College Sex Scene

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Recently, a young woman was convicted of filing a false claim of rape against two football players at a nearby university. She was given a relatively short sentence after admitting that rather than rape, it was a consensual sexual encounter that she later claimed was rape to somehow impress a potential boyfriend. 

After the trial the two young men claimed that their lives had been ruined by the woman’s accusation. They had been kicked off the football team and lost their scholarships. Actually, it would appear that the lives of the three participants in this act of consensual sex had all been damaged in one way or another. It’s also possible that the lives of the families involved had also been badly damaged.

However, the damage could have been even greater. A recent article in the Connecticut Mirror, an online daily news source, indicated that there has been an alarming increase in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in Connecticut and the nation over the past twenty years. The article referred to a study released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that showed that Connecticut’s problem was part of a nationwide problem. 

The state’s spike in gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia cases coincides with “steep and sustained” increases seen nationwide from 2013 through 2017, in an analysis released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Preliminary data indicates that there were 3913 cases of gonorrhea in Connecticut in 2017, an increase of 37% from 2013. In that same period the national count increased by 67%. Also, syphilis cases were up 76% nationwide and doubled in Connecticut from 56 to 110. Finally, reports of chlamydia, the most common STD were up 22% nationwide but 39% in Connecticut which still had a total of 17750 reported cases.

The CDC attributed more than 70% of syphilis cases to gay, or bisexual men having sex with other men. This would appear to be a new phenomenon. In Connecticut, for example, reported cases of syphilis among men and women in the year 2000 were relatively the same. But since then, the rate among men has “skyrocketed.” 

Chlamydia, the most common STD, is most prevalent in young people under the age of 25. Health officials are devoting most of their attention to education and screening in high school. Still, they admit that their resources are overtaxed by the sheer volume of cases. Complicating matters is the fact that the antibiotics used to treat these diseases are no longer effective as the various bacteria have developed resistance. 

The effects of STDs can be devastating both physically and mentally. They are highly infectious and easily spread by sexual contact. The results of these infections are more than painful. They can often cause infertility, and even when they don’t, a mother can spread the disease to her newborn baby. 

The CT Mirror article quoted a Connecticut medical official on the reasons why infected people are reluctant to come forward and seek treatment.

Some people might feel bad when they have an STD because it is perceived that they did something wrong or they had sex with the wrong person or it is their fault,” she said. “Instead of expecting people to come to us, we need to do a better job of going to where they are, both in-person and online, to provide them the knowledge they need so they have the best information to make informed decisions for themselves.

It is hard to know what to make of this well-meaning statement. I know that there is a new morality today, and that many young people are not very religious. But from a medical or scientific point of view those infected with STDs did do something wrong, they did have sex with the wrong person, and it is their fault.

What sane person would have any kind of sex with a person known to be infected with an STD, or known to have been infected in the past? Who would take such a chance? What kind of person infected with an STD would risk infecting someone else?

Isn’t it clear that the only real way to avoid STDs outside of sexual abstinence is a monogamous sexual relationship? Multiple sex partners dramatically increase the risk of infection no matter what kind of “protection” is employed. Maybe it’s old-fashioned but even if you’re not concerned with your spiritual well-being, your physical well-being might depend on waiting for the right person to come along.

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Trump Administration Progress Report

Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration I wrote:

The true test of the Trump administration will be on how much it can deliver. If President Trump can just deliver on a third of his promises, it will be a successful Presidency. Batting .333 is good in any league. I hope commentators will begin to focus on what the Trump administration is actually doing, and not on what they fear he will do.

Little did I realize how hard it would be to find out what the Trump administration has actually accomplished. The President’s constant battles with the mainstream media, unprecedented obstruction on the part of the Democrat opposition, and the never-ending Mueller probe of Russian collusion and anything else it can dig up have obscured the real achievements of the last 18 months. 

For example, a few months ago surveys showed that “consumer confidence” in this country had approached an all-time high. Consumer confidence is an economic indicator that indicates that rising incomes are encouraging people to spend and save. Nevertheless, the media outlets I follow hardly mentioned this good sign and certainly did not attribute it to the President or his policies. 

I did read that lame duck Democrat Governor Malloy of Connecticut attributed the rising consumer confidence in his state to his own measures despite the fact that he has one of the lowest approval ratings of any governor in the country. Malloy could not bring himself to give President Trump the least bit of credit for the rise in consumer confidence even though the President’s approval rating is close to a record 50%.

The other day I watched a former director of the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed) give an interview on the CNBC show “The Closing Bell.” He was asked his opinion of President Trump’s recent criticism of the Fed. He expressed puzzlement over the President’s remarks, and said that Fed officials should just ignore them. He was obviously not a Trump partisan.

Nevertheless, he did give the President a lot of credit for the current state of the economy which most commentators agree is booming. He argued that the tax reform legislation and deregulation measures pushed by the Trump administration were the two biggest drivers of the booming economy. In addition, he argued that the President was correct in his tough trade position with China which has continually refused to abide by prior trade agreements and rules.  

Maybe the President and his administration does not deserve all the credit for the booming economy, and the rise in consumer confidence but any impartial person would have to admit that President Trump would have been given all the blame if things had gone in the opposite direction.  We have to remember that just 18 months ago the political opposition and mainstream media were predicting doom for the country and the world. Only grudgingly have they been forced to admit some progress.

Earlier this summer James Himes, my representative in Congress, informed his constituents of the passage of a bill that he had sponsored to protect senior citizens from fraud and abuse. Himes is no friend of President Trump but he did note that the President signed this bill into law. 

You will be glad to hear that President Trump signed the Senior Safe Act into law this past May after it passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support. As states begin administering these important protections, be assured that I will continue looking for more ways to defend seniors from deceit and injustice.

Earlier in the year Democrat Himes had to admit that there were many good features in the huge budget bill that the President approved with bipartisan support. Recently a bipartisan defense appropriation bill was also promoted and approved by the President.

Measures like the above are just the tip of the iceberg but they and other accomplishments are largely going unreported. The national and local media complain the President Trump is attacking freedom of the press but in actuality the press in this country has long ago enslaved itself to ideology and money. 

Here is one final example of how the media have obscured some real achievements. A little noticed feature of the tax reform bill of 2017 eliminated the income tax credit for undocumented and illegal children, a measure that would save the Treasury billions. As usual, the media screamed that this measure was robbing the poorest of the poor to benefit the rich.

In reality, the income tax credit for illegal immigrant children had turned into a scam of massive proportions. People with earnings in this country but without Social Security numbers were still required to file tax returns. These tax returns listed numerous child dependents but many of these dependents did not even reside in the country. One return showed nine nieces and nephews with only one actually residing in the USA. The billions funneled out of the Treasury in this tax credit scheme did not necessarily go to poor children. Much of it might have ended up in the hands of drug lords or gangs.

Here is a link to an Indiana report done in 2013 detailing the tax-credit scam, or just click on the video below.

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Asset Inequality?

                                          

Fairfield Marina

Recent articles in the Wall Street Journal have argued that the income inequality bemoaned by progressives in this country is a myth. Statistical studies that demonstrate an increasing amount of income inequality apparently leave out over a trillion dollars of government income transfers to those in lower income brackets. These studies also do not take into consideration the substantial impact of an effective progressive income tax code on the highest earners.  

In an August 7 WSJ op-ed Bruce D. Meyer, a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago, and James X. Sullivan, a professor of economics at Notre Dame, claimed that “there is much less material deprivation than there was decades ago.” They cited a number of studies including the American Housing Survey that demonstrated the significant strides made in this country. They wrote,

The poorest 20% of Americans live as the middle class did a generation ago as measured by the square footage of their homes, the number of rooms per person, and the presence of air conditioning, dishwashers, and other amenities.

Unfortunately, studies that claim that America has reached an unprecedented level of income equality are questioned by politicians and advocates on both extremes of the political spectrum. Right wingers claim that the enormous sums spent by government social programs or income transfers have largely been wasteful and ineffective. Left wingers claim that they have not gone far enough and call for massive spending to finance free college education, health care, minimum wage increases and a host of other benefits. 

Left wing progressives also claim that studies that indicate income inequality are a politically biased attempt to roll back or eliminate the social service safety net. As a last resort, even if they grudgingly admit some measure of income equality, progressives will then raise the issue of “asset” inequality. Even if the incomes of the poor are improving, the gap in asset ownership is greater than ever before in history and getting wider and wider.

I know that there are incredibly wealthy people in the country today. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is reputed to be the wealthiest person in the world with a fortune of $157 Billion. But my own experience leads me to believe that the gap between the very rich in this country and the rest of us is no wider than it has ever been, and that more Americans share in the American economy than ever before.

When I started my career in the financial services industry as a mutual fund salesman in 1972, it quickly became clear to me that most Americans did not own a share in the American economy. The mutual fund business was in its infancy, and only a small percentage of the population owned shares of common stock. Moreover, there were no IRA or 401k plans with tax favored treatment of retirement savings. Many leading companies had pension plans but there was little in the way of profit sharing plans or employee stock ownership plans. There were, however, two tax-favored retirement accounts but they were only available to small businesses (Keogh plans), and school teachers (403b plans). The 403b plan was the granddaddy of these plans and it is still used to fund the retirement of most college and university professors today. 

In the past 45 years the growth of all of these plans has been phenomenal. More Americans now own tax favored retirement plans than ever before and most of them are invested in a broad cross section of the American economy. In addition to the tax advantages, most people could participate in these plans through payroll deduction, the best way to save. Incredibly, the huge amount that Americans put into these tax favored retirement plans does not count in official government statistics as savings.

When I started in 1972 the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was about 1000. Today it is around 25000. The baby boomers who began saving in the 1970s have become the richest generation in history. On a recent visit to Alameda California, across from San Francisco Bay, I discovered that the modest homes there could not be had for less than $1 Million largely due to its proximity to trendy San Francisco. Although San Francisco is the bluest city in the bluest state in the country, most ordinary people cannot afford to live there.

Closer to home, my wife and I enjoy sitting at the marina near Fairfield beach and watching the boats, both large and small, go in and out. It is a constant parade. Fairfield is a middle class town but a good number of its people enjoy messing around in boats, and can afford to do so. 

But what about the lower classes? Although people living on welfare have very little in the way of assets, their guaranteed welfare income and benefits makes them virtual millionaires. For example, if someone receives a monthly welfare check, subsidized medical care under Medicaid, and housing and food assistance, they could easily have the equivalent of an income of $2500 per month or $30000 per year. At 3% interest it takes a million dollars of assets to provide an income of $30000 per year. 

Despite protests from both the left and the right, it would appear that the social safety net has been working in America. 

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Trump-Putin Summit 2018

It is still too early to assess the results of the recently concluded summit meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued as much in his testimony yesterday before a Senate committee. Nevertheless, Democrat politicians and anti-Trump media were quick to claim that President Trump had sold out his country to the Russian premier to the point of treason. In previous years the Soviet Union was a darling of leftists in this country, but now that Trump is President, it is a different story.

The Weekly Bystander is taking a little break this month but I have written about Russia before. Below is a reprint of a March 2018 post  that dealt with the subject of the relationship between the United States and Russia. It is still relevant.

Russia has been constantly in the news since the election of Donald Trump in 2016. I would like to make a comparison with the formidable task that President Trump faces, and the one faced by Vladimir Putin, the recently re-elected leader of Russia. It has been said that the job of President of the United States is the most difficult one in the world, but it seems to me that the Russian Premier’s job is much more difficult.

You just have to glance at a map to see that Russia is surrounded by enemies. If Islamic militancy is a great danger to us, it is a far greater threat to Russia which is bounded on the south by Iran and Kazakhstan. Even within its borders the large Muslim population, especially the fiercely independent Chechens, constitutes a constant menace. 

American commentators on both the left and the right like to blame Putin for his involvement in Syria but Putin has much more to fear from ISIS and other radical Moslem extremists than America does. These same commentators should ask what business the United States has in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan.  Geographically, we are 6000 miles away from the war-torn scene. 

Moreover, while we worry about trade relations with nearby Canada and Mexico. Russia is bordered by industrial and military superpowers. To the West the economy of the European Union dwarfs that of Russia, a third-world economy compared to Germany alone. In addition, the NATO alliance is a very serious military presence on Russia’s doorstep and seems to continually seek new members. Of course, the presence of NATO is also the presence of the United States.

To the East, Russia is bordered by Mongolia, a Chinese province, and then by China itself, an industrial and military superpower. The Chinese population and economy far outstrip that of Russia. In recent years Putin has negotiated deals that have made Russia a leading supplier of energy to the growing Chinese population and economy. In this respect, Russia’s relationship with China resembles Canada’s with the USA.

Even though Russia doesn’t border North Korea, Pyongyang the capitol of North Korea is only 400 miles from the Russian Pacific port city of Vladivostok. That’s about the same as the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Who should have more to fear from a North Korean nuclear weapon, Russia or the USA? I would also guess that the South Korean economy is further advanced than Russia’s.

We should try to put ourselves in Putin’s shoes. Twenty-five years ago the collapse of the Soviet Empire was a tremendous loss both strategically and psychologically. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Russia effectively lost the Cold War. Former satellite countries like East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the Ukraine fell away into independent states that sought entrance into the NATO military alliance. Geographically, Russia is still the largest country in the world, but its population has shrunk to 143 Million. Compare this figure with China’s 1.3 Billion population or even with the more than 300 Million population of the USA. 

When Germany and Japan were defeated in World War II, we rebuilt those shattered countries and they became not only two of the world’s great powers but two of our most reliable allies. When Russia lost the Cold War we could have attempted something similar instead of seeing it as a threat.

During the Presidential campaign Donald Trump made some remarks about seeking a new, positive relationship with Russia. However, since the election a number of reasons has led his administration to act tough on Russia. Economic sanctions have been imposed, and diplomats have been expelled in response to some of Putin’s moves. Also, NATO has been flexing its muscles, and the new 1.3 Trillion USA budget promises an escalation of the arms race.

I fail to see the value of driving Putin’s back to the wall, especially since his country has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Why tempt him to use it over the poisoning of a spy? I think it would be much more advantageous to take the pressure off Russia both economically and militarily. 

Economically, our objective should be to help rebuild the Russian economy in the same way that we did for Germany and Japan after World War II. The United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are the world’s three leading suppliers of oil and natural gas. Russia’s geographic position should make it the largest supplier for energy poor Europe. We should encourage this natural trade relationship and not try to upset it with sanctions or price manipulation designed to weaken the Russian economy. A prosperous Russia with a growing middle class is in the best interests of the United States.

Militarily, we could ease the pressure on Russia so that such a large percentage of their GNP does not have to go into military spending. The first step would have to be an agreement that would guarantee the independence of the Ukraine. If Putin would agree to that, NATO could agree to pull back its forces from the Ukrainian border. 

Actually, I fail to see why we should not offer NATO membership to Russia itself. After all, it is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally, NATO was designed to counter the military might of the aggressive Communist Soviet Empire. Now that Empire no longer exists, and Communism is a dead letter. The United States and Europe would be much better able to deal with the great geo-political problems of the twenty first century if Russia was an ally and not an enemy.

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