(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Is More Immigration Really the Key to America’s Tech Future?

Tags

Cato Institute, China, education, entrepreneurs, Germany, H-1B visa, immigrants, Immigration, India, innovation, Israel, Japan, skills, South Korea, start-ups, Taiwan, technology, Washington Post, Worldometers.info, {What's Left of) Our Economy

One of the most compelling – and most often made – arguments in favor of higher U.S. legal immigration levels has to do with innovation. Supposedly, without encouraging ever more foreign workers to move to America, the nation will never be able to maintain its global technology leadership, and ultimately an acceptable, much less improved, degree of prosperity. (See, e.g., here and here.)

Part of the rationale for a welcoming posture, as indicated above, has to do with policies toward highly skilled and educated immigrants in particular (like those admitted under the H-1B program), and the special visa quotas allotted to them. But as the Washington Post editorial board recently made clear, there’s a more general view that immigration is especially good at providing America with “a steady supply of working-age strivers” and that “This nation’s prosperity, pluck, ambition and effervescent character are the products of more than 100 million immigrants who have sought better lives in the United States since its founding.” In other words, immigrants are far more likely than the native-born population to possess the risk-taking and general entrepreneurial traits that lead to so much technological progress.

I’ve already debunked one aspect of these claims here, but because they keep popping up, I keep thinking more about them, and have come across more data that not only casts further doubt on the technology-related need for more immigrants, but that indicate that the immigration cheerleaders are putting the cart before the horse.

For instance, it’s widely agreed that the U.S. tech sector is considerably healthier than Germany’s. In this vein, a widely followed global innovation index issued each year by a United Nations agency ranks the former third in the world and the latter ninth. Ninth isn’t so bad, but it’s at the least curious in this regard that for decades at least, Germany has admitted many more immigrants as a share of total population than has the United States.

Indeed, in 1990 (a good starting point, since current Germany came into being with the reunification that year of the former Federal Republic that comprised the nation’s western part and the former Communist run east), Germany’s immigrant inflow of 1.256 million represented 1.59 percent of the new country’s 79.054 million inhabitants. The 1.536 million green cards awarded by the United States that year accounted for only 0.60 percent of its 252.120 million people. (My official sources for German and U.S. annual immigration totals are here and here, respectively. For population, I used the reliable Worldometers.info website.)

But maybe Germany has made up some ground on the United States during this nearly three-decade period? Not according to this study last year from the Cato Institute – one of America’s foremost supporters of much more lenient U.S. immigration policies. If you look at Figure 2, you see that in 2018, Germany was lagging the United States just about as badly in the number of patents it received in the United States (still the world’s most important market for technology) as it was in 1990.

There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that its relatively large immigration inflows have given Germany much of an edge in entrepreneurship, either. As of 2019, according to this source, Germany’s business start-up rate was less than half that of the United States.

This chart, moreover, makes clear that it’s not just the U.S.-Germany comparison that mucks up the ostensible relationship between tech prowess and entrepreneurship on the one hand, and immigration levels on the other. After all, in 2019, India’s start-up rate was also much higher than Germany’s – even though India is much better known for sending folks abroad than for attracting them. Foreigners aren’t exactly flocking to live in China, either, yet its start-up rate matches Germany’s.

That Cato Institute study provides more complicating international comparisons. That Figure 2 shows that as of 2018, Israel has forged into the lead as the country receiving the largest number of U.S. patents. And its performance started taking off in the mid-1990s. Yet in 1995, when Germany and Israel were roughly on a par in their ability to receive American patents, the 76,361 immigrants Israel admitted in 1995 equalled 1.36 percent of its population of 5.619 million – not far from relatively un-innovative Germany’s figures. By the time it became the international leader, Israel’s immigration rate had fallen to 0.32 percent of its 8.972 million population – much lower than that of Germany, which had become a clear als-ran on the U.S. patent scene – and roughly the same as the recent U.S. rate which has been decried as so woefully inadequate.

And look at the other top performers in Figure 2 other than the United States and Israel. Taiwan hasn’t been anything close to an immigration magnet, either, and ditto for South Korea. As for Japan, it’s long been known as one of the most xenophobic countries in the world (as noted in that Washington Post editorial).

What do the non-U.S. “patent tigers” identified by Cato have in common? As author Jonathan M. Barnett puts it:

“Short on consumers, resources, and labor (and saddled with geographic separation from key consumer markets), the patent tigers (especially Israel and Taiwan) were compelled to specialize in innovation-intensive segments of the global supply chain in which ingenuity, rather than labor or natural resources, conferred a competitive advantage.”

As a result, as widely agreed, they’ve worked hard to create top-notch educational systems for their own populations. German education is highly regarded, too, but it’s often observed that its history and culture in particular have discouraged self-starters.

The lessons for the United States seem pretty clear here.  On the one hand, it’s got lots of the overall population, raw materials and domestic markets that the patent tigers lack.  On the other, unlike Germany, it still enjoys an entrepreneur- and innovation-friendly culture.  If Americans did a much better job of educating their own people, especially in the math, science, and technology fields, they should be able to keep its global technology edge even while controlling immigration more tightly. 

If, however, the nation continues to coddle underperforming school systems, especially at the primary and secondary levels, the argument for relying on immigration to fill the tech gap will look all the stronger.  And in a supreme irony, the ready availability of highly skilled and educated immigrants will keep reducing national incentives to get the national education act together.      

Im-Politic: Can Biden Really Solve the “Root Causes” Behind His Border Crisis?

Tags

Biden, Border Crisis, border security, CAFTA, Central America, Central America Free Trade Agreement, Colbert I. King, Cold War, Donald Trump, El Salvador, foreign aid, George W. Bush, globalism, Guatemala, Honduras, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Jorge Castaneda, Kamala Harris, Lawence E. Harrison, migrants, Northern Triangle, race to the bottom, Trade, Washington Post

One of the time-honored practices – and myths – behind globalist U.S. foreign policies has been its faith that turmoil in various parts of the world that allegedly threatens American interests can be either eliminated or reduced to manageable levels with enough foreign aid. The idea is that such assistance will address the social and economic problems thought to be mainly to blame for the instability. So it’s no surprise that the globalist Biden administration has decided that aid programs are the keys to bringing immigration from Central America under control – though not of course right away.

As stated by Vice President Kamala Harris upon being tasked by President Biden to oversee U.S. effort to turn the counties of the region’s “Northern Triangle” into places whose populations won’t be determined to leave, the United States “must address the root causes that cause people to make the trek” northward.

That’s why I sure hope she reads Colbert I. King’s column in Tuesday’s Washington Post before she rolls up her sleeves too far. For as the author notes, the Biden administration plan to turn the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) from clearly failed states into (reasonable) success stories isn’t exactly new in its essentials.

And especially in recent years, when conditions in the region ostensibly worsened dramatically, and therefore fueled especially big migrants flows, there’s been no shortage of U.S. aid, especially considering the tiny size of the three economies.

As King details,

“Congress appropriated more than $3.6 billion to fund a Strategy for Engagement in Central America program between 2016 and 2021. The money was supposed to strengthen rule of law, improve the administration of justice, promote economic prosperity, prevent violence and combat gangs, and empower youth and women.

“>In fiscal 2021 alone, U.S. funding amounted to $505.9 million.

“>Between 2013 and 2018, The U.S. Agriculture Department allocated $407 million to Central America to provide school meals, nutritional programs for women, infants and children, and to train and provide technical assistance to improve agricultural productivity.

“>The Obama administration asked for money to help the region in fiscal 2016, and Congress appropriated $750 million, requiring the countries to improve border security, combat corruption and address human rights concerns.”

Then the author – properly – proceeds to ask “What happened to it all?” And what can the Biden administration do to make sure that the $4 billion it plans to spend in the region will work any better if Congress approves this sum?

Moreover, the case against more Central America aid as a Border Crisis game changer is actually stronger than King describes. Because Washington has not only been pouring money into the region for decades. It’s also granted these three Central American countries (and their regional neighbors) tariff cuts and other trade-related assistance aimed at enabling them to export their way to prosperity.

Indeed, as then President George W. Bush declared while lobbying for passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) – which was eventually expanded to include the Dominican Republic,

“People have got to understand that by promoting policy that will help generate wealth in Central America, we’re promoting policy that will mean someone is less–more likely to stay at home to find a job. If you’re concerned about immigration to this country, then you must understand that CAFTA and the benefits of CAFTA will help create new opportunity in Central American countries, which will mean someone will be able to find good work at home, somebody will be able to provide for their family at home, as opposed to having to make the long trip to the United States. CAFTA is good immigration policy as well as good trade policy.”

Critics can reasonably argue that these U.S. programs failed to achieve their immigration aims because they were poorly designed. On the aid front, it’s true that too much of the assistance provided by the United States during the Cold War was military or other security assistance that largely helped corrupt governments repress their own people – and fight rebels labeled as tools of the Soviet Union and Cuba.

When it comes to trade, globalist U.S. Presidents did Central America no favors, either. For CAFTA simply plunged the region into a frantic race to the bottom in wages and worker safety that had been sparked by the decision to free up trade indiscriminately with all the very low-income countries (including China, India, and Bangladesh) that also produced the apparel products that have represented Central America’s best hope for prospering via globalization.

At the same time, significant U.S. assistance for Central America continued after the Cold War’s end, and more was targeted at economic development. And the Biden administration has said nothing about U.S. trade policy reforms that actually would give the Northern Triangle – or the rest of Central America for that matter, or Mexico – major legs up on non-Western Hemisphere competitors.

All of which could support the conclusion that no amount of aid or trade breaks can make Central America successful. A globalist administration will be particularly loathe to accept this admittedly depressing proposition, but there’s abundant evidence in its favor. The work of development economist Lawrence E. Harrison, to cite one leading example, has compellingly argued that some counties – and entire regions – simply don’t have what it takes to achieve economic success because of the cultures they’ve evolved.

At the same time, as my friend – and noted political scientist and former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda – has argued, the Central American economies are so small that enough smartly spent U.S. money might be able to overcome even these deep-rooted obstacles.

I can’t say that I know the answer. But the analyses of King, Harrison, and Castaneda all point to the overarching conclusion that the kind of business-as-usual version of the address-the-root-causes of Central America’s failings being contemplated by the Biden administration can’t possibly stem the migrant flow. Moreover, until genuinely promising plans are developed, there will be no substitute for re-securing the border by reinstating the type of Trump-ian controls that minimize the strength of the U.S. magnets that influence migrant flows as surely as the problems of sending countries.

 

Im-Politic: Texas-Sized Goofs from the Experts on the Lockdowns

Tags

Anthony S. Fauci, Biden, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, facemasks, Im-Politic, lockdowns, mask mandate, masks, Mississippi, reopening, social distancing, Texas, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

This is getting embarrassingly easy. The so-called experts along with control freak politicians keep making apocalyptic predictions about decisions at any level of government in the United States to relax CCP Virus-related curbs on personal behavior and business activity. And they keep getting it laughably wrong. The latest example: Texas’ decisions last month to reopen its economy fully and lift its state-wide mask mandate, both effective March 10, and similar announcements by Mississippi effective March 3.

The blowback was swift and harsh. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, longtime director of the federal government’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief medical adviser, on March 3 attacked the moves as “quite risky.” And citing a recent plateauing of new infections in both states, added “That’s a dangerous sign because when that has happened in the past, when you pull back on measures of public health, invariably you’ve seen a surge back up.”

Mr. Biden was much blunter, contending on the same day that both states were making “a big mistake” that stemmed from “Neanderthal thinking.”

Well now it’s a little more than a month later and it sure looks like the know-nothings are in Washington, D.C. As of yesterday, according to the Washington Post‘s virus tracker, the seven-day average of daily new reported cases in Texas is down by 40.60 percent since March 10, and in Mississippi it’s plunged by 61.37 percent since March 3.

Even more revealing, while reported infections in these troglodyte states were sinking, guess what happened to reported cases nationally? Between March 3 and yesterday, the seven-day new infections average rose by two percent. And needless to say, this nation-wide figure includes many states that have retained mask mandates and other extensive behavior and economic curbs.

By the way, I’m fully aware that case numbers are a deeply flawed measure of pandemic spread and progress against it, due to flaws in states’ reporting systems, varying definitions of “case,” the undoubtedly large numbers of asymptomatic infections throughout the country, and now, surging numbers of vaccinations. I’m also aware that we’re now dealing with different strains of the virus with differing degrees of virulence.

But reported new infections are one of measures emphasized by Fauci in particular. And it seems safe to assume that he and the President know about the different strains. So live analytically by the chosen statistic, and die by it.

I’m also aware that neither Texas nor Mississippi was turning its back totally on the mitigation measures stressed by the Feds. For example, the former exempted areas “with high hospitalizations,” and those counties are entirely free to retain or impose significant restrictions. And businesses all over the state can still require mask-wearing and other hygiene measures.

Mississippi also still mandates mask-wearing where its not possible to follow its remaining social distancing rules (which are still noteworthy, especially in schools and for their extracurricular activities – including sporting events – at all levels, from kindergarten through university). Further, counties and municipalities are fully free to adopt stricter rules if they wish except for businesses providing essential services.

But Fauci and the President surely read the actual Texas and Mississippi executive orders – didn’t they?

It’s entirely possible that in the coming days and weeks, states that start or keep easing anti-virus mandates of all kinds will see rising case numbers. In fact, that appears to be the situation in Michigan now – even though its rules are still pretty restrictive. But actually, that’s the point. If comparable masks and lockdowns etc policies and comparable policy changes are producing dramatically different results, then clearly something, or some things, other than these restrictions and their status are mainly responsible. And recognizing this logic is crucial given that the economic curbs haven’t exactly been cost-free either in terms of the economy or public health.

For the time being, though, there’s one dimension of the CCP Virus story that seems firmly established. For the experts and the political leaders who profess to be simply “following the science” on pandemic forecasts, being whoppingly off-base means never having to say you’re sorry.

Im-Politic: A Trifecta (& Not in a Good Way) for the Washington Post

Tags

alliances, allies, benefits, contract workers, education, foreign policy, geopolitics, globalism, globalization, Jobs, Mainstream Media, manufacturing, media bias, MSM, national security, NATO, North Atlantic Treat Organization, remote learning, reopening, schools, teachers, teachers unions, temporary jobs, Trade, wages, Washington Post, Zoom

At 11:30 yesterday morning, when I sat down for my typical Sunday brunch at home (where else these days?), I had no idea what I’d blog about today. At 11:35, after perusing the Washington Post Outlook section, I had no fewer than three ideas, each of which focused on an article simultaneously whacko and emblematic of key Mainstream Media and broader establishment biases. Ultimately, I decided that they were all so inane and representative that a single post briefly examining each would suffice to get the message across.

First catching my eye was a proposal by Seton Hall University political scientist Sara Bjerg Moller that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “reorienting” its focus to add countering the rise of China to its list of missions, and even designating it the top priority. One obvious retort is that the European members of this alliance binding America’s own national security to that of the continent is that during the Cold War, when they readily acknowledged the threat posed by the old Soviet Union, these European members collectively never even mustered the will to provide adequately for their own defense even when they became wealthy enough to create such militaries.

They preferred to free ride on the United States instead – which perversely enabled this behavior by sticking hundreds of thousands of its own troops – and their dependents – in harm’s way, smack in the middle of the likeliest Soviet invasion roots. The idea was that since these units couldn’t possibly match the conventional armes of their Soviets and their East European satellite states, once the shooting started, their vulnerability and indeed impending destruction would leave a U.S. President no real choice but to use nuclear weapons to save them. The odds that the conflict would escalate to the all-out nuclear exchange level that would endanger the Soviet homeland itself was suppsed to keep Moscow at bay to begin with. (And if you think this sounds exactly like the U.S. “tripwire” strategy for defending South Korea that I just wrote about here, you’re absolutely right.)

As with the Korea approach, Washington’s NATO Europe strategy needlessly exposes the continental United States to the risk of nuclear attack because wealthy allies skimp on their own defense spending, but that’s not the main problem with Moller’s article. After all, if the Europeans never mobilized enough resources to prevail over a Soviet threat located right on their doorstep – and a Russian threat that presumably still exists today, since the alliance didn’t disband once Communism fell – why would they answer a call to arms against a danger that’s half a world away from them. And even if they agreed with the United States on the imperative of containing Beijing, why wouldn’t they simply repeat their free-riding strategy, which arguably would allow them once more to reap all the benefits of America’s efforts without incurring any of the costs or risks?

But weirdest of all, the author herself admits that Europe remains far from a new anti-China European mindset. In her own words:

“Regrettably, as with Russia [today], Europe is divided over how to deal with China. Many European allies are wary of picking sides in the struggle for influence between the United States and its Asian rival. Some, like Germany, even appear outright resentful at the suggestion that they must choose. German Chancellor Angela Merkel rushed last year to conclude the E.U.-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment — even though the incoming U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had strongly signaled that Europe should wait till Biden’s inauguration.”

Don’t get me wrong: It would be great if the Europeans were ready and willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States against China. But they’re not today, and a heavy burden of proof rests with those arguing that this common front is even remotely possible for the foreseeable future, much less that the United States should spend much time trying to create one. So I’ve got to think that this article was run simply because the relentlessly globalist and therefore alliance-fetishizing Washington Post believes that wishing for (and hyping the prospects of) something can make it so.

The second item is actually a pair of Outlook articles this morning. Their theme – and I could scarcely believe my eyes: Everyone’s overlooking all the advantages that remote learning can create! In other words, for months, national dismay has been growing that conducting classes by Zoom etc at all educational levels has been at best completely inadequate and at worst could permanently scar both the educational attainment and the psyches of the a generation of American students. As warned by none other than President Biden:

“Today, an entire generation of young people is on the brink of being set back up to a year or more in their learning. We are already seeing rising mental health concerns due in part to isolation. Educational disparities that have always existed grow wider each day that our schools remain closed and remote learning isn’t the same for every student.” 

But it’s also clear that the President is loathe to antagonize politically powerful teachers’ unions, which have acted determined to keep schools closed unless a wildly ambitious – not to mention medically unnecessary – set of demands have been met. Largely as a result, all the evidence indicates that a large share of American students still aren’t back in class in person full time (although the hesitation of many parents is partly responsible, too).

It’s just as clear, though, that the Post as an institution, like the rest of the Mainstream Media, is wildly enthusiastic about Mr. Biden. So even though the editorial board has upbraided the unions for their foot-dragging, the Outlook section is run by a different staff and, call me paranoid, I can’t help but suspect that yeserday’s two pieces – by an “author and educator in Boston” and a college professor – aren’t part of an effort to pave the ground for a school re-closing if the CCP Virus shows signs of a comeback.

After all, the articles were dominated by claims to the effect that one author’s Zooming this semester is “light-years better than the last;” that his teaching is “radically improved” since then;  that “if remote learning has been good for one thing, it has closed that gap between authoritative teacher and abiding student”; and presumably best of all, “I used to invest a lot of importance in arbitrary deadlines and make-or-break exams to establish high academic standards. These days, I’ve let go of many of my old notions about penalties for late or missing work.”

It would be one thing – and indeed noteworthy – if these alleged developments were broadly, or increasingly, representative of the American educational scene today.  But the Outlook editors provided no such insights, and if these reported experiences have been exceptions to the rule – as the evidence overwhelmingly concludes – what else could they been trying to accomplish by airing them but soft-pedaling the harm resulting from mass remote teaching?   

The third Outlook item that set me off today was an article by a Washington University (St. Louis) sociologist that included a challenge to the claim that “Manufacturing jobs are the ‘good’ jobs.” The reason? “Unlike in the past, typical pay for these workers is now below the national average” and “the rise of temporary and contract work is a factor….” Moreover, “Not all [such jobs] were offshored or automated, it turns out. Many were just reclassified — downgraded into worse jobs.”

Sure, author Jake Rosenfeld didn’t devote a lot of space to the subject. But he definitely should have devoted more, because what he omitted was critical. For example, it’s true that overall private sector average hourly wages now exceed those for manufacturing, whether you’re talking about the total workforce or just the production/non-supervisory workforce.

But the changeover is pretty recent. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the former, it came in 2019; for the latter, in 2006. Moreover, a 2018 Economic Policy Institute study found that although manufacturing’s wage premium (its edge over the rest of the private sector) indeed eroded between the mid-1980s and 2017, the benefits premium actually increased. That’s a finding hard to square with the idea that temporary workers are increasingly dominating manufacturing payrolls.

Further, the idea that offshoring in particular has nothing to do with what growing popularity temps have had with manufacturers can’t withstand serious scrutiny. Or does Rosenfeld believe that super-low-wage pressure from countries like China is unrelated to U.S. workers’ declining bargaining power even when production and jobs aren’t actually sent overseas?

At the same time, efforts to downplay U.S. trade policy’s effects on manufacturing are incredibly convenient for a news organization that, like so many of its peers, enthusiastically backed the pre-Trump administration trade decisions that decimated U.S.-based manufacturing and its employees for decades – and still does.

Despite the expression, “Three strikes, you’re out,” I’m not going to stop reading the Post Outlook section or the rest of the paper. Both are just too influential. But no one should assume that the number of whiffs in yesterday’s paper was limited to three, or that other editions in recent years have been much better. And I do find myself wondering just how many strikes per day I’m going to give this once venerable publication.

Im-Politic: Unwitting Evidence that Criminal Justice Racism Hasn’t Been Systemic Lately

Tags

criminal justice, Ekow Yankah, Im-Politic, incarceration, Keith Humphreys, police, police brutality, policing, prison reform, racism, systemic racism, Washington Post

It’s hard to imagine anything more ordinary in the national media these days than an item making or reporting the claim that the American criminal justice system is plagued with systemic racism. Much harder to imagine: such an article containing evidence powerfully refuting that charge. But that’s exactly what appeared in the Washington Post Outlook section today.

Authors Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University narcotics policy specialist and Ekow N. Yankah, a law professor at New York City’s Yeshiva University tell readers near the beginning of their essay that “the criminal justice system is suffused with racial biases that harm African Americans and Hispanics while favoring Whites.”

They go on to deplore “continuing, pervasive discrimination against African Americans in the criminal justice system and huge disparities in incarceration.” They note that “Blacks…are five times more likely to be imprisoned than Whites.” And they insist that “Race-based critiques of mass incarceration remain essential….”

But weirdly, what the authors themselves recognize as new and important in the national debate about race relations and law enforcement is the official research they report that in jails, which are operated mainly by local governments, “since 2000, the rate of being jailed increased 41 percent among Whites while declining 22 percent among African Americans.”

Further, “Beginning in 2017, the White rate of being jailed surpassed that of Hispanics for the first time in living memory. And in 2018, Whites became 50 percent of the jail population, particularly notable because Whites represent a lower proportion of the U.S. population than they have in centuries.”

As for prisons, which are operated by the states and the federal government, “parallel racial dynamics are evident. The White rate of imprisonment is down only 12 percent in this century, whereas the Hispanic rate has fallen 18 percent and the Black rate is down a remarkable 40 percent. The trend of African Americans leaving prison is accelerating, dropping Black imprisonment rates to levels not seen in 30 years.”

These statistics, remarkable – and neglected – as they are, by no means prove conclusively that racism isn’t too common in American law enforcement, at every level. Indeed, as I wrote last August:

“My own personal conversations with black friends have helped convince me (despite my deep mistrust of the evidentiary value of anecdotes) that there is a tendency on the part of a non-negligible number of police officers across the country to view African American men in particular with special suspicion, and to act on these suspicions. South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott’s alleged experiences in this respect carry weight with me, too.”

There’s also no shortage of statistical evidence pointing to discriminatory policing and sentencing.

But at or close to the heart of the systemic criminal justice racism charges is the insistence that America’s police and prosecutors and courts consistently and on a national level, all else equal, go after and actually lock up more blacks (and other minorities) than whites. And authors Humphreys and Yankah have made clear – unwittingly, it seems – that

>the exact opposite has been happening;

>that it’s been happening for at least two decades; and

>it continued even after the election as President of one Donald J. Trump, who has not only often been called one of America’s most racist chief executives (including by no less than current President Biden), but whose bigotry is widely supposed to have inspired ever more brazen and terrible brutality by racist cops.

In other words, the data that’s arguably most important show that whatever racism has stained American law enforcement is fading away. If true, hopefully reports describing and amplifying that encouraging trend will become commonplace in the national media, too.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Free Trade Bolsters Security…Except When it Counts?

Tags

CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, export bans, free trade, Glad I Didn't Say That!, health security, medical devices, national security, PPE, protectionism, supply chain, The Washington Post, Trade, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

“Mutually beneficial exchange among countries,

conducted freely within a legal framework, is the path to

maximum security, economic and strategic. Autarky, by

contrast, is a dead end.” 

 

– The Washington Post, February 25, 2021

 

“As demand soared for masks and gloves, more than 100

countries and territories imposed export restrictions on

coronavirus-fighting essentials, according to the

International Trade Center.”

 

– The Washington Post, February 10, 2021

 

(Sources:  “America needs to shore up its supply chains. That shouldn’t become an excuse for protectionism,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, February 25, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/biden-trade-supply-chain-protectionism/2021/02/25/3dd0a164-7787-11eb-948d-19472e683521_story.html and “Trump  tried to block her. Now Ngozi-Iweala is about to make history,” by Danielle Paquette and David J. Lynch, ibid., February 10, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/ngozi-okonjo-iweala-wto/2021/02/09/99e3b028-67eb-11eb-bab8-707f8769d785_story.html) 

 

 

 

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Sorry, but Little Evidence Yet That Trump-onomics Left Blacks Behind

Tags

African Americans, Barack Obama, Biden, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Donald Trump, Economic Policy Institute, Federal Reserve, Labor Department, Labor Force Participation Rate, median household income, median weekly earnings, racial economic justice, racial wealth gap, systemic racism, Tracy Jan, unemployment rate, Washington Post, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

No one should be surprised, much less outraged, if President Biden spends the next year – or four! – blaming the Trump administration for every problem that remains with or emerges in the American economy, or any other dimension of national life. After all, problems do linger from presidency to presidency, and at least as important, it’s the politically expedient road to take — as much history shows.

Less justifiable are journalistic displays of such behavior. But if Tracy Jan’s January 22 Washington Post piece on African Americans and the economy is any indication, not only are four more years of blame-casting in store, but four more years of whoppingly inaccurate and indeed one-sided blame-casting are in store.

Actually, Jan’s article isn’t quite as slanted as the headline, which proclaims “The Trump Economy Left Black Americans Behind.” Readers are told right off the bat, for example, that racial economic gaps have persisted for decades, and that consequently “many black voters” have been “skeptical of the Democratic Party to represent their interests.” The author adds that “unemployment rates for Black people were at a historic low before the coronavirus shutdown, as Trump frequently reminded voters.”

But her dominant themes are that the CCP Virus pandemic has hit black America much harder economically than white, that therefore racial economic disparities have widened during the pandemic, that Trump’s mismanagement of the response was to blame, and that this CCP Virus period failure is enough to warrant labeling his entire term in office a racial economic justice flop.

I’d grade that first claim as largely accurate, as made clear by the impressive evidence Jan cites; the second claim as largely accurate, too; the third claim as more controversial, since it assumes that another President would have fared much better; and the fourth a wild stretch at best.

In fact, even if it is kosher to view 2020 developments as decisive in evaluating the Trump racial economic justice record, and the full range of policies that produced it, it’s important to note that two key indicators showed that the racial economic gap actually narrowed last year – median weekly earnings of full-time workers, and the headline unemployment rate.

Here are the (Labor Department) data for the former, going back to 2009 – the start of the Obama administration, which hasn’t been accused of having a particularly poor racial economic justice record. The numbers are in pre-inflation dollars, and because they come out quarterly, it’s possible to present the figures for the beginnings and ends of the Obama and Trump administrations, and for the CCP Virus period specifically. The ratios between the two are shown as well. 

                               non-hispanic white     non-hispanic black ratio     white-black

2Q 2009:                          757                                 592                             1.28:1

1Q 2017:                          894                                 679                             1.32:1

2Q 2017:                          886                                 689                             1.29:1

1Q 2020:                          980                                 775                             1.26:1

4Q 2020:                       1,007                                 792                             1.27:1

As made clear by the ratio numbers, even counting the pandemic period, weekly pay for the typical black full-time worker rose at a faster rate during the one Trump term than during the two Obama terms. Indeed, during the Obama presidency, the typical black full-time worker fell further behind his or her white counterpart. And between the final pre-virus period last year (the first quarter of 2020) and the final quarter of the year, the gap widened minimally.

The headline unemployment rates that come out monthly (also from the Labor Department) permit an even more precise comparison of the Obama and Trump records, and of the Trump record during the CCP Virus period. And as made clear below, the story they tell (including the ratios presented in the right hand column) isn’t terribly different from that of the weekly pay figures.

                               non-hispanic white     non-hispanic black     white-black

Feb. 09:                              7.6                            13.7                       0.55:1

Jan. 17:                               4.2                             7.4                        0.57:1

Feb. 17:                              4.0                             8.0                        0.50:1

Feb. 20:                              3.5                             6.0                        0.58:1

Dec. 20:                             6.0                             9.9                        0.60:1

The white headline unemployment rate started the Obama years – as the last, post-financial crisis Great Recession was still worsening – at only 55 percent of the rate for blacks. By the final month of his tenure, the white rate had risen to 57 percent of the black rate, meaning that the gap had narrowed slightly. It narrowed significantly faster during the pre-pandemic Trump years, sinces during the former President’s first full month in office, the white rate stood at half the black rate, and hit 58 percent last February, the final full pre-virus month). During the pandemic in 2020, the white-black ratio narrowed even further.

Jan’s narrative is much stronger for data called the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR), which gives a more accurate picture of the national employment scene because it reveals and takes into account how many adult Americans have become so discouraged in their search for work that they’ve just given up. The higher the LFPR (also tracked by the Labor Department), the fewer the number of these discouraged workers and vice versa.

                              non-hispanic white     non-hispanic black    white-black

Feb. 09:                            66.2                            62.9                     1.05:1

Jan. 17:                             62.8                            62.2                     1.01:1

Feb. 17:                            62.8                            62.2                     1.01:1

Feb. 20:                            63.2                            63.1                     1.00:1

Dec. 20:                           61.6                            59.8                      1.03:1

These statistics are released monthly (as part of the overall jobs reports) and, as you can see, tend to change only very slowly. But as shown by the dramatic (by these standards) LFPR drop for blacks, the pandemic period has been a stunning exception to the detriment of African Americans. Until then, though, the Obama and Trump results weren’t notably different, especially considering that the former was President twice as long as the latter.

Lots of other relevant statistics only go through 2019, and they don’t exactly scream “Trump failure,” either. Check out one dataset that’s attracted special, and deserved attention – the racial wealth gap. As noted by two other Post writers last year, “More wealth makes for more a comfortable, safer living. And, more importantly, it is passed on to the next generation. Their parents’ wealth gives many white children a boost at birth, an advantage many of their black peers lack.” And my post on the subject at that time expressed full agreement.

The official wealth gap figures come from the Federal Reserve, and are issued only every three years. But since last June (when I first reported on them), we’ve gotten the results (for median households in inflation-adjusted dollars) for 2019. As shown below, they report that although the Obama years saw considerable backsliding, the Trump years showed even greater progress in narrowing disparities:

                               non-hispanic white     non-hispanic black     white-black 

2010:                               144.3                              17.6                    8.20:1

2013:                               146.4                              13.6                  10.76:1

2016:                               181.9                              18.2                    9.99:1

2019:                               188.2                              24.1                    7.81:1

By contrast, the after-inflation dollar median household income numbers (which measure what’s earned each year versus what’s owned in toto) show pre-virus backsliding under Trump. (Here I’m using Labor Department figures as presented by the Economic Policy Institute — definitely a part of “MAGA World” — because they take into account some recent methodological changes made by the Labor Department.)  

                              non-hispanic white     non-hispanic black     white-to-black

2009:                             67,352                         40,231                      1.67:1

2016:                             69,292                         42,684                      1.62:1

2019:                             76,057                         46,073                      1.65:1

Biden has four years to show his racial economic justice stuff, and all Americans should hope that he makes further progress. But where Jan (and so many others) seem to be expecting a major improvement over his predecessors’ record, it seems just as legitimate to wonder if he’ll wind up matching it – even after the results for CCP Virus-ridden 2020 are in.

Im-Politic: Signs That The Mob is Starting to Rule

Tags

cancel culture, Chicago, Christopher Columbus, Confederate monuments, Connecticut, election 2020, freedom of the press, history wars, ImPolitic, Nelson Lee, peaceful protests, press freedom, protests, public safety, Seattle, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Times, shield laws, Ulysses S. Grant, violence, Washington Post

The next time you hear or read that the vast majority of protests during these turbulent times in America are peaceful (which will surely be within the next five minutes if you’re a news follower), keep in mind this pair of developments. They give me the willies and should so unnerve you, even if you (like me) believe that the vast majority of the protests have indeed been peaceful.

The first matters because it makes clear as can be that some of the protest groups contain individuals who make the cohort of brazen looters that’s emerged in so many violence-wracked cities look nearly harmless. What else can be reasonably concluded from this Washington Post account (yes, the same Washington Post whose journalism I slammed yesterday) of a court case in Seattle dealing with whether news organizations in the city could be ordered to turn over to the Seattle Police Department photos and video their staffers had taken of protesters who had “smashed windows, set police cars on fire, and looted businesses.” The cops’ intent – use this material to find the perpetrators and arrest them.

I was hugely relieved to read that the judge presiding over the case did rule that most of the material (all unpublished or posted) must be provided. But I was aghast at the reason given for the news organizations’ resistance. The Seattle Times, for its part, did cite freedom of the press concerns – involving Washington State’s shield laws, which entitle news organizations to protect source materials. These laws, which in various forms are practically universal throughout the United States, are indeed essential for enabling journalists to secure information that governments would rather keep secret for self-serving reasons.

The Times also made the reasonable (though in this case, not necessarily dispositive) claim that such cooperating with the police would put its credibility at risk. As contended by Executive Editor Michele Matassa Flores:

“The media exist in large part to hold governments, including law enforcement agencies, accountable to the public. We don’t work in concert with government, and it’s important to our credibility and effectiveness to retain our independence from those we cover.”

But these weren’t the only reasons cited by the paper. In an affidavit, Times Assistant Managing Editor Danny Gawlowski attested “The perception that a journalist might be collaborating with police or other public officials poses a very real, physical danger to journalists, particularly when they are covering protests or civil unrest.”

Moreover, Gawlowski stated, this danger wasn’t hypothetical. It had already happened. According to the Post‘s summary of his affidavit;

“The request could significantly harm journalists, the Times argued, at a time when reporters already face violence and distrust from protesters. One Times photographer was hit in the head with a rock thrown by a protester and punched in the face by another demonstrator.”

In other words, the Seattle Times, anyway, wanted to refuse to help law enforcement protect public safety because at least in part it was afraid that some protesters might attack them even more violently than they already had.

That sure sounds like intimidation to me, and successful intimidation at that. And even though the judge thankfully ordered substantial (though not full) cooperation, who’s to say that the Times won’t pull its protests coverage punches anyway? Even more important, what if violence-prone protesters elsewhere in the country read about this case, try to strong-arm local or national news media, too, and succeed? And what if not every judge holds the same priorities as Seattle’s Nelson Lee? Talk about a danger to democratic norms – as well as public safety.

The second development concerns decisions by governments in at least two parts of the country to take down controversial statues – a major front in the nation’s history wars. Don’t get me wrong: Elected authorities removing these monuments is sure better than unelected mobs toppling or defacing them – as long as these actions follow legitimate procedures and aren’t arbitrary. And as I’ve written repeatedly, in the case of Confederate monuments, it’s usually not only completely justified, but long overdue.

But in these cases, it’s the rationale for these actions that’s deeply disturbing. In both Connecticut and in Chicago, statues of Christopher Columbus and former President and Civil War Union supreme Union commander Ulysses S. Grant, respectively, were removed (as Windy City Mayor Lori Lightfoot explained her reasoning) “in response to demonstrations that became unsafe for both protesters and police, as well as efforts by individuals to independently pull the Grant Park statue down in an extremely dangerous manner.”

Translation: “I was afraid of the mob. And I decided to let them win.” No better definition could be found of the kind of appeasement that only spurs further violence. And no more important challenge will confront the President and candidates for Congress who will be elected or reelected in November. 

Im-Politic: A Cracked Mainstream Media Window on Reality

Tags

American Revolution, Black Lives Matter, Chicago, China, Colonials, crime, election 2020, Elise Viebeck, George Washington University, history wars, human rights, Im-Politic, J. William Fulbright, James Madison, James Monroe, Jerry Brewer, journalism, Lauren Lumpkin, law and order, law enforcement, Lori Lightfoot, Los Angeles Lakers, mail-in ballots, Mainstream Media, Matt Zapotosky, Out of My Window, Robert Costa, sports journalism, Trump, voter fraud, voting by mail, Washington Post, Winston Churchill, wokeness

When I was very little, one of my favorite books was a new volume from the Little Golden Books series called Out of My Window. It came out when I was a toddler, and although my mother wasn’t an education Tiger Mom determined to teach me to read before kindergarten or first grade, it became clear to Adult Me (and maybe Teenage Me?) that she did use it to build up my vocabulary.

Author Alice Low’s plot was pretty straightforward. She described a typical day for a young girl not much older than Toddler Me looking out the window of her house and ticking off everything visible from that perch: a tree, the house across the street, a dog, a parked car, a neighbor walking by – even an airplane flying overhead. You get the idea. And along the way, while being read to, small children were supposed to start associating images with the relevant spoken word they heard. It was probably a great reading aid, too, once my formal education began.

I start off with this brief nostalgia trip because the Washington Post print edition that arrives at my home every morning is supposed to be a one of my windows out on the world. And today’s paper – as is often the case – is worth reviewing because it’s such a vivid reminder of how cracked, and in fact, distorted the pane of glass provided by this Mainstream Media mainstay so often is.

I still start off each day with the Sports section, truncated and, frankly, depressing, as it is. And on the front page what did I see but columnist Jerry Brewer – who’s overall a pretty sensible type – reporting that

“After George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody, the Los Angeles Lakers [U.S. pro basketball team] made a declaration that speaks for how most players in sports — especially those in predominantly black leagues — feel: “If YOU ain’t wit US, WE ain’t wit Y’ALL!”

Nothing from him, or apparently from the Lakers, elaborating on what “wit US” means. Are the players (and coaches? and management?) telling me and other basketball fans that I need to support the full agendas of Black Lives Matter movements? Police defunding efforts? Defacing or unlawful pulldowns of all supposedly offensive statues? Moreover, what about issues that it seems no one asssociated with the Lakers is “wit”? Like the massive oppression of human rights by China, a market that’s been immensely profitable for the entire franchise.

And finally, what do the Lakers mean when they say “WE ain’t wit Y’ALL”? Will fans need to pass a political litmus test before they’re permitted to attend games once post-CCP Virus normality returns? For the time being, do the Lakers want to prevent anyone “who ain’t wit THEM ALL” from watching or listening to their games once they’re broadcast? Are they to be forbidden to purchase Laker gear? So many questions. And never even asked, much less answered, by Brewer. Maybe tomorrow?

Next I turn to the main news section.  Today’s lede story is headlined “Trump stirs fear he won’t accept an election loss.” The President’s recent statements to this effect are undeniably newsworthy. But did the article, by supposedly straight news reporters Elise Viebeck and Robert Costa tell a straight story? Grounds for skepticism include their decision to award the first color quote to a long-time Clinton-ite think tanker, to write of Mr. Trump “seizing” on “the shift to absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic” – as if this development raised no legitimate questions about voter fraud – and to turn somersaults trying to avoid flatly acknowledging that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore did indeed challenge the decisive Florida results in the 2000 election, not to mention their failure to note that all manner of Democrats and many other Americans have spent the better part of the last three years trying (and failing) to prove that the President’s own election was illegitimate because of interference from Russia with which the Trump campaign colluded.

Nor did tendentious front-page reporting end there. Post headline writers also told me that the President is “framing” his recently announced law enforcement operations in major cities as a “crime-fighting tactic.” And although headlines sometimes don’t perform swimmingly in capturing the essence of what reporters are trying to convey, this wasn’t one of those times, as reporter Matt Zapotosky began his story with “President Trump announced Wednesday that he is sending more federal law enforcement agents into Chicago and Albuquerque, casting the effort as one meant to help fight crime while delivering a speech that appeared designed to score political points against Democratic leaders and burnish his law-and-order image.”

In other words, according to Zapotosky (and his editors, it must always be noted), we live in a world where politicians who claim that the dispatch of federal agents to areas where crimes are unmistakably being committed, and whose own political leaders (e.g., Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot) have – after a burst of posturing –  declared that they welcome a federal presence, bear the burden of proof that these actions actually are intended to fight these crimes. Even if you’re a Trump hater, you’ve got to admit that this is downright Orwellian.

Sometime, however, the front page coverage is downright incoherent. Thus the headline for the companion piece to Zapotosky’s proclaimed “Right’s Depictions of push for ‘law and order’ boost Trump – for now.” But do you know how much evidence the article contained for this declaration? Try “none.” Maybe that’s why the header on the “break” portion of the article (the part that continues on an inside page) was “Trump’s effort to ‘dominate’ cities risks bipartisan backlash.” Is everyone clear on that?

For the longest time, this native New Yorker ignored the Post‘s Metro section – because for many years after moving to the D.C. area, I clung to the hope of returning home, and saw no point in following local news. But since I’ve come to terms with my geographic exile, I’m now a Metro regular reader, and this morning was especially struck by the Post‘s report of the latest developments in George Washington University’s ongoing debate as to whether the school should drop “Colonials” as its mascot and erase the term from the numerous buildings on campus using the name.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, some of the anti-Colonials sentiment stems from the fact that the many of the American colonists held the racist views regarding black slaves and native Americans all too common (and even prevalent) among whites during the late 18^th century. But although reporter Lauren Lumpkin amply described this reasoning in the third paragraph of the article, nowhere was it mentioned that “Colonials” is also how the American colonists who decided to rebel against British authority have long been routinely described – especially in accounts of the American Revolution before independence was declared. After all, during those years, there literally was no United States of America. Indeed, if you Google “colonial forces” and “American Revolution,” you come up with more than 61,000 entries.

So although, as just mentioned, many and even most of the colonists held offensive views on race, there’s no evidence that the name “Colonials” has been intended to honor or even normalize those attitudes.

I’d like to close on the optimistic note that Lumpkin (and her editors) did bother to note that “The histories of” the men whose names some members of the George Washington community also want to expunge from the university’s physical footprint “are complex.” These include former U.S. Presidents James Madison and James Monroe, 20^th century Arkanas Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, and Winston Churchill (who I trust I don’t have to describe).

I just wish that Lumpkin’s efforts to provide perspective were a little less threadbare than noting that Fulbright “championed international exchange and education” (ignoring his early and influential opposition to the Vietnam War) and that Churchill “helped steer his country through World War II” – if only because it’s all too possible that many of George Washington University’s and other name-changers don’t know their full stories.

I won’t include here any criticism of the Post‘s editorials or opinion columnists here because opinion-ating is the job of these offerings, they make no bones about it, and no thinking reader could possibly view them as transmitters of straight news. (I mentioned sports columnist Brewer just because I’m so sick and tired of the politicization of sports in general lately, and because I really do read it first – so it makes a special impression on me. If you believe that’s not very sound analytially, you could be right.)

But the paper’s hard news coverage needs to provide a much less varnished picture for its readers. In the meantime, I’ll be grateful that I haven’t yet seen any sign that a Woke version of Out of My Window has come out. Yet.

Im-Politic: What Even Barr Has Missed About the China Threat

Tags

Center for Strategic and International Studies, China, idea laundering, Im-Politic, Jeanne Whalen, lobbying, Mary E. Lovely, multinational corporations, offshoring, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Scott Kennedy, Steven Zeitchik, think tanks, Trump, Washington Post, William P. Barr

As masterly as Attorney General William P. Barr’s Thursday speech about China’s sweeping “whole-of-society” challenge to the United States was – and “masterly” is an entirely fitting description – it still missed one key danger that’s been created by big Americans businesses’ determination to advance China’s agenda. And conveniently, the nature and importance of this danger was (unwittingly, to be sure) made clear by the Washington Post‘s coverage of Barr’s alarm bell-ringing.

The Attorney General’s address was unquestionably a landmark – and a badly needed one – in the history of U.S.-China relations. The decisive break of course was Donald Trump’s election as President. For decades, American administrations had permitted and even encouraged U.S. multinational corporations and their recklessly shortsighted offshoring- and tech transfer-happy agenda to dominate policymaking toward China. (See here for the Bill Clinton-era origins of this approach.) Sometimes raggedly to be sure, the Trump administration has been reversing decisions that had exponentially increased China’s wealth and therefore military to the detriment of U.S. prosperity and national security.

But Barr’s speech indicates the launch of a new phase in this America First strategy – not only spotlighting corporate activities that keep endangering America, but naming and shaming some of the leading perps.

Especially important was the warning about Chinese leaders “and their proxies reaching out to corporate leaders and inveighing them to favor policies and actions favored by the Chinese Communist Party.” As Barr explained:

“Privately pressuring or courting American corporate leaders to promote policies (or politicians) presents a significant threat, because hiding behind American voices allows the Chinese government to elevate its influence and put a “friendly face” on pro-regime policies.  The legislator or policymaker who hears from a fellow American is properly more sympathetic to that constituent than to a foreigner.  And by masking its participation in our political process, the PRC avoids accountability for its influence efforts and the public outcry that might result, if its lobbying were exposed.”

In other words, Barr was talking about a form of “idea laundering” – the practice of pushing proposals that would benefit special interests first and foremost in ways meant to disguise their source of sponsorship and funding.

I identified one variety of idea laundering way back in 2006 – when I testified to Congress about how prevalent it had become for these offshoring-happy multinationals to pay think tanks to create the illusion that their self-serving objectives were also strongly supported by disinterested experts solely dedicated to truth-seeking. Barr has now pointed out that the multinational executives who have been funding idea laundering through think tank studies and op-eds and the like have also begun serving themselves as lobbyists-on-the-sly for China. In addition, he usefully warned them that they risk running afoul of U.S. laws requiring transparency from any individual or entity shilling for foreign interests.

But I wish Barr had mentioned the think tank version of idea laundering because a reminder of its perils came the day after he spoke, in the form of that Post coverage. Reporters Jeanne Whalen and Steven Zeitchik described and cited verbatim most of Barr’s indictment of corporate behavior. They rightly sought and received reactions from some of the companies fingered (Apple and Disney).

But then they played into the hands of the idea launderers when they claimed that “The attorney general’s warnings drew criticism from some economists, who said he at times exaggerated the threat China poses and downplayed benefits American industry has gained by trading with China….”

That’s surely the case, but the two individuals whose views the Post presented were hardly just any old economists. In fact, one – Scott Kennedy – isn’t even an economist, in the sense that he holds no academic degree in economics. Far more important, though, is that both of these authorities work for and get paid by think tanks that are heavily funded by offshoring multinationals – the Center for Strategic and International Studies (which employs Kennedy) in the academic-y-sounding position of “Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics” and Mary E. Lovely, who is an economist (at Syracuse University) but who’s also a (academic-y-sounding) “Senior Fellow” at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Moreover, it’s crucial to note that both the Center for Strategic Studies and the Peterson Institute are also financed both by foreign multinational companies and even foreign governments with stakes in returning to the pre-Trump U.S. China trade and global trade policy status quo just as great as that of U.S.-owned multinationals. In fact, the Center even lists a contribution in the $5,000-$99,000 annual range from the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, which, like all Chinese think tanks, is an arm of the Chinese regime. (It receives U.S government funding as well – in the greater-than-$500,000 annual neighborhood.)

To repeat a point I’ve made…repeatedly… there is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of these individual think tankers, the think tanks themselves, businesses, or even foreign governments trying to influence U.S. public policy. But as Barr has noted, there is everything wrong with these activities being conducted deceptively, which is the case with both forms of idea laundering. And the dangers to American democracy and U.S. interests are greatly compounded when journalists who should know better (and the two Washington Post reporters named above are hardly the only examples) help sustain this charade.