Editor’s Note: At the time of publication, for reasons known only to our hosting service, the #4 link for our On the Lighter Side video was missing, and the entirety of The Gouge, with limited exceptions, was in italics. We apologize in advance for these and any other appearance issues, and will work to correct the problem as soon as possible. Now, on with the show!
It’s Monday, April 17th, 2023…but before we begin…
Susan Rice does magic math, claims that systemic racism has reduced the size of the economy by $16 trillion. pic.twitter.com/nWQeYKyTEl
“…Indeed, those figures are a product of the work primarily done by Citigroup global economist Dana Peterson, who produced these estimates in 2020, and whose findings enjoyed uncritical coverage in the press and academia.
To describe a number of variables that contribute to Peterson’s estimates as complex would be a profound understatement. The report that forms the basis of Rice’s claims examines the effects on black Americans, over decades, of insufficient access to housing and home loans. It studies the intergenerational wealth foregone by those who cannot secure a college degree. It explores the costs of racial discrimination in hiring and in adversarial interactions with police. It considers the wealth not earned by lower- and middle-income black Americans and those of more means, including African-American Ivy League graduates who reportedly earn less than their counterparts, and by black entrepreneurs who struggle to secure venture-capital investment.
All told, Peterson estimates that, absent these “pyramidal” roadblocks to advancement, the U.S. could have created over 6 million new jobs in this century alone.
Given the bewildering number of inputs introduced into this analysis, it’s hardly surprising that other firms looking into the economic activity foregone by African Americans as a result of racial impediments have produced wildly divergent conclusions.
In 2019, the management-consulting behemoth McKinsey & Company pegged the GDP costs of the racial wealth gap, which limits rates of consumption among African Americans, at about $1–1.5 trillion over a decade. It reached this conclusion by adopting what it describes as the “optimistic assumption that black wealth grows faster than white wealth.” But that’s not the only eye-popping assumption in this report.
Exploring the home-ownership gap, McKinsey added that black-owned homes do not appreciate in value at rates seen by white homeowners — a gap that is not explained by “neighborhood differences and the quality of homes.” Only “racial animus can account for the remaining difference in appreciation.” Similarly, black families are less likely to own stocks than white families, “partly because black communities have historically struggled to trust the stock market.” Of particular relevance to Citigroup, the “relative lack of access to mainstream banking” and the “high availability of high-cost financial services” contributes to “a lack of trust in financial institutions” among a significant number of black Americans, who are “completely disconnected” from the banking sector.
The DEI industry is quick to cite itself as the remedy for at least some of these gaps. According to a report produced by the professional-services firm Accenture, American firms are sacrificing at least $1 trillion in profits by failing to be more “inclusive.” By failing to produce “a culture of equity,” as Accenture CEO Julie Sweet wrote, U.S. businesses contribute to a “perception gap” between employees and C-suite executives that reduces productivity and employee-retention rates. Bank of America Global Research sees the costs of racial avulsion running far higher. “Is it $70 trillion in foregone economic output? Or $23 trillion in USD GDP? Or $172 trillion in lifetime earnings?” a 2022 Bank of America report asked. “No matter how you measure it, lack of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) limits national economies and reduces GDP.” (It SHOULD read “No matter how you make it up”!)
As these disparities suggest, the legacies of discriminatory policies in the U.S. do put downward pressure on African-American incomes. And yet, it is impossible to separate social factors from those deriving from free personal choice to the degree necessary to produce an accurate assessment of racism’s macroeconomic effects. That was the conclusion of an academic joint session of the Allied Social Sciences Associations in 2021. As Brookings Institution scholars Randall Akee and Marcus Casey observed, “existing data sets have limited usefulness for identifying the breadth and scope of outcomes and instances of racism.” All we know for sure, according to Brookings Institution fellow Vanessa Williamson, is that eliminating the racial wealth gap requires a “program of heavy and highly progressive taxation aimed at the very wealthiest Americans.”
In lieu of a constitutionally fraught, racially discriminatory redistribution of income in this country, the DEI industry will have to suffice. Upon the release of the blockbuster report that Susan Rice cited, Citigroup also announced a plan to direct $1 billion toward closing the racial wealth gap. In 2021, the firm reluctantly assented to a “racial audit” of its policies — a measure that Citi executives attempted to block, arguing that the audit was unnecessary in part because of that well-intended $1 billion investment in black entrepreneurs and homeowners.
Citigroup is not alone. JPMorgan Chase & Co. made a $30 billion contribution to advancing racial equity in 2020 only to submit later to an audit of their efforts by PricewaterhouseCoopers — an audit that was deemed woefully inadequate by more-explicitly equity-focused auditors. Amazon appeared to have learned the rules of the road when it retained Obama-era attorney general Loretta Lynch to perform its review of the online retailer’s commitment to “address racial justice and equity.” Good intentions don’t speak for themselves, unless the relevant DEI stakeholders are given a taste.
Many firms, however, are ditching their DEI departments to cut costs amid increasingly challenging economic circumstances. No doubt, DEI advocates would cite America’s latent racial bigotries as the real impetus. “These layoffs show some CEOs weren’t committed,” said DEI consultant Dee Marshall ruefully of the layoffs targeting her industry. “Their priority was performative. It was, in some cases, business; it’s what they had to do for shareholders and stakeholders.”
To hear Susan Rice and others tell it, racism presents Americans with tangible costs that the country can’t afford. Their remedies to this condition involve imposing reparative costs on America’s most productive enterprises, which, it seems, those enterprises cannot afford either. The DEI industry’s prescription is a recipe for despair, at least for those Americans who aren’t getting a piece of the action.”
That these supposed bastions of Capitalism have cravenly capitulated to wokeness in the face of Progressive governmental pressure has no bearing whatsoever on the accuracy of the fictitious facts and figures they’ve fabricated.
Here’s the juice: Follow the money, people, for as AOC so famously observed, it’s all about…
Why is French President Emmanuel Macron cozying up to China while trashing his oldest ally, the United States?
Why is there sudden talk of discarding the dollar as the global currency?
Why are Japan and India saying they cannot follow the United States’ lead in boycotting Russian oil?
Why is the president of Brazil traveling to China to pursue what he calls a “beautiful relationship”?
Why is Israel suddenly facing attacks from its enemies in all directions?
What happened to Turkey? Why is it threatening fellow NATO member Greece? Is it still a NATO ally, neutral, or a de facto enemy?
Why are there suddenly ongoing Chinese threats toward Taiwan?
Why did Saudi Arabia conclude a new pact with Iran, its former archenemy?
Why was Egypt secretly planning to send rockets to Russia for use in Ukraine, according to leaked Pentagon papers?
Since when did the Russians talk nonstop about the potential use of a tactical nuclear weapon?
Why is Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador bragging that millions of Mexicans have entered the United States illegally? And why is he interfering in U.S. elections by urging his expatriates to vote for Democrats?
Why and how, in just two years, have confused and often incoherent President Joe Biden and his team created such global chaos?
Let us answer by listing ten ways by which America lost all deterrence:
1) Biden abruptly pulled all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He left behind to the Taliban hundreds of Americans and thousands of pro-American Afghans. Biden abandoned billions of dollars in U.S. equipment, the most extensive air base in central Asia – recently retrofitted for $300 million – and a $1 billion embassy. Our government called such a debacle a success. The world disagreed and saw only humiliation.
2) The Biden administration allowed a Chinese high-altitude spy balloon to traverse the continental United States, spying on key American military installations. The Chinese were defiant when caught and offered no apologies. In response, the Pentagon and the administration simply lied about how China had surveilled top-secret sites.
3) In March 2021, at an Anchorage, Alaska mini-summit, Chinese diplomats unleashed a relentless barrage at their stunned and mostly silent American counterparts. They lectured the timid Biden administration diplomats about American toxicity and hypocrisy. And they have defiantly refused to explain why and how their virology lab birthed the COVID-19 virus that has killed tens of millions worldwide.
4) In June 2021, in response to Russian cyber-attacks against the United States, Biden meekly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to at least make off-limits specific critical American infrastructure.
5) When asked what he would do if Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden replied that the reaction would depend on whether the Russians conducted a “minor incursion.”
6) Between 2021 and 2022, Biden serially insulted and bragged that he would not meet Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and one of our oldest and most valuable allies in the Middle East.
7) For much of 2021, the Biden administration announced that it was eager and ready to offer concessions to re-enter the dangerous Iran nuclear deal – when Iran has joined China and Russia in a new geostrategic partnership.
8) Almost immediately upon inauguration, the [Biden] administration moved the United States away from Israel, restored financial aid to radical Palestinians, and publicly and privately alienated the current Netanyahu government.
9) In serial fashion, Biden stopped all construction on the border wall and opened the border. During the 2019 Democratic presidential primary, Biden made it known that illegal aliens were welcome to enter the United States – some 6-7 million did. He reinstated “catch and release.” And he did nothing about the Mexican cartel importation of fentanyl that has recently killed over 100,000 Americans per year.
10) In the last two years, the [Biden] Pentagon has embarked on a woke agenda. The army is short by 15,000 in its annual recruitment quota. The defense budget has not kept up with inflation. One of the most significant intelligence leaks in U.S. history just occurred from the Pentagon.
The Pentagon refused to admit culpability and misled the country about Afghanistan and the Chinese spy balloon flight. The current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called his Chinese communist counterpart and head of the People’s Liberation Army to advise him that the U.S. military would warn the Chinese if it determined an order from its commander-in-chief, former President Donald Trump, was inappropriate.
This list of these self-inflicted disasters could be easily expanded. But the examples explain well enough why our emboldened enemies do not fear us, our triangulating allies judge us unreliable, and calculating neutrals assume America is in descent and too dangerous to join.
Yet without America, the result is a new Chinese order in which, to quote the historian Thucydides, “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
Here’s a second shot of the juice: Contrary to our humble attempt at humor in the meme above, America’s declining status in the world isn’t the result of stupidity or ineptitude, but rather simple greed, as all of this plays to the advantage of only one party, the Chinese Communist Party, our most dangerous foreign foe, and the very country who has our nation’s First Family…
…on its payroll and firmly in its pocket.
Speaking of the ChiComs, writing at NRO, former assistant secretary of defense for international security Bing West offers this ominous assessment:
“In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of support for Taiwan from the U.S. House of Representatives, typified by the visit of the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Representative Michael McCaul. If China invaded Taiwan, he said, sending U.S. forces into the fight “would be discussed by Congress and with the American people.” McCaul was hewing to the congressional Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, which designates Taiwan a “Major Non-NATO Ally” but leaves ambiguous whether the U.S. would fight alongside it or instead treat it as it does Ukraine, sending arms but not entering the fight.
Chairman Xi Jinping has instructed his country’s military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan. Obviously, his preference is to achieve Taiwan’s capitulation through political maneuvers and threats. But his pledge to employ force during this decade must be taken as firm. A day after McCaul made his unremarkable remarks, China dispatched 80 military aircraft and ships into Taiwan’s littoral space and threatened to board and “inspect” commercial vessels. The Chinese general in command said this was intended as a “serious warning against the joint provocations of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists and external forces.” The White House issued an infelicitous response, saying there was no reason for China to “overreact.”
Let’s have no illusions about what is at stake. Taiwan is both the linchpin and the weakest link in the security agreements and trade and military resources that make America the superpower in the vast Pacific. China already has imposed dominance in the 3.5 million square miles of the South China Sea, through which an estimated $5 trillion in goods passes each year. If China next controls Taiwan by force, then South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines will adhere to China’s rules. With China ascendant, the U.S. would retrench back to Guam and Pearl Harbor, while clinging to seaborne ties with a tepid Europe.
No longer a global superpower, America would morph into the Brazil of North America. There is no avoiding the consequences of appeasement as Taiwan is swallowed up. History may write that China was more determined than America. That is nonsense. There is no person named “History” — it is human beings who make decisions.
Who are the human beings currently making America’s history? President Biden as commander in chief has proposed a defense budget that grows 2 percentage points less than the 5 percent rate of inflation. He also supports decreasing the Navy’s warships from 297 to 280. The current secretary of defense is a platitude without conviction, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is overstuffed with self-importance(Like the president who appointed him.). Not one of the top three makes a vigorous case for increasing our military capabilities to stand up to China.
…Either we declare we will fightwith Taiwan, and so increase the odds that Xi does not attack. Or we do nothing until Xi assembles his invasion force, and then we decide in haste. That leaves the incremental approach. The White House could gradually deploy U.S. troops ashore in Taiwan. Special Forces training teams already shuttle in and out. This fall, a Marine battalion of 800 troops could practice landing on the Pacific side of the island, far from the Taiwan Straits. In winter, an Army battalion of 1,000 soldiers could conduct an exercise, leaving behind a support element for the next exercise. Such incremental steps would avoid anything dramatic. There would be no flamboyant gesture akin to President Kennedy’s 1963 declaration — “Ich bin ein Berliner” — when the Soviet Union controlled half of that divided city. But the message is the same: America is here with you. That would put Xi on the spot. If he attacked, he would know that he must engage American forces. There is, however, no public evidence to suggest that either our military or the White House is contemplating such an approach.
In sum, there’s no way out of Taiwan. Our elected leaders are procrastinating. They are content to drift downstream, knowing there are falls ahead.”
“Nothing is certain but death and taxes, save perhaps Democrats’ recent ability to ignore the relevance of old age to that saying. Will their Dianne Feinstein problem provoke a rethink of the wisdom of renominating Joe Biden?
…How electable will Mr. Biden be 19 months from now? Might Democratic voters—already feeding into the president’s low approval ratings—prove unwilling to turn out for the party’s anointed yet faltering nominee? What happens if Mr. Biden announces a run yet by next spring is incapable of following through, leaving the party in disarray?
One smart move in today’s crazy political environment is to assume anything is possible, including the worst. All the more so when there are already blaring signs of a problem to come. Democrats might view the Feinstein moment as a warning of the danger they are courting by continuing to close their eyes to what the rest of the country so clearly sees.”
Next, NRO‘s Michael Brendan Dougherty ponders a question we’d wager few of us have been considering, namely…
The most important barrier to illegal entry to the United States is so impassable that only one normal car has ever crossed it. Sixty-two years ago, a Land Rover made the journey. And it took five months to do so, crawling along at just over a tenth of a mile per hour. This barrier is guarded ferociously day and night, with truly deadly sentries who are indifferent to human life. And it’s not even on the American border — it is the no-man’s land that exists between Central and South America, the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia. It is the only place between Prudhoe Bay in Alaska and Ushuaia, Argentina, the world’s southernmost city on planet Earth, that cannot be driven over.
There is not a single road that joins North and South America, precisely because the geography of this place is so forbidding. The 100 kilometers between the city of Turbo in Colombia and the town of Yavisa in Panama is a dense equatorial jungle, rising quickly into treacherous mountains. It is crisscrossed with rivers that regularly become flash floods because the Darien Gap is one of the rainiest locations on Earth. It’s often over 95 degrees during the day and usually at 100 percent humidity. The wildlife is treacherous — including poisonous snakes and frogs, any of which can induce a medical emergency in a place that is hundreds of miles from the nearest human habitat. And then there are the billions of mosquitos, many of them carrying malaria or dengue. There is no cell service, so nobody can use modern cellphone maps or GPS trackers to figure out their exact location or whether they are going in the right direction. The only moderately safe way to cross the gap is to take boats or planes to bypass it entirely. But that costs significant money, and rules out many hundreds of thousands of those most desperate to escape crumbling regimes in South America.
The Darien Gap has stopped Colombia’s drug-trade dysfunction from spreading north into Panama. It’s also been the one thing, including massively tightened visa restrictions into Mexico, stopping a tsunami of potential migration to the United States from South America. And not just South America. After the collapse of Haiti’s government in 2021, Haitians began pioneering a route to the southern border of the United States using the Darien Gap.
Since Covid, a number of countries have become drastically more unlivable, and hundreds of thousands of their citizens are now following in those Haitian footsteps, whether from Venezuela, Ecuador, Gambia, or China. And this wave of humanity is starting to tame the jungle by trampling it. Increasingly, drug smugglers and paramilitaries are organizing the gap for migration. It’s estimated that as many as 400,000 will cross the Darien Gap in 2023; 90,000 have already done so. People are coming from all over the world as well. According to the Guardian:
Panamanian government data shows about 400 Chinese citizens made the journey during the first half of 2022. In November last year, the figure rose to 377, then to 695 in December. In January 2023, a record-breaking 913 Chinese nationals crossed, making them the fourth-largest group of migrants to do so this year.
Just this week, the Biden administration announced a joint 60-day campaign with the governments of Panama and Colombia to stop the flow of migrants through the gap. The Biden administration faces another potential exacerbation of the border crisis because the pandemic-related rules that it has used to slightly contain the chaos will end on May 11 of this year.
Unfortunately, just as the Biden administration has tried to end the border crisis by spreading it to random hotels and destinations around the United States, so the White House is advertising that its solution to the crisis at the gap will include “new lawful and flexible pathways for tens of thousands of migrants and refugees as an alternative to irregular migration.” One particularly futile-sounding part of the announced plan was a joint operation to “reduce poverty” in the border communities of Colombia and Panama to dissuade people from the booming human-smuggling business around the gap.
If these plans fail(“IF”?!?), and the Darien Gap becomes a major land bridge for migration, it will expose and pressurize the other “gap” in immigration enforcement, which is the simple unwillingness of Democratic administrations to vigorously enforce the laws that distinguish between U.S. citizens, lawful visa holders, and illegal migrants.
But hey, no worries: We’re certain the Biden clown car will vet these illegals, particularly the Chinese, with the same thoroughness they did the Afghans fleeing Kabul in the wake of Joe’s precipitous surrender.
Moving on, here’s a septet of special selections certain to sate the curiosity of inquiring Conservative minds:
(1). If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s ANY limit to the fraudulent “facts” Progressives won’t formulate in their purposeful pursuit of a divided country, this forward from Nick should convince you the answer’s not “no”, but “HELL NO!!!”:
(2). Having decided to shut down its last 3 nuclear plants, Germany plunges ahead into an incredibly uncertain “green” energy future, despite quite legitimate concerns over the dependability of its energy future. Hey, what could go wrong? After all, it’s not like Germany’s political class will be standing in line for coal…
(6). In a speech reminiscent of a famous scene from Jerry Maguire, at least one Black San Franciscan who likely has never suffered true discrimination, let alone slavery, wants the city to…
(7). Speaking of those who think nothing of demanding others pay for their perceived rights, in a petition to the FAA, an incredibly overweight individual named Jae’lynn Chaney…
…is insisting, among other things:
(i) All morbidly obese passengers should be provided with an extra free seat, or even two or three seats depending on their size, to accommodate their needs and ensure their comfort during the flight.
(ii) Airlines should offer refunds to morbidly obese passengers who purchase additional seats independently.
(iii) Airlines should create special standards for booking, refunds, check-in, boarding and flight procedures for morbidly obese people.
(iv) Aircraft should be…we assume…retrofitted with larger-sized bathrooms to accommodate the girth of the morbidly obese, as well as provide them priority boarding and additional airport assistance.
Along with super-sized snacks, extra-sugary drinks and grease to help them squeeze down the aisle.
Something tells us while Mayor Pete would undoubtedly take up her cause, the airlines might have a…reservation…or two! But never fear, Jae’lynn, our beautiful sister-in-law Jackie offered a common-sense, low-cost solution to your plight: It’s called “taking the bus”; or in your case, a freighter.
Which brings us, inappropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these from Balls Cotton…
…Speed…
…and The Patriot Post…
…along with this one we created ourselves inspired by the actual photo of a friend’s newborn granddaughter:
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with this hilarious example of bad lip reading courtesy of energy correspondent Jeff Foutch:
CBN details the decline of a city we once enjoyed frequenting; Not any more.
Tales of The Darkside
Author, art professor, feminist, and cultural commentator Camille Paglia speaks on the current transgender mania, the child abuse that is early medical & surgical intervention and how the explosion of gender identities is a recurring sign of cultural collapse throughout the history of civilization…SIX years ago!
On the Lighter Side
Here’s an interesting bit of statistical analysis courtesy of Mark Hannon. P.S. We can’t speak to the accuracy of the figure set forth.
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