December 26, 2020

Testing The "Systemic Racism" Narrative

December 26, 2020/ Francis Menton

How do you establish that a hypothesis is true? According to numerous explainers of the scientific method, starting with philosopher Karl Popper, the best you can do is to try to prove the hypothesis false, and fail. By this method — the scientific method — you can never definitively establish “truth” of a hypothesis, but over time you can get close.

Of course, we now live in the era of official narratives permanently immunized from attempts at falsification, nevertheless incorrectly claiming the mantle of “science.” . . .

For today, let’s consider applying this logical method to testing one of this year’s big three narratives, namely the narrative that “systemic racism” is the principal explanation for disparities of income and wealth in our society.

December 22, 2020

Contrast Between New York And Florida

December 22, 2020/ Francis Menton

Of all the states, the one most comparable to New York by demographics is Florida. These two states are close not only in overall population, but also in relative numbers of immigrants and of minority groups.
Despite being, at least for now, relatively close in population and other demographics, New York and Florida could not be more different in their approaches to public policy.
In Florida, Republicans have controlled the legislature (both houses) since 1997, and the governorship since 1999. Florida exemplifies the low tax, low spend, low regulation approach to state government. New York is firmly in control of the progressive left, and exemplifies high taxes, high spending, and high regulation.
Different policies lead to different results. For today I’ll focus mainly on the policy response to the Covid-19 virus.

December 21, 2020

December 21, 2020/ Francis Menton

It’s the week before Christmas, traditionally the best week of the year to be in New York City.
This is the week when tourists by the thousands flock to town, hundreds of restaurants are full and festive, the theater does peak business, the symphony and opera and ballet put on their most popular shows, concert venues are fully booked, hotel rooms are impossible to find, stores are packed, and beautiful Christmas lights are everywhere.
Not this year. Don’t even think about coming here right now. Almost all of the best things are closed, by order of our political masters. . . .

December 18, 2020

December 18, 2020/ Francis Menton

As discussed here in a recent post, being a climate “believer” requires basic refusal to deal with the real world as it exists. And no matter how crazy it has been up to now, with the incoming Biden administration, get ready for the make believe to move up to a whole new level.
Can we actually change the weather by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars into windmills and solar panels? That’s what we are all now going to pretend. Kim Strassel sees where it’s going in today’s Wall Street Journal:
[I]t’s all about green. Climate will be the driving priority of this White House—Mr. Biden’s make-nice to progressives. He’ll have a climate envoy ( John Kerry ), a climate czar ( Gina McCarthy ), and climate obsessives leading every department ( Janet Yellen, Pete Buttigieg, Jennifer Granholm ).
So suppose you run a big oil company. . . .

December 17, 2020

December 17, 2020/ Jane Menton

One of my mom’s friends posted the above meme on her Facebook page. When my mom sent it to me, for a moment we both wondered if it was meant as a joke about the Left, which obviously does or has done all of the things listed. But when my mom commented on the post, writing: “The Left did deny the results of the election in 2016,” the friend who posted this meme promptly deleted her comment.
Apparently the poster really did mean to only describe the Right — and has no interest in recognizing how absurd that is.
Let’s take it piece by piece.

December 14, 2020

December 14, 2020/ Francis Menton

You undoubtedly are aware that the international environmental movement has almost entirely been taken over and consumed by the climate change scare; and you also cannot help but be aware of the constant drumbeat of attacks by environmentalists on the U.S. government, particularly under President Trump, for its failure to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to “save the planet.”
At the same time, you are a reader of the Manhattan Contrarian. Therefore, you know that China is not only not reducing its own carbon emissions, but instead has well more than tripled them over the past twenty years (during which period U.S. emissions have declined modestly by about 15%); and today China is in the midst of a new round of massive expansion of its fossil fuel energy generation capacity, particularly with respect to the most carbon-intensive fuel, coal. . . .

So then surely the major environmental organizations must be coming down hard on China? Wrong.