Tag Archives: morals

Overstretch: The Long Story of Staggering U.S. Debt

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If the past year was dominated by the huge human costs of COVID-19, the next few years will be about its economic aftermath, including the alarming rise of US debt. What’s needed is multilateral cooperation – a new ‘Grand Alliance.’

On Friday, Congressional leaders failed to secure a bipartisan deal on a $900 billion pandemic relief package. A government shutdown was avoided only with a 2-day extension.

A protracted shutdown would amplify the risks for pandemic escalation and economic crisis, amid the long-awaited vaccine rollout. Bipartisan tensions are compounded by the impending Georgia Senate runoff races in January that will determine control of the chamber in the Congress.

In 2019, the Congress suspended the debt ceiling until after the 2020 presidential election. While it sought to avoid a repeat of the 2011 and 2013 debt crises during an election year, new spending contributed to Trump’s new military rearmament drive.

The new Congress must decide the future of the debt ceiling by summer 2021.

Q3 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more

High US Debt Burden

By the year-end, COVID-19 cases worldwide will be close to 80 million. As a result of utter mismanagement, US figure will be close to 20 million.

While the pandemic continues to spread and the health system is overwhelmed, the Trump White House has taken record amounts of debt in record pace.

During his campaign, Trump pledged to eliminate US national debt in 8 years. At the time, total public debt was $19.6 trillion. In the past 4 years, it has soared to more than $27 trillion, by almost $8 trillion. It was an achievement of sorts. What former President Obama achieved in 8 years, Trump did in just 4 years.

Of course, all major Western economies have taken record amounts of debt during the global pandemic. But United States is not like other economies. First, it has more COVID-19 cases relative to all other major economies. Second, US remains a world anchor economy. Third, US dollar dominates international transactions. As a result, excessive US debt will have disproportionate global spillovers.

How will the Democrats cope with the debt burden?

Instead of focusing on the size of US debt, says Jason Furman, Obama’s former head of the Council of Economic Advisers, “policymakers should assess fiscal capacity in terms of real interest payments, ensuring they remain comfortably below 2 percent of GDP.” That, Furman believes, would ensure adequate fiscal support and needed public investments, while maintaining a sustainable public debt.

Here’s the logic of the argument: As a share of GDP, the cost of servicing US debt has fallen since 2000, even as federal debt has increased. An environment of low interest rates makes it easier to pay off debts.

So, Furman argues, the Biden administration can manage primary deficits (noninterest spending minus revenue) without “an unlimited explosion of debt.”

Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Challenges

That’s likely to be the stance of the Biden administration’s proposed economic team, which will stress both growth and equity.

The team includes former Fed chief Janet Yellen as the new Secretary of Treasury, her former right-hand man Jerome Powell as current Fed chair, and labor economist Cecilia Rouse as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). CEA members feature Jared Bernstein, Biden’s chief economist in the Obama era, and Heather Boushey, the cofounder of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Nevertheless, the likely policy stance, whether implicit or explicit, is predicated on unsustainable debt-taking in the future.

According to the recent projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, federal debt held by the public will surpass its historical high of 106% of GDP in 2023 and will continue to climb in most years thereafter. By 2050, debt as a percentage of GDP will amount close to 200% of the GDP. Despite peaceful conditions, it is already at the level of World War II; by 2050, it could be twice as high (Figure 1).

Figure 1 – US Debt Held by the Public, 1900 to 2050 (as % of GDP)

US Debt

Source: Data from CBO (Sept 2020)

Worse, US debt is likely to increase faster than anticipated. Current projections do not include the full costs of the pandemic stimulus packages, or the “needed public investments” that the Biden administration will seek to promote.

What will be good to the US economy and global prospects in the short-term could prove highly detrimental to both in the long-run.

Here’s why: Deficits will more than double from an average of 4.8% of GDP from 2010-19 to 10.9% percent 2041-50 driving up debt. As a result, net spending for interest will account for much of the increase in total deficits in the last two decades of the projection period.

Markets plan on quarterly basis. Presidential terms have barely a 4-year perspective. As a net effect, long-term perspective is lost in the translation. In CBO’s projections, growth in outlays will continue and accelerate to outpace growth in revenues, resulting in larger budget deficits over the long run (Figure 2).

Figure 2 – Percentage of GDP: Outlays Vs Revenues

US Debt

Source: Data from CBO (Sept 2020)

So, what about those “sustainable” real interest rates? Measured as a share of GDP, net spending for interest could nearly quadruple over the last two decades of the projection period.

From overreach to new ‘Grand Alliance’

In addition to US banks and investors, the Fed, state and local governments, mutual funds and pension funds, foreign governments hold a third of the US public debt. The largest holders include Japan ($1.3 trillion), China ($1.1 trillion), and UK ($430 million). To cope with its soaring debt, US will depend on these contributions.

However, Japan is the world’s most indebted major economy (government debt to GDP exceeds 238%). Due to maturing, aging and population decline, its burden will continue to increase, while the Brexit costs will penalize UK economy for years.

Biden administration has promised to be tough on China, Russia and several other countries, which could translate to rising defense and security allocations – which, in turn, would further amplify soaring debt, twin deficits and real interest rates.

When great powers fail to balance wealth and their economic base with their military power and strategic commitments, they risk overextension, as historian Paul Kennedy warned in the late ‘80s. In the coming decades, that will be a key US risk.

Nothing is inevitable in life, however. There is a great opportunity amid the rising threats. That’s multilateral cooperation across all political differences among the world’s largest economies. It has been achieved before, and it could be achieved again, as evidenced by F.D. Roosevelt’s ‘Grand Alliance’ during World War II.

In the 1940s, war threatened to result in excessive debt. Today, excessive debt risks wars that will have no winners.

About the Author

Dan Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and internationally recognized expert of the multipolar world economy. He has served at the India, China and America Institute (US), Shanghai Institute for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net/

Who is to Blame for Black Poverty ?

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We’re all familiar with the cycle of poverty in Black urban neighborhoods that Democrat politicians have run for decades. Everybody assumes it’s because Democrats are so wedded to their policies, they keep throwing good money after bad. Maybe that’s not the problem, though. Maybe Black Democrat politicians don’t want to help these areas, and the citizens in those areas don’t actually want to be helped. 

“Diversity” and “inclusion” are two of the most often heard buzzwords in our lives these days, with a heavy helping coming from the media, of course.  Tucker Carlson addressed the subject very well recently in an opinion piece where he discussed diversity versus the meritocracy, using Biden’s recently-announced cabinet selections to make his case. The evident theme for Joe Biden’s picks has nothing to do with whether his picks are actually qualified for their postings. Rather, that must check off the appropriate victim identity group box: female, Black, Hispanic, gay, trans, or (Jackpot!) a combination of two or more, where being a black Hispanic lesbian is the pinnacle of the victim hierarchy.  

In particular, I noted in the public remarks made by soon-to-be repeat offender against our economy, Janet Yellen, that a big part of her focus as Fed Chair is to address economic inequality, wage inequality, food insecurity, poverty — all seemingly benevolent causes until you peel back the onion just slightly and realize that she’s not talking about these things in the scope of helping everyone, regardless of race.  No, she’s specifically talking about “communities of color.”  Just so we’re clear, a group of people is going to receive different (preferential) treatment based solely on the color of their skin.  I’m pretty sure that’s called racism.

Yellen goes on to say that she also wants to provide more opportunities for people of color, because, she says in so many words, these opportunities are denied to people of color. She specifically states that opportunities are denied, so I must ask the question: Who exactly is doing the denying?  

If we look at the largest areas of concentration of Black people, which would be the large urban centers of New York City, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit, just to name a few (and I’m not even crossing the Mississippi!), those areas presumably contain large numbers of black-owned businesses or at least Black people who would like to start a business . . .  you know, they’d like to, but they’re being denied the opportunity.  (I think we all know the subtext when someone is saying that “people of color” are being allegedly mistreated, the alleged mistreatment is at the hands of Evil White Conservatives.)

So, again, who is doing this denying?  All of the major cities that I just listed, and dozens more just like them across the country, have been run for decades by Democrat mayors and city councils, with assistance from Democrat Congressmen on both a state and federal level.  One must therefore assume that these same people in charge are also very influential regarding who receives economic opportunities or assistance, right?  Thus, this horrible denying is being done, in fact, by the very people now crying about the fact that the denying is happening!

As usual, it takes mental gymnastics on an Olympic level to reconcile leftist thinking.  Democrats have had control of these cities for decades and what have their policies brought their “people of color?”  Misery, poverty, violence, and addiction.  Obama and Biden had eight years, with two of those eight having the benefit of both houses of Congress on their side, but they didn’t come up with any miracle salve to soothe the troubles of the inner cities.  What on earth would lead us to believe that this will be any different under Biden and Harris?  

Or is it more practical and pragmatic if we believe that, via Occam’s Razor, the simplest answer is the correct one: These so-called leaders in Democrat-run enclaves have no real interest in helping their constituents pull themselves out of the cycle of poverty.  For decades, Democrats have had their faithful Black voters right where they want them; namely, poor and dependent on the government. We give you stuff, you vote for us. That’s the unspoken agreement.  But when a true leader finally comes around who has a plan and the political will to do something to help these communities — like Kimberly Klacik in the Baltimore Congressional district formerly ruled by the late Elijah Cummings — she receives a paltry 28% of the vote.  Now the always useless 10-year Congressional veteran Kweisi Mfume has Cummings’s old job and somehow those precious opportunities are still being denied.

I’ve already established solid evidence that Democrat politicians — even and especially Black Democrat politicians — have little to no interest in helping their Black constituents.  But there is another side to that coin. The evidence seems to show that Black people themselves appear to not want to be helped.  One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.  So, are Black voters in these areas insane?  They keep voting for the likes of Sheila Jackson Lee, Maxine Waters, and Kweisi Mfume, but expect these serial grifters to suddenly start working for them. 

In my eyes, that puts the blame squarely on both parties, the politicians and the voters who keep sending them back to their offices.  Is it because the way things stand now, those voters are cozily wrapped up in their blanket of victimhood?  Is it so comfy in there receiving their government subsistence handouts that they can’t be bothered to get out and do something about it?  Is the alternative to this abusive, co-dependent relationship — personal responsibility, hard work, and entrepreneurialism — just too difficult to face?  

My prediction for all of these cities that I’ve mentioned, and any other Democrat-run major cities around the country, is that if a Biden/Harris ticket sets up shop in the White House, in four years’ time those cities will look much the same as they do now, except with four more years’ worth of decay, addiction, and violent crime.  But those citizens can comfort themselves that they still have someone else to blame for their problems. 

H.P. Smith, American Thinker

A Higher Principle for Libertarianism

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Libertarians tend to have two special character traits. 
First, we’re a bit contrarian. We stand alone, if we must. 
Second, we’re logically consistent. We cannot stand hypocrisy. 
In our quest for intellectual consistency, we seek principles. In human action, we seek moral consistency. In other words, we seek to live by those principles. 
Our principles guide us. They help us sort out tough situations before all the data arrives. Here are some of the more common principles libertarians live by… 

The Self-Ownership Principle: Each person owns themselves. If someone else owns you, you’re a slave. 

Zero Aggression Principle: It is always wrong to initiate force to achieve a social or political goal. 

Law of Equal Liberty: Each person is free to do what he or she wills, so long as they don’t infringe on the equal freedom of another.

Natural Law: The Creator endows each person with rights, at birth, so we must all respect those rights in others (see: The Declaration of Independence)  

Maybe your preferred principle is not listed here. But chances are, that principle, as well as the ones listed above, are… 
Personally chosen statements of behavior. 
In other words, these principles represent your values. You selected them as an expression of your ethics. Since you chose them, you also enforce them. But we all slip sometimes. Hopefully, you’re forgiving of yourself in those moments where you don’t live up to values.  
Likewise, when others around you do not embrace and abide by them, those principles are non-binding.
But there is a “higher principle” for society. It’s higher because it can be repeatedly observed in nature. It’s the Principle of Human Respect… 
Human happiness, harmony, and prosperity diminish when a person experiences violence, theft, or fraud.
This principle, unlike the others, has an “If X, then Y” relationship.
In other words, when violence is used to achieve a personal, social, or political goal, the socially desirable benefits of human happiness, social peace, and/or wealth decline. You can test that proposition. 
Let’s be clear, each of the principles listed above is wonderful. But the Principle of Human Respect identifies a “cause and effect” relationship that is as consistent and observable as gravity. 
Nearly all political philosophies resort to coercive force to achieve their Utopias. Libertarians uniquely recognize that it’s wrong, on both an individual and a political level, to use threats backed by violence to pursue your (conservative or progressive) goals. Only the Principle of Human Respect explains why we’d be happier and more at peace if everyone lived by any of the libertarian “principles.” 
———-
Jim Babka is the Editor-at-Large for Advocates for Self-Government and the co-creator of the Zero Aggression Project. 

Mob Law: Time to Put the Foot Down Firmly

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When America was infested with “righteous” mobs who took the law into their own hands in the early 1800s, Lincoln left a remedy to future generations on how to defend against it: “… cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason.”

An utter disdain for mob law is encoded onto the DNA of the body politic, thanks to men like Lincoln.

No grievance is fit to be redressed by mob law, he said. When men “burn gamblers” and “hang murderers” unlawfully, the day will come when they will hang people who are neither gamblers nor murderers.

“[W]henever the vicious portion of the population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing-presses into rivers, shoot editors and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend on it, this government cannot last,” he said.

Government will collapse, Lincoln warned, when good men who obey the laws become so disgusted with a government that no longer protects them, that they feel they have nothing to lose.

We’re getting there.

Today, we’ve seen the “vicious portion” of our population loot, burn buildings, and beat innocent people “at pleasure” and – shockingly – “with impunity.” They do it in plain sight, repeatedly, and are applauded by political vultures as peaceful protesters.

It’s made the legs of government a bit wobbly.

But the street mobs are small beans compared to America’s most dangerous hordes: High-level, white-collar mobs who work like maniacs to uproot the philosophical underpinnings of the American Revolution and the Judeo-Christian ethic. They are politicians, judges, rogue intel alums, media, activist organizations, celebrities, leftist billionaires, tech companies, and educators who butcher our history, defy our laws, and give moral and financial support to the thugs who loot and burn things to enforce white-collar mob law.

These dignified mobs don’t swarm streets in farmers britches while carrying nooses, torches, and pitchforks. They take the law into their own hands from seats of government, courtrooms, newsrooms, big corporations, and inside algorithms of the world’s most advanced computer systems.

These are the people who got away with Russian collusion. They got away with impeachment. They got away with exploiting the pandemic. They got away with using Chinese-inspired algorithms to suppress speech. And they’ve gotten away with a hundred other disgusting schemes to take down Trump.

They are not the majority, but they’ve hijacked the wheels of the American ship, and they’re steering it toward La-La Land at flank speed against our wills. We’re starting to feel bound, gagged, and kidnapped in our own country.

And how have we dealt with all the chaos? By appealing to the cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason of “sober courts” and “ministers of justice,” as Lincoln called them.

It’s not working.

So now they’ve stolen Trump’s election. Packs of thieves, under the command of white-collar mobs, took voting laws into their own hands. We know it. The media knows it. Democrats know it. The Supreme Court knows it! Yet, our deranged institutions are incapable of dealing with the cold, hard realities of the biggest election theft in American history.

Why?

Because otherwise sober-minded men are terrified of running into a political buzz saw. They fear the mobs. “Good” men like John Roberts have a primal fear of being tarred and feathered. These are weak-minded men with no “iron in the blood” who “shrink from strife,” as Teddy Roosevelt put it. They believe that peace is the end of all things and strife is the worst of all things.

Fighting Democrats and leftists has become outrageously more expensive than fighting Republicans. Democrats have become unscrupulous, amoral, and crass. They’re at war. If the gods of Utopia wills that they deceive, cheat, intimidate, destroy lives, commit violence, and break laws – well, so be it. They are a high-level version of the “vicious portion of the population” that Lincoln talked about.

Something else primal is going on.

Journalist Walter Lippman, in 1955, quoted philosopher William Hocking as saying that human nature is “the most plastic part of the living world – the most adaptable, the most educable,” which also means that human nature can be the most “mal-adaptable” and “mis-educable.”

The cultural heritage must be acquired, Lippmann wrote in The Public Philosophy. We’re not born with it. If a country’s heritage must be acquired, it can also be rejected. It can be acquired badly, or not acquired at all.

“The ancient world … was not destroyed because traditions were false,” Lippman wrote. “They were submerged, neglected, lost. For the men adhering to them had become a dwindling minority who were overthrown and displaced by men who were alien to the traditions …”

Will Alexander, Townhall.com

Wisdom of Ayn Rand: The Trader Principle

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There is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.

The principle of trade is the only rational ethical principle for all human relationships, personal and social, private and public, spiritual and material. It is the principle of justice.

A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. He does not treat men as masters or slaves, but as independent equals. He deals with men by means of a free, voluntary, unforced, uncoerced exchange—an exchange which benefits both parties by their own independent judgment. A trader does not expect to be paid for his defaults, only for his achievements. He does not switch to others the burden of his failures, and he does not mortgage his life into bondage to the failures of others.

In spiritual issues—(by “spiritual” I mean: “pertaining to man’s consciousness”)—the currency or medium of exchange is different, but the principle is the same. Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. In spiritual issues, a trader is a man who does not seek to be loved for his weaknesses or flaws, only for his virtues, and who does not grant his love to the weaknesses or the flaws of others, only to their virtues.

The symbol of all relationships among [rational] men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot, are traders, both in matter and in spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to be loved for his flaws. A trader does not squander his body as fodder or his soul as alms. Just as he does not give his work except in trade for material values, so he does not give the values of his spirit—his love, his friendship, his esteem—except in payment and in trade for human virtues, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect. The mystic parasites who have, throughout the ages, reviled the traders and held them in contempt, while honoring the beggars and the looters, have known the secret motive of their sneers: a trader is the entity they dread—a man of justice.

The trader and the warrior have been fundamental antagonists throughout history. Trade does not flourish on battlefields, factories do not produce under bombardments, profits do not grow on rubble. Capitalism is a society of traders—for which it has been denounced by every would-be gunman who regards trade as “selfish” and conquest as “noble.”

Celebrating Joseph Stalin’s 142nd Birthday

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Dec. 18, 2020, marks the 142nd birthday of Joseph Stalin, the communist dictator who ruled the Soviet Union for almost three decades. For many people, Stalin is synonymous with mass murder and totalitarianism; his misdeeds are so voluminous and epic in scale that they are incomprehensible.

Historians continually debate just how many deaths Stalin was responsible for. Even a prominent former Soviet and Russian official estimates that Stalin’s victims, whether through famine, purge, or deportation, number around 20 million. Figures such as these are almost impossible for anyone to grasp in full.

The accounts of the Stalin era reveal a man as cruel and ruthless as the numbers suggest. During the Great Terror of the 1930s, Stalin routinely signed off on execution lists with hundreds or thousands of names. In one particularly bloodthirsty day during the Terror, he approved 3,167 executions.

Moments such as these were so commonplace in the Stalin era that the tyrant enjoyed a movie screening immediately afterward, his conscience apparently untroubled by the lives he was ruining.

Stalin’s regime targeted those suspected of being insufficiently dedicated to the communist cause, as well as their innocent family and friends. Millions of Armenians, Bulgarians, Chechens, Germans, Greeks, Jews, Muslims, Poles, and Turks were persecuted for being more loyal to their racial or religious affiliations than to the glorious truths of Karl Marx.

Stalin’s own words reveal his sadistic nature. He once remarked, “The greatest delight is to mark one’s enemy, prepare everything, avenge oneself thoroughly, and then go to sleep.”

Not even Stalin’s closest family and friends were safe — they were often the inevitable targets of his wrath. Stalin’s relatives by marriage, such as Alyosha Svanidze and Pavel Alliluyev, found themselves imprisoned because minor incidents aroused the dictator’s suspicions.

Stalin’s longtime aide Alexander Poskrebyshev begged his boss to release his wife from prison (she had annoyed Stalin by asking him to free her brother). Characteristically, Stalin replied, “Don’t worry, we’ll find you another wife.”

Beyond the unnecessary human cost, one of the most troubling aspects of Stalin’s reign was how convinced his followers were that, despite all of this misery, they were creating a new, better world. Spurred on by the vision of a classless society with perfect equality, they were able to justify atrocities as necessary stumbling blocks on the road to utopia.

Stalin’s interpreter Valentin Berezhkov would later recall, “I believed in Stalin. … We felt we were creating the model for a better society that would be emulated by the rest of the world.” Even Soviet military official Dmitry Volkogonov, whose parents were purged, remembered: “I believed in Stalin. … Everybody thought that Stalin was the foundation of power and happiness and prosperity of the country.”

Historians continue to debate whether or not Stalin was a truly committed communist or simply using Marxist ideology to perpetuate his own power over the Soviet people. Stalin himself used communist terminology throughout his entire career to explain how the world worked. In 1946, he gave a major speech attacking capitalist nations for causing the two world wars. In his last public appearance, in 1952, Stalin continued on this theme, labeling the capitalist bourgeoisie the “arch-enemy” of freedom.

Stalin grew up in a broken home in Georgia mired in the depths of poverty. As a youth living in an authoritarian czarist empire, Stalin saw much in the way of injustice. While in seminary, he turned to communist revolution as the best solution to right the wrongs of his world. Whether or not he continued believing this for the rest of his life is anyone’s guess, but it’s clear that many of his followers were sincere Marxists. Unfortunately for their victims, the communist faithful stopped at nothing to attain the promised utopia.

As scholar Erik van Ree once observed, “The greatest crimes in history have been committed by the sincere — those who believe in their hearts that they are justified in committing their acts.” In doing so, these committed Marxists enabled one of the worst killers in human history.

On the 142nd anniversary of Stalin’s birth, let us remember the key lesson from his life: that those who promise to bring about heaven on earth through revolution and government control, no matter how sincere, often bring about a hell far worse than the one they are trying to escape.

Richard Lim is the co-founder and host of the This American President podcast

VIDEO: Woman Finds Out She’s Approved for Welfare

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VIDEO: Woman Finds Out She’s Approved for Welfare
Political Insider

Commentary:  This video says it all.  As I noted in yesterday’s post, there was a time when being on public assistance, like getting pregnant out of wedlock or going into rehab, was a source of embarrassment, or at least kept under wraps.  And being on public assistance was a only a short-term fix, a temporary waystation till you put your life back together after losing a job or suffering a personal setback.

This is no temporary situation.  This woman will be on the public dole till she reaches room temperature.  She’ll spend her days watching soaps and eating bon-bons.

This woman is the face of the Culture of  Dependency.  The poster child of what we have become.

Evil Genius

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We’ve all heard the term “evil genius,” maybe even used it a few times. This moniker is generally used to refer to infamous political figures in history who were able to amass great personal power, acquire or expand empires, or fundamentally alter the course of history while callously and cynically disregarding the incalculable pain, suffering, dislocation, economic destruction, and myriad forms of devastation left in the wake of their pursuit of glory or some utopian dream. Adolph Hitler is the person most often characterized as an evil genius, with Josef Stalin a distant second. There are still German and Russian old-timers who wax nostalgic over them; there are tenured professors and widely respected western academics who still regard them “visionaries of a New World Order.”

Evil genius is also used to describe criminal masterminds like Al Capone or John Gotti who managed far-flung organized crime syndicates while ruthlessly eliminating those who stood in their way or threatened to expose their “genius.” Sadly, they, too, were worshipped as folk heroes on their home turf.

There is no such thing as an evil genius. It is, in fact, a contradiction in terms, a metaphysical impossibility. The “evil” part is accurate, but geniuses they’re not. But, as the result of intellectual laziness, the failure to think clearly, it has become a thoughtlessly used colloquialism and part of the American lexicon. The term confuses intelligence and wisdom with cunning, craftiness, and treachery. Its underlying philosophical justification is “the ends justify the means.” It dovetails perfectly with the Age of the Antihero we now live in. If a half-wit socialist politician outfoxes his cowardly political opposition to the detriment of the country, he is considered a person of monumental intellect.

Nonsense. Genius pre-supposes virtue. You can’t be a genius if you don’t know the difference between right and wrong.

The Big Picture: The Artful Dilettante’s Take on Presidential Debates

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I’ve always been a “big picture” kinda guy. I would rather read a general overview of history than a detailed analysis of the Battle of the Bulge. I would prefer reading a concise, insightful summary of human nature rather than the most in-depth study of child development. I would prefer watching a Discovery Channel program on The Big Bang than one on the solar system. For me, the Big Picture is just more fun to think about than the little stuff. Continue reading →