Losing Power Has Left the Democrat Party Dazed and Confused

The Democrats know they are in trouble, but they probably don’t know just how deep the trouble is. At the national level the party is now further out of power than it’s been since 1928. This lack of power and control is a problem in and of itself, but it is an even larger problem for what it portends for the party’s future. The party’s problems are deep and systemic and there are no clear remedies.

For the first time in over three generations the Republican Party controls the U.S. Senate, the Congress, and the White House. In all probability, there will soon be a conservative, not liberal, Supreme Court. Not only is there a vacancy on the Supreme Court that Donald Trump can fill, there are 104 vacant federal judgeships waiting for his nominations when he takes office. The judiciary has been the left’s go-to option when they fail to achieve their objectives legislatively. This change in the nature of the judiciary could last for decades.

Lack of power has profound implications for Democrats. Power is the Party’s raison d’être and sine qua non. Without power the party is broke and broken.

Consider, for example, one crucial element of their reliance on “identity politics,” specifically, organized labor. Organized labor is perhaps the single most important and dependable factor in the Democratic Party’s long-term success. In fact, Britain’s equivalent of the Democrat Party is called the Labour Party.

Democrats rely on a perverse variation of voluntary exchange. In exchange for votes, campaign contributions, and election workers, Democrats deliver legislation and regulations favorable to unions. The system works well for both entities, but it only works so long as Democrats have the power to keep their part of the bargain.

On the other side of the quid pro quo, there has to be a sufficient population of union members in order to generate an adequate amount of campaign funds. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the percentage of the U.S. labor force in unions has declined from 20 percent in 1983 to 11 percent now. Less than seven percent of the private workforce is unionized. Thirty-five percent of government employees are union members, but that too is in jeopardy. When President Trump fills the current Supreme Court vacancy, mandatory union dues could well be ruled unconstitutional. That could be a double whammy — reduced union membership and a reduced supply of campaign funds. Trump has said that he wants to reduce the federal workforce by 20 percent. What a glorious accomplishment that would be.

Another major contributor to the Democratic Party’s past success has been the mainstream media, i.e. the major television networks and big city newspapers. The media could not have tried any harder than it did to get Hillary Clinton elected President. They did everything in their power to convince voters that Donald Trump was a despicable racist and sexist, someone who was absolutely “unfit” to be President. It didn’t work. They can’t simply double down on their efforts in the next election because they’ve already exhausted that option.

The media tried so hard to elect Hillary their intentions became blatant and their efforts became counterproductive. They may well have increased rather than decreased Donald Trump’s popularity. Not only did their efforts backfire, the media also paid a high price in terms of credibility.

The media’s influence and power depend on credibility and trust, both of which it used to possess. Credibility and trust are fragile and fleeting commodities. Once they’re lost, it’s almost impossible to get them back.

In the years leading up to the election Hillary Clinton was able to command fees of $200,000 or more for her boring and vacuous twenty-minute speeches. Why was anyone willing to pay her so much for so little? There was a not-too-subtle assumption that once she had the power of the presidency their generosity would be rewarded. The exorbitant fees were little more than prepaid bribes.

A small but nevertheless telling detail of the recent election was the outcome in Washington, D.C. There Hillary Clinton trounced Donald Trump 94 percent to four percent. Residents of D.C. obviously know which party has their best interests at heart, and it’s not the Republicans. The Democrat Party is unquestionably the party of big government and concentrated power, but that party lost, and it lost big. Smaller government means fewer government employees and fewer public-sector union members. Maybe Bill Clinton (Hillary’s pretend husband) was only premature when he famously proclaimed, “The era of big government is over.”

This new and novel (for Democrats) distance from power will not only hurt them in the future, it will even hurt them retrospectively. Because the Democrats used their recent power so arrogantly and incompetently, much of what they’ve accomplished will soon be erased. Not only is Obamacare on the verge of annihilation, so are most of Obama’s executive orders. Obama’s legacy will be the thinnest and most transitory in presidential history.

Democrats have held power for so long they are lost without it. Their anger and frustration is almost palpable. The party is lost in the wilderness without a compass. Let’s hope they stay there for a long time. Maybe they can break the Old Testament record.

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◼ CAPITOL DESK Losing Power Has Left the Democrat Party Dazed and Confused

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Sacramento’s High-Output Law Factory

The New Year’s Day front-page headline in the San Francisco Chronicle read, “1st Day of Year Brings Hundreds of New Laws.” The exact number of new California laws taking effect on that day was 898. Unfortunately, there is nothing unusual about 2017. The corresponding number for last year was 807; in 2015 there were 930 new laws.

Every year hundreds of new laws are passed by the Democrat-controlled state legislature and dutifully signed into law by the Democrat governor. The lawmakers will soon get to work dreaming up hundreds of additional laws.

Why so many laws? Lawmakers pass laws because that’s what lawmakers do, especially in California. The state Senators and Assembly-persons have the ability to pass laws (needed or not) so they do. From their leftist perspective, the more laws, the better. If they were capable of passing 10,000 laws a year they probably would. They are essentially law hoarders. Sacramento, more than anything else, is a law factory. Liberals fervently believe that the road to paradise is paved with legislation.

It’s doubtful that any of the legislators who passed the almost 900 laws could tell you what even a hundred of them were. The laws are on the books but most of them will never be known about or enforced. That simply isn’t possible.

The lawmakers almost never kill any of their previous creations. Nor are they ever curious as to whether or not the laws achieved their goals and purposes. “Evidence? We ain’t got no stinking evidence!”

The following is a representative sample of their latest offerings:

Schools in the state are now banned from using “Redskins” as a mascot, which lawmakers said is “racially derogatory” to American Indians. (In anticipation of the new law Calaveras High School conducted an on-line poll to choose a new mascot for the school. The vote was to change the mascot to nothing.) California businesses have until March 1 to make all of their “single-user” public restrooms accessible to all genders, instead of one for women and one for men. Public and private health plans are required to cover a year’s supply of birth control, instead of requiring refills every 30 or 90 days. The lawmakers took pity on women being burdened by refilling prescriptions at unreasonable intervals. Smokers are prohibited from smoking within 250 feet of a youth sports event.

In the politicians’ eyes the citizenry is composed of perpetual Peter Pan-like children. Not to worry, however: the politicians are there to protect them. California politicians’ inflated sense of self-importance is beyond imagining.

The proliferation of laws is analogous to inflating a currency. The rampant growth of laws reduces the value and respect for laws in general as well as making effective enforcement impossible.

As the result of a November ballot initiative, California now has a statewide ban on plastic bags, such as it is. There are so many exceptions and intricacies to the law that it really isn’t a ban at all, sort of a ban in name only. The “ban” applies only to plastic bags at the check-out stand, and even that has exceptions. Plastic bags are still permitted in the produce and meat sections of stores.

If you don’t have your own reusable bag when you check out, you are charged ten cents for each paper, “biodegradable” bag. However, low-income Californians are protected from the bag fee because shoppers paying for their groceries with food stamps get their paper bags free of charge. (Because of the stigma associated with the term “food stamps,” the California version is officially called “Cal Fresh.”) Stores are allowed to keep the revenue generated by the dime penalty.

Is the ten-cent penalty sufficient to have any measurable impact? Probably not, and that’s typical of many of the asinine new laws as well as the thousands already on the books. It is as though a subconscious objective of the lawmakers is simply to annoy people. Maybe the laws are a kind of revenge on the citizenry for being so dense and uncooperative with the politicians’ grand schemes.

Ultimately Californians will have so many laws that they will no longer need to make their own decisions. California will have achieved law nirvana. Provided life in California doesn’t grind to a halt, it will be perfect.

In the meantime, for the rest of the country California is worth watching because it’s such a clear object lesson of what happens when Democrats have unconstrained political power. California is what happens when Democrat dreams come true. Obamacare resulted from a similar set of circumstances.

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◼ Sacramento’s High-Output Law Factory January 10, 2017

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Are Liberals Misanthropes?

On the surface liberal policies and positions don’t seem to make sense. However, they do make sense if you keep one thing in mind — liberals do not like humans or humanity. An unfair accusation? Consider the evidence.

Liberal policies make sense if their objective is to punish rather than benefit humanity. Furthermore, without recognizing this aspect of liberalism you will never make sense of it. Their policies are consistent with their basic values. Liberals can’t like humanity. It would be contrary to everything else they believe.

Much of damage liberalism does to society results from the suppression of human freedom. There are a variety of opinions about what is unique about humans, about what distinguishes them from other animals. More than anything else, the uniqueness comes from free will.

Reducing an individual’s freedom diminishes that person and makes him smaller, makes him have less of what makes us human. Without free will we cannot develop our uniqueness nor fulfill our potential. Morality can only exist in the context of free choice.

Individual freedom is a low priority for liberals. In fact, they see individual freedom as a problem, not a blessing. Liberals fear freedom. They don’t like freedom because they don’t like what people do with their freedom. If you don’t like humans and don’t approve of their behavior, you will not want them to be free. If you dislike humans, you’ll dislike liberty. In their view, humans are just no damn good.

That’s why most of liberalism involves constriction of individual freedom. Liberals love government. They advocate taking choice away from individuals and putting it in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. That is a dehumanizing process.

An axiom of conservatism is “the bigger the government, the smaller the individual.” Liberals think that’s a good thing. Liberals yearn for smaller individuals. They believe that if humans could just be prevented from making the stupid choices they all make, society would be better off.

Liberals love mass transit. They think it’s impossible to spend too much on it. They generally despise automobiles. Automobiles have done more for individual freedom than almost any other human achievement. Liberals think that automobiles are the chief culprit in global warming and the destruction of the planet. For conservatives, our endowment of fossil fuels and hydrocarbons is seen as a blessing. For liberals, it is seen as a curse.

In the view of liberals, humans are the one species that is destroying the planet. Humans deplete “non-renewable” resources and do things that emit carbon dioxide. In their view, carbon dioxide (an absolutely essential building block of all life) is a pollutant that is destroying the planet. Environmentalists have often likened humanity to a virus or plague. “Population control” targets only humans.

Why are liberals so uncaring for the unborn? Why are they such passionate defenders of “abortion rights”? Why do they care more about baby seals than they do about human fetuses?

Their enthusiastic and almost fanatical advocacy of abortion is partly the result of their desire for fewer human beings. Abortion is the issue that generates the most passion and energy for liberals. You can’t believe that killing a human fetus is something positive and admirable unless you don’t like humans. How can anyone enthusiastically support the termination of innocent life? It’s easy if you don’t like humans.

They are reflexively opposed to wealth-expanding projects such as the Keystone pipeline and fracking. If you don’t like humans you won’t care about doing them any favors. The pipeline, fracking, offshore oil drilling, and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve would all benefit humans and do no measurable or lasting damage to the environment. The benefit-cost ratio would be enormous, but only if you see benefits to humans as a benefit. Imaginary and grossly exaggerated environmental damage is a ruse for their real objective of denying humans comfort and happiness. Wealth is liberating. Preventing wealth creation diminishes freedom.

Dislike of humans explains why liberals love regulations. Left on their own humans will buy large sugary soft drinks, showerheads that use too much water, watch Fox News and listen to conservative talk radio. Liberals never met a regulation they didn’t like. Only those who care little about freedom can reflexively love regulations. The cost of regulations for the U.S. economy is conservatively estimated to be $1.7 trillion and growing. Excessive regulations are reducing our standard of living by at least a tenth. That enormous cost is of no concern to liberals. After all, it’s only humans who are affected.

Liberals don’t want humans to enjoy themselves. They feel guilty about living and existing, and especially about living opulently.

If they feel guilty they have convicted themselves of some wrongdoing. They seek absolution by buying Priuses and recycling. Driving a hybrid is the modern equivalent to sacrificing a goat to appease the earth gods. It’s like going to confession and a way of doing penance for too much consuming.

If you don’t like your own species, your own country, can you like yourself? It’s ironic that those who focus so much on the importance of self-esteem are the ones who do the most to make it difficult. Which comes first, self-hatred or species-hatred?

Public schools teach our children that humans are destroying habitat and the eco-system, driving millions of species to extinction, and generally destroying the planet. They essentially teach them that their parents are no damn good.

Liberals have a utopian mindset. As Mark Levin shows in his book, Ameritopia, all utopian variations throughout history have envisioned building a new kind of human. Wanting to fundamentally change human nature shows that you don’t approve of human nature as it now exists.

If you want to change something it’s because firstly, you think it needs to be done, and secondly, because you think it’s possible. An important dividing line between liberals and conservatives is the question of whether or not human nature is subject to manipulation. Liberals think it is, conservatives think it isn’t.

The fact that liberals do not like humans is why it is such a mistake to grant them so much power over our society, economy, culture, and public policies. Liberals advocate policies that constrict progress and wealth creation rather than enhance them. They want wealth prevention, not wealth creation. They are, at best, ambivalent toward economic growth which, in their view, only increases humans’ ability to destroy the planet. We are being governed by people who don’t like us.

The people who are in charge of public policy don’t really want good things to happen to humans. Humans don’t deserve good things. If it’s a policy that harms humans they’re just getting what they deserve anyway. Liberals are not that motivated to help humans. They’re “just not that into you.”

If someone is put in control of something he doesn’t like, the outcome will not be favorable to that something. Human achievement will be a fraction of its potential until liberalism is seen for what it is and how much damage it does.

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◼ Are Liberals Misanthropes? November 14, 2016

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Liberalism’s Simple-Mindedness on Defiant Display

Once again the scourge of minimum wage laws is in the news. In California Governor Jerry Brown has just signed legislation that will increase the state’s minimum wage from its current $10 level to $15, to be phased in over a six-year period. In a statement President Obama commended California for its new law and added, “It’s time for Congress to step up and do what is right for every hard-working American and for our economy.” New York governor Andrew Cuomo also signed legislation increasing that state’s minimum wage to $15 over a three-year period. The city of Seattle already has in place increases that will bring its minimum wage to $18 by the year 2025.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders advocates increasing the federal minimum wage to $15, more than doubling the current $7.25. Hillary Clinton, always a voice of moderation, advocates a federal minimum wage of $12.

Minimum wage laws are so wrong for so many reasons it’s hard to know where to start. Most polls indicate that a majority of Americans support such laws. That fact reflects an extremely low “EQ” level of the citizenry. By EQ I mean economics quotient.

Presumably, most people who support minimum wage laws do so because they believe they will reduce poverty and decrease income inequality. The opposite is the case, however. Simple economic logic proves the point, as well as mountains of evidence.

A question that has been asked numerous times of minimum wage advocates is this — if a $15 minimum wage will help low-income earners, why not $20 or $50 an hour? I have yet to hear a coherent response to that question. The answer is obvious, of course. Many workers are not worth $20 or $50 an hour. Many fewer workers would be hired at those wages. Unemployment would skyrocket.

Apparently there is an implicit belief that although many workers are not worth, say, $30 an hour, all workers are worth whatever the minimum wage is. That makes no sense. A frequent assertion is that all workers are entitled to a “living wage.” According to Bernie Sanders, “If you have a full-time job you should not live in poverty.” That may be true, but the policies he advocates will increase, not decrease, poverty.

On what basis do Sanders, Brown, and others believe that all workers generate $15 an hour of value for their employers? Do they expect employers to hire them if they don’t?

David Neumark, an economist at University of California Irvine, has studied the employment impacts of minimum wage laws extensively. He estimates that the new California law will result in a five to ten percent decrease in low-skilled employment. In other words, increasing the minimum wage will result in some incomes not increasing but rather decreasing all the way to zero. The unemployment caused by minimum wage laws is an all too common example of “unintended consequences.”

At the beginning of 2016 California’s minimum wage went from $9 to $10. Although that was not the only factor, a local golf course cut its greens crew from 11 to 6. The course will not be as well maintained and five jobs have been eliminated.

An analysis by a California legislative agency estimates the new law will cost California taxpayers $3.6 billion a year in higher pay for government employees. Where is that money going to come from? The proponents probably assume it will all come from the top one percent.

A perfect example of the muddled thinking of minimum wage proponents is illustrated by the following statement from the president of a local chapter of the American Federation of State, County, and Federal Employees union: “Experts say a responsible minimum wage policy is good for workers and good for business. When people have more money in their pockets, they put that money back into the economy with spending on essential goods and services.” Ah, yes, those all-knowing “experts.” Apparently, minimum wage laws are like manna from heaven. Those economists who tell us “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” must not know what they’re talking about.

Wages are a form of prices. The fundamental nature of the price system is that prices are relative. When the price of some item goes up it becomes more expensive relative to other alternatives. Mandated higher wages make labor-saving equipment and technology relatively less expensive. That results in substitution of capital for labor which in turn reduces the demand for labor and thereby increases unemployment.

In economics a central tenet is what’s called an “equilibrium price.” That is the price, or wage, that equalizes quantity supplied and quantity demanded. That is the price where there is no shortage or surplus, the price where the supply and demand curves intersect.

An undeniable reality is that, although laws can be passed to dictate a legal price, there is virtually no way laws can determine an equilibrium price. Legislating a price above or below the equilibrium price will result in either a shortage (excess demand) or a surplus (excess supply). Shortages or surpluses can do serious damage to an economy.

An overlooked aspect of minimum wage laws is that they essentially commandeer private businesses to execute social policy. Under threat of fines or arrest, private businesses are drafted by lawmakers into the war on poverty. When someone starts a business, is he aware that he is also volunteering to do community service?

To businesses politicians say, “You will pay your employees what we tell you to pay. Too bad if that offends you or that you think it does more harm than good. Too bad if it causes you to go out of business.” Because minimum-wage laws are popular with voters, destroying jobs for workers preserves jobs for politicians.

If Congress passed a law mandating that all businesses give all their employees a ten percent raise, it would probably cause an uproar. However, there’s no fundamental difference between that and a minimum wage law. Both constitute obnoxious and counterproductive intrusions into economic and personal freedom.

A favorite term used by the left is “social justice.” Is it “socially just” that a law-abiding private-business owner is told how to spend his legitimately-earned revenue and that he is told exactly how he is going to compensate his employees? When was it decided that private businesses are responsible for alleviating poverty? How does the enthusiastic use of coercion fit into the concept of social justice?

Spending other people’s money is probably the favorite pastime of politicians. They have no “skin in the game” when it comes to issues such as minimum wage laws (or spending tax revenue). It’s not their money they’re spending. It’s just some poor shmuck businessman’s. Why should politicians care what damage is done? It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money.

The fundamental damage of legislated prices is the blockage of voluntary exchange. Minimum wage laws block some of the voluntary exchange between employers and employees. The employer would be willing to hire someone for $6 an hour, the job seeker would be willing to work for $6 an hour, but such a transaction is illegal. Unquestionably, it’s a lose-lose situation.

As is usually the case, labor unions were the main driving force behind the new California law. Since most union members already earn more than the minimum wage, it raises the question, what is their motivation? One thing’s for sure, it’s not altruism. Labor unions do not like competition from workers who are willing to work for less. It would be equivalent to BMW getting a law passed prohibiting auto prices below $50,000.

Minimum-wage laws illustrate the simple-mindedness of liberalism. Such laws are based on an abiding faith the ability of laws to solve societal problems. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re a liberal politician, every problem cries out for another law. There’s been a population explosion of new laws and regulations over the past several decades. There’s little evidence we’re better off as a result. The opposite is closer to the truth. Minimum wage laws could be Exhibit A.

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◼ Liberalism’s Simple-Mindedness on Defiant Display April 8, 2016

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Something Else to Give Thanks For

Maybe you don’t need more things to be thankful for, but in case you do here’s a suggestion — private businesses, their owners, and their employees. The ways private businesses improve our lives are so numerous and so frequent it’s all too easy to take them for granted.

For example, if your experience is anything like mine, you are treated almost like an old friend at most of the businesses you patronize. Take Target, as an example, since it’s likely you have one in your area. As you enter one of their stores employees there are likely to ask, “How’s your day going?” They make you feel welcome. When you check out they tell you to “Have a nice day.” Of course, that kind of behavior is not unique to Target. It is the rule, not the exception when you interact with any private business.

That kind of experience makes our days more pleasant. If we aren’t having a good day, it can help raise our spirits. These are behaviors that are widespread and significant. What makes them happen?

Part of the reason, of course, is simply the goodness of most of our fellow human beings. However, an important factor in explaining why it happens so frequently is the free market. The most fundamental element of a market economy is voluntary exchange.

Both words of the phrase “voluntary exchange” have profound implications. Since it’s voluntary both parties have power, that is, the ability to walk away from the transaction. Because it’s an exchange both parties gain something and both parties give up something. The buyer gives up money and gains a product or service, the seller receives money and gives up a product or service. Both participants end up better off or they would stop exchanging. Each participant exchanges something of less value to him than what he receives. Probably the most often cited quotation of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is the following:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but to their advantages.

A central focus of economic analysis is the question of incentives. The dynamics of voluntary exchange demonstrate the power of incentives. Furthermore, the incentives inherent in voluntary exchange are generally beneficial to individuals and society. The incentives inherent in a market economy bring out the best in people, not always, but predominantly and billions of times each day.

The owners and employees of private businesses clearly have incentives to treat their customers well. Those customers almost always have alternatives available to them. The U.S. economy has never been more competitive. There are exceptions, of course, such as the current state of the health care sector.

You are treated like someone important by private businesses and their employees because you are important to them. Business owners and managers train their employees to be friendly and pleasant. Their well-being is inextricably connected to our well-being. Every customer-vendor relationship is a symbiotic relationship.

A kind of business for which I am particularly thankful for is restaurants. It amazes me that so many people are willing to start and operate restaurants. It is a tough, highly competitive kind of business. A conclusion I came to when I once worked in a restaurant is there seemed to be a new problem every ten minutes. Today it amazes me that restaurants can serve so many patrons so many meals of consistently high quality so promptly. Restaurants are only one of thousands of kinds of private businesses that make our lives more comfortable, enjoyable, and entertaining.

Private businesses are readily available sources of practical knowledge. One of the mottoes of Home Depot is, “You can do it! We can help.” They obviously have a strong incentive to increase the population of do-it-yourselfers, as do all hardware and building-supply stores.

The value and importance of on-the-job training provided by private businesses is so huge it would be almost impossible to measure. That training is all the more important in light of the failings of public schools.

So, this Thanksgiving give some thought to the blessings you experience often in your life such as those provided by private businesses. And give thanks for the free-market economy, the only place where private businesses can exist.

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◼ Something Else to Give Thanks For November 25, 2015

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

The Attempted Character Assassination of Ben Carson

Sometimes atmospheric conditions are such that the weather forecast can say, “100% chance of rain.” The current political atmosphere is such that even before it happened there was a 100% chance the media would attempt to assassinate Dr. Ben Carson’s character, honesty, and integrity. The liberal media will do everything it can, including lies, fabrications, distortions, and flagrant exaggerations to anyone they consider threats to their power and control.

Ben Carson is clearly such a person. Unfortunately for liberals he may be the hardest target they’ve ever faced. He is unquestionably brilliant, and is obviously a person of impeccable character. His life story is amazing and inspiring. America could certainly use a little inspiration about now.

The recent attempts to destroy Carson’s candidacy have been bizarre. In his book, Gifted Hands, he relates episodes in his young life of violence and an out-of-control temper. CNN went to great efforts to interview his childhood friends and neighbors to insinuate the stories were false. In other words, a person who admitted that he was once a juvenile delinquent with a violent temper is somehow accused of making it all up. CNN is essentially saying, “You say you were once bad, but that’s not true. In fact, you’ve always been good.” What a weird thing to accuse someone of lying about.

The fact that Dr. Carson has fewer vulnerabilities than most candidates isn’t necessarily a problem for those who fear him and would like to destroy him. Liberals have the unique ability to make something out of nothing. They never hesitate to make assertions, no matter how baseless and nonsensical, broadcast them, and have them accepted by large segments of their viewers and listeners. For example, the liberal media and the Democrat party have sold the fantastical assertion that Republicans are waging a war against women. Many of their supporters actually believe it’s true.

Having a complete lack of integrity, as does Politico, can be a competitive advantage. However, it can also play against you. CNN’s and Politico’s ham-handed attempts to take out Ben Carson may be too transparent to be effective. CNBC’s widely criticized performance in the recent Republican debate apparently blew up in their faces. The population of people who now recognize the blatant bias of the media has grown. Dr. Carson could very well end up more popular than he was before the fraudulent stories reported about him in the Politico and CNN.

Supporters of Hillary Clinton have every reason to fear Ben Carson. He could well be her worst nightmare. Although it was before the latest brouhaha, a Fox News poll last week found that 60 percent of voters say Carson is honest, 25 percent said not honest. His net honesty score is a positive 35 — “No other candidate comes even close to that,” according to Fox. “Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s ratings are record setting — in a bad way. Her net honesty score is negative 26.” In terms of honesty Clinton and Carson are polar opposites.

Carson is extremely easy to like. Hillary is almost impossible to like. Even her supporters admit as much. In head-to-head matchups against Hillary, Carson does better than any other Republican, beating her by as much as ten points. If she were running against Dr. Carson, Hillary would have to hope that honesty and integrity simply don’t matter to voters. That’s possible but not likely.

If Carson happens to secure the Republican nomination it’s conceivable he’d get as much as twenty percent of the black vote. If that happens Hillary Clinton would be a dead-candidate-walking. (Mitt Romney got less than five percent of the black vote.)

The one valid criticism of Dr. Carson is that he has no elective-office experience. However, in the context of today’s political atmosphere that may be more of an asset than a liability. Furthermore, even if lack of experience is a negative, voters will weigh it against other important attributes. Every bit as or even more important are a candidate’s judgment, values, and intelligence. From that perspective it appears voters like what they see in Ben Carson, especially the fact that they see him as sharing their values.

He has, for example, made opposition to political correctness one of his main campaign themes. Many of us see political correctness as a cancer on our culture and society. Having someone in the White House who is willing to use “the bloody pulpit” to make that case would be like a breath of fresh air.

Here’s another prediction with a 100% probability — the character assassination attempts on Ben Carson have only just begun. The left, the media, the Democrats know what an existential threat he is to them. It’s been ugly, and it’s going to get uglier. Remember the Boy Scout motto —“Be Prepared.”

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◼ The Attempted Character Assassination of Ben Carson November 13, 2015

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Liberalism and Happiness Don’t Mix

Although liberals probably don’t realize it, liberalism and happiness don’t mix. A “happy liberal” is almost an oxymoron.

Why so? The reasons are many. For one, liberals, especially white American liberals, are highly critical and dissatisfied with their country, culture, race, and gender. If you don’t like the society, race, culture, and gender that you’re part of, your ability to feel good about yourself becomes much more challenging.

Liberals are humans, but they think humans are destroying the planet. They’re Americans, but they think that America is primarily responsible for most of the problems in the world. White liberals wallow in guilt about “white privilege,” which diminishes any sense of personal accomplishment they might have. Liberals firmly believe in the importance of the “collective,” yet they don’t like the collectives they’re parts of.

In regard to love of country, conservatives far exceed liberals. If you’re “proud to be an American” you’re probably a conservative. If you’re ashamed to be an American, you’re probably a liberal.

A fundamental and defining difference between liberals and conservatives is in regard to the locus of responsibility. Liberals place the blame for problems on society, conservatives emphasize individual responsibility.

If you subscribe to the belief that society is primarily in control of what happens to you in life, you’ve essentially “given away your power.” Hence, liberalism is disempowering. If that’s your outlook, you’re stuck. Feelings of impotence are definitely not conducive to happiness. If society is at fault for your circumstances you’re screwed. In other words, if you have to wait for society to cure itself before you can be successful, you’re in for a long, unhappy, and frustrating wait.

Liberals talk endlessly about racism in society. There’s no question that racism is a serious societal problem. Nevertheless, if you believe that you’ll never be successful or happy until racism no longer exists, you’ll be dead and gone long before that happens.

Liberal policies virtually never achieve their stated objectives. In fact, they make things worse. For example, minimum wage laws increase, rather than decrease, poverty and inequality. Liberals can never be happy because their solutions never work.

Most liberal policy objectives are unattainable. One of their dreams is complete equality. That, of course, is never going to happen. Having unachievable objectives leads to never ending frustration, not happiness.

If you’re a liberal you’re not supposed to be happy. You will not feel that you deserve to be happy. If there’s misery anywhere in the world you don’t have the right to be happy.

Liberals are profoundly pessimistic. They think we are going to run out of resources. They believe that climate change will doom us. These are remote possibilities, not certainties. They are worst case scenarios. Liberals disregard and grossly underestimate human creativity and adaptability. Rather than using our vast endowment of fossil fuels for human benefit, liberals want to leave them in the ground.

Liberals’ emotion of choice is guilt. They feel it in their bones and they employ it expertly to achieve their policy objectives and demoralize their opponents. They feel responsible for the sins of their forebears. For example, Democrats are currently distancing themselves from their previous heroes, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. They feel guilty about the past, present, and future. It’s hard to be happy when you’re wallowing in guilt.

There are, of course, liberals who are happy. Nevertheless, they are happy in spite of their political ideology. For most people, including liberals, politics is not everything. If your non-political life is going well and you were born with a happy disposition, you can be mostly happy most of the time.

Even achieving policy objectives don’t make liberals happy for long, the legalizing of same-sex marriage, for example. Almost immediately they start worrying about another societal injustice that needs to be remedied, such as the supposed discrimination against transsexuals.

Political correctness is a liberal creation and is yet another barrier to happiness. Comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, among others, have lamented that political correctness is killing humor, particularly on college campuses. Constricting and diminishing the role of humor in our lives is about as mean a thing as anyone could do. Again, the result is a reduction in happiness.

One of the interesting ironies of the liberalism-happiness disconnect is that a primary purpose of being a liberal is to feel good about yourself. Liberalism is a self-indulgent, feel-good endeavor and a way to feel superior to others. It gives its adherents a warm feeling when they show concern for minorities, the homeless, or the oppressed. Insofar as happiness is their objective, they’ve taken the wrong road.

If liberals ever wise up about how liberalism is making them miserable, there will be a significant reduction in their ranks. Maybe conservatives should fund-public service announcements with themes such as, “You only get one life to live. Don’t blow it by being a miserable liberal.”

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◼ Liberalism and Happiness Don’t Mix August 25, 2015

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.