Politics, Government & Public Policy: September 2016 Archives
Trump extends his lead to 5 points in this Rasmussen poll of likely voters. It's not hard to see why, when you consider the popularity of his positions. These positions are anathema to American elites of both parties, which is precisely why Trump has managed to insert himself so successfully into the national conversation.
Most voters oppose Obama's plan to bring more Middle Eastern and African refugees to this country next year and view that decision as an increased danger to U.S. national security. Clinton supports the president's policy.Voters, on the other hand, strongly support Trump's plan for temporarily restricting immigration from countries with a history of terrorism and for testing to screen out newcomers who don't share America's values.
The NYT describes the woes of a small California pension due differences between actuaries and economists.
The two competing ways of valuing a pension fund are often called the actuarial approach (which is geared toward helping employers plan stable annual budgets, as opposed to measuring assets and liabilities), and the market approach, which reflects more hard-nosed math.The market value of a pension reflects the full cost today of providing a steady, guaranteed income for life -- and it's large. Alarmingly large, in fact. This is one reason most states and cities don't let the market numbers see the light of day. ...
The market-based numbers are "close to the truth of the liability," Professor Sharpe said. But most elected officials want the smaller numbers, and actuaries provide what their clients want. "Somebody just should have stopped this whole charade," he said.
In short: the actuaries justify low numbers that please their clients (the governments who administer the pensions) while the economists warn that the pensions are vastly underfunded.
Mega McArdle gives a good description of discount rates.
A discount rate is a way of accounting for the fact that dollars in the future are not quite the same as dollars you have right now.You know this, don't you? Imagine I offered to give you a dollar right now, or a dollar a year from now. You don't have to think hard about that decision, because you know instinctively that the dollar that's right there, able to be instantly transferred into your sweaty little hand, is much more valuable. It can, in fact, be easily transformed into a dollar a year from now, by the simple expedient of sticking it in a drawer and waiting. It can also, however, be spent before then. It has all the good stuff offered by a dollar later, plus some option value.
Even if you're sure you don't want to spend it in the next year, however, a dollar later is not as good as a dollar now, because it's riskier. That dollar I'm holding now can be taken now, and then you will definitely have it. If you're counting on getting a dollar from me a year from now, well, maybe I'll die, or forget, or go bankrupt.
The point is that if you're valuing assets, and some of your assets are dollars you actually have, and others are dollars that someone has promised to give to you at some point in the future, you should value the dollars you have in your possession more highly than dollars you're supposed to get later.
Remember this? I wonder what Mrs. Obama thinks now.
Remember that time Michelle Obama used Bill Clinton's cheating to say Hillary shouldn't be President? I do. pic.twitter.com/zi6DywEHtF
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) September 18, 2016
(HT: Ed Driscoll.)
In a display of raw physical prowess, Donald Trump repeatedly lifts a baby over his head. Ok, this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but my first thought when I read this story was I bet Hillary couldn't lift a baby over her head like that.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lifted 18-month-old Tristan Murphy after his speech outlining a new childcare policy on Tuesday night in Aston, Pennsylvania.
Glenn Reynolds argues that President Trump and the Democrat-aligned civil service will check each others' abuses. This seems logical to me. The big question is: how can America restore a non-partisan civil service?
The reason, of course, is that the civil service, though supposedly professional and nonpartisan, has become a Democratic Party monoculture. Federal employees overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, donate to Democrats, and, by all appearances, cover for Democrats as a routine part of doing their job.So if the choice in 2016 is between one bad candidate and another (and it is) the question is, which one will do the least harm. And, judging by the civil service's behavior, that's got to be Trump. If Trump tries to target his enemies with the IRS, you can bet that he'll get a lot of pushback -- and the press, instead of explaining it away, will make a huge stink. If Trump engages in influence-peddling, or abuses secrecy laws, you can bet that, even if Trump's appointees sit atop the DOJ or FBI, the civil service will ensure that things don't get swept under the rug. And if Trump wants to go to war, he'll get far more scrutiny than Hillary will get -- or, in cases like her disastrous Libya invasion, has gotten.
So the message is clear. If you want good government, vote for Trump -- he's the only one who will make this whole checks-and-balances thing work.
I hope that Trump and the Republican Party continue their engagement with African Americans, no matter what happens in November. The Democrats have dominated black political life for decades without doing much of anything to help the community other than lip service.
What, after all, does Hillary Clinton offer the black community? Does she promise to make our public schools better by demanding greater teacher accountability? Will she push to reverse decades of damage done by tenure and other rules that put union workers first and kids second? Does she promise to expand charter schools, so those tens of thousands of wait-listed African-American kids get a shot at the American dream? No, she does not. Hillary owes the teachers' unions, which promise to get out the vote and which have donated millions to her campaign.Does Hillary promise to secure our borders and reduce the number of illegal immigrants vying for entry-level jobs? Does she embrace the new "gig" economy that attempts to circumvent the morass of red tape driving so many small businesses under? Does she back the law enforcement efforts that keep low-income urban communities safe? The answers are a uniform "no."
What Hillary Clinton offers African-Americans is four more years of Obama's policies, which Sean "Diddy" Combs, among others, have rightly described as failing the black community. Combs recently said that under Obama, blacks have been "a little bit short-changed" and that African-Americans should not automatically line up behind Clinton. "Hillary Clinton, you know, I hope she starts to talk to the black community directly. ... It really makes me feel, you know, almost hurt that our issues are not addressed, and we're such a big part of the voting bloc." Combs has recently opened a charter school in Harlem; no wonder he's not a Hillary fan.
As Instapundit is fond of pointing out, America's urban centers have been controlled by Democrats for decades -- why not give Republicans a chance to turn things around?
