Power & Market

Emma Corrin has won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a TV Series for her portrayal of Princess Diana in Netflix’s The Crown.

Confusingly, Miss Corrin rejects the use of the term “actress,” like so many left-wing luvvies.

That didn’t stop her accepting the award, of course.

What’s the rationale for eliminating the word “actress”? Well, UK newspaper The Guardian explained in its 2010 style guide that it is sexist to distinguish between genders when referring to professions, as it harks back to a "time when professions were largely the preserve of one sex (usually men)."

But isn’t it a bit disconcerting to refer to an actor winning the Best Actress award?

What if I told you that it is supposed to be disconcerting, bamboozling, and alienating?

You see, politically correct language doesn’t follow a clear logic. Instead, it is designed to simply be contrary to common practices.

It is a signaling mechanism to separate the “insiders” from the “outsiders.”

I realized this after moving to South America and becoming proficient in Spanish—a long and painful process, as I didn’t start until I was twenty-four, by which point I had lost the brain plasticity of childhood.

I was disappointed to find that the “woke” politics of intersectionality had made the journey from the English-speaking world to South America long before I touched down in January 2018.

However, when it comes to politically correct language, social justice warriors (SJWs) south of the Mexican border have not been able to simply copy the US’s handbook. Clearly, the peculiar mandates of “newspeak” cannot be mapped precisely from English onto Spanish, which is distinct in its vocabulary and grammar.

In fact, on the question of gender-neutral professions, Spanish-speaking SJWs have had to take precisely the opposite stand.

In Argentina, the socialist vice president Cristina Kirchner made headlines in December 2019 when she called an opposition party senator sexist for not using a feminized title. 

In Spanish, most nouns signal male or female by ending in o or a, respectively (a male doctor would be el médico, a female doctor la médica).

However, presidente is one of those rare nouns that does not have a gender, and so—following the logic of politically correct speech in English—you would imagine that followers of “woke” politics in Argentina would be happy about that.

But no. Vice President Cristina Kirchner instead demanded that an a ending be substituted and called her colleague a sexist when he protested at this bastardization of the Spanish language.

He eventually conceded: “Perdón, presidenta.”

Could there be any clearer example that new-fangled, politically correct speech is just an arbitrary signaling mechanism? They want to watch you struggle through the growingly treacherous lexical quagmire.

And if at any moment you should trip and fall, you’ll be revealed for the outsider that they always knew you were. Maybe you’ll even get “canceled” if you’re unlucky enough to work for an organization that has capitulated to these unthinking bullies.

My advice? Learn a foreign language. Bilingual brains are less malleable to “newspeak,” as they see the inevitable inconsistencies created by a system of arbitrary verbal diktats, which cannot be neatly imposed on distinct lexical and grammatical structures.

In addition, psychologists have found that people who learn a second language are less susceptible to emotional manipulation in that language, as they have less of an emotional connection to the words. (This is easily demonstrated by thinking about how swear words in foreign languages do not evoke feelings of offense.) 

So, get on a language-learning app. And let’s all raise a glass to Miss Corrin, a skilled actress and deserving winner of her Golden Globe.

The Federal Reserve set the tone for 2021 with the release of the year’s first Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting minutes last Wednesday. With the national debt approaching $28 trillion and covid still not eradicated, there appears to be no intention of ending accommodative policies any time soon. However, the Fed still has a way of never disappointing when it comes to what is discussed behind closed doors. As the minutes reveal, they found:

The emergence of a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate bolstered investor expectations for additional fiscal stimulus, prompting upward revisions to forecasts for economic growth this year.

This logic naïvely assumes a Republican-controlled Senate wouldn’t have the same or similar “additional fiscal stimulus” as the Democrats. It also assumes fiscal stimulus leads to economic growth. Should we continue along this train of thought, we may conclude that any Senate that favors perpetual fiscal stimulus is best since it creates perpetual growth!

We also see the usual Fedspeak, surprising only in its inventiveness:

The Committee’s employment and inflation objectives are generally complementary. However, under circumstances in which the Committee judges that the objectives are not complementary…

This is difficult because it falls back to the idea of a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. Of course, the problem with this “theory” is that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. How such an inconsistent theory can ever be relied upon, much less used as a planning tool to form the Fed’s primary mandate, remains a mystery.

And for those unaware, the Fed undertakes desk surveys ahead of its FOMC meetings. The surveys are carried out by the New York Fed; they ask a variety of primary dealers, i.e., those firms able to trade directly with the Fed, questions. Then, a survey is conducted with market participants, comprised of institutional investment firms. According to their expert opinion:

The Desk survey results indicated that a majority of market participants anticipated that the pace of net asset purchases would remain stable for the remainder of the year and slow around the first quarter of 2022.

According to plan, the Fed will continue its $120 billion of asset purchases for twelve more months, meaning we can expect at least an extra $1.44 trillion of US Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities added to the balance sheet a year from now. This assumes there will be no more “additional fiscal stimulus” packages or any surprises which warrant the Fed to take on more forceful actions. The only thing more troubling than the best-case scenario of adding another trillion to the balance sheet is the erroneous widespread belief that the Fed will slow down its purchases ever again.

Last, but not least, the issue of inequality as it pertains to the black and Hispanic communities was addressed:

Many participants stressed that sustained support from fiscal policy would help address the hardships faced by these groups and that monetary policy could also help by promoting the economy's return to maximum employment and price stability.

Here they suggest that the solution to poverty and living in an unfair society revolves around asking politicians and central bankers to intervene even more in the lives of those in need. Naturally, this requires the bureaucracy to get paid for its interference. The public is then left to hope that planners will apply the appropriate amount of intervention, calculating the incalculable and doing whatever it takes to make society more prosperous.

Targets like “maximum employment” and “price stability,” are used, because they show that the Fed is goal oriented. The Fed will claim to fight racial inequality through their support, but their support can only amount to increasing the supply of money and credit, and deciding who gets access to this new money first. If these money creation schemes actually work, one would think the Fed’s goals would have been met by now. Can we really trust that by Q2 2022, as the survey says, the expansion will slow once the Fed finally hits its targets?

What the FOMC meeting ultimately fails to recognize is that by the time we get to March 2022 the only things to change will be the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, the money supply, and the increase in hardships faced by the very same groups the Fed is trying to help.

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

If we were searching for a reason for political optimism in 2021, we were delivered another reminder of the degree to which mainstream American conservatives are waking up to what the state truly is. The latest institutional betrayal of Republican voters came from the Supreme Court, which rejected considering a lawsuit challenging late changes to Pennsylvania’s election process. The majority that voted to dismiss consideration included Trump nominees Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Are Notorious ACB shirts getting treated like the jerseys of an athlete who just jilted a fanbase?

This was predictable, of course. Not because there wasn't a substantive issue worth addressing: the degree to which state courts can interject themselves in election law seems like a valid question—regardless of one’s opinion about the 2020 election. As Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a particularly blunt dissent, this was simply the SCOTUS avoiding the issue entirely:

That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future. These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority non-legislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.

Of course, this is precisely the sort of behavior that we have come to expect from spineless politicians, and that is what you find on America's highest court—politicians in robes. While it’s become more fashionable lately to mention this in recent years thanks to the particularly hammy performance of John Roberts, this has long been the case.

As Ryan McMaken has explained:

The truly political nature of the court is well documented. Its politics can take many forms. For an example of its role in political patronage, we need look no further than Earl Warren, a one-time candidate for president and governor of California, who was appointed to the court by Dwight Eisenhower. It is widely accepted that Warren’s appointment was payback for Warren’s non-opposition to Eisenhower’s nomination at the 1952 Republican convention. The proposition that Warren somehow transformed from politician to Deep Thinker after his appointment is unconvincing at best. Or we might point to the famous “switch in time that saved nine[,]” in which Justice Owen Roberts completely reversed his legal position on the New Deal in response to political threats from the Franklin Roosevelt administration. Indeed, Supreme Court justices are politicians, who behave in the manner Public Choice theory tells us they should. They seek to preserve and expand their own power.

The court, jealous of its power, and reluctant to hand down decisions that might actually cause the court to lose prestige, is at times careful to reflect the majority opinion regardless of how atrocious it might be. To see this, we need look no further than Korematsu v. United States[,] in which the court declared it perfectly legal to round up American citizens and throw them into concentration camps.

The court forever plays a careful balancing act with both the public and with other branches of the federal government in which i[t] continually pushes the bounds of federal power without rocking the boat to the point of calling its legitimacy into question among the majority of the population. Naturally, Congress and the presidency, themselves committed to untrammeled federal power, have no problem with most of this on most occasions, except perhaps in the details.

It is the last paragraph that brings us to this week’s decision. Regardless of the merits of the argument, there can be no tolerance for any major institution that invites questions over the legitimacy of the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s Americans. Particularly not one that resides in the current war zone of the American capital.

Already there are agents of the corporate press trying to spin Justice Thomas’s dissent as an act of sedition. I would be surprised if no Democrat ends up calling for his impeachment over the issue.

In terms of the incentive for a justice to build up their own prestige, none had more to gain from ruling against Florida’s first president than Kavanaugh and Barrett. Kavanaugh’s lack of principles has long been obvious to anyone who followed his career in the Bush administration. It is a testament to the repulsive treatment he received from the corporate press that they managed to make a Yale Law alum turned Beltway lawyer sympathetic.

It is also understandable to see how both could be convinced that this decision was a practical necessity for their historical reputations. In the view of America’s most powerful institutions, there is no greater stain than having Trump as a benefactor. The only way to be forgiven for this sin is to become politically useful in stopping him. With this case, the last legal challenge of 2020 is likely done.

This is yet another example of the unique value of Trump’s presidency. The failure of a conservative-aligned Supreme Court to defend Donald Trump is being properly recognized by many Americans as showing that it also cannot be trusted to defend them. Many who believed that a “conservative legal movement” could effectively defend the Constitution in DC—if only Republicans could get a true majority!—have now lost their innocence.

This invites an important question: What happens when yet another governing institution loses the faith of a large portion of the American public? While Congress has long been viewed as dysfunctional and the popularity of the presidency has largely been partisan, the Supreme Court has tended to be held up as a uniquely noble governing body. Now, we see its legitimacy questioned with increased frequency on both the left and right.

While this may be a bitter red pill for some to swallow, ultimately it is necessary medicine.

The growth of the American empire has always been dependent upon convincing the public that it is acting in its interest. When large portions of the population begin to recognize that this is an obvious lie, that the empire ultimately serves the interests of a privileged few, governing becomes more difficult. As Jefferson noted, the first step to opposing imperial rule is for people to recognize that they no longer consent to a government that is hostile to their lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

In America today, there are 50 million+ Trump supporters who believe Joe Biden is a president imposed on the nation—potentially with the help of foreign powers—armed with a Democrat-controlled legislature and a Supreme Court whose credibility is now compromised.

Yet another reason why secession is becoming popular.

Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam said in a press release on February 12 that only four groups are allowed to handle distribution of Covid-19 vaccines going forward: hospitals, federally qualified health centers, county health departments, and pharmacies in effect shutting out primary care doctors from Covid-19 vaccine distribution.  In response, the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians, Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Society, and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians (physician group) collectively expressed disappointment in the Acting Secretary of Health’s misguided allocation changes to the state’s COVID-19 vaccination distribution plan, removing primary care providers from the list of those permitted to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Their press release states:

Without sound justification and demonstrating a lack of understanding in the way most Pennsylvanians receive their health care, the Administration is making a woeful mistake by cutting out primary care physicians as eligible providers.

Justifying her action acting Secretary Beam said.

“As there is very limited COVID-19 vaccine supply compared to demand, every possible effort must be made so that the vaccine received in the commonwealth is effectively administered. To achieve this goal, I am issuing an order outlining appropriate steps and recognized best practices to ensure vaccine providers are effectively meeting the goal of vaccinating Pennsylvanians and creating a healthy Pennsylvania for all.”

While acting health secretary Beam’s intention of making use of every dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is commendable, what is so puzzling about this decision is the inconvenient fact that one of the most successful vaccine rollout by percent of people vaccinated is in the neighboring state of West Virginia.  West Virginia, a small and mostly rural state with a large elderly population, quite similar to Pennsylvania in many aspects, showed how to roll out Covid-19 vaccinations successfully. West Virginia is now being hailed as a vaccination success story, with 85 percent of its delivered doses already used, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, putting it second in the country behind North Dakota.  A key part of the strategy in West Virginia was the decision not to activate a federal partnership with pharmacy chains and instead relying on independent drugstores. 

Dr. Clay Marsh, West Virginia's coronavirus czar and vice president and executive dean of health services at West Virginia University may have read some articles from the Mises Institute when he states “But we absolutely rely on the creativity and the innovation of all of our people. Because we don't want to rely on external resource requirements for us to be able to do what we need to do.” 

Primary care physicians have plenty of experience administrating immunizations across a wide range of age groups.  They are in the business of connecting and caring for people at the local level on a daily basis.  They are best equipped to pull up a list of patients who qualify for the Covid-19 vaccine at each phase of the rollout.  But with the new order by the acting health secretary Beam, primary care physicians are being sidelined.  West Virginia has shown that good personal contact is key to the whole effort.  Most people in rural areas would rather get vaccinated by their doctor that they know and trust than by large impersonal semi-governmental vaccination centers.  According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health the list of approved vaccination sites will shrink from about 780 providers statewide to only 200 to 300 that will continue receiving doses from the state. 

In their press release the physician groups conclude:

Many people will turn to their primary care physician for guidance as to whether they should get the vaccine. Physicians, nurses, and physician assistants who provide care in private practices are trusted by their patients. This is especially noteworthy when considering those patients who may otherwise be reluctant to get the vaccine. A pharmacist or other provider who is unknown to the patient will not be able to provide that same level of confidence. Additionally, many older Pennsylvanians may believe that they will receive the vaccine in their primary care physician’s office. The new order creates yet another hurdle for a demographic who is already struggling with navigating the vaccine distribution landscape.

A main reason and good reason for the change in policy is to ensure all vaccine doses provided are administered and not wasted.  However, on February 17^th acting health secretary Beam had to address a major vaccine snafu when COVID-19 vaccinations for up to 115,000 Pennsylvanians have to be rescheduled. According to Beam, the Moderna vaccine was inadvertently administered as the first of the required two shots when the serum was earmarked for the second shot instead.  Pharmacies often don’t have more than a day’s notice about shipments, which complicates scheduling people for vaccinations.  Each vial of the Moderna vaccine has 10 doses, and once the vial is open, the vaccine lasts only five hours. After five hours the vaccine has to be discarded, only a minority of primary care physicians can manage the logistical challenges of such a strict timeline.

Another reason for the change by acting health secretary Beam and an order by Governor Wolf is to expedite the rollout.  Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 vaccine program has been marred by glitches from the start.  It has been criticized over how fast its allocated shipments are administered ranking Pennsylvania in the middle while West Virginia ranks third according to the New York Times tracker.  

The glitches in the vaccine rollout in Pennsylvania are even more troublesome by the fact that President-elect Joe Biden tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine to be his assistant secretary of health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Dr. Levine was in charge of the Covid-19 response in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania is now trying to untangle its botched vaccine rollout under her leadership.  What can the rest of the country expect once Dr. Levine is in charge of a larger rollout?