HOOVER DAILY (edited.)

Hoosier Daddy


Interview with John H. Cochrane, Mitch Daniels, Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, Bill Whalen via GoodFellows: Conversations From The Hoover Institution

While many an American university has struggled with the pandemic and cancel culture, Indiana’s Purdue University seems the exception to the norm: a reopened campus with an ongoing commitment to civics literacy and intellectual diversity. Purdue’s president, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, and John Cochrane to discuss the state of higher education.

And:

This from a dear, old friend and fellow emo reader whose son is a principal in an investment firm:

Dear F--- A naval confrontation in the Gulf. Hamas missiles raining on Jerusalem. Tehran  enriching uranium. It took the Democrats all of four months to screw up the  Middle East. I enclose Newsmax clips on that topic plus a NewsNation hit on  Chinese aggression.  But first, be supreme leader of your corporate or personal finances. I enclose an  assessment of progressives' biggest looming tax: inflation.  Cordially,  Ch--------

More inflation coming soon Monetary policy is out of control We are assured by the dubious financial media and executive branch officials  that inflation, should any materialize, will be short-lived and manageable. And  why not? Monetary hawks consistently predicted inflation throughout the 2010s,  including early in the decade during intense phases of “quantitative easing”—a  fancy term for the Fed creating new dollars out of thin air to buy up government  and private debt. But as the chart below indicates, inflation, at least as measured  by the Consumer Price Index, remained mostly in the two to three percent range  for most of the 2010s—tame by historical standards. But that was child’s play compared to the amount of dollar creation going on  today. While headlines focus on improbable vows by the Fed and Treasury  officials to keep rates low through 2023, the real action is in open market  operations—printing dollars, at least electronic ones, to buy enormous amounts  of debt. The chart below shows the degree of the activity, and it is without  precedent in U.S. monetary history. The open spigot after the 2008-2009  financial crisis seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the fire sale on  dollars since March 2020. Furthermore, this trend is likely to continue. How can it not? Higher prices are  already here, and reckless, speculative bubbles like Bitcoin, SPACs and coastal  real estate abound. There are murmurs about whether the Fed may “taper” its  binge come fall. Certainly it should, but the Fed isn’t just creating dollars to buy  mortgages and existing government debt. It is also creating dollars to buy the  insane amount of new debt the government is issuing—another trend with no  end in sight. The federal budget deficits for 2020 and 2021 were merely supposed to be about  $1 trillion each (a level which a decade earlier sparked the Tea Party).  Depending on whose accounting you trust, the federal government has spent an  additional $6 trillion on relief related to the coronavirus pandemic. While the pandemic ends, the spending binge persists. The administration and  Congress favor significant additional expenditures if they can be vaguely linked  to the pandemic. For example, some want to spend more than two trillion  additional dollars on infrastructure that isn’t really related to the pandemic, and  includes items like child care that isn’t really related to infrastructure. And it  doesn’t end there. Work is already under way on the budget for Fiscal Year  2022, which begins this October 1. Progressives in Congress who have been on  a legislative winning streak see this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to  raise baseline spending dramatically. More spending means bigger deficits and more dollar creation as the Fed buys  bonds issued by the Treasury that the market doesn’t want. These factors alone would only be mildly alarming if the long-term outlook for real  private sector growth was good. But it isn’t. Washington is determined to raise  taxes to pretend to pay for some of the massive spending it has undertaken.  Behind the scenes and largely unreported is the installation of progressive staff  throughout the administration who will bring back the death-by-1000-cuts  regulations that marked the lost decade of economic growth after 2008. Also  back from that era is a shrinkage in workforce even amid low unemployment  rates as people are given extended unemployment and other benefits that create a rational choice not to work. Of the many new taxes suggested, a proposal to double the capital gains tax on investments would particularly stifle new business avenues for all of the newly created dollars sloshing around. What this all means is that there likely will be too many dollars chasing too few  goods and services—the standard definition of inflation. Previous loose  monetary policy, especially during the 2010s, occurred as Europe and East Asia (ex-China) stagnated, especially in their currencies, keeping the dollar relatively  strong. That plus unwisely deciding to buy more and more cheap manufactured goods from China masked inflation—although it has existed in the housing  market since 2010.  None of these previous mitigating factors is likely to stave off inflation today.  The growth in money supply is too big and seemingly too politically difficult to  stop. Outside of travel, East Asia has bounced back and Europe will follow.  Inflation, the insidious tax on everything, which hurts the poor most and  discourages saving and hard work, is probably here to stay. Substack URL: https://bit.ly/3tzkTUE   Newsmax: Iran policy and regime stability Video: https://bit.ly/3b5QEhu   Newsmax: Iran threat to US Capitol and Biden nuclear appeasement Video: https://bit.ly/3h3AhWu   NewsNation Donlon Report: China ups aggression in the South China Sea Video: https://bit.ly/3tlWaCY

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The dad of the year pulled his daughter out of the poison to redeem her future. The school adopted a racial way of teaching students.

And the problem that he tackled is an attempt to save the foundational teaching of history in the United States.

Look What These Children Are Being Taught!

Fighting for Freedom,

Chuck Little

+++

Previously posted:

This says it all for many of us.  Subject: The lament of an older white American As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a regular person, but I was born white, into a two-parent household, which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “privileged ”, a racist and personally responsible for slavery! I am a fiscal, moral and political conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget, & support myself.    I went to High School, made it into college, earned a degree and have always held a job.  But I now find out I am not here because I earned it, but because I was “advantaged” because of white privilege. I am heterosexual, which according to "wokes", now makes me a homophobe. I believe in the 2nd Amendment, which makes me a de-facto “gun nut.” I am older than 65, making me a useless old fart who doesn’t understand Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat and whose antiquated opinion is not worth a damn thing. I think and I reason, and I doubt what the media and government tells me, which makes me a "Right-wing conspiracy nut”, even though I am a registered democrat. I am proud of my heritage and our inclusive American culture, making me a xenophobe. I believe in hard work, fair play, and fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist, anti-communist. I believe our system guarantees freedom of effort - not freedom of outcome, or subsidies, making me a sociopath.  I believe in the defense and protection of America for and by all citizens, now making me a militant.    I am proud of our flag, what it stands for, and the many who died to let it fly, I stand hand over heart during our National Anthem – so I am a racist.  If all this wasn't enough to deal with, now I don't even know which restroom to use … and I gotta go more frequently.  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/05/11/why-a-conservative-editor-is-worried-about-the-dojs-latest-hire-n2589236  And:  https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/10/why-is-the-government-hiding-january-6-video-footage/  ++++++++++++++++++++ Israeli intelligence is sought out by those in U.S. intelligence and is often shared but then those like Kerry act in treasonous manners.  Meanwhile, when it comes to Europe they continue to have a passion for dangerous stupidity.   Israel shared Iranian General Soleimani's cell phones with US intelligence before drone strike: report Israel shared three cell phone numbers used by Qasem Soleimani with U.S. intelligence in the hours before American drones unleashed Hellfire missiles on the Iranian general last year, Yahoo News reported Saturday. The revelation sheds new light on the role that Israel played in the killing of Soleimani, who the State Department says was responsible for hundreds of U.S. troop deaths as the head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force. The drone strike occurred shortly after midnight on Jan. 2, 2020, as Soleimani and his entourage were leaving Baghdad's international airport.  As three Delta Force sniper teams monitored Soleimani on the ground and three American drones kept a bird's eye view of him, Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. military. "In the six hours before Soleimani boarded his flight from Damascus, the Iranian general switched cellphones three times, according to a U.S. military official," the Yahoo report said. "In Tel Aviv, U.S. Joint Special Operations Command liaisons worked with their Israeli counterparts to help track Soleimani’s cellphone patterns. The Israelis, who had access to Soleimani's numbers, passed them off to the Americans, who traced Soleimani and his current phone to Baghdad." Soon after Soleimani's car left the airport in Baghdad, two Hellfire missiles rained down, killing him, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq and five others. Yahoo also reported Saturday that prior to Soleimani's death, Israeli intelligence shared intelligence with the CIA about an Iranian who was leaving the country to pick up cell phones or Iranian leaders. U.S. intelligence was then able to plant bugged cell phones for the courier to buy, according to the report.  The killing of Soleimani was one of the most consequential actions the U.S. has taken in the Middle East in years. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in a tape leaked to the New York Times last month that Soleimani's death caused more damage to the country than if the U.S. wiped out an entire city. Meanwhile, President Biden has taken a different approach from Trump, offering to restart talks with Iran on restoring the nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of in 2018. The Associated Press contributed to this report. +++  Gerald M. Steinberg Gerald Steinberg is professor emeritus of political science at Bar-Ilan University. He is the founder and president of NGO Monitor, a policy analysis think tank focusing on nongovernmental organizations.   Europe's romance with the Palestinian terror network In official correspondence and awkward meetings with European ambassadors and other officials, they offered rehearsed justifications for funding for Palestinian and Israel NGOs leading anti-Israel "apartheid" demonization. Seventeen years ago, in 2004, a European Parliament visiting delegation to Israel asked me to brief them on EU funding for Palestinian and Israeli political NGOs under the banners of human rights, peace and other worthy causes. Although the budgets were small then ("only" a few million Euros), they were significant and did major damage. But before I could speak, an EU official tried to prevent my presentation, declaring that I was about to reveal state secrets. His face turned redder when I pulled out the numerous brochures from the NGO grantees with the EU logo.  But beyond the logos, the details of the deep and often personal European relationships with the leaders of influential Palestinian and Israeli NGOs were and remain closely guarded state secrets, on the level of nuclear weapons. This strange and fundamental departure from the transparency that is central to democratic norms explains why year after year, the members of an NGO network linked to a terror organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), are among the main recipients of European funding. Since 2011, the European governments have provided at least 200 million euros to these organizations, including 40 million from the European Union, and probably more from subcontracting that is not reported and from grants that remain hidden. The arrest and indictment of a number of four individuals with high-level positions in the benignly named Health Workers Committee, who are charged with diverting NGO funds directly to terror groups, shines a bright spotlight on this core dimension of the NGO industry. After many years of hiding the details and denying the extensive evidence of links published in NGO Monitor research reports, it will now be harder for the European officials in charge of the funding to continue to claim "we did not know", "the evidence you provide is not absolute proof…", or "we do not need to examine the recipients because other countries and the UN are funding the same groups." In official correspondence and awkward meetings with European ambassadors and other officials, they offered rehearsed justifications for funding for Palestinian and Israel NGOs leading anti-Israel "apartheid" demonization. Often reading uncomfortably from pre-cooked slogans, they have claimed (without credibility) that their governments only support projects and not organizations, that the NGO links to the PFLP are outdated and invalid, and even that the PFLP is a legitimate political organization. The long-standing relationships between PFLP officials and their European sponsors, including leaders of powerful church groups such as Pax Christi, are never acknowledged. Recently, however, recognition of the damage done and the need for independent oversight regarding these NGO relationships has gradually increased. One year ago, Olivér Várhelyi, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement (which has jurisdiction over some of the seven distinct EU funding mechanisms) ordered a comprehensive investigation of terror ties involving NGO grantees, and declared that such funding "will not be tolerated." That report is expected very soon. In addition, the European Parliament's committee responsible for budgetary issues ("Discharge") recently told EU officials to "thoroughly verify" that funds are not "allocated or linked to any cause or form of terrorism and/or religious and political radicalization." Grant funds that went to any person or organization with terrorist ties must be "proactively recovered, and recipients involved are excluded from future union funding." To the degree that the officials implement this policy, the results will require a fundamental change in the NGO funding process. In the Netherlands, the foreign and development ministers initially rejected the information showing clear links between their funding for the UAWC and the officials charged with the 2019 murder of Rena Schnerb, but later, they were forced to retract their claims. Under parliamentary questioning, they acknowledged that Dutch funding paid part of the salaries, and suspended grants pending an investigation by a private firm, which has begun. These and similar developments in other countries suggest that after many years, the results of free-flowing European support to the NGO industry, without transparency and due diligence, are becoming too costly. Perhaps as a result of the most recent developments and arrests, the careless and dangerous European NGO subcontracting will be reduced or stopped. But even if this happens, the immense damage resulting from these policies will take many years to repair. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++