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Things I’ve Been Thinking About Lately 

White Privilege, Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, Identity Politics… How Academia’s Dumbest Ideas Became So Popular 
 
I had just finished a chapter of a book I’m writing in which, among other things, I consider why so many of the most popular ideas and ideologies being propounded in colleges and universities today are not just wrong, but downright stupid.

White Privilege, intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, identity politics, etc. – I’ve written about all of them here before, wondering how they could be so obviously nonsensical and yet so strongly promoted and consumed.

I was thinking about it again last week after watching the clown show that took place during the Congressional hearings on the pro-Palestinian protests at many of our most prestigious universities. I was trying to understand how the presumably intelligent presidents of Harvard, MIT, and U Penn – people who were all about student behavior codes that banned such “microaggressions” as using misgendered pronouns – could publicly defend student protesters that repeatedly called for the extinction of the Jewish state?

How could they be so dumb on both issues at the same time?

Moreover, how could all those pro-Palestinian student protesters believe their cause was right? That the largest genocide of Jews since the Holocaust was a legitimate “act of resistance” against an oppressive, colonialist, racist, and apartheid state of White supremacy?

Even more disturbingly, why did the media portray them in a positive light?

I have not yet developed a theory that feels complete, much less defensible. But here is what I’m thinking.

A college professor can have a splendid career at an “ordinary” college by being an excellent teacher as well as an actual expert in the subject he or she teaches

My father, who was an exceptionally learned man, is an example. His dream was to be a playwright. But after writing several plays that were not commercially successful, he accepted the fact that, to support a family (that would soon include eight children), he had to get a “real” job. So, he became a professor of English, Greek, and Latin Literature at a local college on Long Island. He earned his living that way, supplemented by side gigs teaching mathematics and “speed” reading, for his entire career. He knew his Shakespeare and Homer and Joyce. He was also a very good teacher – so good that his classes were always maxed out early in the registration process.

His considerable skills would have been insufficient to get him tenure had he been teaching at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. At those lofty institutions, success requires not just expertise, but the continuous production of scholarly papers and books that would demonstrate his bona fides.

In other words, he would have had to play the “publish or perish” game.

And here’s where we get into the question of how highly educated people can end up embracing stupid ideas.

Professors at prestige universities must write books and essays that are published by academic publishers. But academic publishers – and this is true to some extent of all nonfiction publishers – are reluctant to spend money on books that, however solid they may be in terms of research, are unlikely to get attention. Books that get attention draw attention to the publishers themselves. And that means growth, prestige, and profits.

So, if the goal of the professor/writer is limited to merely being edifying, there is no natural incentive to propose theses that are unable to get lots of attention.

In theory, academic publishers should be satisfied with books that correct some minor technical flaws in the accepted scholarly literature, the idea being that scholarship is advanced by strengthening and extending widely respected theories. (Scholarly research and writing was always thought to be a scrupulous and humble pastime.)

But however successful books like that may be at inching forward towards a deeper understanding of some esoteric subject, they will receive, at best, approval and praise from other scholars that are unknown to the larger world.

If modern scholars want to make a “splash” – if they want to propel their careers forward – they have to write something that, in some way, is bold and ambitious. Put differently, they must challenge or refute, in whole or in part, the accepted wisdom of the day.

It’s not easy to overturn or reinvent or even reshape ideas that have dominated a field of study. Standard academic ideas are standard for a good reason: They have resisted critical challenges time and time again, sometimes for centuries.

Faced with the task of coming up with an idea that is different, it’s nearly impossible for a modern scholar to resist the temptation to compose, instead, one that is simply new. An idea that is, however flawed, nonetheless exciting, superficially cogent, and, most importantly, appealing in some way to the current gestalt of the larger academic community.

Such ideas are not only attractive to academic publishers, they are attractive to the scholars that critique them in academic journals because they, too, are under pressure to have something new to write about.

They are all looking for ideas that are fresh but not flat-out nonsensical, newish and clever, but also supportive of the academic vibe of the time. These are the ideas that are endorsed and embraced.

So what academia gets, with every new generation of scholars and critics, is a set of “new” ideas that may be flawed, but at least have the benefit of seeming to be reasonable given the cultural prejudices of the day. And though they may have lost any relationship to logic, fact, or common sense, they are eventually accepted as “true.”

Fifty years ago, any academic that wrote a book promoting any of the crazy ideas out there today would have never seen that book in print.

The idea of White Privilege, for example, could not have become accepted were it not for Karl Marx’s idea, 100 years ago, that Capitalism and class conflict were the fundamental reasons for the unequal distribution of wealth. And the current ideas of intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and identity politics could never have been taken seriously were it not for Marx’s illogical and false theories that power and class conflict were the root causes of inequality.

That is the situation we have today. The dominant social, political, and economic ideas embraced by elitist educational institutions are obviously and evidently ridiculous. But for those enclosed in academic echo chambers and social media algorithms, they seem not just perfectly reasonable, but virtuous and good.

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2023 Was a Pretty Good Year for the Global Economy, but… 

Despite widespread global inflation, geopolitical problems, and the economic after-effects of COVID and the lockdowns, the global economy in 2023 did a bit better than most economists expected.

However, in 2024, many of these same economists are saying that the US (and most of the rest of the world) will experience a global economy that is less sanguine.

In its semiannual “Global Economic Report,” the World Bank predicted that the growth of the world’s economy would slow to 2.4%.

That’s not good, because despite the improvement experienced in 2023, a 2.4% growth would still be the third consecutive year of economic deceleration. The report cited “continued higher interest rates, anemic global trade, reduced global investing, and rising geopolitical tensions” as the reasons.

If that turns out to be true, this first quarter of 2024 is the time for business leaders and individual investors to make changes. (I will write more about this in future issues.)

The Problem with Minimum Wage Laws 

Do minimum wage laws work? Are they helpful in improving the lives of our least-skilled workers? The evidence from a hundred studies over the last 20 years is clear. They do not.

And why would that be?

As I’ve mentioned before, by the time a minimum wage is agreed upon, the market demand for minimum-skilled workers is usually as high as the proposed wage or greater.

As I write this, 22 states are lifting pay floors, but many fast-food cooks and housekeepers are already earning more than minimum wage. And that’s because of free-market competition. The COVID shutdown and the move towards working remotely, have made it increasingly difficult for business owners to attract low-wage workers.

As noted in the WSJ:

“Robust raises in recent years have rendered pay floors largely irrelevant, even in states that aggressively lifted them.”

For example: “To start 2024, Washington State will raise the nation’s highest minimum to $16.28 an hour, from $15.74 in 2023. Washington ties its minimum wage to the consumer-price index, a measure of inflation. Hawaii has the largest planned increase, with its minimum wage rising $2, to $14 an hour, in 2024. That is part of a law that will increase the lowest hourly wages in the Aloha State to $18 by 2028. California, New York, and Illinois are also among the states raising the pay floor.

“Most low-wage workers are making well above those minimums. Through September, the lowest 10% of workers by income in each state earned hourly wages that were on average nearly 50% higher than their state’s minimum wages in 2023, according to a WSJ analysis that compared state minimum wages to income estimates from MIT Sloan School of Management professor Nathan Wilmers.

“That is the largest gap between actual pay and minimum pay in a decade.”

Read more here.

Chart of the Week 

This week, Sean MacIntyre talks about the expectation of some economists that we are quickly nearing a worldwide stock market crash. He’s not so sure. And he has another graph with solid analysis and thoughtful explanations to support his thinking. 

Some new stock market forecasts claim that the S&P 500 could dive as much as -86% in 2024.

The reason given for such a crash is usually overvaluation: Index prices have drifted away from what company profits can reasonably support.

But I question this assumption.

Let’s compare the price of the S&P 500 against the most predictive valuation metric – the Shiller CAPE Ratio.

We’ll compare current prices to both the CAPE’s long-term average and its 10-year average.

As I write, the S&P 500 is trading around 4300.

If it fell until its CAPE valuation returned to long-term averages, the S&P 500 would have to drop to about 2900. That’s a -32% drop from current levels. Cataclysmic, especially for retirees.

But what if the S&P 500 fell to its 10-year average CAPE?

The S&P 500 would drop to about 4030 – a -6% drop.

Not nearly as scary.

Many doom-and-gloomers balk at the market’s nosebleed-high valuations. But there are many reasons why this should be the norm.

Since the early 1990s, more Americans own stocks than ever before.

And one of the most popular investment strategies is simply to buy and hold the S&P 500.

It stands to reason that if tens of millions of people keep throwing money at one thing, the value of that thing will go up.

Also, retirement accounts and 401(k)s do not offer many alternatives besides stocks and mutual funds that own stocks. Workers have their money shunted automatically into stocks every month, regardless of valuation.

Finally, since the late 1980s, algorithms have accounted for up to 75% of all stock trading volume. Robots routinely scoop up stocks during downturns and drive prices back up. (They cause crashes sometimes, too.)

Simply put: The fundamental calculus of the market has changed. Investor behavior has changed. The world has changed.

So if there’s a cataclysmic crash coming in stocks… it won’t be because the market is “overvalued.”

– Sean MacIntyre

By the way, Sean is working on a free video that teaches stock valuation on his YouTube channel. Click here and subscribe to be notified when it goes live.

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Election Watch

Trump Must Be Reading This Blog

Donald Trump must be reading my blog, because he’s just predicted that Biden won’t be running against him in the 2024 election.

In a recent interview with Breitbart News, Trump said, “All you have to do is look at his credentials. When you compare him today to 15 or 20 years ago, he’s a different kind of a guy. The guy can’t talk. The guy can’t put two sentences together.”

If you have watched clips of Biden speaking, you know this is true.

In recent weeks, many poll watchers and pundits have been voicing their doubts about Biden. If you google “predictions that Biden won’t run in 2024” (or something similar), you’ll find dozens of them.

Here are three:

From The Economic Times: A senior JPMorgan Chase strategist has predicted that Joe Biden will bow out of the 2024 election. He has given reasons for this. He has also made other predictions. Click here. 

From Reuters: Biden is “not sure” he’d be running if Trump was not in the race. Click here.

From The Hill: Cornel West says he’s not sure Biden will make it to the election. Click here. 

 

The End of Western Culture 

Holiday Roadkill: Pro-Hamas Americans Shut Down Airports 

As reported in the Dec. 31 installment of “The Week That Perished” in Taki’s Magazine:

“On Dec. 27, pro-Hamas protesters in the US rolled out a nationwide airport blockade in which noble leftists fighting for the right of Muslims to rape and murder Jews linked arms and prevented entry to LAX, JFK, and O’Hare, keeping travelers from their flights….

“This capped a year in which ‘climate activists’ in the UK and Europe… made a cottage industry out of blockading highways, ‘slow-walking’ traffic on busy streets, defacing buildings, and vandalizing museums.”

The Associated Press responded to this by running a piece that argued that protests involving violence and the use of force are the most important facets of a well-functioning democracy.

Read more headline news from “The Week That Perished” here.

Are Americans Becoming Emotionally Dependent on Their Celebrities? 

In response to a recently published NYT piece by Anna Marks on Taylor Swift that suggested she was, or should be, bisexual, Freddie deBoer wrote:

“The NYT piece operates by conceding that Swift is known to have exclusively dated men and has never made a single statement suggesting that she’s anything other than heterosexual, then goes on to insist that she’s queer, whatever the fuck that term means in 2024. Marks does this in part by sketching some unconvincing readings of Swift’s lyrics and by laying out conspiracy theories that remind me of QAnon. But more, Marks simply insists that LGBTQ people need this, that the palpable longing for Swift to be gay… can somehow will Swift’s homosexuality into being.”

Continue reading here.

 

Health Watch 

DeSantis Gets Ahead of the Biden Administration on Prescription Medicine Pricing 

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act gave the US government the right to negotiate certain drugs for Medicare Part D participants down to a maximum of about $3,300 a year. The Democratic leadership was counting on this as an important talking point in the 2024 election.

Ron DeSantis has taken the wind out of those sails by securing permission from the FDA to import all sorts of prescription drugs from Canada at even cheaper prices. This could make a big difference in how much Floridians will be spending on medicine in 2024.

DeSantis’s strategy should be very popular among voters, but it’s not a done deal.

The current deal with the FDA will be in force only for two years. If DeSantis wants the cost savings to become permanent, Florida must “demonstrate the programs would result in significant cost savings to consumers without adding risk of exposure to unsafe or ineffective drugs,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said.

DeSantis said the state would begin the program by importing drugs to help people cared for by state agencies – e.g., the Dept. of Corrections and the Agency for Persons with Disabilities. The drugs would treat chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and mental illness.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s Surgeon General, Has Called for a Halt of the mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines

The reason? He says that the shots Pfizer and Moderna said were “safe” are contaminated with plasmid DNA.

And plasmid DNA is not something you want floating around in your body.

Citing a paper published by the FDA in 2007, Dr. Ladapo presented the following concerns with respect to regulatory limits for DNA in vaccines:

* DNA integration could theoretically impact a human’s oncogenes – the genes that can transform a healthy cell into a cancerous cell.

* DNA integration may result in chromosomal instability.

* The FDA’s paper discusses biodistribution of DNA vaccines and how such integration could affect unintended parts of the body, including blood, heart, brain, liver, kidney, bone marrow, ovaries/testes, lungs, etc.

This wasn’t news for those of us that have been following the issue. Scientists and medical professionals have been talking about it for years.

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Quick Bites: Hot Stuff… Dumb Stuff… and an “Impossible” Challenge Smashed 

McDonald’s Under Attack!

You may have seen video clips of McDonald’s customers being harassed by pro-Palestinian protestors. It’s disturbing because… well, what could be more American than eating at McDonald’s?

Have no fear. Google is coming to the rescue of all McDonald’s customers. Google is working with the company to deploy generative AI to ensure that “large orders of fries are delivered hot.”

Meanwhile, here’s a tip from the New York Post to ensure that your fries are scalding-hot every time. Just specify “no salt,” which means they must make a batch especially for you.

An Unfounded and Oddball Allegation About Elon Musk 

I was about to write a short piece to express my astonishment at a piece I read this weekend from the WSJ about Elon Musk. But I saw that Alex Berenson had summed it up succinctly. Click here.

Boy Wonder Smashes 34-Year-Old Game Challenge

Millions of people all over the world play Tetris. As with many computer games, players try to advance their positions using natural intelligence and acquired skills. Since the launch of the standard NES Tetris game in 1989, no player has made it to the “kill screen” – a barrier that was astonishingly broken through on Dec. 31 by a 13-year-old phenom! Click here.

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How much do you know about the Vikings?

I scored only 12 out of 20 on this quiz, but I found the ones I didn’t know fascinating. The Vikings contributed more to British and American civilization that most people realize, including some of our best words.

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"Were it not for hypocrisy I’d have no advice to give."
"Were it not for sciolism I’d have no ideas to share."
"Were it not for arrogance, I’d have no ambition."
"Were it not for forgetfulness, I would have no new ideas to write about."