Unforeseen Contingencies

One of the more amusing things following the ruling in Dobbs is the statment that now interracial marriage is in jeopardy.  The corrupt senile puppet who usurped the White House said this as have other progressives.  I find it quite funny that they seem to think Justice Clarence Thomas is preparing to outlaw interracial marriage.

The progressive left used fear-mongering as a political tool.  Unfortunately for them, while they began spreading fear as a weapon to use against others, they began believing their own lies and now suffer from hysteria and paranoia.  I guess that if you regularly serve up poison Koolade, you eventually begin drinking it yourself.

// posted by Charles N. Steele @ 21:49 0 comments

SCOTUS HAS RULED!  THE WORLD HAS ENDED!  The Supreme Court has now mandated that all women must wear Handmaid's Tale red cloaks and white bonnets and keep AR-15s concealed under them.

Heh heh heh - not really.  But with two Supreme Court rulings in two days, progressives seem to think this.

In NEW YORK STATE RIFLE AND PISTOL ASSOCIATION v. BRUEN, the Supreme Court ruled that New York's draconian requirements for obtaining a concealed carry permit are unConstitutional.  The old, now defunct law held that individuals had to prove they had substantially higher risk than the average citizen in order to arm themselves.  This was obviously a terrible law, since the average citizen has the right to arm himself or herself for self defense.  In practice, it was used by corrupt authorities to bestow favors.

The majority decision was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, and released on his birthday.  Happy Birthday, Justice Thomas, and thank you for your service!  Here is the full SCOTUS decision.

And then today, in DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, the Supreme Court overruled the decision in ROE v. WADE (and subsequently CASEY) as confused nonsense.  In doing so, they confirmed the prediction of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who said that ROE v. WADE was badly reasoned and eventually would be overruled.  Here is the full SCOTUS decision.

It's strange that progressives and other leftists are so out of touch with reality that they cannot understand what the Supreme Court has and has not done.  At a demonstration outside the Supreme Court, Rep. Maxine Waters shrieked that women should defy the Supreme Court and get abortions.  This is bizarre, since the Supreme Court was silent on the legality of abortion and certainly did not ban them.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, vying with Rep. Waters for the stupidest comment of the day, declared at the rally that the problem is that the Supreme Court ruling is "illegitimate" and that the Supreme Court needs "checks and balances."

To put it simply, so many progressives see the Supreme Court as merely another legislator.  For them, the role of government is to issue edicts, and they think the role of the legislature (Congress), the executive, the administrative bureaucracy, and the courts  is simply to issue the edicts and policies they want.  They have no understanding of law, of of economic systems, and of causality -- at least not in social matters.

It's also so that under the surface, progressives are totalitarians.  They know how they want the world to be run and how they think people should live.  All the same, the progressives are our fellow citizens, they are now in emotional pain, and this is not the time to taunt them.  Let's show some sympathy.

Hahaha!  Just kidding.  It's always time to taunt progressives. 

// posted by Charles N. Steele @ 21:34 1 comments

 The Unforeseen Contingencies Legal Desk team is overstepping its bounds.  It's true, of course, that "Linked-In is another woke corporate garbage outfit with no principles."  But it's not true that one should remain silent when confronted with malfeasance.  I am on Linked-In for one reason alone: it is a useful way to stay in touch with former students' career moves.  This is extremely useful for our economics program.  From time to time I receive a message via Linked-In, or even send one myself.  And that's it.  

However, when I use Linked-In messaging, afterwards a feed of post comes up.  Most are just innocuous business announcements, but a few are political.  One of these popped up in front of me, unbidden, the nonsensical tweet discussed below.  Subsequent events are as the legal team details.

However, it is NOT true that this is a spat or that it is idiotic to comment, in frank terms, on this malfeasance by Senator Scott.  Scott portrays himself as an important conservative voice.  His actions in this meeting and this tweet belie this claim.  America is suffering accelerating inflation.  Energy production is being shut down by the federal government, and energy and food shortages are looming.  The Biden administration is still working on setting up a disinformation authority within DoJ, and it's now revealed that Americans are targets,  and that "disinformation" includes dissent from the official Democrat lines on the integrity of thge 2020 election, wuflu measures, and climate.

We are facing economic ruin and political totalitarianism, but Scott discusses "how to better serve America's youth" with a washed-up celeb of doubtful morals?  And some fool endorses this as a great advance?  The federal government has no legitimate role in "serving America's youth."  It's not a power granted them in the Constitution, and it's not at all clear what it means anyway.

Unfortunately, that's the state of the GOP today.  Scott should be ashamed.

And as for Linked-In's censorship, who cares?  Someone named "Sam" didn't get my quick scolding.  I'm sure, at the margin, he's no better or worse for this.

// posted by Charles N. Steele @ 20:29 2 comments

It appears he violated Linked-In's policy on harassment.

From UC's Legal Desk.  Someone posted on Linked-In a tweet from Sen. Tim Scott about how he met with Paris Hilton to learn how "we can better serve America's youth."  Oh, joy!  FINALLY the meeting of the minds for which we've all been hoping.  Prayers answered!   (Heh.)

Someone named Sam (the poster?  Linked-In is too unwieldy for us to go back and check) expressed approval.  "Finally, something will be done to help our youth!"  This is obviously ridiculous.  Paris Hilton is a middle aged woman who used to be a celebrity; i.e. someone famous for being famous.  She has exactly zero intelllectual accomplishments and knows nothing about "serving America's youth."  Her fame was in a previous millenium.  

Well, our boss, whose sole exposure to social media is Linked-In, and whose judgement is obviously lacking since he's gone that far, went ahead and shot his mouth off with the comment: "Paris Hilton is a slut, Sam; morals matter."  Linked-In's moral monitors immediately sprang into action and concluded that this violated LI's "bullying and harassment" policy.  Our boss' comment was canceled, and he has been warned that if he continues in this vein he'll be canceled as well. (Aside: Boss has no dirt on Hilliary Clinton, he's never even heard of her, please leave him alone.)

"We" at the Legal Desk have reviewed the comment and context, and make the following assessments:  First, it's unclear who has been "bullied and harassed."  Was it Sam?  This was simply a response to him, not about him, and neither harassed nor bullied him, just reminded him of facts.  Perhaps Paris Hilton?  She has made XXX pornographic films, and if that doesn't constitute sluttery, what does?  And the comment was not directed at Paris Hilton, who will never see it anyway.  Then is it something about "morals matter?"  Well, they do.  If not, there'd be no argument against bullying and harassment, which are immoral.  Morals matter.  That's why they've existed as long as humans have.  Darwin says so.  And that's not bullying.  So that leaves us with...

...Sen. Tim Scott. Bingo!  We at the Legal Desk conclude that the negative view of Sen. Scott implied in Boss' comment must be the reason for the "bullying and harassment" finding.

In the Legal Desk's professional opinion, the LI cancellation is unjustified.  The only rationale remaining for having Congressmen and Senators is to bully and harass them; that's all most of them are good for.  Cancelling Boss for this would be like canceling him because, when handed a sandwich, he ate it.  But of course, Linked-In is another woke corporate garbage outfit with no principles.  So that's what they do.  And so, this brings us to the second part of our opinion...

Anyone involved in spats on social media, even something so lame as Linked-In, is being idiotic.  Boss, stop it!

// posted by Charles N. Steele @ 22:37 0 comments

 Our apologies.  "We" at Unforeseen Contingencies have failed to keep up with our annual predictions for the year.  Our predictions always run the gamut of subjetcs, but typically focus on social matters.  Unfortunately, social events are such a mess.  We've had novel features to deal with, such as lab-altered gain-of-function viruses, quarantines of healthy people, organized riots, rigged elections, and hyperinflations, all of them very stupid ideas we had hoped our "leaders" would eschew.  Alas!  Add to that the bizarre crazes of critical racist theory, transgenderism, the sexual grooming of children, and the suicidal hysteria over undocumented climate change, and oh, what a mess!  We apologize to our dear readers, but it is not easy to predict in such circumstances.  We face an unstable balance of political power and social forces.  UC's Prediction Desk tries to discern long run tendencies and extrapolate from them, but good luck sorting that out; there are a few too many unforeseen contingencies arriving together for that. 

However, there remains solid ground for certain kinds predictions...and that ground is economics.  Economics can make excellent conditional predictions of the "if this, then that" sort.  And a few of the "ifs" are established.  So here are the mid-year predictions.

1. Inflation in the United States will worsen, dramatically so.  Official Figures (TM) will rise above ten percent by September.  In reality it will be much worse.

Why?  The monetary expansion that was supposed to fix the harmful effects of Wuflu Lockdowns has not run its course.  That's real inflation.  But for those who think inflation is just higher prices, there's more.  First, the war on fossil fuels being waged by the Biden administration has only started to take effect, and Official Figures (TM) fail to correct for these real losses.  Second, supply chain breakdowns will worsen because of regulation, energy costs and shoratges, and various international unpleasantries, especially with China and Russia.  China, a major supplier of parts and pieces for the world economy, has been shutting down its economy, allegedly for Wuflu reasons but in fact as part of political infighting in the CCP.  Russia is a major exporter of energy, including in the form of fertilizer, and that supply is being reduced.  Hence, prices higher.

2. One response of the Biden administration will be to impose price controls.  They are already threatening this.  The effect of price ceilings (they aren't talking floors, of course) will be shortages.  Effective price ceilings always cause shortages.  Democrat economists including Larry Summers, Paul Krugman, and Austin Goolsby have decried this madness.  But controls will be imposed.

Why?  First, they've said so.  Second, they've said the goal is to impose "fundamental change," a "Great Reset."  This necessarily means redistributing property rights.  Removing from people the right to pay what they are willing for a good and the right to receive what they require to give it up is fundamental to redistribution.  Hugo Chavez' regime imposed price controls and then condemned stores that suffered the resultant shortages as saboteurs and seized them.  That's the idea.

3. The results will be shortages of energy and food will hit the United States this year.  I predict we'll have shortages of diesel before the end of July, and shortages of gasoline by the end of August.  Shortages here are defined by lines to puchase and supplies run out in some locales.  Shortages of food are more difficult to define.  One of my Ag Econ contacts tells me he doubts we'll have food shortages in the United States this year.  Americans will be able to eat, but it won't be a matter of walking into the supermarket and getting whatever you want.  You'll eat what's available.  OTOH, if you are in South Sudan, you're doomed.

Why?  The expansion of the money supply means more dollars available to bid up prices.  The reduced supplies of products from lowered avaliability of energy and more regulation means those dollars are bidding up prices on less stuff.  The price controls mean increasing numbers of producers find additional production to be "not worth it."

Hence, inflation, price controls, and shortages are in our immediate future.

As for food, inventories of beef cattle are declining because of feed costs and other factors.  Fertilizer prices are at least tripling and the reduction of natural gas supplies means this will worsen.  If prices of inputs rise and prices of output are held down by price controls, producers stop producing.  Shortages follow.

We at Unforeseen Contingencies could be wrong, and sincerely hope we are.  But don't bet on it,

// posted by Charles N. Steele @ 23:24 0 comments