Im-Politic: The Latest Off-Base CCP Virus Narrative

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Biden, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, Im-Politic, The New York Times, vaccines, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

There’s no doubt that a new CCP Virus narrative is quickly becoming established in the United States, and it was succinctly expressed by Predident Biden last month:

“[T]he data is clear: If you are unvaccinated, you’re at risk of getting seriously ill or dying or spreading it. People getting seriously ill and being hospitalized due to COVID-19 are those who have not been fully vaccinated. The new variant will leave unvaccinated people even more vulnerable than they are a month ago — over a month ago.

“This is a serious concern, especially because of what experts are calling the…the ‘Delta’ variant. It’s a variant that is more easily transmissible, potentially deadlier, and particularly dangerous for young people.

“But the good news is, we have the solution.The science and the data are clear: The best way to protect yourself against these variants are to get fully vaccinated.”

And earlier this week, the nation’s supposed newspaper of record, The New York Times, dutifully presented this analysis as the kind of information that’s factual and uncontroversial enough (among anyone but fanatics and troglodytes) to be used as routine background material:

“While nationwide cases and hospitalization numbers remain relatively low, more local hot spots are emerging and the national trends are moving in the wrong direction, fueled by the spread of the more contagious Delta variant. Vaccines are effective against the variant. Counties that voted for Mr. Biden average higher vaccination levels than those that voted for former President Donald J. Trump. Conservatives tend to decline vaccination far more often than Democrats.”

And practically in lock step, today’s Washington Post tells us, “Federal health officials sounded an alarm Friday about a surge in U.S. coronavirus infections fueled by the twin threats posed by the highly transmissible delta variant and a stagnation in efforts to vaccinate as many Americans as possible.”

It’s now nearly a month after the Biden remarks, though, and the only reasonable conclusion to reach is “Not so fast.” It is indeed clear so far that the vaccines available to Americans work against Delta. It’s also clear that the new variant is extremely contagious. It’s anything but clear, though, that its rapid spread justifies even a doubling down on lagging national vaccination efforts, much less the kind of shaming campaign against vaccine hesitancy and related “misinformation” behind which the Biden administration is marshaling the power of the federal government.

The main reasons? First, contrary to the Biden claims about Delta’s dangers, the U.S. numbers show no sign of unusual lethality or other forms of severity. Second, although Delta has quickly become the dominant form of new infection, the relationship between its appearance and vaccination rates looks awfully weak.

Regarding Delta’s characteristics, evidence of its high transmissibility can be seen in the rising numbers of U.S. virus cases. Since the President spoke out last month, the seven-day average of reported infections is up by just over 139 percent as of yesterday. (I’m using the Washington Post’s virus tracking feature as my source unless otherwise indicated.)

But not to minimize the risks to certain segments of the population (the elderly, the obese, those with other underlying health problems), when it comes to healthy non-senior Americans generally, this statistic per se means almost nothing.

After all, it’s long been known that one of the most vexing properties of the virus is its asymptomatic spread. That is, huge numbers of Americans have been infected and simply didn’t know it because they never detected any effects. Many others doubtless had symptoms so mild that they didn’t bother reporting them.

In this vein, it’s more than a little interesting that former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb (no virus minimizer or vaccine skeptic) just told CNBC that “he believes the U.S. is significantly undercounting the number of Covid delta infections, making it difficult to know whether the highly transmissible strain is causing higher-than-expected hospitalization and death rates.”

Why the undercount? Because “people who are vaccinated, who might develop some mild symptoms or might develop a breakthrough case, by and large are not going out and getting tested. If you’ve been vaccinated and you develop a mild cold right now, you don’t think you have Covid.” Wouldn’t the same hold for the un-vaccinated, whether they have natural immunity or not?

That’s surely why even though since the Biden remarks, while total CCP Virus infections have more than doubled, reported virus-related deaths are actually down (by nearly six percent according to that seven-day average measure). Deaths are indeed a lagging indicator (because the disease doesn’t reach mortality level right away), and there’s evidence that in “some cases,” “Long-Haul COVID” can kill (and sicken) for months after the initial infection.

But if the Delta variant was nearly as lethal as it is virulent, since it’s accounted for a skyrocketing – and now the biggest – share of total national infections, you wouldn’t expect the national death rate to be falling for the past month.

Nor do the national rates of hospitalization and intensive-care unit (ICU) bed use  signal that Delta will overwhelm the healthcare system (the fear that originally spurred the lockdown-/shutdown-/social distancing-/mask-heavy CCP Virus response throughout the country) unless vaccination rates surge. Indeed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between the week of the Biden remarks and the week ending July 10, hospitalizations, new weekly hospitalizations fell, too – from 597 to 523.

Meanwhile, the feebleness of the link between vaccination rates and the Delta variant’s proliferation comes through from an examination of state-specific data.

Below is a list of the states whose hospitalization rate increases over the last week (in descending order, through yesterday) are above that national average of 25 percent, with their specific rates on the left and their (full) vaccination rates on the right:

Alaska:                 +114%            44.7%

Kansas:                   +61%           42.8%

Mississippi:            +50%            33.6%

Louisiana:               +50%            36.0%

Idaho:                      +48%           36.8%

Connecticut:            +47%           62.0%

Arkansas:                +44%           35.1%

Oklahoma:              +42%           39.3%

Florida:                   +42%           47.3%

Texas:                     +39%           42.6%

Nebraska:               +38%           48.5%

Alabama:                +35%           33.6%

Georgia:                  +32%          37.5%

California:              +30%           51.4%

Arizona:                 +30%           44.3%

Tennessee:             +27%            38.2%

Nevada:                 +25%             43.1%

Now keep in mind that the national average full vaccination rate for the country was 48.3 percent, and several big anomalies should stick out immediately, beginning with Alaska. Its hospitalizations apparently soared, yet its vaccination rate was pretty close to the national average. How can that be, if vaccination is so crucial to slowing or stopping the spread of any of the variants?

Of course, with Alaska, the absolute numbers are very small, so any time they change, big percentage changes tend to result. But a very similar pattern also holds for much more populous states like Kansas, Florida, Texas, and Arizona, and a slightly less similar pattern holds for Nevada. As for Florida, moreover, its infections have been growing at the same rate as Oklahoma’s, but its vaccination rate is a good deal higher.

And then there’s Nebraska. Its hospitalization has risen strongly, but its vaccination rates is actually above the national average. Conversely, Connecticut’s vaccination rate is way above the national average, but hospitalizations are increasing robustly anyway.

So that’s eight states out of the sixteen with above-average infection growth (eight if you count Oklahoma) where the narrative doesn’t hold up well.

But maybe the narrative’s relationship between infection growth and vaccination rates is stronger for states where virus spread has been relatively slow – i.e., below the national average? Here are the states with the best infection numbers, from the gold standard to the merely good. Again, infection change rates are on the left and vaccination rates on the right:

North Dakota:            -18%        39.5%

Rhode Island:             -15%        60.2%

Minnesota:                  -14%       52.9%

Maryland:                   -12%       57.5%

Pennsylvania:             -11%       51.0%

West Virginia:            -11%       38.8%

South Dakota:             -7%        46.2%

Illinois                         -3%        47.4%

Maine:                         -2%        62.7%

Virginia:                      -1%        53.2%

Iowa:                            -1%       48.8%

Ohio:                           +2%       45.6%

Washington:                +2%        56.3%

New Jersey:                +2%        56.7%

Michigan:                   +2%        48.1%

New York:                  +3%        55.7%

Indiana:                      +3%        44.3%

Wisconsin:                 +4%        50.9%

Oregon:                    +11%        54.9%

D.C.:                        +12%         53.7%

Delaware:                +16%         51.4%

Colorado:                 +12%        53.3%

Montana:                 +17%         43.6%

Wyoming:                +18%        35.9%

North Carolina:        +18%        42.8%

New Mexico:           +18%        55.2%

Hawaii:                     +19%       52.8%

Kentucky:                 +21%       44.6%

Missouri:                  +22%        40.0%

Utah:                         +22%       43.6%

New Hampshire:      +22%       57.5%

South Carolina:        +23%        39.7%

Again, as should be obvious, the relationship between virus prevalence and vaccination rates is far from obvious. In fact, here again, the state at the top of the list seems to undermine the narrative most thoroughly. North Dakota’s vaccination rate is one of the country’s worst, yet its infection record is the very best on a percentage basis.

Of course, North Dakota’s population is so small that, as with Alaska, changes in absolute numbers can produce big percentage swings. The same goes for the results for West Virginia and South Dakota. But Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan boast big populations, and despite subpar vaccination rates, have seen CCP Virus case numbers fall a bit and rise a bit, respectively. The situation in somewhat less populous Indiana looks like theirs, too. Maybe there’s something about the Big Ten?

At the other end of this spectrum, New Mexico, Hawaii, and New Hampshire have excellent vaccination rates, but lousy virus spread numbers.

And here are some strange coincidences. South Carolina and North Dakota have nearly identical, and very low, vaccination rates. But in the former, CCP Virus cases are up 23 percent on week whereas they’re down by 18 percent in the latter. Conversely, New Hampshire and Maryland both have very high vaccination rates, but infections are up 22 percent in the former and down 12 percent in the latter over the last week. And although North Carolina and New Mexico have seen weekly cases rise at identical 18 percent rates, their vaccination rates are more than twelve and a half percentage points apart.

As I’ve written previously, when comparing the virus story in different states, it’s important to keep in mind how different population structures and different weather patterns can lead to very different results regardless of the policy choices they’ve made. That’s why, for example, I didn’t call attention to the virtually identical weekly case growth rates of Idaho and Connecticut (48 percent and 47 percent, respectively) and their dramatically different vaccination rates (36.8 percent and 62 percent, respectively). Two less alike states you couldn’t even create out of whole cloth.

Of course I can’t find it in my too-often chaotic personal library, but in David Halberstam’s masterpiece on the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest, I recall the author writing of Walt W. Rostow – one of the hubristic crew of Ivy League academics who became leading architects of this disaster – that he was constantly seeing connections between trends and events where none existed. I strongly suspect that history will judge purveyors of the latest, Delta-centric CCP Virus narrative just as harshly. 

Im-Politic: Good Luck to Biden Keeping Up with Immigration’s Root Causes

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Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden, Biden administration, Caribbean, Central America, Cuba, Department of Homeland Security, economic development, Haiti, Im-Politic, Immigration, Kamala Harris, Latin America, Mexico, nation-building, Northern Triangle, Western Hemisphere

Remember that advertising campaign launched by Jamaica a few decades ago, reminding Americans that “We’re more than a beach. We’re a country”? Lately it seems that the area’s islands are doing their best to reinforce this message, in the process presenting yet more reasons to doubt that President Biden’s policy of stemming immigration largely by addressing its “root causes” in the sending countries (especially in Central America’s “Northern Triangle”) will produce results in the policy- (and politics-relevant) future.

After all, in the last week alone, not only has Haiti lapsed into chaos again, but Cuba has been roiled by what are being described the biggest protests in decades against Communist rule. So undoubtedly heading state-side is looking especially attractive in those countries now. In addition, Venezuela keeps looking like a candidate for a political explosion (its migrant outflows have already been considerable for years as the left-wing regime’s policies keep destroying the economy).

Nor do these countries exhaust the list of deeply troubled countries whose inhabitants are increasingly flocking to the U.S.-Mexico border. As the Washington Post reported earlier this month, U.S. government data show that “From South America, the Caribbean, Asia and beyond tens of thousands of migrants bound for the United States have been arriving to Mexico each month.” Further, the shares represented by Mexico and Central America are going down, and those of nationals from “beyond” are going up. Many more migrants from regions further afield, moreover, are apparently on the way.

Indeed, in 2018, Gallup research found that more than 150 million adults worldwide want to live in the United States permanently. Of course, not every one will try to migrate. Nor does every one come from a homeland afflicted by various combinations of poverty, dictatorship, corruption, major disorder, and out-and-out conflict. But clearly most of them do. Meaning that there’s a massive amount of root causes out there to be addressed if that approach is to be the Biden strategy’s main pillar long term.

And it’s not like Washington has a great record in promoting the kind of nation-building (see, e.g., here) or even narrower economic development needed to root out those causes, or that lots more money – public or private – will be forthcoming (assuming that money is even the biggest obstacle to begin with). Heck – Americans haven’t even done a decent job of addressing the root causes of violence in many of their own inner cities.

Therefore, given the high and growing amount of turmoil in the United States’ backyard and beyond, to avoid swamping the nation with ever greater numbers of migrants, the Biden administration will need to return American policy to a border security-centric approach. It’s true that both Vice President and immigration point person Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have both publicly warned not to try to enter the country.

But this message clearly has been drowned out by dozens of other administration decisions that de facto put out the welcome mat (see, e.g., here) – including a virtual halt to interior enforcement that supercharges the odds that newcomers who make it into the United States will be able to stay in the United States. Which is why the longer the current Biden policy mix lasts, the more the root causes dimension of his administration’s immigration strategy looks like a dodge aimed at greasing the skids for much wider border opening.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A Neglected Lesson of Afghanistan

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Afghanistan, Biden, border security, China, Donald Trump, forever wars, globalism, Immigration, jihadism, Muslims, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, special forces, Tajikistan, Taliban, terrorism, Uighurs, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, women's rights, Xinjiang

Let’s get one matter straight right away: When it comes to the (always important) optics, and to humanitarian considerations, there is no good way for the United States to end its military involvement in Afghanistan that would meet any sensible or decent person’s definition of “good.”

Indeed, much of the news that’s come out of that war-torn country (and I use that term advisedly) is sickeningly reminiscent of the final U.S. pullout from Vietnam in April, 1975 – complete with the almost certain abandonment of many locals who had cast their lot with the Americans in various ways, and therefore face many forms of retaliation if the jihadist Taliban do indeed triumph.

Further, the U.S. departure could produce an Afghan aftermath far worse than that suffered in Vietnam, as the social and economic strides made by many Afghan women of all ages under the umbrella of the American presence seem to be doomed if the country is taken over by a movement wed to Islam’s most misogynistic version.

In fact, a couple of years ago, by which time the American mission’s failure looked inevitable, I came up with the idea of offering all Afghan females asylum in the United States – complete with transportation expenses. I never published it, but wouldn’t it have served the women-haters right to leave them as women-free as possible?

That chance looks to be gone – though I’m still hoping that somehow the interpreters and other U.S. employees can be saved. Otherwise, the best that Americans can hope for now is figuring out what went wrong and how to avoid such fiascoes going forward. There’s been no shortage of post-mortems, and especially encouraging has been the bipartisan globalist U.S. foreign policy establishment’s (belated) agreement that nation-building where no true nation exists is folly. (See, e.g., here.)

Another big lesson, however, remains largely unlearned – even by long-time opponents of the Afghan War like former President Trump: As I’ve written repeatedly, since the only self-interested (and therefore sensible) reason for direct American involvement in the first place was preventing the country’s re-emergence as an officially sponsored and protected base for September 11-like terrorism, Washington should have focused on seriously securing U.S. borders rather than on fighting the jihadis “over there.”

Trump tried in his own characteristically ragged way to beef up border protection, and achieved some impressive progress. But as made clear here, he never seemed to make the connection fully. And now President Biden appears determined to create the worst of all possible worlds from the U.S. standpoint – an Afghanistan policy unlikely to enable the Tailban’s containment through special forces guerilla-type operations until the U.S. border was strengthened adequately, and an immigration policy that actually opens the border still wider.

Meanwhile, a third big lesson hasn’t evidently even made it onto official or unofficial U.S. policy screens (including mine), but it was suggested in this Bloomberg news item on Monday: A Taliban-run Afghanistan could well have been kept off balance – and frustrated in its efforts undertake the major initiatives needed to foster September 11-scale terrorism – by the nearby countries its extremism would surely have alarmed and antagonized. And these regional concerns seem compelling enough to keep the lid on in Afghanistan by hook or by crook from this point on in the American military’s absence.

As the piece makes clear, in the near term, smallish Afghanistan neighbors like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are anxious to prevent chaos on their borders – including no doubt massive refugee flows. And both countries have long been cooperating with Washington for many years to bolster “overall regional security” – which won’t be helped by a jihadist regime in their midst. (See here and here.)

And don’t forget Russia – whose help those two central Asian countries are seeking. Its own disastrous 1979 invasion and decade-long occupation of much of the country was triggered largely by fears that the rise of Islamic extremism in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East would infect the Muslim populations of adjacent Soviet “republics” (like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). Moscow can’t be anxious to repeat that mistake, but the fear of jihadis persists, and like it or not, Russia’s deep reinvolvement in Afghanistan consequently seems inevitable – and bound to cause big problems for the Taliban.

China’s bound to be pulled in, too. All indications are that Beijing hopes to keep post-U.S.-withdrawal Afghanistan stable in a softer way – with big economic development projects that ironically look a lot like nation-building (though apparently lacking its political dimension). More power to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping if he succeeds. But mainly because it’s had its own huge problems (many surely self-created) with its own Muslim population in Xinjiang province (which also shares a short border with Afghanistan) China’s bottom line clearly is maintaining stability and making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t become “a haven or transit corridor” for the Uyghur militants who have aroused its ire. (See the above-linked Economist piece for the quote.)

As a result, it’s more than a little interesting that a Chinese academic recently felt free to tell a Financial Times reporter that “Even though China has for a long time been extremely cautious about sending military forces overseas, if it is supported by a United Nations resolution, China might join an international peacekeeping team to enter Afghanistan.”

Alternatively, the Chinese bet that they can cultivate the Taliban’s pragmatic instincts by financing massive road-building and mining operations could pay off – in which case, the terror-base scenario feared in the United State may not materialize.

But the crucial strategic insight for Americans is that China and all of Afghanistan’s neighbors have compelling stakes in curbing Taliban jihadism and related terrorism, and that these stakes exist precisely because Afghanistan’s in their own neighborhood – and always has been. In other words, however important Afghanistan’s stability, moderation, etc has been for Americans thousands of miles away, it’s always been and remains far more important for the folks right next door. Even better, because some big powers are involved, a strong case can be made not only for their persistence in addressing the problem but their success.

If they fail, however, or get bogged down in their own forever war, that’s OK from the U.S. perspective as well – because they’ll keep the Taliban too busy to concentrate on attacking America. That’s not to say that the United States can therefore forget about sealing the border. After all, Afghanistan is hardly the world’s only concentration of jihadis.

But it does mean that the strategic case for the United States carrying the burden of intervening in Afghanistan specifically is weakening; that the case may have been weak all along – or at least once the Taliban was ousted from power and significantly weakened right after September 11 – and that as long as the neighbors can be relied on to act in their own self-interest (surely a long time), and especially if Washington tends to its border knitting, this case won’t emerge again.

Making News: Back on National Radio…& More!

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Airbus, Biden, Biden border crisis, Boeing, Central America, China, Dominic Gates, G7 Summit, Gordon Chang, Immigration, IndustryToday.com, Iran nuclear deal, JCPOA, Jobs, Making News, Market Wrap, migrants, Moe Ansari, Seattle Times, The Epoch Times, The Hill, Trade, trade policy, wage inflation, wages

Time to catch up with the updates on recent media appearances – in reverse chronological order!

It was great to return this past Wednesday to Moe Ansari’s nationally syndicated “Market Wrap” radio program. Click here for the podcast of an exceptionally wide-ranging segment covering topics from the recent summit meeting of the world’s leading economies to the future of the Iran nuclear deal.

On June 16, leading China policy analyst Gordon Chang quoted me in an op-ed for The Epoch Times explaining how some features of President Biden’s economic proposals might backfire and promote employment in China, not the United States. Here’s the link.

On June 15, the Seattle Times‘ Dominic Gates featured my views in his coverage of the recent settlement of a long-running trade dispute between Europe’s Airbus and America’s Boeing. Incidentally, if there’s a U.S. journalist more knowledgeable than Dominic about the aerospace industry, I’ve never met him or her. So it was especially flattering that he sought out my perspective. Click here to read. In addition, the article was widely distributed throughout the country via the Tribune News Service syndicate.

On June 10, Chang again highlighted some of my opinions – this time in an op-ed for The Hill some of my thoughts on using U.S. trade policy more effectively to help foster prosperity in Central America and thereby stem the flow of migrants, and why previous such efforts have failed. Here’s the link.

Finally, on June 2, IndustryToday.com re-posted (with permission!) my RealityChek essay arguing that, despite numerous alarm bells, wage inflation overall in the United States seems pretty unexceptional. Click here to read.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: The Pandemic is Over! (Unless It’s Not?)

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Biden, CCP Virus, Chincoteague, coronavirus, COVID 19, facemasks, Im-Politic, lockdowns, Maryland, mask mandate, Prince George's County, Riverdale Park, shopping, shutdowns, stay-at-home, Wuhan virus

Some recent experiences of mine, though of course by definition anecdotal and therefore inconclusive, have still been mixed enough to indicate that President Biden is right about his plan for the July 4^th holiday. His idea of using Independence Day “to mark the country’s effective return to normalcy after 16 months of coronavirus pandemic disruption” may be just what many Americans still need to shed the “masks for all” and “stay at home” mentalities despite major signals from political and public health authorities’ at all levels of government that such hypercaution is no longer necessary.

In fact, these experiences have not only been mixed. A couple have been downright puzzling.

For instance, as I’ve written previously, my town in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. is pretty darned woke. It’s granted the right to vote in local elections to all illegal aliens 16 years of age and older who can show they’ve just briefly resided in Riverdale Park. And when it comes to the virus, many residents seem to have been caught up in pandemic virtue-signaling and scolding. In addition, our county – Prince George’s – has been lifting virus-related restrictions much more slowly than the rest of the state. (In fairness, it’s infection and hospitalization rates have consistently been on the high side.)

But on one of my (quasi-) daily strolls through the town, during the same conversation, a thirty-something neighbor both proclaimed himself “one of the wokest people you’ll ever meet” and declared that “this [virus] thing is over!” And for the first time since I began noticing him sitting on his porch and met him a few months ago, we shook hands.

In addition, at the local farmer’s market where last summer I was scolded for lowering my mask to sniff some fruit for ripeness (see the above-linked September 26, 2020 RealityChek post) two weeks ago, no one scolded me for paying a visit maskless even though face coverings were still being worn a this outdoor venue (including by folks who almost certainly, like me, are fully vaccinated). And no one scolded me this time for sniffing some fruit.

Best of all, about a week ago, I was able to shop maskless at my mainstay grocery store. What a thrill to be able to spend my normal hour-and-a-half going through the aisles without a piece of cloth smothering my bearded visage and getting sucked halfway into my mouth with each inhalation!

At the same time, on my previous trip to this store, masks seemed to still be required – even though the county’s indoor mask mandate had been lifted, even though the company’s website specified that its stores in this county would no longer require masks, and even though the floor markers in the aisles aimed at aiding social distancing had been removed for about a month. (They remained for the checkout lines.)

Normality signals were even more oddly mixed on a recent trip to a favorite beach destination: Chincoteague, Virgina. Since the town relies heavily on vacationers, and presumably had been hard-hit by travel curbs and lockdowns, I expected that it hoped for virus-related curbs to be lifted sooner rather than later. Moreover, without having researched its politics, I surmised that it’s on the whole a risk-tolerance and decidedly conservative place – both because it’s still small and seemingly tradition-minded (though apparently by no means averse to the noteworthy development that’s taken place during the three decades that I’ve been visiting), and because more than a few residents still earn their living at hard-scrabble actitivies like fishing, or are descended from those who did. Indeed, on the three-hour drive there from Prince George’s, through other pretty similar towns and farmland, a handful of Trump-Pence signs could still be seen – but no Biden-Harris placards.

Yet I was still pretty taken aback by how crowded the area was for an early June mid-week stretch of days, and even more surprised to learn that Chincoteague had been hopping since March. As I was told by several wait staff and merchants, “People really want to get back to their lives.” Which made perfect sense to me upon remembering that Chincoteague tends to attract a much more middle-class and (for lack of a better term) middle-brow crowd than nearby beach towns that tend to be either college student or yuppie meccas.

Even so, one of three of the four restaurants we patronized (and always patronize) in town and along the way required masks in the waiting area and any time customers left their tables. All the staff wore face coverings, too. In our other three favorites, neither customers nor staff were wearing masks at any time. One of the town’s book stores mentioned on its website (but not on the premises) that masks are mandatory, but when I entered mask-less and offered to show the co-owner behind the counter my vaccination card, she laughed and said not to bother. This relaxed attitude, however, wasn’t evident on its upper level, which I’ve always liked because of the easy chairs that enable you to thumb through your prospective purchases while taking a load off. The easy chairs were marked off-limits till the pandemic passed – whenever that’s supposed to be.

Further, the much smaller, much more ramshackle book shop about halfway to (or from) Chincoteague greeted customers with a big “Masks Required” sign on the front door. I had my vaccination card with me then, too, but didn’t want to make a scene – partly because it’s a much more close-quarters place than its Chincoteague counterpart. So I endured the mask inhalation thing while squeezing through and contorting myself around the incredibly cramped (but incredibly well stocked) paperback science fiction section in search of gems for a buck.

So I’ll be rooting for the President to be in top form if he does indeed declare July 4^th to be Independence from the Virus Day. And due to his own hypercaution for so long, he could well be a highly credible carrier of the message that it’s finally time for all Americans who don’t need to take special precautions to understand that it’s really over.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Biggest Putin Summit Failure

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Biden, China, Cold War, Democrats, election 2016, election interference, globalism, Henry Kissinger, impeachment, Nordstream 2, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Trump-Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

Even though he’s just turned 98, I’m still surprised that none of the voluminous coverage and commentary on the just-concluded summit between President Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin featured any analysis from Henry Kissinger. Not that I agree with every policy decision or even strategy that the former Secretary of State and White House national security adviser favored – far from it.

But as I’ve written before, he’s one of the few first-rate analysts of U.S. foreign policy that I’ve encountered over my own decades in the field (and would have been even if in fact this bar was not so low). He’s still speaking out on these issues. And most important of all, Mr. Biden seems to have paid little attention either in the run-up to the Putin meeting and at the actual session (though of course, the details will long remain highly classified) to an historic insight that Kissinger helped contributed to American diplomacy whose core is as relevant as ever: the imperative of not needlessly antagonizing Russia and China at the same time. 

At this point, three big caveats need to be mentioned. First, it’s an imperative if U.S. foreign policy is to take a globalist course. That’s not my favored course, and under my kind of America First framework, the approach toward each of this powers would be substantially different. But the President is a died-in-the-wool globalist, so what counts most isn’t how his decisions compare with my preferences, but how well and coherently he’s pursuing his own strategy.

Second, there’s no question that Kissinger – and the rest of the bipartisan globalist U.S. foreign policy establishment – took the engage-with-China strategy way too, and indeed disastrously, too far. But at the time, and given the prevailing Cold War priorities both he and then President Nixon held, opening ties with China largely (but not exclusively) to complicate global matters for a Soviet Union feeling its oats, not only made good sense, but was long overdue.

And third, as suggested by my Cold War reference and my claim that U.S. China policy went way overboard, both national and international circumstances have changed dramatically.

Nonetheless, although China today is the rising behemoth facing the United States and post-Soviet Russia’s power is greatly diminished, the latter is still more than strong enough militarily and technologically to cause major problems for America. These range from aggressive designs on vulnerable new U.S. allies like the Baltic countries and Moscow’s former Warsaw Pact satellites, to damaging and disruptive hacks to America’s infrastructure. (I put election interference in a different box, since only extreme partisans believe that Russian operations made the difference in 2016.)

Since the China threat is far greater – and much more multidimensional – than the Russia threat, Mr. Biden has to date sensibly continued his predecessor’s policies of pushing back both militarily (in areas like the South China Sea) and economically (by keeping the Trump China tariffs and tech sanctions in place).

But he’s also spent his first months in office until this week seemingly determined to do his utmost to villify Russia and Putin verbally, apparently heedless of how his posture threatened to push Moscow and Beijing even closer together.

That’s not to say that a rapprochement between China and Russia didn’t take place during the Trump years. It did. (See, e.g., here.) And undoubtedly one big reason was that the Trump actions were much tougher than the Trump words. That’s true whether we’re talking about energy policy (where the former President’s encouragement of American independence gravely weakened the economies of Russia and other big foreign oil and gas producers), or Europe policy (where despite Trump’s scorn for America’s militarily free-riding allies, he beefed up the U.S. air and ground force and naval presence in and around Eastern Europe, right at Russia’s doorstep).

But unlike Mr. Biden to date, Trump also just as undoubtedly sought to contain disputes and even keep open the door to lowering tensions. And one key reason for this hostile posture can only be the flagrantly false claims from so many Democratic party politicians that Trump was excusing and even enabling Putin’s hostile actions out of gratitude for that election year assistance. President Biden eagerly joined the chorus, which tragically turned any outreach toward Russia toxic politically, and now he’s paying the piper – coming under fire from vengeful Republicans and other conservatives for even so modest and reasonable a decision as meeting Putin in person.

As a result, despite this recent report that “Biden fears what ‘best friends’ [Chinese leader] Xi and Putin could do together” and that “U.S. wariness over the Russia-China relationship has grown to the point where high-level American strategists are weighing how to factor it in as they try to reorient U.S. foreign policy to focus more on a rising China,” there’s not only no evidence that the subject came up in any serious way. It’s difficult at best to imagine that Mr. Biden could actually take any noteworthy steps in this direction without sparking (understandable) charges that he’s a Trump-like Putin lapdog, too. Just think of the reactions even in his own party to his recent decision to waive U.S. sanctions on finishing the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline, which as I’ve written, can only enrich Russia at the expense of Ukraine (whose security against Russian expansionism was declared vital to the United States itself by so many Democrats during the first Trump impeachment procedings).

An anti-American genuine Russia-China alliance is still no foregone conclusion. After all, countries bordering each other often have long histories of intense and often violent rivalries (like Russia and China). Dictators and would-be dictators like Putin and Xi Jinping rarely trust each other. As a result, countries headed by such authoritarians that are also next-door neighbors are especially unlikely partners.

But there’s also historically a great deal to the adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” And for the time being – and at an especially crucial juncture – Mr. Biden will struggle mightily to heed it. 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Latest Data Remain Full of Normalization Puzzles

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Biden, CCP Virus, China, construction, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, exports, goods trade, imports, inflation, inflation adjusted wages, labor shortages, leisure and hospitality, lockdowns, manufacturing, metals, non-oil goods trade deficit, non-supervisory workers, private sector, real wages, reopening, retail, services trade, shutdowns, tariffs, Trade, Trade Deficits, transportation, wage inflation, wages, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

While I was away for a few days last week, two major U.S. government reports came out both giving off conflicting signals on on whether the economy has started to return to normal in critical ways as the CCP Virus subsides and reopening, along with consequent changes in consumer behavior, proceed.

The monthly trade figures (for April) showed a sequential decline, following a record surge, in America’s chronically huge gap between exports and much larger amounts of imports. Moreover the monthly drop took place as economic growth sped along at unusual rates after being shut down by government mandates and consumer caution. So maybe they’re an early sign that a return to immediate pre-virus conditions has begun?

Or is their most important message that these deficits, and especially the import levels, are still hovering near all-time highs in (the most widely followed) pre-inflation terms even though the economy as of the latest (first quarter) numbers is still a bit smaller in (the most widely followed) inflation-adjusted terms than during the last full pre-pandemic quarter (the fourth quarter of 2019)?

Indeed, the deficits are gargantuan even though President Biden has left former President Trump’s substantial tariffs on metals and goods from China practically untouched. 

The monthly inflation numbers (for May) are similarly confusing. They revealed that consumer prices (just one inflation measure published by Washington, but an important one) rose by 4.93 percent in seasonally adjusted terms. That was their fastest annual pace since September, 2008’s 4.95 percent. Surely, as widely claimed (including by the Federal Reserve, which wields so much influence over the economy, this upswing stems from a combination of bottlenecks resulting from (1) the sudden, widespread reopening; (2) the unusually low overall inflation numbers generated a year ago, when the economy was near the depths of its viruts- and shutdown-induced slump; and (3) the immense dose of stimulus injected into the economy by both elected politicians and the unelected Fed.

At the same time, the Fed has told us that its stimulus isn’t ending anytime soon, and although the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats are displaying some cold feet about approving more such levels of economic fuel (e.g., in the form of outlays on infrastructure, and a wide variety of income supports and enhanced unemployment benefits), it’s difficult to imagine that most or even much of this spending will actually be withdrawn even once a post-virus recovery is an indisputable reality.

But the biggest surprise of all: Despite the economy-wide inflation pressures, and by-now-routine claims that employers are dealing with nearly crippling labor shortages, wages overall adjusted for inflation keep going down.

Compounding the confusion over whatever conclusions can legitimately be drawn from these two reports: They cover two different months.

But let’s begin with the most important details from the April trade report. The ambiguity embodied in the data begins with the total deficit figure. The record March result was revised up from $74.45 billion to $75.03 billion but April’s $68.90 shortfall for goods and services combined, though the second worst monthly figure ever, was 8.17 percent smaller. That’s the biggest sequential drop since February, 2020 (8.39 percent), when China’s export-heavy economy was still largely closed because of the virus.

The same holds for the goods trade gap. The record March figure was revised up, too, from $91.56 billion to $92.86 billion. But April’s $86.68 billion result represented a 6.65 percent monthly decline, and this falloff was the biggest since the 8.39 percent plunge of January, 2019 – when American businesses were still adjusting both to Trump’s tariffs and anticipated tariffs.

Also still fueling the high U.S. deficits – a worsening of services trade balances. Here, U.S. trade has long been in surplus, but the surpluses keep shrinking because service sectors like travel are still suffering from the pandemic’s arrival and the consequent decimation of travel and othe transportation in particular. In fact, the April figure of $17.78 billion was the lowest since September, 2012’s $18.62 billion.

One key set of trade flows does, however, provide some evidence of Trump tariff effectiveness – U.S. non-oil goods trade, which encompasses those exports and imports whose magnitudes are most heavily influenced by trade policy (because, as known by RealityChek regulars, trade in oil is almost never the subject of any trade policy decisions and services trade liberalization remains at very early stages). In April, the monthly shortfall retreated 4.16 percent from its March record of $90.12 billion to $86.37 billion – which is only the fourth highest such total ever.

The import figures I focused on last month exhibit the same overall patterns: April saw big drops from record levels but the absolute numbers remain distressingly high. March’s initially reported record $274.48 billion in total imports was revised up considerably – to $277.69 billion. April’s total of $273.89 billion represented a 1.37 percent drop, but nonetheless was the second worst such figure on record.

March’s record monthly goods import figure was upgraded, too – from $234.44 billion to $236.52 billion. April’s total of $231.97 billion was a 1.92 percent drop but these purchases also still represented the second highest of alll time.

As for non-oil goods imports, the $215.33 billion April total was 1.98 percent down from an upwardly revised record $219.68 billion, and also the second biggest ever. Biggest drop since last April’s 10.91

Whether normalization is returning in manufacturing is more difficult to tell. Imports in March hit a record $207.59 billion, and did drop by 4.59 percent sequentially to $198.06 billion in April. That decrease, however, was a typical monthly move for manufacturing imports, and the April figure was still the third highest ever.

Incidentally, the April manufacturing deficit of $103.60 billion was 4.64 percent lower than March’s $108.66 billion. The March total was the second highest on record, but April’s figure was only the seventh all-time worst. The record, $110.20 billion, came last October, and it’s notable that the gap has narrowed on net despite the resilience shown during the pandemic period by manufacturing output.

More evidence of the Trump tariffs’ impact comes from the data on goods trade with China – whose products have attracted nearly all of these levies, and that cover hundreds of billions of dollars worth of products. The April figure of $37.59 billion was 6.56 percent lower than its March predecessor – a thoroughly unexceptional sequential decline and monthly level by historical standards. But the monthly dropoff was consideraby greater than the aforementioned 1.98 percent decrease for non-oil goods – the closest global proxy.

As a result of all these inconclusive developments, I’ll be awaiting the May trade report with even more interest than usual.

But despite all the uncertainties I mentioned at the start of this post, those May inflation figures have made me more confident than before in my previous contention that current price surges are anomalies by the extremely low inflation generated by the CCP Virus-battered economy of a year ago, and by the sudden reopening of so much of the economy following the long shutdowns and lockdowns. Even clearer, as I see it: Claims of significant, troubling wage inflation are especially weak.

After all, that 4.93 percent year-on-year May price increase followed a previous May-to-May rise that was just 0.22 percent. That was the feeblest such rise since September, 2015’s 0.13 percent. In addition, May’s month-to-month 0.64 price advance was smaller than April’s 0.77 percent. Two months do not a trend make, but these numbers certainly don’t point to raging inflation fires.

Nor do the wage data. Otherwise after-inflation total private sector wages wouldn’t be down more on-month in May (-0.18 percent) than in April (-0.09 percent). And the same couldn’t be said of constant dollar wages for non-supervisory workers (-0.20 percent in May versus flat in April).

Getting more granular, the price-adjusted wage trends are as bad or worse in construction; trade, transportation and utilities overall; retail trade; and education and health services.

The two big exceptions: the leisure and hospitality workforces that have been so decimated by the virus (and especially the non-supervisory group) and the transportation and warehousing sub-sector of the transportation and utilities industry category that contains a trucking sector unusually strained by the rapid reopening. In both cases, however, (and especially the leisure and hospitality industry), inflation-adjusted wages in absolute terms are well below the national private sector average. If anything, therefore, it seems like some wage inflation for these workers is long overdue.

Im-Politic: Biden’s Latest Americans Last Immigration Policy

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America First, Biden, Border Crisis, border security, Central America, Chobani, cities, corruption, crime, El Salvador, foreign aid, gang violence, governance, Guatemala, Honduras, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, inequality, Kamala Harris, Mastercard, Microsoft, migrants, Northern Triangle, racial economic justice, urban poverty

As known by RealityChek regulars, I’m deeply skeptical that the Biden administration can bring migrant flows from Central America (or similar regions) under control by adequately improving the miserable local conditions that (understandably) drive so much flight northward to begin with. But the first detailed description of this policy that I’ve seen not only ignores all of the intertwined institutional, governance, and cultural obstacles to turning regions like Central America’s Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) into even approximations of success stories. It also casts real doubt on the seriousness of the vaunted domestic social justice and inequality commitments made both by President Biden and by at least some of the U.S. corporate sector.

As argued by a White House Fact Sheet released yesterday, support for economic development in these long-impoverished, abusively ruled countries will “require more than just the resources of the U.S. government.” Also essential “to support inclusive economic growth in the Northern Triangle” will be the “unique resources and expertise” of the private sector.”

It’s true that only three completely private, profit-seeking American companies have responded so far to the “Call to Action” for business involvement issued by Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s the administration’s designated czarina for dealing immigration-wise with the Northern Triangle. But let’s say lots more get involved.

Why would anyone capable of adult thinking believe that their efforts will succeed? After all, the administration acknowledges that economic success in the region depends on overcoming its “long-standing impediments to investment-led growth.” And it specifies that these obstacles include governments that simultaneously either can’t or won’t carry out their duties in corruption-free ways, and are unable to provide minimal levels of security for their populations against criminal gangs.

Meaning that private businesses will be keen even on setting up the kinds of training and business incubator and internet connectivity programs that predominate in their Northern Triangle plans while threats of violence and extortion remain omnipresent? Maybe they’re planning to cope by hiring massive  private security forces – but such precautions were never mentioned in the Call to Action announcement.

Just as important, here’s another major head-scratcher, especially given the flood of promises over the last year or so from U.S. business circles about promoting racial economic and financial equality. If companies are willing to wade into dangerous environments to educate populations, build or strengthen the infrastructure needed for significant economic progress, and foster new businesses in Central America, why aren’t they focusing their efforts on America’s own inner cities, or at least focusing more tightly on these efforts first? It’s not like their needs aren’t pressing. And although the Northern Triangle countries have actually made some noteworthy progress in fighting violent crime lately, they’re still much more dangerous places than even most of America’s homicide capitals.

Consequently, for companies concerned overall with actual results, it would make far more sense to take an America First approach. Not that Microsoft, Chobani, and Mastercard have ignored their disadvantaged compatriots in practice. But even as their U.S. efforts remain pretty modest (Microsoft, e.g., to date has only launched its digital skills and access improvement program in Atlanta and Texas, and Chobani’s incubator program still seems pretty small scale), they’ve decided to head south of the border(s).

Incidentally, the entire Biden Central America and overall immigration policies are vulnerable to a similar criticism. Since however difficult it’s going to be to spur racial and other economic and social progress at home, the challenge will be far more difficult in foreign countries, a President truly committed both to these vital domestic goals and to staunching migrant flows would focus focus his economic development programs on his own country, and deal with the migrants as an immigration issue – by securing the border. Unfortunately for Americans, Joe Biden has been anything but that President.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Biden’s Losing North Korea Bet

Tags

Antony J. Blinken, Asia-Pacific, Biden, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Indo-Pacific, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons, sanctions, Wuhan virus

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken “suggested China was also concerned about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. ‘China has a real interest in helping to deal with this,’ [he] said. ‘So we look to Beijing to play a role in advancing what is in, I think, everyone’s interest.’”

– The New York Times, March 18, 2021

 

“North Korean trade with China is springing back to life, easing pressure on Kim Jong Un whose economy has been battered by sanctions and border closures owing to the coronavirus pandemic.”

– Financial Times, May 26, 2021

 

(Sources: “North Korean Threat Forces Biden Into Balancing Act With China,” by Lara Jakes and Choe Sang-Hun, The New York Times, March 18, 2021, North Korean Threat Forces Biden Into Balancing Act With China – The New York Times (nytimes.com) and “Chinese trade provides boost to North Korea’s battered economy,” by Edward White, Financial Times, May 26, 2021, Chinese trade provides boost to North Korea’s battered economy | Financial Times (ft.com))

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Latest Nod to Trump-ism – Israel-Palestinians Policy?

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Abraham Accords, Antony J. Blinken, Biden, Binyamin Netanyahu, Blob, China, diplomacy, Donald Trump, Gaza, globalism, Hamas, Israel, Jared Kushner, Middle East, North Korea, occupied territories, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Palestinians, tariffs, Trade, two-state solution, West Bank

As known by RealityChek regulars, one of the leading – and most surprising – features of the Biden administration is a tendency to continue certain Trump administration policies that the current President, and much of the globalist bipartisan policy Blob decried as dangerously naive, xenophobic, short-sighted, isolationist, protectionist [feel free at this point to insert your own scornful epithet].

Now on top of tariffs, China trade and economic strategy, and North Korea policy, there’s a sign that the Biden approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict can be added to the list. My evidence? Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s remarks this morning on the latest eruption after a meeting in Jerusalem with the Jewish state’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

The most specific policy statements Blinken made focused tightly on the need for reconstruction aid for Gaza – where Israeli military strikes aimed at stopping Hamas rocket attacks inflicted serious damage – as well as the need “to work to expand opportunity for Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank, including by strengthening the private sector, expanding trade and investment, and other means. Assistance and investment like these will help foster a more stable environment that benefits Palestinians and also benefits Israelis.”

By contrast, there were only the most glancing references to resuming diplomatic efforts to bring lasting peace to the region – principally, Blinken’s report that he and Netanyahu discssed “other steps that need to be taken by leaders on both sides to set a better course for their shared future. As President Biden has said, we believe that Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely; to enjoy equal measures of freedom, opportunity, and democracy; to be treated with dignity.”

And beyond that – nothing. Not even a mention of a negotiated two-state solution that President Biden continues to support as the end goal of U.S. diplomacy.

That looks awfully Trump-y because a focus on economic development in Israel’s occupied territories to ameliorate their populations’ pressing day-to-day needs and create credible hopes for decent living standards and further progress, and an unmistakable deemphasis on returning Israeli and Palestinian leaders to some kind of bargaining table, was a definite hallmark of the former President’s approach to dealing with the conflict. The idea was that the promise and growing reality of prosperity on the West Bank and in Gaza was the best hope for reducing the appeal of violence and creating the conditions in which realistic compromises could – some day – be accepted.

Indeed, Trump’s peace plan conspicuously began with a purely economic proposal – a fund raised from private investors in the Persian Gulf states and other countries that would spend $50 billion over ten years on infrastructure and development projects in the occupied territories. As the plan’s main author, Trump son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner explicitly stated upon its unveiling, “Today is not about political solutions — we will get to them later.”

And although Mr. Biden just issued a re-endorsement of two-state, it’s more than a little interesting that during his Senate confirmation hearings, Blinken acknowledged that “Realistically it’s hard to see near-term prospects for moving forward on that.” That’s hardly a sign of perceived urgency. Perhaps more revealing: The numerous recent articles (all pre-dating the latest Middle East fighting) reporting Mr. Biden’s determination to deemphasize the Middle East as a U.S. foreign priority to begin with – and evidence the administration was following through in official policy declarations and staffing decisions.

Not that this relative indifference marked a significant change in candidate Biden’s campaign positions. In fact, he praised the Trump “Abraham Accords” that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries. And although Mr. Biden did charge that Trump’s strong pro-Israel tilt had made a negotiated Israel-Palestinian settlement “even more difficult,” his campaign’s main foreign policy statement didn’t even mention the issue. (Perhaps that’s because he reserved his more detailed – and somewhat more critical – verdict for his campaign’s articulation of a policy toward “the Jewish community.”)

But the foreign policy Blob’s judgement were much harsher – largely because Trump was seen to be recklessly ignoring the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations and the supposedly obvious reality that not only was peace between Israel and the Palestinians was impossible without taking the latter’s interests seriously, but that meaningful progress toward pacifying and even stabilizing the entire Middle East was as well. (See, e.g., here and here).

It’s an exaggeration to say that the President has now repudiated this pre-Trump conventional wisdom on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But he’s clearly in no rush to embrace it. And given his other adoptions of Trump-ian stances, it strikes me as evidence that not only is Mr. Biden moving away from pre-Trump globalism, but that the days of this strategy dominating American foreign policymaking writ large are numbered themselves.