Stimulus Package Actually Transfers $$ to the Rich? George Floyd's Killer Might Walk, Should NASA Still Exist? Broke San Francisco Gets Bailed Out?(The Five for 03/09/21)
Hi,
Welcome to The Five.
Before we begin:
If you missed it (and you probably missed it) Renegades, The Bruce Springsteen/Barack Obama podcast launched to…well, not much interest. Spotify is attempting to dominate the podcast space with exclusive content (which is coming at a steep price). But, much like the thrift store vinyl of music super-groups of the past, putting two huge personalities together just doesn’t add up to much in this case. The American Spectator has an interesting writeup on how Renegades contains some interesting moments, but the conversation just drifts (and drifts and drifts) between significant points. Podcasting, the most DIY of broadcast mediums, may just not scale up to the corporate-y level where shows are successful just because of big names, which is what Spotify clearly hoped.
YouTuber Tim Pool has an interesting take on BlueAnon, the left-wing version of right wing conspiracy group Q-Anon. Pool lays out a cases that CNN and the New York Times protect left wing conspiracy theories.
Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and Evie Magazine (man, I link to them a lot) has an excellent writeup on three admirable women, UFC champ Amanda Nunes, retired Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and The Mandalorian alum Gina Carano who exemplify DIY pluck, resilience and grace that the Kardashians and Jenners, Cardi B. etc. fail to bring to the public conversation.
Craziest thing I learned this week, the 1980’s horror classic Nightmare on Elm Street was inspired by the genocide in Laos and Cambodia.
Let’s get into the news:
[one]
Gonna kick things off with a contrarian look at the Biden stimulus package from Anthony Pompalino, a VC investor and early cryptocurrency adopter who argues that the short term upside of cash via direct stimulus payments are vastly outweighed by the downside in the form of massive inflation, which Pomp believes will hurt poor Americans for years to come and accelerate the accumulation of resources in the hands of the super rich.
So why exactly do I believe this stimulus package is a net negative for the bottom 50% of Americans? Simply, the benefit of a stimulus check and unemployment insurance is drastically outweighed by the negative impact of inflation, both in consumer goods and asset prices.
It is that simple. The purchasing power of the U.S. dollar is being eroded away based on historical trends, but these massive stimulus bills (which now total almost $6 trillion in a year) accelerate the problem. As I said, the second the Senate voted positively for this bill, the government is further enriching the wealthiest people in America, while simultaneously pushing the bottom 40% of Americans into a worse financial situation.
Pomp lays out his solutions:
Redirect bad spending in the federal government to helping individuals and small businesses, rather than simply printing more money.
Put as much government energy into financial education as into the vaccine rollout, treating the lack of financial education in the U.S. as a national emergency.
Stop bailing out big companies. GM, Boeing, big banks, etc. Let large corporations succeed or fail based on performance. To paraphrase Rocky IV:
Pomp is encouraging people to put more money into Bitcoin, since the dollar is going to be worth less.
Do what you’re gonna do there…
…I just bring you the news.
[two]
Jody Garver, the #2 official at NASA during the Obama administration, has gone public with the view that NASA is now so bureaucratic, slow and over-spent that private industry should take over space exploration.
60 Minutes reports:
I would not have recommended the government build a $27 billion rocket, when the private sector is building rockets nearly as large for no cost to the taxpayer. In this case, it was the Senate who came to us at NASA and said, "No, we don't like your plan. And we are going to make you build it this way.”
Boeing was given a contract in 2010 for to build a rocket in 6 years for $6 billion. The company took 11 years and $20 billion to finish the project.
Jody Singer, the first woman to run NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) has a different take. Her argument is that NASA wastes lots of money, but that waste produces a lot of jobs, so it’s all good.
The Space Launch System, I'm proud to say, has work that's over 45 states and over 1,100 vendors. So the Space Launch System is a national vehicle. That means jobs. That means that, across the nation, for the SLS alone, there's over 25,000 people that have jobs.
So…the counter-argument is that, yes NASA is big, slow and spends way too much money…but lots of private workers benefit form that wasteful spending?
Ummm, ok.
It could be that there are reasons not to privatize space exploration (one being that, if a private company screws up and strands people off-planet, there’s no backup to rescue them).
At the very least, NASA should take this as a clear sign it’s time for a new spokesperson.
And, back to story #1…I believe this a good example of Pomp’s point about cutting over-spending to have budget left to help more poor and vulnerable individuals and struggling small businesses without murdering the economy with inflation.
[three]
UPDATE: Pierce Morgan was fired from Good Morning Britain as a result of this interview.
Ugh. I didn’t want to do it.
But, like my coverage of The Bachelor, there’s a deeper reason I’m jumping into this Harry/Megan vs. Royal Family garbage.
The people don’t matter at all, in my opinion. But this weird Royals Civil War reveals the jacked up values of modern culture.
Journalist Megyn Kelly and British TV personality had this exchange on Good Morning Britain:
Megyn Kelly:When you are a multi-millionaire with all that dough in your pocket and have never had to pay for anything, you can shell out a few dollars to protect your child. A lot of people have had death threats. I’m sorry to say, it’s a faction of modern life to get death threats.
Piers Morgan: Meghan Markle compared being trapped inside the palace to what people are going through during the pandemic. She wanted people with four kids homeschooling, she wanted people to know ‘I know what that feels like. I’m in a palace.’
Megyn Kelly: The she compared herself to The Little Mermaid who married and prince and lost her voice. So it wasn’t obvious to you that someone would control the press? My six year old daughter knew that before I went off to cover the wedding. Everyone knew that.
I certainly question Meghan Markle’s honesty for the following reasons:
A). She claims total ignorance about royal life before marrying Harry. As Kelly said “my six year old daughter knew that.”
B). Before this interview, Markle was being investigated for bullying the staff.
Now, two things can be true at the same time. It’s entirely possible (probable) that Mark and Prince Harry are opportunistic narcissists AND that the British Royals are petty, conniving and possibly racist elites who will do anything to control their public image. If Markle was denied mental health treatment when she was depressed to the point of suicidal impulses while living in the Palace, that’s beyond horrific.
However, an honorable person the hurts of the past, processes that pain with close, trusted friends and/or a professional therapist and then walks forward to the future.
Meghan and Harry, by contrast, trashed Harry’s family with no apparent goal other than to advance their own careers. The couple seems to want sympathy for the fact that they initially had nothing to live on except for the trust Princess Diana left Harry, which is $25 million. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly $150K each month to pay the bills.
From where I’m sitting, we’re pretty close to “let them eat cake.” But when Marie Antoinette uttered those famous words as the French people starved, today it’s the Average Joe and Jane who cheer on rich, spoiled people who want demand our nation’s collective sympathy and attention while COVID evictions skyrocket and America’s working poor face dire financial problems.
This is the inevitable result of a culture that’s abandoned virtue, truth and reason. All that’s left is emotion, and emotion is easily manipulated when not anchored with objective fact.
Entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel hit the nail on the head with this one.
I wouldn’t normally use conservative commentator Candace Owens as a source, because I rarely see her have an original thought. She mainly does a good job of parroting other people’s opinions…but this does seem worth considering.
You and I aren’t rich, famous or influential. But my response to the British Royals mess is to redouble my efforts to speak the truth, avoid public feuds and to build my accomplishments on good work and consistency rather than by stepping on someone else’s neck.
And if some folks who read The Five do the same, then there are a few of us standing against the moral decay of the social media age.
To quote one of my all time favorite song lyrics from the band House of Heroes:
“One voice in the crowd is small, but if he speaks the truth he speaks for all.”
[four]
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is set to face trial soon, although the jury selection could take weeks.
Police officers are protected by so-called qualified immunity, a legal principle designed to protect government officials against lawsuits unless the individual violated a plaintiff's "clearly established" constitutional rights, according to Cornell Law School. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 passed the House last week, which would make it easier to prosecute police misconduct cases, NPR previously reported.
Last October, Cahill threw out Chauvin's third-degree murder charge, but a panel of appeals judges reversed the dismissal Friday. The panel argued Cahill hadn't followed precedent and ordered the judge to reconsider the charges. It's unclear whether or not the last-minute change will delay the proceedings.
Security in the city is at an all-time high. The government center where Chauvin will stand trial has been reinforced with concrete barricades and fencing topped with coils of razor wire. Thousands of National Guard troops have been deployed to the Twin Cities to help the police keep the peace. The trial is expected to trail into April.
Second degree murder is defined as “any intentional murder with malice aforethought, but is not premeditated or planned in advance.”
There’s little doubt that Chauvin is guilty of something, but it could be a tall order for prosecutors to prove that Chauvin was intentionally trying to end Floyd’s life.
Chauvin would have likely been convicted on a lesser charge, but since the state is pursuing second degree murder charges, despite the fact that a judge already threw out third degree murder charges, seems to point to the possibility that Chauvin could walk.
And if you thought the riots of 2020 we’re bad, just wait. Journalist Andy Ngo is reporting on Antifa accounts that the violence is going to be ramped up in the event that Chauvin goes free.
What Chauvin is guilty of and what can be proven in a court of law are two different things. Evidence that Chauvin caused Floyd’s death is very strong, which is why a lesser conviction would have been much easier to secure. But proving Chauvin was trying to kill Floyd, when he was restraining Floyd and not punching, kicking, stabbing or shooting him seems much more difficult to get a jury to buy into.
And if the prosecutors fail? Early signs point to more violence in cities across the U.S.
[five]
Gonna keep this one short and sweet.
The recent COVID relief bill is sending $140 billion to San Francisco to build a new subway tunnel and bail the city out of an ever growing deficit.
San Francisco may be the richest city in America per capita. There’s zero reason for the U.S. taxpayer to bail them out. To go back to story #1, this is yet another example of governmental waste that could have been redirected to Americans who need help the most.
[epilogue]
Two bullets, which collided at merged in mid-flight in 1915 during combat between the British and Ottomans on the Gallipoli Peninsula, in modern day Turkey.
Until the next one,
-sth