National Institute of Manufacturing

“You Americans do not rear children, you incite them; you give them food and shelter and applause.” — Randall Jarrell, “Pictures From an Institution”

Mom got back comfortably.
Good dinner with the McGraws and Chris at Zinho.

As a result of the Great Recession and the squeeze of interest rates by the Fed, Alex J. Pollock estimates that American savers lost $2.4 trillion between 2008 and mid-2017. Something similar happened in Europe. These events were just a repeat of history. The value destroyed in a crash must be lost by somebody, and interventionist governments decide by whom.  It is usually taxpayers or savers, although equity investors (as opposed to lenders and bond holders) typically lose something, too.

Biden did Strom Thurmond's eulogy. In a political party with an elephant's memory, is that forgivable?

The Texas state legislature has passed two bills which would define ‘harassment’ on campus as “unwelcome, sex based” words.Hearing anything that makes you feel even slightly uncomfortable would be considered sexual harassment. The legislation allows university professors to be fired or imprisoned for failing to report any instance of harassment that falls under this loose definition.'

So, the solution to this problem, failing mind reading, is silence.

San Francisco’s Washington High School  has a mural painted in the 1930s depicting George Washington (with Native Americans nee Indians and slaves) that is viewed as so offensive to local sensibilities that they are covering it--at the cost of up to $300K.

When did Obama's Detention Centers become Concentration Camps?

One element of Leftist policy is the belief that we have good understanding and that leads to control. But the primary factor is "control." And if control is to be assumed, we must have an understanding. So, we must make everything explainable, even if those explanations are wrong. So we live in a stripped down world. 

I am not a big fan of polls but this is a worrisome one: Americans have little faith the U.S. political system can address long-term challenges and are skeptical the nation remains committed to foundational tenets such as the free market, majority rule and tolerance, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows.

Swarthmore College offers a course on “Queering God,” most recently taught during the spring 2019 semester, that provides a feminist and queer perspective of the Bible, while also exploring God’s gender identity.

On this day in 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the armed services–known as G.I.s–for their efforts in World War II.

                    National Institute of Manufacturing

Gary Peters, D-Mich., wants to create a new federal agency called the National Institute of Manufacturing. The senator explains, "This will be an executive branch agency that will house our national manufacturing programs under one roof," and effectively coordinate a strategic vision for manufacturing.

 This silliness seems to be aimed at the supposed decline of American manufacturing. In reality, while manufacturing employment has gone down significantly over the last 40 years, U.S. manufacturing output is now near an all-time high.

Industrial capacity — the existing ability of American factories and workplaces to produce industrial output — is also higher than at any time in the past,

But all the big nations are doing this, one might cry. In his latest book — "The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?" — Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute for International Economics shows that China's growth since 1978 has actually been the product of market-oriented reforms, not state-owned programs.
Lardy notes that in 2012, about 70% of China's GDP was produced by private firms. He details the toll taken on the Chinese economy by the recent increase in ambitious industrial policies and the growth of the state-owned sector. His conclusion is that unless China reverses course and the growing weight of state-owned enterprises, government debt and bad investments, China's growth will wither away.

Here's yet another politician thinking that somehow, the same government that started a war in Iraq on faulty intelligence, botched the launch of HealthCare.gov, gave us the Solyndra scandal and can keep neither Amtrak nor the Postal Service solvent, can effectively coordinate a strategic vision for American manufacturing. Governments fight wars, and the only reason they are successful is that they are fighting other governments.

As Peters notes, "If you go on the factory floor in Michigan, it's not your father's or grandfather's factory." What is he saying? That we should go back one or two or three generations and recreate the factory of the past?  Restore replaced technologies and ideas?

Lighter regulations, a better tax code, more immigrants and freedom to do what they do best are what entrepreneurs need. Which is to say, get government to the sidelines.