President Donald Trump has increasingly implored mayors and governors in the cities and states wracked by violence to do their jobs and keep the peace. Whether due to lack of will, to underestimating the coming night’s violence, or to an outright sympathy with the looters — erroneously conflating the legitimate grievances of the protesters with...
America, and increasingly much of the rest of the world, is heading into a cold war with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Since the original Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we’ve largely lost our understanding of the nature of that kind of conflict. We are now being...
There appears to be no statistical connection between the economic pain of the nationwide shutdowns and the number of COVID-19 cases or fatalities. None. Let that sink in for a moment, given we were told we had to lock down America to “flatten the curve” and save lives. On the other hand, the data does...
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk threatened to move his company headquarters and manufacturing plant, California’s sole remaining auto factory, out of state — to Texas and Nevada. Neither Texas nor Nevada has an individual income tax and their corporate taxes are lower, as well. With California’s higher taxes, greater red tape compliance costs, higher labor and land costs, and...
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its official employment report for April—or, in this season of COVID-19, more appropriately, the unemployment report. The topline is that nonfarm payroll employment fell by 20.5 million jobs, with the unemployment rate jumping 10.3% to 14.7%, the highest one-month jump since these statistics started being tallied in 1948. Some...
On April 19, Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, one of the leading official English-language newspapers in China, wrote a disturbing piece titled “Cooperate with US states on virus fight, not federal government.” Of course, Hu must be a member in good standing of the Chinese Communist Party, as is expected for the leader...
In what seems like a lifetime ago, state government finances across the nation were moving in divergent directions, with 28 states having replenished their fund balances above what they held before the onset of the recession in 2007. Meanwhile, states such as Pennsylvania and Illinois were dangerously low on fiscal reserves, with each state having...
The world as seen by Xi Jinping is different from it was in January 2016. At the time, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was strong at home, as its power and prestige were growing abroad. Hong Kong was prosperous and quiescent. The “rebellious province of Taiwan” was ruled by President Ma Ying-Jeou, a politician favoring...
In a few short weeks, a virus with origins in China has brought the American economy to a near-halt. Public health officials, 16.5 million health-care workers, and tens of thousands of scientists are working overtime to reduce the fatalities, heal the sick, and find a cure. Congress reacted as only it knows how—by spending more than...
The Trump administration on Jan. 31 announced travel restrictions aimed at reducing the number of people coming to the United States from China to flatten the infection curve of the novel coronavirus that emerged out of Wuhan. The reaction from the People’s Republic of China and the American left was immediate: harsh criticism that President Donald...
The latest information on Coronavirus COVID-19, also known as the Wuhan Flu, from Johns Hopkins University shows widely varying numbers of confirmed cases and apparent mortality rates by nation. The People’s Republic of China, the virus’ epicenter, was reporting 81,058 cases as of March 17 with 3,230 deaths, with 4.0 percent of those diagnosed subsequently dying. Italy...
Every March, when the weather in Texas is mild (except for those thunderstorms) and the Mexican free-tailed bats return to Austin, South by Southwest (SXSW) dominates Texas’ capital city for 10 days. But with an announcement on Friday, the annual tech, film and music gathering that was slated to run from March 13 to the 22 was canceled...