Checking in with Paul Krugman’s 1996 pessimism regarding Taiwan

by philg

“The Tigers’ Problem Is Cyclical, for the Moment” (Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1996):

South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mini-tigers, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, are facing flat domestic demand in key industrial countries, inventory corrections in the U.S., oversupply in the electronics industry, U.S. dollar strength and tight monetary conditions at home. These are cyclical problems that will reverse themselves soon enough. Down the line, the tigers may start facing structural constraints if they don’t educate their work force better, start investing more on R&D and become more receptive to skilled foreign workers. But for the time being, much of the present fear is misplaced.

Not everyone shares this view. Among the most famous critics of the “economic miracle” is U.S. economist Paul Krugman, who says that the region’s economies have prospered because of an exceptionally rapid expansion of inputs–labor and capital–rather than robust growth in output per unit of input, also known as productivity gains.

The Krugman thesis rests on the old-fashioned assumption that economic growth can be accounted for in terms of three distinct factors: labor, capital and technological progress. The third factor is considered independent of the other two; technological progress simply descends on an economy like “manna from heaven” instead of being the result of deliberate actions of profit-seeking agents. The thesis also holds that there is no tangible link between investment–in both human and physical capital–and technological progress. Underpinning much of Mr. Krugman’s claim that the input-driven expansion seen in East Asia is subject to constraints is the phenomenon of “diminishing returns.” The advantages derived from progress lessen with each passing day.

Imagine an investor who took Nobel laureate Krugman’s advice and shorted the following stocks in 1996: TSMC, Foxconn, ASUS (all were public companies at the time, ASUS having gone public exactly 30 years ago). How would such a Science-informed investor have done?

I asked ChatGPT to look into this.

Thirty years later, Taiwan’s economic performance presents a substantial challenge to the pessimistic interpretation of Paul Krugman’s 1994 argument about the Asian economic miracle. The interesting question isn’t simply whether Taiwan continued growing. It did. The more important question is whether Taiwan managed to sustain economic growth through productivity improvements rather than merely accumulating more capital and labor. And on that question, we now have nearly three decades of evidence.

Between 1995 and 2025, Taiwan’s real GDP per worker increased by 160%, compared with 59% in the United States, 118% in South Korea, and just 18% in Japan. … In 1995, Taiwanese workers produced about 56% as much output per worker as Americans. By 2025, that figure had risen to approximately 92%. What does this say about Krugman’s prediction? It provides strong evidence against the idea that Taiwan’s growth would soon run into a severe productivity-related ceiling.

Taiwan sustained 3.24% annual growth in real output per worker for 30 years, during a period when the United States managed 1.56%.

The growth story is remarkable because we’re informed that importing humans from all of the world’s poorest, most violent, and most dysfunctional societies has been the basis for U.S. economic growth. Taiwan has had some temporary workers from functional societies, such as Thailand, but they weren’t invited to immigrate. Taiwan does not offer asylum. Taiwan has accepted no refugees during the 30 years covered. Taiwan will barely accept the Haitians and Somalis who built Boston and Minneapolis as visitors and certainly not as immigrants. While 25% of the world’s Mexicans live in the U.S., ChatGPT can’t find even one example of a Mexican emigrating to Taiwan.

What about the specific inspired-by-Krugman short seller? If he/she/ze/they (the trans have always been with us, even in 1996) had shorted $1,000 each of TSMC, Foxconn, and ASUS at the end of 1996, he/she/ze/they would currently be down $816,257:

One tweak: “For an American investor, we should also account for the Taiwan dollar’s depreciation against the U.S. dollar.” The loss after currency adjustment would be only $681,185 on the $3,000 short. On the other hand, the loss is understated because ChatGPT thinks that it couldn’t fully account for stock dividends, ASUS’s Pegatron spinoff (2010), and the borrowing costs for the shares.

Asked to explain how Taiwan could have thrived with a workforce that grew older and almost no low-skill immigration, ChatGPT cites a Congressional Budget Office study from 2024 that predicted the Biden-Harris immigration surge would result in lower U.S. GDP per capita:

What about the strategy of importing welfare-dependent young people as a means of dealing with the challenge of providing for a growing number of welfare-dependent old people? That’s supposedly necessary to avoid economic decline due to an increasing median age. Over the 30 years covered by this analysis, Taiwan’s median age went from 29.8 to 45.7. The Taiwanese are growing much faster than we are right now, especially per capita, despite having a higher median age population (the U.S. is at 39.4 years). Here are the aggregate numbers (per-capita would make the U.S. look worse):

Related:

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How is your personal world going to change as a result of yesterday’s election?

by philg

What will change for you personally as a result of yesterday’s election? (unless you’re a Californian, I guess, in which case the full results might not be known for a few weeks)

(The second part of this post covers the question of why it took so long for “socialism” to become popular. My best guess is that the welfare state expansion during coronapanic tipped us from “almost half the voters are dependent on government” to “more than half the voters are dependent on government or at least don’t pay for government.”)

One big change in Florida is the loss of Ron DeSantis, albeit to term limits rather than to the election per se. He was a once-in-a-generation administrative talent and I’m sure that substituting almost anyone else would inevitably result in paying more in taxes and/or getting less in services (Florida state taxes are primarily consumption taxes, e.g., the 6% sales tax, though there is a 5.5 percent income tax on C corporations that do business within the state). DeSantis was instrumental in hardening the power grid here in Florida and also in organizing and motivating amazingly swift post-hurricane restoration, e.g., of bridges, local power lines, etc. DeSantis is being replaced by Byron Donalds. I wasn’t too excited about this race because his opponent, Democrat David Jolly, wasn’t an AOC/Mamdani/El-Sayed-style Democrat. I guess Byron Donalds is preferable because he happens to be Black and it will be entertaining to see white Democrats attacking a Black man as stupid, racist, Science-denying, etc. (They already do that with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a Harvard M.D./Ph.D.)

I have to say that the election results in Florida demonstrate the power of promising voters free stuff. Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon came within 1% of winning the Senate race against the perfectly pleasant Ashley Moody. Nixon is a high-income person ($270,000/year) who hasn’t paid her federal taxes or federally-guaranteed student loans and, moreover, says that she shouldn’t have to because someone with a yet-higher income should pay for her education and her government-provided services (“I don’t wanna pay it back. Education supposed to be free.”; source). Voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state constitution to increase the homestead exemption for general property taxes, i.e., shifting the burden of local/county government to renters, seasonal residents, commercial property owners, and, generally, “other people.” The amendment puts no per-capita spending growth limits on counties and those who are entirely exempt from paying tax can vote for increased services to be paid for by “other people”. (This could conceivably save us some money because we are homeowners and year-round residents entitled to the homestead exemption, but I still voted against it and think it is a terrible idea.)

You can see from the map below that our 50/50 county (lower right, 3rd up) voted for Angie Nixon, the above-referenced “socialist” (a label that is unfair to the Soviets because under Soviet socialism every able-bodied adult was required to work):

Ron DeSantis really should get credit for all of these narrow Republican victories in Florida. DeSantis reshaped the Florida electorate by rejecting lockdowns, mask orders, and forced vaccinations. The people who moved to Florida since 2020 have been overwhelmingly Republican, so much so that this has even overpowered the nationwide reshaping of the electorate via low-skill immigration.

One strange election outcome is that people voted to shift the burden of state government away from wealthy farm owners and onto themselves. Amendment 2, which “Exempts tangible personal property used in agricultural production” passed overwhelmingly:

Only about 1.5 percent of Floridians work in agriculture. Maybe 0.15 percent of Floridians, therefore, actually own a farm or other agricultural business. I am deeply confused by this vote. Maybe the voters think that the tax fairy will pay when the farmers stop paying an admittedly modest annual sum? How hard is it to figure out that, aside from some tourists, the state government doesn’t have a source of money other than us?

Now that government is perceived as free (“someone else will pay”), I guess it makes sense that voters approved three Palm Beach County ballot questions that will be paid for by the property tax that they are no longer paying. One is to continue “an existing 1-mill property tax for four more years to support school safety, mental-health services, teachers and other programs” (if it is for the schools, actually, it might not be covered by the new Amendment 3 exemption). Voters also approved $280 million in bonds for parks and $175 million in bonds for new and renovated libraries. The dream is that these will be paid back by property taxes that homesteaders won’t have to contribute to.

One silver lining of Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed becoming a senator is that finally my proposals to reintroduce nationwide alcohol prohibition will have a chance. (See Reintroduce Prohibition for the U.S.? (2016) and Use testing and tracing infrastructure to enforce alcohol Prohibition? (2020), for example.) Keep in mind that the Cornell Genocide wouldn’t have occurred if the U.S. had adopted Sharia law. Jane Doe/Lucy Craig wouldn’t have been guzzling alcohol as she says in her cash-seeking complaint to have done (the defendants dispute that she was intoxicated, incidentally), she wouldn’t have gone out in public without a burqa, and she wouldn’t have been at a party with men, at least not without the supervision of a male relative.

My big takeaway from the national election is confusion regarding why the cheat codes of “socialism” and Jew-hatred didn’t work for U.S. politicians until recently. Why couldn’t progressives win elections in 1960 with the same pitches that they’re using to win right now? Did the electorate change through immigration? Did Americans evolve to become more progressive as a result of increased overall prosperity? Did progressivism become an easier sell due to increased envy levels due to more people hitting spectacular levels of personal wealth? The Jew-hatred angle is also a little baffling. George Orwell noted that humans love to experience socially acceptable hate. I can certainly understand why white male Americans might hate liberal Jews (see White men correctly perceive American Jews as their enemies?), but legacy American white men aren’t the core of today’s Jew-hating groups. ChatGPT put together a list of 68 attacks by Arabs calling themselves “Palestinian” on Americans and they’re spread out over decades. In other words, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about our time and place that would make joining forces with “Palestinian” fighters more appealing today vs. 20 or 40 years ago. My best theory right now: Mitt Romney famously pointed out in 2012 that 47 percent of Americans weren’t net federal taxpayers. The welfare state was substantially expanded during coronapanic and, therefore, the majority of Americans are either dependent on the federal government or receive government services at no cost. Why would people vote against a bigger more caring government if they don’t have to pay for any of it? Can this explain the Jew-hatred as well? Maybe. Government isn’t very good at delivering on its promises. If the promised high standard of living doesn’t materialize for median voters, it becomes necessary to find a scapegoat. It would be “racism” to blame low-skill low-/no-income immigrants living in public housing or any low-income high-crime ethnic native-born ethnic group for running up the government’s welfare and police/prison tabs. But one can’t be attacked as “prejudiced” if one blames Israel (i.e., International Jewry), e.g., in the ad for Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed where two native English speakers blame their inability to afford eggs and bananas on U.S. aid to Israel (about 0.05% of the U.S. federal budget, says Gemini).

I’m not surprised by the election outcome because I’ve learned that my political views aren’t widely shared (starting with the idea that Americans should have to work for 8 years before voting, returning us to the system that prevailed circa 1800 (men started work at 13 and cast their first vote at 21; there was no welfare state and, therefore, nearly every able-bodied man worked; I wouldn’t impose a gender ID restriction for a modernized version, incidentally, since there are plenty of 21st century women who work and pay taxes)). I guess I’m comforted by the fact that California is nominally run by progressives on behalf of the working class, but in fact they have taken decent care of people with money. Peasants are hit with 10% sales tax while elites don’t have to pay any state estate tax, for example. They’ll even need to find a lot of mail-in ballots to get Amendment 40 (this year’s billionaire wealth tax) over the hump.

There might be a silver lining for Florida if the federal government goes deeper into transferism. Suppose that Democrats take over Congress right now or after two more years of “socialism” pitches. They then raise federal income tax rates by 10%, e.g., from 37% to 47%. Some financially successful people who want to recover their former spending power might move to Florida in order to shed their state income tax (often around 10%) and that will boost the economy here. But this probably falls into the category of “desperate rationalization”.

Related:

  • follow-up to When Harvard graduates try to use numbers (Dan Koh, Massachusetts candidate for Congress) from January 2026. Dan Koh was either innumerate or he assumed that the majority of voters NE of Boston were innumerate. Either way, he won by a huge margin.
  • The Islamic Republic of Iran’s leader gives us a pithy summary of the election outcome: “The process of the US’s collapse has accelerated.” (screen shot also in case the Democrat-controlled Congress shuts down X in January 2027)
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Is there an election going on in your state right now?

by philg

We were informed in 2024 that if Donald Trump were to become president that would be the end of our democracy and we wouldn’t have any future elections. The Nakba actually did occur in November 2024 and the hated dictator entered the White House in January 2025. Have you seen any evidence of an election going on in your state right now?

Where can we find examples of the “threat to our democracy” language? See Why do the non-Deplorables deplore the Trump shooting? for some examples. From Democrat thought leader Joe Biden, June 28, 2024:

From Kamala Harris, the major cognitive ability upgrade from Biden installed by party elites protecting democracy:

Even before these intellectuals weighed in, Republican Liz Cheney told NBC viewers that a Trump election “may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in.”

Separately, officials in Palm Beach County failed to get the “no more elections” memo. There is some crazy stuff on the ballot and I’m sorry to say that the Republican party is officially supporting all of it. They want to narrow the tax base by exempting $250,000 of house value from general property taxes (Amendment 3). The people who pay no tax will still be able to vote, e.g., to increase county spending to be paid for by taxing other people. It’s the same system that has resulted in epic federal budget deficits. The Republicans also want to narrow the tax base by exempting farm equipment from a tax that currently applies to every business (Amendment 2). Finally, they want to let the state keep a huge rainy-day fund (Amendment 1; opposed by Ron DeSantis, who pointed out “We already have a maxed-out rainy-day fund and have run the largest surpluses in state history”).

It won’t be the end of Florida if these amendments pass, but even if they were good ideas getting people accustomed to the idea of amending the state constitution seems risky. What if Democrats return to power here in Florida and win the necessary 60% of the votes by telling people that they’ll get all government services without paying because the top 10% of Floridians will be hit with a massive income tax (currently barred by the constitution) and a massive wealth tax (also barred beyond 0.2%; Florida actually did tax “intangible property” at very small percentages from 1931-2006)? Who could be opposed to the idea of living off Ken Griffin? Could he live comfortably on $30 billion? If so, why not a one-time wealth tax of 50%, inspired by California’s one-time 5% tax?

Loosely related, some advice on voting from the dictator who supposedly was guaranteed to suspend elections:

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Music for the 50th anniversary of Jimmy Carter’s election: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

by philg

Today is the 50th anniversary of the election of Jimmy Carter, the most depressing American president. How about if we all listen to Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, which was completed 50 years ago this month?

Readers: What are you doing to celebrate this anniversary?

Related:

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Learjet N722BD crash in Palm Beach County

by philg

Sad day for aviation in Florida, A 2004 Learjet 60 en route from Texas to the Bahamas crashed into a neighborhood here in Palm Beach County, about 30 miles south of us. The crash of N722BD is reported (NY Post) to have occurred shortly after 1 pm, 1300 local or 18Z. Here’s the archived radar from November 1, 2026 at 18Z:

(The crash was just southwest of the W in “West Palm Beach.” I’m a huge chicken/coward so if I had been coming from Texas with in-flight NEXRAD and seen the above image I would have flown around it all to the north, stopping to fuel in Orlando if necessary, and then proceeded offshore to head south to the Bahamas.)

Anecdotally, it has been rainy all day here.

There is some horrific ATC video that is so bad it sounds as though it might be AI:

If we believe the audio to be genuine, the plane was getting hit by some pretty bad turbulence (up and down at least 600′), consistent with being on top of or next to a thunderstorm. What’s confusing is that the pilot monitoring (a Learjet 60 is a two-pilot aircraft and, therefore, it is not the pilot on the controls who communicates with ATC) reports “we’re managing the ice” (i.e., the plane’s hot wings are preventing ice from accumulating) and also that the outside air temperature was -47C, We’re normally taught that icing tends to be prevalent when flying through heavy clouds at between 0 and -20C. The official government story is that icing can happen down to -40C.

An aviation friend sent me this, but I’m not sure what his source is:

Assuming no mechanical problems, what could have brought a Learjet down in these conditions? Turbulence can become so severe that, unless the pilots have anticipated it and slowed down quite a bit, a plane is damaged or comes apart. Icing can become so severe, with supercooled liquid droplets, that it overwhelms even a fully certified flight-into-known-icing (FIKI) system. A tailplane stall is theoretically recoverable, but if not corrected will result in a nosedive. Ordinarily a plane’s wing’s pull up while the horizontal stabilizer of the tail pushes down. This is what gives a standard (non-canard) aircraft its stability. If the tail stalls, e.g., due to ice formation, the plane can pitch down. Partial failure of a jet’s anti-icing system, which depends on running compressed hot air from the engines (“bleed air”) into the wing, engine nacelles, and tail leading edges, can result in an uncontrollable bank and/or spin (on wing producing dramatically more lift than the other). The Lear 60 is unusual in having electric heat for the horizontal stabilizer rather than engine bleed air, but it comes on with the same switch as the bleed air anti-ice and shouldn’t have been a factor. Also, tailplane stalls are more common during approach when flaps are extended because the result is an increased angle of attack for the tail.

Whether upset by turbulence or a tailplane stall, a slippery is much more challenging to recover than a four-seat piston-powered airplane. The jet can quickly get into mach tuck, for example, if pitched nose down from a normal cruise speed. Flying at FL350 rather than FL410, their cruising altitude over the Gulf (see below), gave the plane a larger range of acceptable speeds.

Anyway, a sad day. Based on a search, the plane was actually based here in South Florida at KFXE and, therefore, the pilots should have been more than familiar with thunderstorm hazards. So the crash is a mystery at this point, but almost surely the weather played an important role.

Update: An ADS-B-tracking web service shows that the crew were successfully avoiding the most severe weather, but not slowing down to a speed that would have resulted in the airplane stalling before it became overstressed by turbulence. They blundered into a narrow but severe cell at full cruise speed shortly before impact. Some people who have reviewed dashcam footage of the crash are saying that the horizontal stabilizer (tailplane) was entirely missing as the plane crashed into the ground (even worse effect than a tailplane stall).

Even small turbojet airliners have been brought down by thunderstorms. Braniff 250 was an 80-seat airliner that experienced structural failure in 1966 due to turbulence even though the pilots had slowed down almost to the recommended turbulence penetration speed (source). This would be much less likely today because Air Traffic Control now has access to high quality weather radar.

You might reasonably ask “Why would anyone be crazy enough to try to get through weather like this?” One answer is that if you’re going to fly in Florida or Texas and aren’t willing to try to get through ugly convective weather you’re not going to be able to fly on a schedule. That’s not a problem for private aircraft owners, but for airlines and charter pilots the passengers expect the schedule to kept. The second answer is that most of the time it is possible to stay in clear air and navigate around the worst cells visually. One thing that investigators will want to look at is why ATC gave them a descent when they were over Naples, Florida and why the crew accepted the descent. They’d been at 41,000′ (“FL410”) over the Gulf of Mexico and apparently descended to 35,000′ (FL350) on arrival in Florida. Why not stay as high as possible until past all of the ugly weather? Altitudes gives pilots the best chance of staying visual and avoiding the tallest buildups. It is possible to be assertive with ATC, though when above 18,000′ ATC has the authority to say “Well, if you can’t accept lower then I’m going to have to vector you to Cuba and back”. It’s possible that, knowing things were likely to get bumpy, they descended in order to give themselves a larger range of speeds at which the airplane would fly safely.

(Weather is much lower in New England than in Florida. I was with a friend in a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop coming back towards Bedford, MA (KBED) from Ohio. There was some ugly stuff on the in-cockpit NEXRAD over western-central Massachusetts. I insisted on staying at our cruising altitude (25,000′?) because that would keep us from entering the tops of the clouds. Everyone else on Boston Center was an airliner and ATC pushed us with “Everyone else is going through it.” I responded with “Well, they’re Boeings and Airbuses and we’re not. If we have to circle to lose altitude once we’re clear of this that’s okay.” They plainly thought we were absurdly conservative/chicken, but let us do what we asked for, eventually entering a rapid descent once clear. Our little 9-seater probably could have handled the tops of the rain clouds painted by NEXRAD, but why subject our passengers to the turbulence and ourselves to the stress if we didn’t have to?)

Update 2: Some weather experts posted detailed radar data and analysis (in Fahrenheit). Piecing together the most relevant parts from their follow-ups:

At 12:36 p.m., the thunderstorm cell was 33,000 feet tall. By 12:56 p.m., it was 48,300 feet tall. That’s an increase [of] 15,000 feet in 20 minutes. signifying VERY intense updrafts … Ordinarily, that would be too cold to support robust icing. (Clear glaze is most prevalent between 14 and 32 degrees [F], with mixing of clear/rime ice at colder temperatures. … Rime ice is a danger below 0 Fahrenheit, but once you get to colder temperatures, there aren’t many supercooled water droplets left. HOWEVER, a rapidly-growing thunderstorm cloud can lift warmer temperatures, and more liquid water content, vertically upward. That can lead to extremely rapid icing in environments at altitudes where it otherwise would be a lesser concern.

Related:

  • “How Airplanes Survive In Extreme Turbulence” (Simple Flying) explains why slowing down should prevent turbulence from bending or destroying an airplane
  • “In-Flight Emergencies: Surviving a ride in a thunderstorm” (AOPA, 1999 (before onboard weather and the enhancement of ATC consoles)): “Slow to VA (maneuvering speed)”
  • a sales listing for this plane at some point after July 2021
  • below, a confusing incident involving the same aircraft a few months ago. The pilots reported “moderate chop” and also that they couldn’t hold altitude, thus leading me to wonder if something was wrong with the plane’s autopilot (jets are typically flown on autopilot). The controller correctly notes that an inability to hold altitude is “severe turbulence”, not “moderate chop”. We don’t hear any other planes on the frequency complaining of turbulence, including a plane that was close enough to them to be called out as conflicting traffic.
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What was The Science (Kristin Knouse) doing during coronapanic?

by philg

We previously looked at what MIT’s top biologists were up to in Who pays when a jury finds that a survivor is lying? What I hadn’t realized, though, was that many of the events played out during humanity’s desperate struggle against the world’s most lethal respiratory virus.

In the fall of 2020, most states were still deep in coronapanic, e.g., with closed schools and demands that peasants Follow The Science. (Not Florida, of course! It was illegal for children to stay home from school.) What was Dr. Knouse, Ph.D. biologist doing? Instead of trying to see if she could be useful in the War against SARS-CoV-2, she was working toward her successful shut down of another lab at Whitehead/MIT. The Sabatini Lab’s efforts could have been useful in the fight against COVID-19 or a future pandemic, according to our most eminent biologist (ChatGPT):

There is a particularly strong scientific connection between David Sabatini’s research and potential treatments for COVID-19. In fact, scientists studying SARS-CoV-2 identified one of the molecular pathways that Sabatini helped discover and characterize as a possible target for antiviral drugs.

There are two important connections: his pioneering work on mTOR, a protein complex involved in cell growth and metabolism, and his laboratory’s expertise in genome-wide CRISPR screening.

Sabatini is best known for his role in discovering the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and explaining how cells use this pathway to regulate growth, metabolism, and protein synthesis.

Viruses depend on cellular machinery to reproduce. SARS-CoV-2 is no exception.

A February 2021 article in The Lancet Healthy Longevity also argued that rapamycin and related mTOR inhibitors warranted clinical trials to evaluate whether they could prevent infection or reduce severe COVID-19.

Toddlers in Maskachusetts were forced to wear saliva-soaked facerags 8 hours/day in the fall of 2020. American seniors in prime health were dropping dead every day (see Wave of death among the elderly bankrupts Social Security for what happens to a pension system when beneficiaries who were expected to live 10-20 additional years are killed). What was Dr. Kristin Knouse up to? She was comfortably on her iPhone working on a personal vendetta. Sample text messages from the Deplorables at Fox (searching for “knouse text messages site:nytimes.com” yields no results since, per usual, there are alternative realities for Fox and the NYT!):

It looks like Sabatini was too distracted by work and his new lover(s?) to realize that Knouse was trying to destroy him and his lab. As of November 2020, Tobi Oni reports that Sabatini was “speaking about [Knouse] in glowing terms”:

Two female professors chatting in 2021:

(Their glee about MIT revoking tenure reminds me of my late friend Joel Fajans describing how tenure worked at U.C. Berkeley: “I can be fired for any reason, except incompetence.” The survivor talks about how she “drank champagne while watching the Tweets” (little did she imagine that just over a year later X would be turned into a space where Deplorables would be able to post freely!).)

Here’s a text message that didn’t come from Fox (source) and I’m not sure of the date:

Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu’s Christmas present to her subjects in 2021 was ordering 5-year-olds to be injected with an experimental non-FDA approved drug if they wanted to go into a restaurant, theater, sports arena, or any other indoor public place. (See Two-year anniversary of Boston’s order that 5-year-olds be injected with an experimental vaccine in order to appear in public.) Until 2025, any shots for 5-year-olds were administered under an FDA Emergency Use Authorization. So the coronapanic emergency was an “emergency” from the point of view of the FDA, but not enough of an emergency that an MIT biologist could temporarily set aside her personal grievances.

Loosely related, the Fox article links to the Whitehead’s DEI report in which the German-born director, Ruth Lehmann, brags about hiring based on race and gender ID (“Improving the hiring, retaining and promoting of diverse talent”) and excluding white males from high school programs:

Launching the Whitehead Institute High School Internship Program, in which high school students in grades 10 to 12 from historically underrepresented groups will work directly with our Members, post-docs and staff scientists to explore biomedical science and gain experience with hands-on research.

Substantially all of their money comes from taxpaying peasants. The report notes that some of these tax dollars were used to hire full-time DEI bureaucrats. The report also highlights that the institute won’t highlight research results, unless absolutely forced to, by white males.

(Based on her bio, Prof. Dr. Ruth Lehmann, Ph.D. has no children. So her personal example might not be too inspiring to any young female who (a) loves #TheScience, and (b) wants to have children. In other words, she shows that the price of success in biology is becoming a biological dead end. (See “Women in Science”))

Finally, let’s look at some must-watch video for any expert witness going into a deposition. If the patent litigator asks what you meant when you texted “I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and feel like I’ve been gang-raped!”, start talking about how you had gone for your annual visit to the gym. (What kind of odds are available for a bet that this text message and deposition transcript section never shows up in the New York Times?)

“Evidently, we did end up having sex” is another example of how Prof. Dr. Knouse, Ph.D. is the best deponent in the history of litigation. The video also covers gaps in the text chain that she produced for the internal Whitehead/MIT investigation. These gaps weren’t noticed by the IQ 207 lab directors and the 150 Harvard Law graduates at the firm that Whitehead hired to investigate the purported misdeeds of David Sabatini. Our 11-year-old has better electronic forensics skills.

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Failed to get any trick-or-treaters this year

by philg

Typically we hand out more than 1,000 pieces of candy to trick-or-treaters. This year, none of the kids would come up the walk to where I was sitting next to the bowls.

Separately and unrelatedly, I decided to wear a costume reminding the neighbors of my Massachusetts roots.

(source)

Important to remember: Listen to Black Voices and Listen to Immigrant Voices… unless you’re on a Lindsay Clancy jury.

Loosely related…

Also, Monday could bring some news regarding America’s Mom: “Lindsay Clancy is due in court Monday. The hearing may settle if she’ll face new trial”.

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Happy Halloween from the Manatees

by philg

A friendly reminder that eating the leftover Halloween candy and/or stealing from the kids while they’re at school can lead to significant bulk (Jupiter, Florida):

The town turns a bit darker at night…

Finally, I hate to brag (in fact, nobody hates to brag more than I do), but I attended Taylor Swift’s wedding.

We saved a ton of money this year on treats to hand out. All thanks to our fiscally responsible Congress and the stewardship of our wise Federal Reserve technocrats for keeping inflation under control. A few nights ago at the highest-end department store here in Jupiter, Florida, Twix was down from $5.97 to only $5.87 (“Manager’s Special”). A Lindt-brand Dubai choice was only $13.37, previously unaffordable at $13.47.

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Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed -> Abdul El-Sayed on Wikipedia

by philg

Yesterday, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed was Americanized slightly on Wikipedia. October 29, 11:09:

This introduction to the page hadn’t been touched for 10 years, according to archive.org, which shows a 2016 version as its earliest capture. That changed on October 29, 20:15:

The politician’s full name of “Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed” was removed from the introduction in favor of restating the headline name.

Allahu Akbar, as they say in Michigan.

Separately, I was listening to NPR today in my neighbor’s 2018 Toyota Camry (I volunteered to drive it to a tire shop). The intrepid journalists characterized Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed as America’s first Muslim candidate for U.S. Senate and celebrated Democrats for their virtue. Mehmet Oz ran for Senate in Pennsylvania as the Republican nominee in 2022, but perhaps being Republican cancels out “Mehmet is the Turkish version of the Arabic name Muhammad” (Wikipedia)?

Update from the Deplorables at the New York Post… “El Sayed courted voters at mosques where speakers dubbed US ‘House of Satan’ and called for ‘final annihilation of Jews’”:

“I have to get on the ballot to be able to get your vote, inshallah. So, my team is here in the back … we need your signature to get on the ballot,” El-Sayed told the congregation, after he was welcomed to the pulpit by a mosque leader who introduced him as “our beloved brother Dr. Abdulrahman.”

(i.e., the full name is apparently used by typical Michiganders)

What else happened during Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed’s visit to the house of prayer for The Religion of Peace?

During the same service, a leader read a closing prayer in Arabic, which called for Allah to take the “worst revenge” upon Zionists.

“The Zionists have spread corruption in the land. Your forbearance has deceived them, so show them your power … They killed our brothers and sisters, so take the worst revenge upon them,” the leader sang, according to the footage.

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California’s billionaire tax will make California’s high-speed rail dream come true?

by philg

California proposes to confiscate roughly 5 percent of California billionaires’ wealth (Prop. 40 in the November election). Let’s ignore the fact that the first $1 billion in net worth is exempt and assume that California can harvest 5% of all billionaire wealth. Would that be sufficient to pay for a single high-speed rail line at California government project rates?

ChatGPT says the combined wealth of all of the billionaire douches (about 260 of them) in California is approximately $2.4 trillion, so a very rough estimate of the tax harvest is $120 billion. In fact, advocates of Prop. 40 say that they’ll get $100 billion. Here’s the neutral language of what voters are fed by nonpartisan election officials: “It will raise about $100 billion to replace the funding Trump and his billionaire donors took from working people to line their pockets.” This assumes that nobody moves out of Paradise to Hell (California to tax-free New Hampshire, Tennessee, Miami/Palm Beach, Austin, etc.), which, in any case wouldn’t reduce revenues from this new wealth tax (“The measure would apply the tax to billionaires who were California residents on January 1, 2026“).

Assuming that the advocates are correct and everything works as advertised, how many awesome high-speed rail lines could be built for $100 billion? The projected cost of the 30-year-old single line high-speed rail project is now up to $230 billion (Deplorables at Fox).

Imagine being the richest state in the U.S., imposing an entirely new kind of tax on the richest residents of that state, and still not having enough money to build the kind of railroad that folks in Japan, China, Europe, and Morocco are able to afford and build!

(I’m personally a fan of Prop. 40. California’s billionaires sat still for the 13% state income tax. Moving out of California won’t enable a rich douche to escape the 5% wealth haircut. Maybe a handful of people with assets between $25 million and $1 billion will move out for fear that the next election will hit the “almost rich” with a 5-10% wealth tax, but 23-year-old AI billionaires will quickly replace them. Californians are absurdly undertaxed, despite headlines and appearances. The owners of commercial property may pay almost nothing in property tax due to a combination of Prop. 13 and inflation (they pay tax on the nominal value of the property at the time of purchase plus 2% per year). There is no state estate tax, which makes California a good place for passing down the “generational wealth” that Californians say shouldn’t be possible to pass down. You’d think the peasants would revolt and say that Prop. 13 doesn’t apply to properties worth more than $2 million and that California will take 16% (the Maskachusetts/New York rate) of estates worth over $2 million. But for some reason these obvious methods of reducing inequality are never highlighted or put on the ballot.)

Irrelevant, in my view… “The Net Present Value of the California Billionaire Tax Act” (NBER) says that the tax will actually reduce net tax revenue for the state by about $39 billion over 10 years. The economists behind the paper claim that the billionaire targets of the tax will move out and, therefore, stop paying California’s 13.3% state income tax. Why is that irrelevant? $4 billion/year is only about 1% per year of the state government’s colossal spending. Californians say that they hate inequality and, therefore, they should be happy to bear 1% more of the cost of running their government in exchange for getting rid of some of their richest douches. I would feel more pride of ownership in our 2021 Honda Odyssey if we could expel from the neighborhood the guy with the new Rolls-Royce and also the guy with the 2005 Ford GT. And maybe the other guy with the Rolls-Royce who has been observed (by our 5th grader) picking up in the car line at the local public elementary school. Would that be worth paying more in tax? Sure. If my envy level were high enough, it could even be worth paying 10% more in taxes (property and sales here in Florida; we have no income or estate tax).

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