December 6

David Kaiser's analysis of our national problems.

Nimue Brown has a good comment on the controversy over statues.

December 7

Kaiser noted (see above) that both the dominant political parties have lost touch with the majority of Americans. Governments, both Republican and Democrat, have become increasingly estranged from those of us who don't live in the big urban bubbles and aren't part of the top of the economic food chain. And increasingly the needs of the lower 80% of the population aren't being met. This election has made me think that the best thing that might happen to us politically is a split of the Democrats between the "progressive" and the "establishment" wings and a comparative split of the Republicans between their traditional conservatives and the rabid theological fringe. We really need to find a way to negotiate between the various interests involved in each group.

Nimue Brown writes about the destruction of a statue of a city prominent in a city's (forgot which city) history. I remember the story when it hit the headlines. The man was also a slave trader and black residents took the statue down and pitched it in the river. Brown noted that the struggle is about what story is being told about the past, who from the past is honored and who is erased in the telling and honoring. Our own controversies over naming buildings, army bases and statues is much the same. And she also noted that many of the honors were given long after the people involved died and reflect not the times in which they lived but the tensions of the times in which the honors were given. I thought several times that both the honors and the criticism of them erased aspects of the history which would be best remembered. The demand that a building named for Woodrow Wilson at Princeton be renamed erased the fact that he was a President of the United States at a crucial time and was a President of Princeton. The honor tended to erase his view on race (as well as other flaws) and the criticism tended to erase his accomplishments successful or otherwise.

December 8

Just found this item at Naked Capitalism. The university system, at least in the U.S., has been on a decline for a good long time. I remember when Ohio reduced the programs in its public university system about 30 years ago. Costs were already out running revenues and the ability to generate new money. I remember arguing with a university president about robbing academic programs of resources to feed the athletics program which was, as the president noted generating money, but as my own research indicated still requiring twice as much more money than raised. I noted that but he simply said "I am sorry you feel that way." He basically gaslighted me. I have resented for some time the fact that university football programs are something of a "farm team" for the pros. Only a few years ago Alaska cut almost all higher education in the state because of budget shortfalls. The oil royalties aren't really keeping up. The only thing truly propping up colleges and universities in this country is the system of student debt in which the school gets paid whether the student is employable, the student foots the bill whether he/r can find work that will let him/her pay off the debt in their life time, and the lenders get paid no matter what because the borrower can't clear an unpayable debt through bankruptcy. It is a racket. Perhaps the whole system should crash.

December 9

Only three more weeks and this year from hell will be over. I don't expect 2021 will start out much better. We will still have the virus going around and I expect a Christmas surge to come on top of the surge we have from Thanksgiving and fall. That will carry us through most of January. Vaccinations will only be starting to come on line. Did you see the news about #45 declining Phizer's offer to earmark another 50 million doses? So now we will have to get in line behind all the countries that have already ordered their supply. His executive order doesn't really do anything to resolve that situation. It just made nice smoke and mirror optics.

Crooks & Liars pointed out that the pandemic is going to hit new social security recipients hard or rather those who are age 60 and looking to retire in the next couple of years. Because of the way the basic benefit is calculated the recipient's earnings in the next to last year before retirement are extremely important. This year has been abysmal for anyone's earnings who depends on wages for their support. This shouldn't be a surprise because the drop in employment has shortened the time before both Social Security and Medicare exhaust the "trust funds" payments depend on. Add that to the mess state and local finances are in thanks to the drop in taxes and fees in addition to the extra expenses involved with handling the virus.

What is old is new again--or something like that. I wonder if this will become a widespread accompaniment to what expected to be  a pandemic fueled surge in homelessness.