Sep
21
2024

Joe Biden's Memory Hole

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James Freeman reports on our continuing Orwellian reality: This Meeting Never Happened.

The greatest country in the world is crossing its fingers and hoping to survive four more months with a president who suffers significant cognitive impairment. At least that’s the charitable interpretation of Joe Biden’s Thursday falsehoods about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

At the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., the president cast himself as a principled leader determined to prevent political interference in the conduct of the nation’s monetary policy. Here’s what Mr. Biden said about the U.S. central bank:

… unlike my predecessor, I respect the Federal Reserve’s independence… That independence has served the country well.

And, by the way, I’ve never once spoken to the chairman of the Fed since I became president.  It’ll also do enormous damage to our economy if that independence is ever lost.

In just a few words Mr. Biden managed to communicate a number of simple untruths, starting with the preposterous claim that he’s never spoken to Mr. Powell since becoming president.

Freeman's subhed: "Was Thursday’s Biden boast a sign of dishonesty or senility?" Could be both! He highlights this bit from Biden's announcement on November 22, 2021 that he was nominating Powell to continue as Chair of the Fed's Board of Governors.

Jay and I have had a chance to discuss his views on priorities for the Federal Reserve in the years ahead. He’s made clear to me: A top priority will be to accelerate the Fed’s effort to address and mitigate the risks — the risk that climate change poses to our financial system and our economy.

And extreme weather has cost our economy over $600 billion over the last 10 years. We have to make sure our financial system could withstand climate change and is prepared to transition to clean energy. The Fed must be a leader among Central Banks globally in addressing climate-related financial risks.

And points out, sensibly enough, that jawboning Powell (who apparently wanted to be renominated as Fed chair for some reason) about the Fed's duty to address climate change is hardly respecting its "independence".

Freeman also points out that Powell is pretty adept at "Beltway politics", noting a WSJ article mentioning his "hundreds of meetings with lawmakers" over the years.

And whether the Fed has "served the country well" since its 1913 creation, that's certainly arguable. I don't endorse the action recommended by our Amazon Product du Jour, but that's because I'm dubious that any replacement wouldn't be worse.

Also of note:

  • Another awful idea from Trump. According to this tweet:

    Dominic Pino describes What Capping Credit-Card Interest Rates at 10 Percent Would Do. A couple of things:

    1. Limit credit-card access only to people with very high credit scores. Even having an average credit score would not cut it for an interest rate of only 10 percent on a short-term, unsecured loan.
    2. Require collateral from less creditworthy borrowers. It would become part of a credit-card application to put up assets as collateral to secure the loan, as is typical for other loans with lower interest rates.

    It won't happen. Trump insults your intelligence by claiming he could make it happen.

  • DEI must DIE, and ESG must… uh, die too, I guess. George F. Will notes one happy trend: Those beloved progressive initials, DEI and ESG, have lost their gleam.

    Progressives’ alphabet soup ingredients are DEI hiring and ESG investing. Both often are illegal, and the latter is medieval.

    “Diversity, equity and inclusion” became fashionable in corporate America, and enforced in academia. There, refusing to take DEI loyalty oaths provokes exclusion as punishment for deviations from this orthodoxy: Equity is group entitlements — inevitably, a racial spoils system. As Kamala Harris joyfully explains, “Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place.”

    Courts have dampened enthusiasm for DEI by reminding colleges of laws against racial discrimination, and by affirming that corporate officials and even directors can be held personally liable for illegalities. Recently, some star-spangled American companies — responsible for Jack Daniel’s whiskey, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, John Deere tractors and Ford F-150 trucks — have curbed their DEI enthusiasms.

    GFW notes that ESG echoes a "repellent yearning for the 1930s." Specifically, efforts in Italy and Germany demanding that business put “public welfare before individual gain.” Or, in the original: Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz.

  • Can I place a bet on AI outsmarting legislators? Probably wouldn't get good odds. Nevertheless, as Steven Greenhut notes: California Lawmakers Think They Can Outsmart AI. We've talked about that specific anti-AI effort yesterday, but Greenhut makes a more general point:

    Quotation compilations are filled with jabs at lawmakers, as deep thinkers complain about the cravenness, venality and opportunism of politicians. Journalist H.L. Mencken complained that a "good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar." Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly quipped that "in politics stupidity is not a handicap." I've known good, honest and smart politicians, but my main beef is their overall lack of humility.

    Not so much personal humility, but a sense of limits on what government can accomplish. California is notoriously absurd on this front, as our top politicians routinely make grandiose pronouncements. Their latest ban will change the trajectory of Earth's climate patterns! They will stand up to greed and Other Evil Forces! Every one of them aspires to sound like John F. Kennedy.

    Also particularly noticeable for me are the "grandiose pronouncements" from my local pols that they've finally discovered the magic legislation that wil "crack down on drug traffickers", "keep these drugs off of our streets" and "stop the flow of illicit drugs".

    Also see: gun control.

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    Just trust your local librarian. You know, the ones who diligently note "Banned Book Week". Usually accompanied by multiple copies of the "banned" books that they have, nonetheless, managed to procure for their shelves.

    They do not have a display for the books they didn't buy.

    Eugene Volokh details the practice of "weeding", getting rid of books that were purchased in less enlightened times: "Discard [Library] Books ... That Reflect Gender, Family, Ethnic, or Racial Bias". He's very even-handed, summarizing the current legal state of play, The current case making its way through the court system is (ACLU link) Little v. Llano County.

    It would be nice if "weeding" was accomplished without viewpoint discrimination. But Volokh looks at The Weeding Handbook, published by the American Library Association (Amazon link above). Sample:

    [Quoting one librarian favorably:] "Removing the Dr. Seuss books that are purposefully no longer published due to their racist content is absolutely acceptable because it's an act of basic collection maintenance. It is our professional duty to make those carefully chosen decisions to ensure our collections are up-to-date and suitable for the communities we serve…. Librarians who claim to be antiracist need to remove these books…."

    And of course, my own library does "claim to be antiracist". They even issued a very tendentious "zine" about it.