We’ve said that as bad as things are here in the U.S., at least we do have the strongest/least bad economy among developed countries- i.e., we’re the world’s tallest midget.
King Dollar is back.
Just in the first four months of 2024, we’ve seen an appreciation of the dollar versus almost all other currencies. This should help tame inflation somewhat as a higher dollar value makes imports cheaper, of course.
The dollar’s strength reinforces our continued skepticism and even contempt for the idea that the Euro or the BRICs nations (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) will invent a currency that displaces dollar supremacy.
It ain’t happening.
Fidgety investors aren’t going to suddenly rush for safety by betting on the Chinese yuan and the Russian ruble. Has anyone noticed that Europe and Japan are a mess? The Japanese yen has fallen to its lowest level relative to the dollar in 30 years, and only yesterday is Tokyo intervening to stop the slide. No fiat currency run by central bankers is currently a threat to the greenback.
So for now the dollar is king, but what worries us about the outlook for global growth and prosperity going forward is this: what happens if liberal policies, including the highest tax rates in 40 years, and a renewed war on energy (see below), on top of the already wobbly U.S. economy?
Then where will the growth come from? Nigeria? Poland? We hear good things about Costa Rica. The whole world economy may depend on a renewal of the great conservative ideas we know work.
We've said it before that one reason Americans don't believe that prices are only 19% higher today than went Trump left office is because the prices of the family necessities are so much higher than the official measure of inflation (CPI).
Take energy. Those costs are now officially 40% higher today than in January 2021. We call this the Bidenomics "energy tax" because the higher energy taxes are a direct result of Biden's energy and economic policies.
These higher energy costs are likely to continue to soar over the months and years to come if these policies continue. Just this past week, the EPA proposed new rules to shut down natural gas and coal power plants. This is the same EPA who wants to replace ALL gas and diesel cars, trucks, and ships and make them all powered by the electric grid system.
Ok, now here's a question: If you vastly increase the demand for something at the same time you vastly reduce the supply, what happens to the price?
If you answered that the price will go down, you probably can get a job in the Biden cabinet.
3) Your Tax Dollars Are Paying for All this Campus Madness
If you’re as disturbed by the moral rot in our top universities as we are, you will find this headline based on an analysis from our friends at Open The Books is almost nauseating:
Where is all the money going? To mayhem in the streets of these very same elite colleges:
Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com tallied the federal payments to Columbia and other elite universities in a five-year period from 2018 through 2022.
According to Open the Books CEO Adam Andzieski, “American taxpayers contribute more to these universities than the students and their families do through tuition payments.”
We’ve argued till we are blue in the face that student aid should be provided in most cases by the universities, not the taxpayers.
Columbia is exhibit A. The school “received $5.8 billion in federal contracts and grants during a period when their endowment increased from $10.5 billion to $13.3 billion (2018-2022).”
Why not just stop providing federal aid to colleges and universities?
4) Democrats Are Calling a Time Out on Crime and Violence in Chicago – But Only During the Coming Democratic Convention
Speaking of the rioting and violent outbursts on campus, liberals are terrified that the campus protests that have engulfed college campuses will haunt them.
The liberal Atlantic magazine warns:
The right always knows how to exploit the excesses of the left. It happened in 1968, when the campus takeovers and the street battles between anti-war activists and cops at the Democratic convention in Chicago helped elect Richard Nixon. Republican politicians are already exploiting the chaos on campuses. This summer, the Democrats will gather again in Chicago, and the activists are promising a big show. Donald Trump will be watching.
Democrats are scrambling to prevent the Chicago convention from becoming a repeat fiasco.
But they have a problem: For the last four years, the local State’s Attorney, Kim Foxx (who infamously bungled the prosecution of racial hoaxer Jussie Smollett), has boasted of her policy NOT to prosecute criminal violations tied to protests if her office deems those actions “non-violent.” As part of that policy, her office dismissed cases related to the mayhem in the city during the 2020 George Floyd riots involving disorderly conduct, unlawful gathering, burglary, arson, and criminal trespass.
But lo, Ms. Foxx is singing a different tune now that protesters are threatening to take to the streets and clash with the police as happened in the Summer of 1968.
Leftist rabble-rousers – from pro-Palestine groups to climate change fanatics to BLM militants, are threatening to ignore areas set aside for protests and provoke police into using force. Foxx has issued a memo that the hands-off policy on protests won’t be in effect — but just for the two weeks around the Democratic convention — when the national media are in town and America is watching.
5) Nation’s Top Science and Math School Plummets Thanks To Racial Quotas
For many years, Northern Virginia's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has often been ranked the No. 1 U.S. public high school. Its competitive admissions process has long attracted the cream of local STEM-oriented students.
But no longer. In the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, the school has slipped to 14th in the nation.
A big factor is that in 2020, the Fairfax County, Virginia, school board eliminated traditional standardized tests and admission selections based on the best students available and moved to an “equity” formula designed to boost admissions from students identifying as racial minorities.
This is what happens when you put race and ethnicity over merit and hard work. It’s called the dumbing down of America.
