College Enrollment Down

RealClearEducation runs a story about enrollment declines in higher education - that's basically everything from podunk community colleges to Harvard.

College enrollment had been falling by about 1% each year for a decade before the pandemic, but COVID-19 accelerated that trend. In the past two years, more than 1 million students have walked away from higher education.

Actually, this is probably a good thing. Lots of jobs don't really require the skills learned in college but are being filled by graduates who then don't earn enough to repay their student loans. This was a trend started by the GI Bill following the World War II demobilization. 

There was concern that the flood of GIs leaving the service would create overwhelming unemployment and a consequent depression. Hence the government instituted the GI Bill to fund their further education (and keep them out of the workforce for 1-4 years. 

Employers decided to begin requiring a college degree for jobs for which a high school diploma previously sufficed, because there was a big supply of degreed grads. This behavior sent a signal to those still in high school that a college degree was now needed to compete in the job market.

Things were probably better when college graduates were either (a) damn smart or (b) extremely hard working. Either characteristic recommended them to employers, who need both traits. And in those days most degrees led to some kind of employment.

The development of the so-called "studies" degrees - Women's Studies, Native American Studies, Hispanic Studies, LGBTQ Studies, Environment Studies, etc. - has been a scam perpetrated by college administrators as a way to add advocates for various "victim" groups to the faculty. This was necessitated by the need to meet the de facto quotas which no one admits exist.

Euro Falls Below Dollar Parity

A dollar will buy you a euro, for the first time in nearly 20 years. At one point today you could buy 10,000 euros for $9998. 

I’m accustomed to thinking a euro will cost me perhaps $1.30 when I travel in Europe. What does this mean economically? Reuters comments:

The likes of sterling and the yen have also slid this year, partly because of more aggressive U.S. rate hikes have boosted the dollar's appeal and also as global recession fears have sent investors flocking to the safe-haven dollar.

Translation: The expectation of inflation in Europe is greater than in the U.S., and those with money would rather hold dollars. Interruptions of Russian oil and gas as a result of sanctions imposed because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are undoubtedly a factor.

Implication: European (or Canadian) travel could be a relative bargain this summer, get your Covid booster shot before going.

Hinderaker on Teacher Unions

Power Line's John Hinderaker blames teacher unions for many of the difficulties our young people are having post-pandemic. See what he writes:

The public is finally beginning to realize that teachers’ unions, far from being advocates for our children, are their worst enemies. The teachers’ unions should be publicly shamed, teachers should drop out of them, and voters should select school board candidates who pledge to oppose the teachers’ unions, not to slavishly follow their orders, as has usually been the case in many states.

Not just at the K-12 level either, those in higher education are nearly as bad. As a Management professor I refused to join the union representing faculty, and was required to pay an in-lieu "representation fee." 

From this I believe they took funds to donate to the campaigns of Democrats whom I did not support. Bitter much? Believe it.

Our Local Soap Opera

I call it a tossup, they're both toast. The WY primary is held Aug. 16, 2022, so the crush is just over a month away. Image courtesy of the July 12, 2022, Lucianne.com.

The Big Sort, 2.0?

The recent Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court, overturning Roe v. Wade, is likely to accelerate the internal migration of Americans. Heretofore, much of the migration to low tax red states has been driven by economics. Both individuals and companies tend to prefer a lower tax burden, let's call them "economic migrants."

I wonder if Dobbs and perhaps future SCOTUS actions overturning certain of the more imaginative interpretations by the Warren and Burger courts might cause migration in the other direction, to blue states? These people we might call "cultural migrants." Those would be seeking state legal protections for their personal proclivities which red states might choose not to protect, or even to outlaw.

Assuming an increased degree of federalism, we could end up with two quite different Americas, as people continue to sort themselves out. As noted earlier, the times we live in are interesting.

Comparing CA and FL

Writing at The American Spectator, Debra J. Saunders observes CA Gov. Newsom's TV ad criticizing FL policies and urging people to move to CA. She finds the ad's idea risible. 

Comparing the government policies in FL and CA, she sees little to like in those of CA, much to like in those of FL. And she concludes:

It’s a pipe dream to think Americans would prefer California, which is losing people, to the Sunshine State, which has been gaining residents.

Given the way both states are currently being run, she is of course correct. And yet, as a CA native who has visited FL roughly a dozen times, if you can ignore the government policies of each, CA comes out totally ahead.

Both have warm weather, but CA's low humidity is much more comfortable day to day. FL is humid, flat, often swampy, and has hungry alligators, horrendous thunderstorms, and hurricanes. 

CA has great variety: big mountains, marvelous farm land, beautiful beaches, large forests, deserts, and multiple national parks. In a weekend you could literally ski one day and surf the next without leaving the state. 

One way FL truly excels, the oceans that fringe it are much warmer than the chilly Pacific along the CA coast. CA surfers often wear wet suits.

FL is an okay place well-managed whereas CA is a spectacular place badly managed. Currently for most people FL's sensible management outweighs the natural endowments of CA. 

FL is gaining residents, CA is losing them. One exception: CA is the more comfortable place to "live rough" and it continues to gain homeless residents.

Saturday Snark

Our WY coal is from open pit mining, dug by guys operating huge machines above ground.

 

This would be funnier if it did not accurately describe the "woke" perspective. Both images courtesy of Steven Hayward's The Week in Pictures at Power Line, which will be on hiatus for the next month.

Bye-ku for Psaki

Writing the previous bye-ku reminded me I’d forgotten to compose one for former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Herewith I remedy that oversight.

Clarifying Joe’s

Elder drivel was a pslog, 

Poor, psad Jen Psaki.

Bye-ku for Boris

In our usual tradition, we write a bye-ku - a haiku of farewell - for Boris Johnson who is stepping down as head of the Tory Party in the U.K. and therefore as Prime Minister.

A one-hit wonder,

Brexit your sole legacy,

Mad, zany Boris.

Evil Ingenuity

Good luck with banning firearms. This assassin just murdered former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe using a homemade "zip gun," seen at lower right. Image source: Daily Mail (U.K.).

Irregular Warfare Explained

Writing at Small Wars Journal, two authors analyze how weaker forces can and do win wars of liberation against apparently stronger opponents. Their focus is on what is happening currently in Ukraine, but they bring n examples from Afghanistan and Iraq.

The first thing they identify is the stronger force misunderstanding the motives of the apparently weaker force, believing winning “hearts and minds” is possible when it mostly is not. 

At its essence, guerrilla war boils down to a weak actor gaining a temporary force advantage in tactical situations in which they can “get in, destroy the enemy, seize some useful gear, and get out” before the opponent can bring sufficient counterforce to bear. This is accomplished in part because of “home-field advantage,” meaning the Ukrainians know the terrain (both rural and urban) better than the Russians.

It helps if the supposedly stronger attacking force (in this case Russia) has a corrupt military leadership diverting armaments budget to their own pockets in various creative ways. A final excellent point they make is this one.

A final important element in cases where the weak win wars: superior leadership. Leaders are effective to the degree they are like their followers. No other world leader represents their people more than President Volodymyr Zelensky does for Ukrainians. 

His self-shot videos from the streets of Kyiv convey commitment and loyalty to the cause. Zelensky wears military-green t-shirts, he looks exhausted, all the while he and his family remain in harm’s way. He illustrates everything that it means to be Ukrainian right now.

Camped in the snow at Valley Forge, George Washington shared his men's hardships. He too had a supposedly weaker force. Like the U.S. in Afghanistan, eventually the Brits got tired and went home. Which leaves us with the question of what it will take for the Russians to "get tired and go home" as they too did in Afghanistan?

Gallup: These Gloomy Times

For several days I've seen reports of a new Gallup survey of public confidence in various public "institutions." I've held off commenting as those write-ups were opaque and hard to decipher. 

Now Steven Hayward of Power Line has a clear, easy to grasp presentation of the findings, which he posts before going overseas for a vacation lasting several weeks (a major advantage of academia I remember with fondness). If the chart is too small, go to Hayward's column where it is clear:

In literally no institution did the confidence level increase. Confidence dropped in 15 of 16 institutions surveyed, the exception was organized labor which hasn't been much in the news in the past year. 

Big losers were "the presidency" and "the U.S. Supreme Court." Most others lost about 5%. These aren't optimistic times; other surveys show high percentages believe our nation is on the "wrong track."

A Recommendation

Bob McManus, in an excellent column for the New York Post, considers the gangbanger-as-gunslinger issue and the crazy loner shooter issue as two sides of the same bent coin. That "coin" being the reluctance to incarcerate criminals and coercively treat demonstrated madness and addiction. 

Our society currently manifests both of these related failures-of-judgment. His relatively brief column is worth reading.

My only concern about "coercively treated madness" is that, in a society as ideologically split as ours, one side might decide to treat all on the other side as deranged and lock up half the country.

Population Movements During COVID

The other DrC gave me a link to an Axios story which includes an interactive map showing the growth (or shrinkage) figures for each U.S. county during the Covid-19 epidemic. The map is color coded for degree of growth (green) or shrinkage (purplish). 

I can't reproduce the map here, its interactive nature means it is backed up by a ton of data. If you're interested the link above will take you to it. With some careful mouse work, I managed to locate each of the counties the DrsC have lived in over the last 20 years. Some have grown, some shrunk.

Scanning the entire map, what stands out is the growth in the mountain West (ID, MT, UT, NV, CO) plus Texas and the southeast (from TN to FL). Axios attributes the shifts to the work-from-home movement given a big boost by Covid. 

Many big urban areas were losers, not a surprise. They were Covid hotspots during the worst of the epidemic. Riding public transportation and high-rise elevators is like sharing a toothbrush with Typhoid Mary.

Mass Shootings

Another mass shooting, this time in a Chicago suburb, at a Fourth of July parade. Once again an examination of the shooter's web presence reveals him to be a weird duck loner who has posted his weirdness for all to see. 

There seems to be a pattern of such demonstrably kinked individuals deciding to take revenge on society. Nearly all of them have sent relatively clear signals online indicating they dream of or plan awful actions.

I suspect the very existence and anonymity of the web encourages people to explore "super-hero/super-villain" versions of self. This exploration leads some to become emboldened to try out those imaginings in person.

Has anybody done a survey of online postings to see how many potential mass murderers we may have in our midst? I wonder what percentage ever get around to carrying out their lovingly imagined dastardly deeds?

Doesn't it make sense for some organization to fund studying this phenomenon? Make an attempt to decipher the signals that suggest when they get serious about turning their imagined suicide death cult into reality? 

I believe it would be possible to create AI to look for patterns of postings, key terms or ideas, and identify the really bent people for follow-up, for live investigators to "red flag" them for non-ownership of guns, maybe even for treatment.

Afterthought: Yet another "known wolf" killer.

Remembering

Over 50 years ago today the other DrC and I had our first date. We watched East Bay Fourth of July fireworks followed, if I remember correctly, by pie and coffee. 

We celebrate this anniversary, if we are in the U.S., by watching fireworks wherever we are. It's a marvelous tradition.

Honoring The Glorious Fourth

In honor of this Independence Day, Instapundit echoes a Karol Markowicz Tweet:

I think of America-haters as very shallow people. No depth. Not worldly. Intellectually weak. Privileged.

COTTonLINE concurs completely. 

Looking Ahead

Forbes reports poll findings that are a wow:

Just 29% of Americans want President Joe Biden to run for re-election while 39% want former President Donald Trump to run in 2024, according to a poll released Friday by Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies and Harris Insight and Analytics.

 Meanwhile, a recent Emerson College poll finds:

The national survey shows Trump leading Biden 44 percent to 39 percent in a head-to-head match-up, while another 12 percent of voters say they plan to vote for someone else.

For purposes of discussion, let's presume both are more-or-less accurate reflections of the national mood. What should we conclude?

• Both Biden and Trump are popular with less than half the electorate.
• Both are at an age Brits sarcastically call "waiting for God."
• Biden is less popular than Trump, but their match-up - should it occur - will be a contest between two individuals neither of whom is popular with anything like a majority of the voters.
• Understanding these numbers, both parties should nominate individuals with less baggage and a more positive image with voters.

In spite of the above, for different reasons neither party is likely to nominate someone other than those two gentlemen. The Democrats' logical second choice - Harris - is less popular than Biden. CA Gov. Gavin Newsom might be a possible, but imagine the optics of Democrats refusing to nominate a woman of color.

If Trump wants the nomination and doesn't get it, he will likely do his level best to torpedo the candidacy of whoever is nominated. The only way the GOP gets to nominate likely alternative FL Gov. DeSantis is if Trump chooses not to run. This I'll believe when I hear him say it in public, on the record, followed by an endorsement of DeSantis. Don't hold your breath awaiting this event.

My tentative conclusion: With the caveat that 2 years is an eternity in politics and barring a heavenly intervention, we will see a match-up of Trump and Biden in 2024. 

It certainly won't be the first time realistic people will choose to vote for the least bad candidate. I've rather made a habit of doing so.

Saturday Snark

Image courtesy of Steve Hayward's The Week in Pictures

at Power Line.

More About Gas Prices

About the previous post, one of the issues is a shortage of refining capacity. The CEO of Chevron has said the last significant new oil refinery built in the U.S. was in the 1970s, 1976 to be precise. He added that there may never be another built, obviously reflecting the environmentalists’ desire to wean us off of fossil fuels.

During the pandemic when gasoline demand was lower, some refineries were repurposed to produce bio-diesel from vegetable oils and no longer refine petroleum. Now as demand for gasoline and diesel has risen to pre-pandemic levels we lack refining capacity to produce all we need. 

An economist will tell you that today’s higher prices are the logical way to trim petroleum demand, even though the process is painful. They call this “price rationing” and it forces people to make decisions about where they live, shop, and recreate which, in the medium run result in less fuel being purchased. 

Higher fuel prices will also reduce demand for other products and services as discretionary funds are diverted to essential fuel purchases. This will contribute to the predicted recession’s higher unemployment and reduced economic activity.

I personally know of one small business - a retiree hauling decorative bark for landscaping - who quit as a result of higher diesel prices making the business no longer profitable. Multiply that by thousands and you get a recession.