are many problems, life in the United States is as good as it gets. The facts are that the free market has brought billions out of poverty and the poor in America are living better than most people in the world. The standard of living in the United States today is the envy of most of the world and the place most people who want to relocate would choose.

Kennedy

When I was in college, I campaigned for Adlai Stevenson when he ran against Ike in 1956. My family were democrats like all of my neighbors and Stevenson got me a job when I was 14. He lost twice to Ike but in 1960 I worked for the Nixon campaign because I didn't think a millionaire like Kennedy could relate to the rest of us. As I look back the democratic party of Kennedy is a world away from the party today. Kennedy was pro military, for lower taxes and a believer in self reliance and being responsible for your own behavior. His policy of ask what you can do for your country appealed to my youthful liberal side. Many people my age not only took care of ourselves but also had to help out our parents and we were fine with that.

Gas for the world

Back in 2009 when President Obama injected $790 billion dollars into the economy it was supposed to result in a surge of green jobs. California led the way with promises of new jobs by creating a new green economy. As time passed and the jobs did not materialize the government stopped tabulating green jobs as did California where they found no discernible evidence that green firms were creating more jobs than non-green firms. This has not stopped the leading candidates from promising trillions of dollars of government spending will create millions of jobs. The only way to logically evaluate the green economy is to get the politics out of the way and when you do that things do not look promising. You only need to look at how the average persons lives to realize that they don't really care about green stuff. Their only interest is in talking about the political aspects. They see big pro-environmentalist like Obama and Gore building large homes on the beach and realize that the whole green deal has a political agenda. To truly impact the increase in CO2 the US should ship its large quantities of natural gas around the world while here at home begin changing over to natural gas for transportation.

Other countries

Recent surveys show that many countries around the world disapprove of America's position on issues. This is not surprising since Trump has pointed out that the European Union, Japan, China, South Korea, Mexico and Canada have unfair trade balances with the United States and Trump is determined to level the playing field. Trump has said that Germany, Japan and South Korea should pay more for the military protection the US is providing. Trump has demanded that NATO countries pay their fair share which they are not doing. Trump has questioned why the US is paying 25% of the United Nations expenses when there are 190 country members. He declined to enter the Trans Pacific Trade deal and refused to join the Paris Climate Agreement. He speaks to world leaders in ways that most consider unpresidential.

Black lives

This past week there was extensive news coverage on the Odessa, TX shooter who murdered 7 and injured 23. Meanwhile in Chicago last weekend 7 were murdered and 34 injured by various suspects. There was very little in the news about the Chicago killings probably because it is a regular occurrence as 40 are killed every month. Most of the Chicago murders are committed by Blacks and most times Blacks are the victims. A reasonable person might conclude that Black lives don't matter.

Ghost cities

When I studied economics and understood how building infrastructure could stimulate growth, I jokingly said a community could build a large concrete elephant and cause a local economic boom. Little did I know that some 20 years later China would do something close to that. Throughout China today are hundreds of large modern metropolitan areas called ghost cities. They contain high rise apartments, business sky scrapers, park and transportation facilities. What they lack is people. While they are slowly filling up the process has been painfully slow. One city described as poster child and the best example of the programs success is Mexi Lake City. Built in 1993 to accommodate 500,000 the population today is 100,000. After sitting their for 26 years it is in need of repair. Many of the other hundreds of cities are worse when it comes to having inhabitants. It is estimated that there are 63 million empty apartments throughout these cities not to mention the other facilities not be utilized. All of this infrastructure was debt financed and China's debt now exceed 300% of their GDP. By contrast USA debt is 105% of |GDP. This is just one more example of how difficult central planning can be in communist countries.

Millionaires and up

The world's richest one percent, those with more than one million in net worth own 45% of the world's wealth, which last year was $317 trillion. If this were shared equally among the world's 7.5 billion people each person would get $42,000. What would most people do with the money. Would they start new business and hire people. If the rich lost their money would they go out of business. Rich and poor only have three options with their money. They can spend it, save it or invest it. The rich have most of their money invested earning more money. The poor spend most of their money and those in between try to save a little. Do billionaires get up each day thinking of what they can buy next. Surveys show the these super rich have the best that money can buy but they spend most of their time working.