Playing with Pugsley on the
Liangma River in Beijing
Where’s all the babies?: Can China Reverse Its Population Decline? Just Ask Sweden.
Wealthy countries have been trying to boost their birthrates for decades. The results have been pretty similar. History suggests that once a country crosses the threshold of negative population growth, there is little that its government can do to reverse it. And as a country’s population grows more top-heavy, a smaller, younger generation bears the increasing costs of caring for a larger, older one.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
A note about the USSC case that could gut federal agencies: Maybe the reason the USSC took up a nearly identical case to go with the first one was to get Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson back on the decision. She recused herself from the first case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo because she was an appeals court judge of that case. So, five months after she recused herself, in an extraordinary move the USSC accepted a second, nearly identical case Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce that Jackson Brown is not conflicted out of. The most likely reason for taking that 2nd case was to get all 9 justices on the decision.
I interpret that to mean that, to make the political optics look as good as possible, the six radical authoritarian Republicans want Brown Jackson on the decision because they plan to gut federal agency power. Doing that will shift massive power from government to morally rotted, deeply corrupt, elite brass knuckles capitalist plutocrats. This step by the radical USSC would mark a major step in the dismantling of protections for American democracy, the rule of law, and indirectly most of our remaining civil liberties. The NYT comments:
The fishermen are represented by two conservative groups, Cause of Action Institute and the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Both have financial ties to the network of foundations and advocacy organizations funded by Charles Koch, a billionaire who has long supported conservative and libertarian causes.
As usual for the MSM, the NYT continues to fail to understand the nature of the American radical right authoritarian wealth and power movement. It is not conservative. It is staunchly authoritarian, anti-democracy, anti-transparency and morally rotted. It is all about transferring a lot more power and wealth to those who already have vast power and wealth.
When power flows from government to special interests, elite plutocrats in this instance, civil liberties inevitably come under pressure. One must keep track of the flow of power. Power doesn’t just go away. It tends to flow to where existing wealth and power already are.
This reporting well and truly scares the bejesus out of me. With some luck, I misread the tea leaves. But I just can’t envision any other highly plausible reason for the USSC to take up that 2nd case. Now I’m deeply worried.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
From the Brass Knuckles Capitalism Files: Research shows drug prices in the United States are nearly double those in other well-off countries. The NYT comments:
In 2018, they were nearly double those in France and Britain, even when accounting for the discounts that can substantially reduce how much American health plans and employers pay.
“The U.S. market is the bank for pharmaceutical companies,” said Ameet Sarpatwari, an expert in pharmaceutical policy at Harvard Medical School. “There’s a keen sense that the best place to try to extract profits is the U.S. because of its existing system and its dysfunction.”
The NYT points to six factors unique to the US: (i) the absence of governments negotiating drug prices, (ii) no price control laws, (iii) incentives that reward doctors, hospitals and middle men to all make more from higher drug prices, (iv) a fragmented and complex system that adds cost but delivers little or nothing in return, (v) companies game the patent system, and (vi) the core brass knuckles capitalist moral imperative of charging what the market will bear (which is defined by the drug companies, not defined in terms of adverse impacts on people who cannot afford what drug companies say they can afford -- it is capitalism-centric, not consumer-centric).
It is no wonder at all that the American people are being fleeced horribly in the name of sacred, infallible unregulated brass knuckles capitalism.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
From the Clueless Blowhards & Arrogant Hypocrites Files: The Hill writes: Pope Francis urges avoiding pornography, ‘winning the battle against lust’ -- Pope Francis on Wednesday encouraged Catholics to avoid pornography, while noting sexual pleasure “is a gift from God.” Pornography undermines sexual pleasure and such “satisfaction without relationship” can lead to forms of addiction, the pontiff argued during a catechesis on the “vice of lust” at his general audience in Saint Peter’s Square on Wednesday.
If porn has some effect to reduce unwanted babies, that is good. The Pope (1) needs to deal with wanton lust and rape in his own morally rotted institution, and (2) support all those hundreds of millions of babies born into hopeless poverty that his hypocrite church commands and encourages poor people to have.
In my opinion, the arrogance, hypocrisy, self-delusion and sheer lunacy about social issues that comes from Catholic popes is staggering.
This one is for you Francis
