California (Nightmare) Dreamin'

Those Californians who had finally had enough of the infamous

loopy-lefty governance of their home state which produced 

runaway taxes (in terms of both quantity and cost), huge, 

intrusive government micromanaging their lives, increasing

crime in the cities, and outrageous behavior and activity 

including but not at all limited to public urination and defecation,

attempted to recall and remove the head of the khakistocracy,

Gov. Gavin Newsom. A most left-wing Democrat, Newsom 

himself had ordered California's beaches, famous for their beauty

and splendor, closed during the early weeks of the Coronavirus 

pandemic. He also failed to adequately address the homelessness

problem plaguing many of the state's major cities, ditto the 

drought and its (and Sacramento's) effects on available water, 

frequent power failures, sweeping fires destroying neighborhoods 

and entire towns, and his hypocrisy regarding his mask mandate

--- he attended a big gala at a toney French restaurant sans a mask.

Newsom also ordered a ban on large gatherings such as this one!

Republicans, so few as a percentage of California's electorate, 

initiated the recall effort after Newsome's 2018 election. They 

thought that not only could they unseat Newsome but that they 

could also reverse their long-sagging political fortunes by thus

taking out the head of the cabal, then going after the rest in

the capitol and break up the Dem's near-monopoly on the 

Golden State's government. Sadly, this didn't come to pass.

A cluster of candidates, mostly Republicans, ran in the race

to topple Newsom. Radio talk show host and author Larry 

Elder emerged as the front runner and the leading opposing 

candidate in the first stage of the balloting. Among his

fellow candidates were Caitlin Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner,

'70s Olympic Track and Field champion), Assemblyman

Kevin Kiley, businessman John Cox, and former San Diego

Mayor Kevin Faulconer. There were 46 candidates in all (!).

Recall elections historically haven't been successful for 

those initiating them in California; out of 55 leading up to 

this campaign, only one had been successful --- the one 

in which bodybuilder and action movie star Arnold Schwarz-

enneger, a moderately liberal Republican defeated incumbent

Gray Davis for the governorship. And this recall flopped like

the other 54. 

Anyone who had been following the recall effort from its inception

would have thought that it would have been a certainty that 

the power-mad Gov. Newsom would have been shown the door

by the voters. The final straw for many Californians was his 

draconian shutdown of practically the entire state, affecting

schools, businesses, houses of worship, beaches, and parks

both big and small. A great economic hardship resulted for 

people who couldn't work at their jobs and for people who

couldn't run their businesses. Many residents packed up and

moved to lesser-taxed, less-regulated, not-so-tightly-locked-

down states stating that they had to make a living, that their 

children missed too much school, and their freedom of move-

ment was severely restricted. Newsom's violating his own edicts

were another reason many gave as to why they moved.

But many Californians stayed and fought via the recall campaign.

However, many more Californians, those that the state has had

the misfortune to become known for --- the flakes, nuts, weirdos,

the hopelessly vapid, the sort of people that comedian Jay Leno

would feature in his chats with them in his "Jaywalking" segment

on the Tonight show when he was its host. And of course the 

Hollywood set, with their well-loaded checkbooks and their 

lefty-chic politics (refer to the aforementioned phrase "hopelessly

vapid"; they fit quite neatly under that heading) --- won the day 

by winning the recall election with their campaign contributions,

their rallies, and their votes that came in droves. 

And now there is just one thing left for the defeated citizens of this

woeful state to do, if they see no reason to remain and to somehow 

fight on: to vote one more time, this time with their feet. They 

can take a page from the book by their fellow Californians who 

had already removed to more politically and economically 

favorable states to start anew. I admire the spirit and pride that

the recall activists showed, and I would have even more admiration

for those who would choose to stay and fight on in the face of 

daunting odds. For what it's worth, though, your doubtful Peasant

does not see the situation improving to the point where the state

will no longer be written off as a combination of backwater and 

insane asylum, at least not in the near future. In the final analysis,

only time will tell, and believe me it's going to be quite a long time.

MEM

A Belated 12th Anniversary Thank You to My Readers

Friends, your faithful but hurried, harried Peasant 

forgot all about my --- our --- anniversary yesterday;

it was the 12th anniversary of the day I began 

publishing my blog, and you my faithful readers

coming to visit me, with the aim of getting 

acquainted with me and my blog. And a wonderful

friendship was born! A thousand pardons for failing

to mark those twelve magnificent years in a timely

way!

You are the reason why your faithful Peasant has had

this blog for these past twelve years! I look forward

to every week and our weekly get-togethers with great

eagerness and anticipation! May we have twelve more 

years together right here, analyzing the political and

economic news of the day while praising the good,

castigating the bad, and encouraging the ugly to act

in a less ugly manner. You're all the greatest readers 

a blogger could ever ask for!

God bless!

MEM

 

Biden's War on Profits

President Biden's programs and their fiscal ramifications

have inflationary tones; indeed, economists are saying that

inflation is currently making a comeback. 

But our president, in order to shore up support for his 

economic agenda, is looking for scapegoats for to palm

off the blame onto. He has found such a choice in the

pharmaceutical industry. Now, your faithful Peasant has

his own criticisms of that particular industry, but here I 

find Biden's accusations to be quite meritless. Claiming

that the pharma firms are "jacking up prices", he is 

castigating the very companies that have produced the 

vaccines and treatments (in record time yet!) that are

saving people the world over from the Coronovirus

pandemic. Making a pitch for his drug price controls,

he claims that we Americans "... pay the highest pre-

scription drug costs of any developed nation in the 

world." While he is right on this point, he must realize

that we also get access to more and better treatments 

sooner than in the other developed countries. And 

his fiscal initiatives will certainly have an adverse effect

on drug prices, among other goods and services. 

The profits that the pharma firms make make research 

and development into new treatments possible. In the 

meantime, drug prices have been declining thanks to

increased competition. Prescription drug prices have 

dropped 2.6% over 2020 while the consumer-price 

index increased 5.4%. Also keep in mind (a pity that

Biden doesn't) that Medicare already negotiates over 

prescription drug prices, which is why some consumers

aren't seeing the price cuts.

Private insurers that manage Medicare Part D plans demand

rebates from the pharma folks to place their medicines on 

formularies. Then the insurers use the rebates to reduce 

premiums for all beneficiaries. The result of all this:

drug makers raise their list prices, making some beneficiaries

with higher deductibles and coinsurance pay more out of

pocket for some drugs. 

However, a recent study by IQVIA discovered that net prices

after rebates for brand medicines declined 2.9% in 2020. 

Per capita-wise, real net spending on drugs in the U.S. 

increased by a mere 0.5% annually over the past decade 

even as higher-cost treatments have been approved.

President Biden wants to get rid of the profits that make 

possible the incentive to innovate. Large pharmaceutical 

firms invested $91 billion in new treatments in 2020.

The Coronovirus pandemic proved that the benefits in 

lives saved are a magnificent profit in another, more 

dear currency. Pity all this is lost on our president.

MEM

A Tragic Way to Celebrate a Tragic Anniversary

We are coming up on the twentieth anniversary of 

9-11, the date when terror paid us a call in three 

different locations in our country, killing many 

of our fellow Americans in the ghastly process.

And the events in Afghanistan, beginning with

President Biden's quick and massive withdrawal

of our troops which enabled the Taliban to take 

the country in a blitzkrieg not unlike the one 

which the Germans rode to complete domination

of Poland in 1939, is how we will be 

commemorating this tragic anniversary. 

Biden made up a withdrawal date loaded with 

symbolism to make him look fiercely determined

on this anniversary, never mind the consequences

of his action. We left our major air base in the 

middle of the night (!) no less, without first informing

the Afghan military. We left many of our weapons 

behind and the Taliban happily took possession of 

them. We didn't tell our allies what we were doing 

and how we were doing it; they followed us there 

and paid dearly for doing so. Worst of all, we 

removed our military personnel before removing 

U.S. citizens, particularly those employed at our 

embassy, and our friends --- those brave Afghans 

who helped us materially and in other ways as 

well. They were left without protection from the 

onrushing Taliban, and many were captured or 

killed on the spot. Women were forced out of their 

workplaces and their classrooms and into burkas.

Many Afghans sped to the Karzai International Airport

to get a commercial flight, or really ANY flight, out of

Afghanistan. The remaining Americans did 

likewise. Many of both were waiting in vain for flights 

to help them escape. And ponder this: the Taliban and

their pals in Al-Qaeda will get a base from where they 

can plan and launch terror attacks like 9-11 on our allied

countries and on us. Want something more to make you

roll your eyes and your jaw drop? President Biden 

thinks he has a firm deal with the Taliban to have 

them provide safe passage out of Afghanistan to 

the Americans and the Afghanis who worked with 

them (?!?!?!?!?!). Biden's dippy Secretary of State

Antony Blinken (where's Winkin' and Nod?) pro-

claimed "The Taliban has committed to let anyone

with proper documents leave the country in a safe

and orderly manner. They've said this privately and 

publicly many times." Your quizzical Peasant wonders,

what color is the sky in the world in which Biden 

and Blinken reside? With the withdrawal of our

military people from Afghanistan the Taliban has 

the leverage to block anyone they want from 

leaving the country for as long as they want. 

And these two nimrods don't know this? 

Response or comments from the president and his

regime? They think that it will all go away, just like

a bad dream and always try to change the subject

when anyone asks about Afghanistan. However, 

the aftermath will play out over the course of many

years, like Vietnam. And President Biden showed

himself to be a man without kindness or an interest 

in the well-being of others. This episode caused severe

damage to his presidency and to his personal reputation

which may not be at all reparable. He has even given

the perception that he doesn't listen to advice from 

many people, if anyone. His military and political

advisors urged him not to go the route he has taken

on Afghanistan; he paid them no mind and listened 

to his own counsel.

Can you imagine the thoughts and emotions running

through the minds of our military veterans who 

served tours of duties in Afghanistan, being seriously

wounded or even maimed? They must be thinking that 

they sacrificed so grievously for what --- a quickie

exit which was no more than an abandonment of an

ally who needed our help desperately? An ally which

instead got the shaft as a result? That they gave up a leg,

an arm, more, for what? That friends in their units died

for what? And the families of those who were among 

the casualties, some of whom are now bitterly opposed

to Biden's actions and his even occupying the White

House? One mother of a marine killed in action 

spoke recently on Sean Hannity's radio show and 

ripped into the president, even using strong language.

Although these words were bleeped out, Hannity 

expressed his sympathy to her and her family. 

And who could blame her? Who would begrudge her

emotions? After all, her son died a completely 

senseless, avoidable death, and she has not heard any 

words of sympathy nor condolences from her son's

commander-in-chief, whose careless actions put her 

son in the crosshairs of lethal danger.

The way we ended our involvement in Vietnam was 

terrible. But the way President Biden ended our 

involvement in Afghanistan could prove to be far,

far worse, for the reverberations from it will be 

sounding in our ears and those of our allies for 

perhaps years. Then there's the rest of the conse-

quences which have yet to manifest. Let's hope

that we can give President Biden as ignominious 

an ending to his presidency as he has given our

commitment to Afghanistan and her people.

MEM

Biden & Bernie vs. the Billionaires

Everyone by now has heard about the behemoth budget

that President Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT) 

have collaborated on, along with its focus on "infrastructure"

(I placed this word in quotation marks because Biden and 

Sanders have expanded it to mean things which are not and 

never were meant to be defined as infrastructure). The tab

for it all are astronomical to the point of record-setting; 

Sanders made a budget proposal of $3.5 trillion (!),

dwarfing Biden's proposal of $1 trillion (?!). The free-

spending pair defended their break-the-bank budgetary

plans with the usual class-warfare rhetoric: both of 

these turbo-charged spendthrifts called upon the 

"billionaire class" to "pay their fair share of taxes".

"We are living in a nation where the people on top are

doing phenomenally well," Sen. Sanders bellowed to 

a crowd at a rally for this Marxist monstrosity in Iowa

recently. "They have so much money, they don't even 

know what to do with it, and now some of them are off 

in outer space spending their billions. Well, we think 

maybe it might be a good idea , before you go off to 

outer space, to start paying attention to the struggles

of working families on the ground." Indeed, let's get

working families hooked on more and more financial

handouts from Uncle Sam rather than allow the biggest,

and other big income earners to keep more of their

money so that they can expand their businesses, which

would mean more jobs, some of which would be held 

by members of the aforementioned working families.

When the peasantry work for their subsistence they

gain independence and a sense of accomplishment

rather than languishing at home watching TV knowing

that the government will take care of them to the point 

of their not trying to do for themselves what left-wing 

politicians have soft-soaped them into giving over to 

the government to do for them; to feed, shelter, clothe,

and to medically treat them on the dime of those who

do work, and have achieved various levels of considerable

success. When these hard-working businesspeople see 

what their taxes will be under a Biden-Sanders "infra-

structure" funding scheme many of them will either 

simply not continue to build and grow their businesses,

or they will pack up everything and move their operations

to countries with lower corporate and individual income

taxes. Either way, American workers will be out of work

and non-working Americans will not even try to find

work, and presto! A massive welfare state will spring up 

and the national economy will stagnate and shrivel.

Furthermore, the left-wing gruesome twosome will run out

of billionaires to drain for their spending binge. According

to the 2021 Forbes billionaires list, there are currently 724

billionaires in the United States with a collective net worth 

of $4.4 trillion. President Biden's own infrastructure plan 

includes approximately $550 billion in new spending, but 

the total bill is nearly $1 trillion on the nose. Bernie's budget?

A cool $3.5 trillion. If Sen. Sanders were to tax away every

asset of every U.S. billionaire --- that includes (but is certainly

not limited to Elon Musk's bitcoin holdings, Larry Ellison's 

boats, Oprah Winfrey's houses, and Ted Turner's ranches,

or the classic car collections of Jay Leno and Jay-Z

--- it STILL wouldn't cover the cost of the Democrats' next

two legislative plans. Think of that! Many thanks, by the way,

to the Wall Street Journal for publishing these facts in their

Aug. 31 edition's Review and Outlook section.

And then there's the funding of the federal government's 

operations, roughly $4 trillion per annum. And Bernie 

still harbors his dream of Medicare for All, a socialized

medicine scheme which would make Obama's so-called

Affordable Health Care Act look like a little child's 

birthday party. Bernie keeps pumping his "us versus them"

message, but he doesn't realize that there aren't enough of 

"them" to sink his teeth into --- meaning that he, Biden,

and the government will have to go after the millionaires,

then the upper-middle class, then the middle class. Their 

taxes will need to go on a rocket ride too, much more 

dramatic than that taken by Jeff Bezos, currently the 

biggest American billionaire and the wealthiest person

on the planet. After plundering "them", the socialistic

Democrats will look hungrily at "us". Then what would

we do? And unlike how he ended our war in Afghanistan,

President Biden will prosecute this war, his and Bernie's 

War on Wealth, fighting to the last billionaire. Then the last 

millionaire. Then ... you get the idea.

MEM