RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/11/11/time-to-pin-a-medal-on-larry-summers-for-his-bidenflation-prediction/

We’re not big fans of economist Larry Summers, but in this case, he should be in line for a Nobel Prize for predicting exactly what is happening with inflation today … and who is to blame for it.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation climbed at an annual rate of 6.2%, the biggest such jump in three decades.

And that’s despite repeated predictions from other “experts” that the spike in prices earlier this year was “transitory.” Even now, they are flummoxed. As the Washington Post put it Wednesday, inflation is “lasting longer than policymakers at the Fed and White House anticipated.”

But no one, we repeat, no one, should be surprised by the latest turn of events.

Go back and listen to what Summers was saying at the start of the year, and it’s eerily prescient.

Summers publicly and repeatedly warned that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion “rescue” plan —which was Biden’s first big “achievement” that passed without a single Republican vote — would spark an inflationary spiral.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-vaccine-mandate-kids-unlawful-eua-emergency-use-authorization-5-to-11-year-old-11636493796?mod=opinion_major_pos4

Now that the Food and Drug Administration has authorized the Pfizer -BioNTech vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds, expect a wave of Covid-19 vaccine mandates for children. San Francisco announced last week that the city will require children in that age group to show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, sporting events, swimming pools and more. New York’s School of American Ballet informed parents via email on Nov. 4 that all students—the school enrolls children as young as 6—must receive a Covid vaccine by January.

While parents may choose to vaccinate their own children, these mandates are unethical and unlawful. Advocates of mandating Covid vaccines equate them with standard childhood shots against polio, chickenpox, TDaP (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis) and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella). But those decades-old vaccines have gone through the full FDA testing regime. The Covid vaccine has received only emergency-use authorization for this age group, meaning its safety and efficacy have not yet been established to the FDA’s satisfaction.

The Covid-19 vaccines are too new to have been studied for long-term effects. There are no studies of whether it is safe to vaccinate children who have recovered from Covid-19. Many states don’t require vaccinating children against diseases they have already had, like measles or chickenpox, because they acquire natural immunity. Why should Covid be any different?

The emergency-use authorization of the Covid vaccine also creates a legal distinction. Federal law requires, among other things, that potential recipients of EUA products be informed “of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product, of the consequences, if any, of refusing administration of the product, and of the alternatives to the product that are available and of their benefits and risks.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/honor-vets-the-will-to-win-war-military-service-veterans-day-afghanistan-taliban-mcmaster-11636576955?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

On Veterans Day, it’s hard to look away from the catastrophe in Afghanistan. The consequences of a war lost through incompetence, delusion and self-defeat will reverberate beyond South Asia. In America, the lack of commitment to win in war, apparent in a humiliating surrender to the Taliban and an ignominious retreat from Kabul, risks eroding trust between servicemen and -women and their civilian and military leaders.

If leaders send men and women into battle without dedicating themselves to achieving a worthy outcome, who will step forward to volunteer for military service? Who will offer to endure hardship, take risk and make sacrifices? Winning in Afghanistan meant ensuring that Afghanistan never again became a haven for jihadist terrorists. America and its coalition partners had the means to do so with a low, sustained level of support for Afghans who were bearing the brunt of the fight on a modern-day frontier between barbarism and civilization.

But three presidents in a row told the American people that the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth continued sacrifice. It became typical for citizens to profess support for the troops but not the war. That sentiment was preferable to the derision directed at veterans who fought under difficult conditions in Vietnam. But American warriors won’t long trust a society that doesn’t believe in what the nation is fighting for—as they kill others and risk their own lives.

Winning in war also means convincing the enemy that he is defeated. America’s quick-fix approach to Afghanistan, with persistent promises of imminent withdrawal, made the war longer and more expensive than it needed to be. It weakened Afghan allies; it strengthened the Taliban, their terrorist allies and their Pakistani sponsors.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-inflation-surge-continues-consumer-prices-rise-cpi-president-biden-joe-manchin-11636496052?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“Congress ignores inflation because it doesn’t want to admit that its policies are the leading cause. Kill the bill and rescue the American middle class.”

For something we’re told is “transitory,” inflation sure is persistent. The latest evidence arrived with a jolt Wednesday when the Labor Department reported that consumer prices jumped 0.9% in October, or 6.2% from a year ago and the fifth straight month higher than 5%.

That’s also the fastest rate since 1990, despite reassurances since March from the White House, Federal Reserve and Keynesian economists that inflation would soon vanish. It follows Tuesday’s report that wholesale prices rose 0.6% in October, or 8.6% from a year earlier. Producer prices flow into consumer prices, assuming businesses believe they have enough market power.

That’s not all the bad news. In a separate report Wednesday, the Labor Department said average hourly earnings after inflation fell 0.5% in the month. Real wages are down 2.2% since January. American purchasing power has declined, and the average standard of living has fallen, despite unheard of levels of government spending.

Or we should say because of that spending. It’s important to understand that the current burst of inflation isn’t an accident, like getting hit by a reckless driver. This is the result of reckless policy.

https://www.city-journal.org/scientific-merit-and-the-equity-cult

Another day, another retraction of a scientific paper for violating the code of diversity. On November 1, astronomer John Kormendy withdrew an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), after a preprint version that he had just posted on the web drew sharp criticism for threatening the conduct of “inclusive” science. Three days later, the preprint version was scrubbed as well (though a PDF can still be found here.) The paper had passed the journal’s three-person peer-review system and was awaiting publication. Kormendy’s forthcoming book on the same topic had also passed peer review and had been printed for distribution. Now distribution of the book has been put on hold, likely permanently.

Kormendy, an expert on supermassive black holes and professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, acknowledges no errors in his research. “I didn’t do anything [methodologically] wrong,” he told me. “I trust my techniques; I trust the results. I checked for bias in great detail.” Nevertheless, he issued an apology on November 1: “I now see that my work has hurt people. I apologize to you all for the stress and the pain that I have caused. Nothing could be further from my hopes. I fully support all efforts to promote fairness, inclusivity, and a nurturing environment for all.”

What was so hurtful in his article? Kormendy had aimed to reduce the role of individual subjectivity in scientific hiring and tenure decisions. He created a model that predicted a scientist’s long-term research impact from the citation history of his early publications. He tested the results of his model against a panel of 22 prestigious astronomers, many of whom had advised the federal government on scientific research priorities and had served as jurors on high-profile astronomy prizes. That panel rated the research impact of the 512 astronomers whom Kormendy had run through his model; the panel’s conclusions closely matched the model’s results. Kormendy’s paper stressed that hiring decisions should be made “holistically.” Scientific influence was only one factor to consider; achieving gender and racial balance in a department was also a legitimate concern, he wrote.

Formulas for quantifying scientific influence on the basis of a citation record are hardly new. PNAS itself published the proposal for one such well-known measure, known as the “h-index.” But that was in 2005. In 2021, a different standard for evaluating ideas applies: Do they help or hinder females and underrepresented minorities in STEM? Kormendy’s model, tweeted an astrophysicist at the City University of New York, “JUST TOOK ANY TINY STEPS WE ARE MAKING TOWARDS EQUITY AND THREW THEM OUT OF THE WINDOW” (capitalization in the original). An astronomer in Budapest objected that Kormendy had failed to consult with “relevant humanities experts” about cumulative bias against females and minorities. Equally damningly, Kormendy had suggested that the profession should overcome its underrepresentation problem by hiring female and minority scientists, who, in the words of the Budapest astronomer, “match the success rate of the majority (i.e., men).”