Viewpoints with Kerby Anderson

Kerby Anderson
Each year the federal government adds more to the national debt, causing serious concerns about how the president and Congress will deal with it. Many of the social and cultural issues facing us are unprecedented. At least with the national debt, we do have some historical examples provided by economist Kevin Hassett.
When Rome began the First Punic War, its coins contained 12 ounces of metal. After the war, Rome reduced the metal content of its currency to 2 ounces. By the end of the Third Punic War, coins only had a half ounce. This is a classic example of currency debasement.
Sometimes massive debts lead first to debasement and then default. After World War I, the allies extracted heavy reparations from the Germans. Over time the deutschmark dropped in value and eventually was worth a trillionth of its initial value. When Germany was no longer able to pay its debts, it defaulted.
One historical review of 176 sovereign nations found that there have been 248 defaults. But will the US become one of those nations? Kevin Hassett reminds us that has happened in the past and might happen again in the future. If default is not an option, then debasement of the currency is the only other option.
He believes the flight from dollars to other commodities (like gold and bitcoin) illustrates those concerns. He reminds us that, “At the start of the previous administration, the price of gold was about $1,200 per ounce. Today it is closing in on $2,000.” In 2017, Bitcoin “was trading at $1,000 per coin” and now is trading at nearly 30x that amount.
As the US debt continues to climb, the government has the only option that is available to other countries: debasement of the currency.

Kerby Anderson
American families are facing a state of financial fragility that is worse than they have ever experienced. Earlier this year, Bankrate issued its annual report. They found that a sizable majority (57%) of US adults are currently unable to afford a $1,000 emergency expense. They also found that two-thirds (68%) were worried they wouldn’t be able to cover their living expenses for one month if they lost their primary source of income.
Many years ago, the Federal Reserve Board conducted a similar survey of Americans. They found that nearly half of the respondents said that the only way they could cover an unexpected expense would be by borrowing or selling something. They could not come up with the money any other way.
At that time, Neal Gabler, writing in The Atlantic, asked: Who knew? He then answered that he knew because he was one of the people. He knew what it was like to dread going to the mailbox because it usually had more new bills and rarely a check to pay for them. He knew what it was like to tell his daughter that he may not be able to pay for her wedding.
His point was you wouldn’t know this by looking at him. You could look at his resume as a writer and conclude he was doing fine. He is in the middle-class with five books and hundreds of articles to his name. That is why he wrote about what he calls, “the secret shame of middle-class Americans.”
He represents so many US adults who are financially fragile and “living close to the financial edge.” And it is worth mentioning that this is not just a liquidity problem: they don’t have enough ready cash in their checking and savings accounts. They are living in a world where the cost of living is rising faster than their wages.
When we say that American workers are hurting, it is much worse than we might suspect.

Penna Dexter
Here is a real life story of one of the unjust repercussions of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down the marriage laws of every state. According to Obergefell, states cannot deny marriage licenses to same sex couples.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the opinion, allowed that some people oppose same sex marriage for “decent and honorable” reasons. These folks still have First Amendment Rights, he promised. Consider the Burkes:
Michael Burke served in Iraq as a Marine. Kitty Burke worked as a paraprofessional helping special needs children. The Burkes sought to adopt a child through the state of Massachusetts’ foster care program. In their application, they said they were willing to adopt children of any race or ethnicity. They’d take siblings and even kids with certain special needs.
The Burkes are devout Roman Catholics. They frequently work as musicians at local churches. Wall Street Journal columnist William Mc Gurn wrote of the Burke’s faith: “Once upon a time that would be an endorsement. Today it’s an indictment.” The Burkes were rejected as unfit to be adoptive parents. The author of their license study was concerned regarding LGBTQ issues. She noted: “their faith is not supportive and neither are they.”
Justice Samuel Alito saw this coming.
In his dissent in Obergefell, Justice Alito wrote that the decision “will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.”
Sure, people can think what they’d like about same sex marriage. Justice Alito argued, “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers and schools.”
The Burkes’ lawyer at the Becket Fund describes this “new orthodoxy” as a government-imposed “replacement ideology.” Christians must refuse to accept this. The Burkes’ lawsuit should help.

Kerby Anderson
Two of the founding fathers that deserve more attention are Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. While the Hamilton musical provides us with some perspective and entertainment, I would recommend the book by Jay Cost, The Price of Greatness: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the Creation of American Oligarchy. Jay was on the Point of View radio program to talk about his book.
These two men belonged to a political movement with three fundamental foundations. The first was the commitment to liberal government that emphasized the protection of individual rights. The Declaration of Independence argued that “governments are instituted among men” in order to secure certain “unalienable rights.” That idea, written by Thomas Jefferson, was influenced by the writings of John Locke.
The second foundation was a belief in self-government, often referred to as republicanism. A republic allowed the citizens to be governed by laws that they actually had a hand in creating. A monarch did not hand down these laws. They were established by “we the people.”
The third foundation was nationalism. The 13 separate colonies agreed to bind themselves together in a national union of 13 states. This is where there was the greatest division between the Federalists and the Antifederalists. And they ended up dividing Hamilton from Madison.
Hamilton emphasized national vigor and was eager to promote the Bank of the United States and other programs that would grow the national government. Madison, on the other hand, wanted to pursue what could be called “republican balance.” He feared that Hamilton’s policies favored the wealthy.
In reading this book by Jay Cost, I was struck by the reality that many of the debates in the founding of this country continue to this day. Many of the ideas put forward by Hamilton and Madison are still debated today in the halls of Congress.

Kerby Anderson
Are humans the enemy? Should animals have constitutional rights? Should peas be granted personhood? These questions may sound ludicrous. Nevertheless, professors and leaders in environmental rights groups are asking these questions and providing bizarre answers.
Wesley J. Smith was on Point of View radio talk show to discuss his documentary “The War on Humans.” You can watch it on YouTube and also order the companion e-book. You will quickly see or read that these questions are not satire or science fiction. There are people who believe that humans are the problem, and the only solution is to grant legal rights to animals and plants. Some go so far as to suggest that we find some way to reduce the human population by 90 percent.
Smith documents these claims in his video and e-book. Anti-human activists want to place all our valuable natural resources (from oil to land) off limits for human use. Farmers could be held liable for plowing new fields because it might lead to the death of rodents, snakes, and even weeds.
These ideas do not spring from the biblical concept of having dominion over the earth and being a good steward of God’s creation. Instead, the environmental movement of the 1960s portrays humans as a “disease” or as “parasites” or as a “cancer” hurting Mother Nature. It then evolved into the “nature rights” movement that desires to give fauna and flora “the right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles.” We end up with a pantheistic idea that eliminates any distinction between humans and other life forms.
These ideas don’t just surface in academic settings or environmental rallies. They end up in our laws. That is why we need to counter these erroneous ideas and defend the biblical principle of human dignity.

Kerby Anderson
Jonah Goldberg reminded his readers of a famous essay by Tom Wolfe entitled “The Great Relearning.” It was an essay about the Summer of Love in 1968 in San Francisco. It had great significance to me since I grew up in the San Francisco area during that time, but it also has significance to all of us concerned about our culture.
He said that doctors at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic “were treating diseases no living doctor had ever encountered before, diseases that disappeared so long ago they never even picked up Latin names, diseases such as the mange, the grunge, the itch, the twitch, the thrush, the scruff, the rot.” He concluded that this happened because “the hippies, as they became known, sought nothing less than to sweep aside all codes and restraints of the past and start out from zero.”
They rejected everything from modern society, including basic hygiene. They had lots of sex with each other and shared everything from bedsheets to toothbrushes to food utensils. They were the beneficiaries of centuries of scientific investigation and wise application of sound medical and scientific knowledge. But they decided to tear down some fences and paid a heavy price.
Supposedly G.K. Chesterton warned, “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.” Unfortunately, we had a counterculture in the 1960s that was willing to tear down fences of civilization without giving much thought to why those moral, medical, and sexual guidelines were created in the first place.
Does that sound like our world today? Moral anarchy reigns. Our society mimics Judges 17:6 where “everyone does what is right in his own eyes.” Sexual morality is now based on doing what each person feels is right for them. And marriage has been redefined by divorce and same-sex marriage. All of this suggests that maybe it is time for another “great relearning.”

Kerby Anderson
Will robots destroy jobs and put all of us in the unemployment lines? Some futurists seem to be predicting this scenario. Jay Richards disagrees. He says it is an old argument that is new again. He is the author of the book, The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines.
One report predicts that; “The future of robots appears to be a dystopian march to rising inequality, falling wages, and higher unemployment.” A number of books warn of the “rise of robots” and even suggest this new technology will lead to the death of capitalism.
Jay Richards acknowledges that we have a coming disruption that could be as abrupt as the Industrial Revolution. But looking back, we can see that previous revolutions didn’t lead to the end of employment. They often provided new jobs without the boredom and danger of the past. At the founding of this country nearly 95 percent of Americans got by on farming. Today, the American population is ten times larger while only 1 percent of the US population work on farms.
If it is true that technology leads to permanent unemployment of the masses, the history of the last few centuries would be a history of joblessness. That is not true. But some politicians accept the faulty premise that jobs will be scarce, and therefore have proposed the idea of a universal basic income that would essentially put millions more on welfare.
One obvious problem would be money. The government is going broke right now with various entitlement programs. Expanding that is economically unrealistic. Do we really want to pay millions more in this country to not work?
The lesson for government and education is to stop training kids to do jobs that robots will be doing in a few years. The lesson for parents and their children is to focus on developing skills a robot could never take away from them.

Kerby Anderson
Today is Labor Day. Although this day was set aside to honor trade and labor organizations, I believe it is a day when Christians can also consider how they view work and labor. The Bible has quite a bit to say about how we are to view work, and so I devote part of a chapter in my book, Making the Most of Your Money, to a biblical view of work.
First, we are to work unto the Lord in our labors. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.” We may have an earthly master (or boss) but ultimately, we are working for our heavenly Master.
Second, work is valuable. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 to “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.” He also warns in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 that “if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.”
The Proverbs talk about the importance and benefits of work. Proverbs 12:11 says, “He who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who pursues worthless things lacks sense.” Proverbs 13:4 says, “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat.” And Proverbs 14:23 says, “In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”
The Greeks and Romans looked upon manual work as a menial task that was only for slaves (or else for people of lower classes). The biblical view of work changed that ancient view because work and labor were combined with the idea of vocation and calling.
These ideas were reinforced in the Middle Ages through the gild movement and even expanded during the Reformation. Martin Luther, for example, taught that all work can be done for the glory of God. John Calvin taught that all should work because they were to serve as God’s instruments on earth. This led to what today is called the Protestant work ethic.
Let’s use this Labor Day to teach and reinforce biblical ideas of work.

Penna Dexter
Our American culture is rich with gifts God has given for human flourishing. Sometimes we take these gifts for granted. Sometimes, tragically, we reject them. One of these good gifts is the family.
Growing up in a coastal suburb of Los Angeles, I couldn’t articulate God’s beautiful plan for the family as a moral and economic unit for the raising of the next generation and the perpetuation of society. We just lived that way. We knew work brought the money to meet life’s needs. We assumed you married first before having children. It was normal to respect authority figures and obey the law. Whether or not we saw these as Christian values, we knew they worked. When the government’s policies incentivized something different, the society began to show cracks.
One of those cracks was something called “the generation gap.”  Families of faith often avoided the gap. But faith was declining in America. The generation gap was not simply due to normal teenage rebellion. Everything in society seemed to be pushing the generations apart: drugs, free sex, music, Hollywood, even higher education. California state universities were teaching students to hate and rebel against America, capitalism, ‘the patriarchy, and the traditional family. The hard leftist ideology at certain universities drove some students to violence and led others — the peace-loving ones — to live in drug-infested streets as hippies.
The US Supreme Court handed down decisions banning official prayers in public schools and upholding abortion rights. Feminists’ were unsuccessful in passing the Equal Rights Amendment. But their effort, along with the enactment of a national no-fault divorce law, served to undermine marriage and the traditional family.
Then, in 2015, the High Court redefined marriage.
To “be fruitful and multiply” means to have children and form families. Families lead to the creation of other forms of government — cities and nations — in which we organize ourselves to use God’s gifts to flourish on the earth.
We have arrogantly rejected this foundation.

Kerby Anderson
Does it seem like so many important systems aren’t working the way they are supposed to be working? Just think of the problems associated with airlines, supply chains, and electrical grids.
We live in a complex society where so many interconnected parts need to be working efficiently. And we need competent people running them. Harold Robertson persuasively argues that “Complex systems won’t survive the competence crisis.”
He explains, “America must be understood as a system of interwoven systems; the healthcare system sends a bill to a patient using the postal system, and that patient uses the mobile phone system to pay the bill with a credit card issued by the banking system.” He concludes that, if one part of this complex system fails, you have cascading consequences for it and all adjacent systems.
The reason for these failures, he believes, is due to the changing political mores of society. We have established a system of promoting unqualified people and sidelining the competent. “By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement.” For many institutions (universities, corporations) diversity is more important than competence, Therefore, we have a competence crisis. Put another way, the weakest link is often the person in charge.
We shouldn’t be surprised that formerly stable systems are having accidents at a rate higher than the system can adapt. Unless we once again select people based on meritocracy rather than diversity, the problem will go from bad to worse.

Kerby Anderson
Are there long-term cycles that affect us? Unless you study history, it is difficult to see them. In a previous commentary, I quoted investor Ray Dalio who explained in his book, The Changing World Order, that he became more aware of long-term trends in the economy and made better financial decisions once he studied history. Here are three cycles that many analysts have been talking about.
The first is a 250-year revolutionary cycle. That last hit in the 1760s with the American Revolution and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and free market capitalism. And 250 years prior to that was Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.
The second cycle is an 80-year financial cycle. Some commentators argue that it used to be a 58-60-year cycle but is now an 80-year cycle. During this cycle, the economy moves through four seasons. These range from innovation to economic growth to an eventual economic correction.
The third cycle is a 50-year technology cycle. From 1870 to 1930, we had the development of electricity and the internal combustion engine. From 1930 to 1980 was a mass production cycle. The 1980 to 2030 cycle involved telecommunications and computer technology.
The interesting thing about these three cycles is they are all converging about now. Each cycle will bring about changes different from what came before it. I am reminded to the famous quote from Mark Twain who observed: “History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.”
How should we respond? Like the sons of Issachar in the Old Testament we need to understand the times with knowledge of what we should do.”

Kerby Anderson
Alex Berenson recently wrote about the “First Freedom.” He was on my radio program four years ago to talk about stories he was investigating after having left the New York Times. That was before he began reporting on topics related to the pandemic and vaccine that were considered forbidden.
Perhaps now you can see why he writes about free speech. He has faced social media censorship by merely reporting the truth about the clinical trials of the vaccine.
To make his point, he takes us back 82 years to a State of the Union speech given by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The president talked about four essential human freedoms. The second freedom was religious, “the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way.” The third was “freedom from want.” The fourth was “freedom from fear.”
But the most important freedom according to the president was “freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world.” That was the first freedom. That is the First Amendment.
But Alex Berenson goes on to say that “freedom of speech” is really “freedom of thought.” If people can’t say openly what they think, they will be forced into a shadow world. He goes on to explain, “It doesn’t matter whether the speech is right or wrong, objectively true or false. Indeed, the First Amendment makes no reference to the truth or falsity of the speech it protects.”
He is concerned that 70 percent now favor restricting “false information” online and he isn’t even sure the New York Times believes in the First Amendment. Twitter eventually banned him. One of his offenses was accurately reporting on the results of Pfizer’s own clinical trial.
Most Americans, including Democratic presidents, used to believe in free speech. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Kerby Anderson
The phrase “trust the science” isn’t as popular in the culture as it has been in the past due to the recent revelations about inaccurate scientific statements during the pandemic. And the phrase “trust the science” isn’t as accepted as it was in the scientific community due to so many retractions.
The co-founders of Retraction Watch have been monitoring this problem for years. They found that only 40 scientific papers were retracted in the year 2000. But last year, 5,500 scientific papers were retracted. They concluded that only about a fifth of the retractions have been done due to an “honest error.”
The surge in bogus papers is driven in part by the reality that scientists need to “publish or perish.” But those pressures have been on academics for decades. A larger problem is the fact that many are turning to “paper mills” that sell manuscripts and other research projects to scientists needing to publish.
People are being harmed by these bogus papers. One anesthesiologist falsified data on an ineffective blood substitute that was widely cited in the literature. Patients were harmed by this false research.
Another aspect of this problem is illustrated by the so-called replication crisis. So many of the results published in scientific papers cannot be reproduced by other researchers. The University of Virginia attempted to reproduce five “landmark” cancer studies. It failed in one case and produced inconclusive results in two others. This suggests that “the science” in all these cases might be wrong.
It is becoming more and more difficult to “trust the science” when we discover how many scientific papers and scientific statements are wrong.

Kerby Anderson
China is not only a major threat in the world, but China is dying. Those two observations seem contradictory. But, they reinforce each other. The inevitable decline of China makes it more likely that the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party will act sooner rather than later.
Ben Shapiro pulls together five serious problems for China in a recent video. Here are his arguments, along with a few of my comments.
China’s first problem is demographics. China has become the fastest-aging society in all of human history. Due to its one-child policy, China has millions more adults than children.
Problem number two is a lack of innovation. If it were a free society, it would have a robust and innovative economy. But China has no innovation so it must steal intellectual property from other nations.
Debt is a third major problem for China. In previous commentaries, I have observed that any nation with a debt to GDP ratio over 130 percent eventually defaults. China has a ratio that is approaching 160 percent.
Problem number four is the military. Yes, China is threatening other countries with its military, but it’s falling behind because it is using older, less sophisticated microchips. China’s navy is effective in coastal zones but cannot project power in deep water.
A final problem is the fact that China is a dictatorship. This is a significant reason for the other problems. The country’s leaders do not allow freedom and innovation.
The harsh truth is that China cannot change its demographic reality or its economic reality. And it won’t change its political structure. It is a threat to the world, but it also looks like a nation about to collapse in the future.

Penna Dexter
I’m against every big government program that is proposed. But one massive federal program really helped me.
I am a Baby Boomer. I was born during the unprecedented spike in the US birth rate that took place after World War II. The ‘baby boom’ occurred alongside an economic boom, a sustained period of economic growth and full employment.
 A big-government program played an important role.
The G.I. Bill, enacted in 1944, put higher education, job training, and home ownership within the reach of millions of World War II veterans. By 1951, nearly 8 million veterans had received educational and training benefits. My dad was one of them. He had saved during high school and worked while attending the University of Southern California.
He joined the Army after his second year of college. Two years into his service, the war ended. He was able to finish up at USC on the G.I. Bill.
The G.I. Bill made it so those millions of veterans would not flood the job market immediately after the war. And when these young people — mostly men — finished their educations, their higher wages fueled the growing economy and the prosperity of the middle class. Their knowledge and training enabled the innovation of new products, the proliferation of large corporations, and the modernization of infrastructure. Their growing families necessitated the expansion of the suburbs.
Men in my father’s orbit were upwardly mobile in an expanding economy. It’s not that we were rich. But a middle-class father’s salary could support a family. And people believed that if they worked hard they could climb the ladder of success.
Of course, this wasn’t true for everyone. Nearly one third of the country lived in poverty. President Johnson’s War on Poverty was supposed to fix this and bring about a “Great Society.” It didn’t.
What’s the difference? Family. The G.I Bill encouraged family formation and work. The War on Poverty incentivized dependence and single motherhood.
Families are divinely-inspired mini-governments.

Kerby Anderson
The crime wave in the Golden State has been in the news for many reasons, but two events stand out among the many others. Perhaps you have seen the video of robbery at a Nordstroms. Nearly 50 criminals ran off with an estimated $100,000 worth of merchandise, and this was the third robbery of a Nordstroms.
The other event that comes to mind was the protest from the Oakland branch of the NAACP calling out the “failed leadership” including the movement to “defund the police.” The protesters claimed that their crime wave was due to the district attorney’s failure to “prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes.”
Why focus on crime in California? You may not live in the Golden State, but what is happening in California will arrive in your community if you don’t learn vicariously some lessons about criminal justice.
Charles Cooke asks, “Why has this happened? At least in part, it has happened because California decided to let it happen.” Voters passed Proposition 47 which changed felonies into misdemeanors if the amount stolen did not exceed $950. That made theft and shoplifting more profitable for the criminal.
In addition, some in law enforcement don’t want to enforce the law. The Oakland district attorney says she wants to decriminalize kids. Put another way, she wants to be a social worker, not a DA.
I would point out to the protesters and to the citizens of that state that they voted for a policy and put people in office which resulted in the latest crime wave. If you live in California, you have an opportunity to make some necessary changes in the next election. If you live somewhere else in the country, you should learn what not to do. This progressive experiment in criminal justice is not going well, and you don’t need to import it to your state.

Kerby Anderson
The latest tool of those involved in the cancel culture has been the use of “debanking.” This occurs when a prominent individual or organization is informed by their bank that they will no longer be allowed to use banking services.
Nigel Farage faced such a statement from his bank in the UK because he was perceived as a politically exposed person (PEP) due to his previous involvement in Brexit. The bank argued that their decision to close his account was because his bank account fell below is “wealth limit.” Farage admitted that his account was below the limit but said that had never been a problem in the past.
In this country, Dr. Joseph Mercola announced that his business bank accounts along with the accounts of his CEO and CFO and even the bank accounts of his family members were all closed. He has had accounts with the bank for 18 years but was shut down, he believes, because of his previous statements about the Covid vaccine.
The National Committee for Religious Freedom led by former US Ambassador Sam Brownback had its checking account canceled without notice. Although its advisory board includes former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former Alliance Defending Freedom President Michael Farris, and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, the group was told they must disclose a list of donors and a list of candidates they intended to support if they wanted to the bank to reopen their account.
Perhaps you are noticing a pattern. These banks aren’t closing the accounts of progressive individuals or politically liberal groups. They aren’t prying into the rosters of any other advocacy groups.
That is why some members of Congress are ready to investigate these latest examples of debanking. They pose a threat to free speech and religious liberty.

Kerby Anderson
I recently saw an interview with E.B. Tucker, who usually talks about the economy and investments. He referred to a recent article about “The Good Old Days of 2023” in which he encouraged all of us to enjoy our families and our freedom.
The reason he wants us to enjoy ourselves now is due to his fear of a future digital dystopia, which he locates ten years from now. The Tesla 6000 we drive drops us at the office and then returns to the fleet of self-driving rental cars. Average people don’t own cars. They have eight cameras on the exterior and one on the interior collecting data on you. The same is true of your home. “It’s wired like an NSA safehouse.” He says it is more like a tattletale rather than a safe space.
But the most significant change is the use of the FedCoin. There’s still money, but most purchases are made with this digital money which tracks every dollar in existence. Suppose you want to eat some meat, not the stuff manufactured in a factory, but real cow meat. You try to buy it and your FedCoin wallet flashes a red X. You are prohibited from buying meat.
He suggests that a cyberpanic in the future ended paper money. A new federal Department of Digital Safety issued safe domains to authorized companies. The FedCoin was promoted to eliminate counterfeiting and tax avoidance. It also gave the government ultimate control because the digital money could be switched on and off.
His future scenario shows how surveillance cameras and digital money give authorities unprecedented power. All of this is promoted as a way towards a digital utopia, though it strikes me as a digital dystopia. This doesn’t have to happen, but in order to stop it, we must rein in power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats who desire to control every aspect of our lives.

Kerby Anderson
In this country, we have a division between the elite and the rest of society. In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, David Brooks asks a question of this elite class: “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?” He has his peers consider a different story.
“This story begins in the 1960s, when high school grads had to go off to fight in Vietnam, but the children of the educated class got college deferments. It continues in the 1970s, when the authorities imposed busing on working-class areas in Boston but not on the upscale communities like Wellesley where they themselves lived.”
He reminds us that the elite have taken over whole professions and thereby locked everyone else out. He even describes his own profession of journalism. Most working in the media today come from one of the most elite universities in the nation.
He quotes Daniel Markovits whose book, The Meritocracy Trap, explains that “elite graduates monopolize the best jobs and at the same time invent new technologies that privilege superskilled workers, making the best jobs better and all other jobs worse.”
Armed with so much power, he argues that elites “support policies that help ourselves. Free trade makes the products we buy cheaper, and our jobs are unlikely to be moved to China. Open immigration makes our service staff cheaper, but new, less-educated immigrants aren’t likely to put downward pressure on our wages.”
David Brooks doesn’t believe they are the “bad guys,” but at least provides some insight into why so many Americans feel they have been left behind and live in a world that benefits the elites often to the detriment of the rest of society. This next election will determine if this changes or continues.

Kerby Anderson
This country received a financial downgrade earlier this month. In one sense it was justified. In another, it was absurd. Fitch Ratings reduced America’s financial status because of the increasing amount of national debt piled up by Congress and the president.
This is no small issue. The other day, I read that nearly all (98%) nations that have surpassed a 130 percent debt-to-GDP ratio in the last 225 years eventually defaulted. We exceeded that percentage for a short time a few years ago. The Congressional Budget Office expects federal government debt held by the public to reach 115 percent of GDP this decade.
Although the downgrade was justified, it is also absurd because it supposedly is based upon the ability or inability of a nation to meet its debt obligations. The likelihood of the federal government going into default is non-existent, at least for now. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve can create money to pay back sovereign debt.
The $2 trillion from the CARES Act helped to rescue the economy. But this administration didn’t want to go back to normal. Instead, the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the so-called Inflation Reduction Act pumped trillions more into the economy, setting off nine percent inflation. There is no evidence that this administration is willing to cut back spending.
Perhaps the most puzzling part of the Fitch downgrade was the concern over the “debt-limit political standoffs.” Yet, those are often the only times when some members of Congress use the threat of default to restrain spending.
The financial downgrade should be a wake-up call but unfortunately, the president and many in Congress merely hit the snooze button.