Tuesday Potpourri

First, among the most important stories in the world of geopolitical economy is what is happening in Argentina. I have been at pains to keep everyone informed, but it is worth the trouble to offer Doug Casey’s summary of what Argentina’s new president Javier Milei has accomplished:

The most important geopolitical event has received the least press: the election of Javier Milei in Argentina. His success in rolling back the size of the Argentine government is historic. He has fired scores of thousands of government employees, abolished agencies, abolished many taxes, and abolished a lot of price controls and subsidies. The government, which has perpetually run in deeply the red, financed by printed fiat money, is now in the black after only one year. This is a really major change, a veritable first in world history, and a change in the megatrend, with any luck.

Second, and then there is the fate of liberal democracy. You might recall that one Francis Fukuyama argued a quarter century ago that liberal democracy would end up being the most effective and efficient form of governance. Fukuyama learned this by reading Hegel. One feels compelled to remark that it is probably not a very good idea to hitch your wagon to the godfather of Marxism.

Where Fukuyama saw a conflict between liberal democracy and Communist tyranny, more recent thinkers have insisted that the conflict is between liberal democracy and authoritarianism. 

And yet, for those who see democracy winning, one notes the analysis offered by British Lord, one Danial Hannan, in The Daily Mail.

Apparently, things are not quite so rosy for democracy.

More countries than ever are going through the motions, with manifestos, candidates, polling stations and returning officers. Yet actual democracy, in the sense of people being able to change their rulers through the ballot box, is in retreat.

He continues:

International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) records that, last year, 46 per cent of countries saw a decline in the rule of law and democratic norms, while 24 per cent have seen an increase.

The Economist Intelligence Unit states: ‘Less than 8 per cent of the world’s population live in a full democracy, while almost 40 per cent live under authoritarian rule – a share that has been creeping up in recent years.’

What is causing this disruption? What was it, from the start of the 2010s, that undermined so many of the old political certainties – and the parties that upheld them?

Was it the global financial crisis, which delegitimised the entire system in many people’s eyes? Was it mass immigration, which wrecked the sense of shared identity that allows strangers to trust one another?

Or was it the spread of social media and of smartphones, which have left us bored, gullible and angry?

Worse yet, it might be the Chinese example. Over the past four decades China grew its economy by some 3000%. Which is a lot. It turned a backwater into one of the world’s largest economies.

And, dare we mention, it did not do so with liberal democracy, with free elections, free expression or human rights.

Third, Gideon Rachman explains in the Financial Time that democracies are not quite as functional as we would wish:

The major­ity of G7 gov­ern­ments are now so burdened with domestic polit­ical prob­lems that they are incap­able of steer­ing their own coun­tries — let alone the free world.

Con­sider the polit­ical situ­ations in France, Ger­many, Canada, Japan and South Korea (the lat­ter is not form­ally a mem­ber of the G7, but routinely attends the sum­mits). In France, the gov­ern­ment recently fell after it was unable to pass a budget. A new prime min­is­ter is in place but will face the same prob­lems.

There is much spec­u­la­tion that Emmanuel Mac­ron will resign as pres­id­ent before the sched­uled end of his term in 2027.

Fourth, meanwhile back in the USA, the Trump world is debating the issue of H1-B visas, and especially the issue of whether our great nation can produce a sufficient quantity of engineers. We are world class in producing lawyers and social justice warriors, but when it comes to engineering, we are woefully inadequate.

David Goldman has been debating the issue for quite some time. He offers some statistics, to add to your morning coffee:

The United States awards about 230,000 bachelor’s degrees in engineering and computer science each year, compared with about 1.2 million in China. The biggest problem at US engineering schools—excluding a few top-rated schools—is finding students qualified to major in the subject at the undergraduate level.

In 2009, 34% of US eighth graders tested at “proficient” (26%) or “advanced” (8%) on the National Assessment of Education Progress test. By 2020, that had fallen to just 24%, with 20% at “proficient” and 4% at “advanced,” according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Only 6% of American undergraduates major in engineering, compared with 33% in China and Russia.

No surprises here. The problem lies in the American educational system. Recent tendencies toward DEI have aggravated the problem:

In many parts of the country, math instruction is deliberately dumbed down in the name of “equality.” San Francisco eliminated accelerated math instruction in middle and high schools in 2014. The school boards of Troy, Missouri, Tulsa Oklahoma, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and many others followed suit.

In 2023 the California State Board of Education proposed to delay algebra instruction until ninth grade. That schedule, the board claimed, “affirms California’s commitment to ensuring equity and excellence in math learning for all students.”

As for the abuses to the system-- employers who hire foreign workers because they can pay them less-- Goldman recommends the Australian solution:

Educating enough American engineers to reduce dependence on immigrants will take years under the most optimistic assumptions. The present H-1B program does depress pay for qualified Americans, as its critics aver. That is simple to fix. Many countries, for example, Australia, require employers who sponsor a skilled immigrant to pay the going rate for the same job.

The Australian model is designed to “ensure that overseas workers are not paid less than an Australian worker doing the same work. They will also stop these visa programs being used to undercut the Australian labor market.” The onus is on employers to prove they are not paying a sponsored immigrant less than the going salary.

The H-1B program could stand improvement, but the United States can’t do without imported talent – not for years to come.

No one seems willing to mention, if we cannot import enough engineers to fill in the gaps, we can always offshore production. If you cannot bring in more Indian scientists, why not simply move your business to India?

Fifth, as for renewable energy, Powerline lays out the problem, with exemplary clarity.

Wind and solar energy are both unreliable and ridiculously expensive, a fatal combination. They exist only because of government subsidies and mandates, without which they couldn’t begin to compete with real–i.e., reliable and affordable–sources of energy. But no matter how hard governments try, they can never … waste enough money on “green” energy.

Sixth, it’s the latest and the greatest in therapy. Or, that is what its practitioners want us to believe. Ellen Barry writes in the New York Times that the therapy world has a new fad-- divorcing your parents. That means, shunning them, canceling them, writing them out of your life.

Needless to say, the practice is highly disputed. Barry writes:

Whether or not mental health clinicians should encourage this practice is hotly debated. There is no scientific evidence that separating from family is beneficial for the client, critics say; on the contrary, estranged children are likely to lose access to financial and emotional resources. And such cutoffs can also harm family members left behind, like siblings, grandchildren and aging parents.

As they begin to organize online, some parents are scrutinizing those therapists who endorse cutoffs, arguing that they are violating foundational ethical principles. Therapists are trained to avoid imposing their own views when clients contemplate major decisions, and to uphold the principle of non-maleficence, or doing no harm. And for the most part, they are taught to regard family relationships, even flawed ones, as an important part of a flourishing life.

One understands, only too well, that there are some circumstances and some families where children need to divorce their parents. But then, aren’t these extreme circumstances, not a part of everyday growing up? Extremes should not be the rule.

By that I mean that the proponents of this action tend to believe in a trauma theory, to the effect that children were traumatized by their parents, that they suffered emotional abuse, and that their problems are the fault of their parents.

But, what do we really mean by trauma. Are we talking about children who have suffered from sexual abuse or about children who are being forced to do extra homework. There is a difference.

True enough, we would agree that extremes exist, but then again we should question the theory that tells us that large numbers of parents are impediments to childhood flourishing.

How does it happen that the therapy world becomes engulfed in these occasional fad cures?

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