Testing

Several months ago Harvard came under attack for discrimination against Asia-Americans. These students were scoring so well on the entrance test that they were crowding out non-Asian-Americans. The solution was to include things like personality in the student evaluations. In the Mpls. paper today they released the test scores for k-12 students and the gap between the white and black students continued to be unacceptable. The state will now use a new method of testing which will include graduation rates and attendance. Its a way to communicate to the public that we are shifting to more measures and more well-rounded opportunities for out kids in the future.

LNG exports

Because of fracking the US is now a net exported of natural gas. This not only helps with the trade deficit but as natural gas replaces coal it helps to clean up the air. The US has come late to this market and now exports only 5% of the world's exports. The gas is first liquefied which takes up only 1/600th of the space. There are only two plants that can do this but by the end of 2019 the will be six plants and exports will increase from 40Bcf to 105Bcf (billion cubic feet). The value of these exports will increase from $5 billion to $12 billion and this is just the beginning. As the US builds more plants that can compress natural gas other countries are building plants that can receive compressed gas. Replacing coal with natural gas around the world will do more for climate change than all of the recommendations found in the Paris Agreement. Unlike the Agreement where changes were demanded by governments this movement of natural gas will be accelerated because it is cost effective. Market forces will move more quickly and efficiently than government regulations.

The Press

Recent surveys show that only 7% of news people identify themselves as republican while 28% say democrat. On cable news Fox leans right and CNN and MSNBC lean left. Major papers like the NY Times and Washington Post are left and the Wall Street Journal in right. Since places like google have no news gatherers but rely on stories in other media it is not surprising that most of their news is left of center. What is surprising is that people are surprised at this. News in general has leaned left since the start of the last century when news people felt it was their job not only to reign in big government but also big business and the people who run corporations and how corporations behave. Jake Tapper on CNN said recently that this is the golden age of journalism and I agree. The job of the press is to be critical of everything that government does and they have certainly been doing this with Trump. Prior to Trump the press was somewhat lackadaisical toward their coverage of government but Trump has awakened them and they are once again acting as watch dogs. More than half of the press people are able to offer objective views of the news but it is those who are biased that distort the overall job the press does.

McCain

As I see the well deserved accolades being showered on John McCain, I am reminded of how many of these same people felt when he ran against Obama. Here are few choice views. Yesterday, civil rights leader John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, became the latest advocate to excite the racial debate, condemning Sen. John McCain for "sowing the seeds of hatred and division" and accusing the Republican nominee of potentially inciting violence. But farther to the left — and among some of McCain's conservative enemies as well — harsher attacks are circulating. Critics have accused McCain of war crimes for bombing targets in Hanoi in the 1960s.  This is the McCain whose campaign and career has been riddled with lobbyists and special interests. It is a McCain who has sided with religious and political extremists who believe Islam is evil and gays are immoral. It is a McCain who wants to appoint extreme conservatives to the Supreme Court and see abortion banned. It never ceases to amaze me just how easily politics can twist and turn.

NAFTA

When Ross Perot ran for president in 1992 he said that NAFTA would create a giant sucking sound of jobs moving to Mexico and it appears that he was on target. During the more than two decades under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, entered into by the United States, Canada, and Mexico), Mexico’s light vehicle production more than tripled—from 1.1 million units in 1994 to nearly 3.5 million units in 2016. Moreover, Mexico’s light vehicle exports increased from 579,000 to 2.8 million units during the same period. These are cars that would have been made in the US and hurt the middle income people in manufacturing jobs. During this same period NAFTA's implementation has coincided with a 30% drop in manufacturing employment, from 17.7 million jobs at the end of 1993 to 12.3 million at the end of 2016.  Profits for US auto makers have increased do to lower cost production of cars in Mexico. While the average manufacturing wage in the United States is nearly $21 per hour, the average manufacturing wage in Mexico is just over $2 per hour, an historic low. This does not include the cost higher benefits paid in the USA, things like health care and pensions.

Elon Musk

Some in the business world are drawing parallels between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Musk is a self made billionaire who is the CEO of several companies including Tesla Motors. His unorthodox ways have attracted a fan base that believes in his new way of doing things. He constantly pushes the envelop and brings excitement to his projects. He communicates regularly with his twitter friends. More than 400,000 people have put down $2,500 to get a car that has not yet been produced. He has an overpowering personality and is loved by many and considered a reckless gambler by many. Some analyst are pushing his stock and others are warning to stay away. Some liken Tesla to Amazon, a company that went years without showing a profit and today is close to Apple in value.

Super delegates

We often see examples of how the honest facts can lead to a dishonest conclusion. The Democratic National Committee this past week changed the rules to eliminate the super delegates. These were 712 party insiders who got to vote in the presidential nomination process. With 2,382 votes needed to secure the nomination this was a significant number. This week the committee got rid of the super delegates but said this group had never determined the outcome of a election which was factually correct. However when Bernie Sanders was in the running in the summer before the election the news people on a regular basis reported that even if Sanders won the remaining states he could not overcome the lead provided by the super delegates. Most people feel that these reports had a dampening effect on potential Sanders supporters.