The Power and Prevalence of Virtue Signaling

One key to understanding much of the bewildering behavior we see around us is to recognize the power and popularity of “virtue signaling.” Keeping virtue signaling in mind will help you understand a lot of behavior that otherwise makes no sense.

What, for example, is the point of removing Confederate statues or attempting to disown the country’s Founding Fathers because some were slave owners? It makes sense if your objective is to be sanctimonious. You make yourself feel better by looking down your nose at Thomas Jefferson.

Virtue signaling is the modern version of what St. Augustine in the 5th century referred to as “outward signs of inward grace.” A major difference, however, is the kind of grace he referred to actually meant something.

A precondition to needing to virtue signal is guilt. Virtue signaling is one of the left’s package deals that typically involve two steps. Firstly, make people who have done nothing wrong feel guilty. Then, offer them ways to assuage that guilt. It’s little more than a con game but it has worked amazingly well for liberals.

It always helps to keep in mind that everything is relative. In order to feel superior, you need something to feel superior to. Virtuous relative to what? In order to feel holier than thou you need a thou.

Does virtue signaling accomplish anything outside of the individual? Anything tangible, significant? Any activity as widespread and long-lasting as virtue signaling has to have payoffs. The payoffs for virtue signaling are inner, not outer, directed.

An irony is that the need to virtue signal is an insecurity about your own virtue. An observation a psychologist friend likes to make is, “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.” Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, “The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” Virtue signaling is motivated more by insecurities than virtue.

The “signaling” part of virtue signaling means you want others to become aware of your virtue. Why is that important to you? Where does your need to signal come from? Are you so overwhelmingly virtuous that you can’t resist letting others know about it?

Virtue signaling is, of course, closely related to political correctness. Being sensitive to PC and being quick to take offense demonstrates your virtue for all to see.

Recycling is one of the left’s favorite sacraments. It helps overcome the guilt of consuming.

There is an opportunity cost to virtue signaling. Spending time on useless activities, e.g. recycling, marching, allows avoidance of useful, meaningful activities, e.g. being thoughtful and considerate of those around you, e.g. family, friends, and people you work with. Those behaviors can actually make a difference.

Maybe you’ve wondered why actors and other celebrities feel the need to publicly express their political opinions. What is their motivation? Maybe they feel guilty about how amazingly wealthy they are (they shouldn’t).

Donald Trump is the context for much of the virtue signaling we observe. It’s another two-step process. The first step is to decide that Donald Trump is a reprehensible human being. He is crude, unsophisticated, and his personality makes you cringe. The second step is making it crystal clear that you and he are polar opposites. You have absolutely nothing in common with him. You don’t need to provide details about what makes you virtuous, just the fact that you despise him is sufficient to prove you’re virtuous. He is crude, you are refined. Trump provides a backdrop for your identity. It’s ironic that hate is seen as a path to virtue.

Virtue signaling is a substitute for thinking, it is thinking avoidance. It is the latest variation of group think. When you latch on to group opinions you have no need to think for yourself.

Driving a Prius automobile is a popular form of virtue signaling. Driving a hybrid lets others see that you care about the planet and that you’re doing your part to prevent it from being destroyed by CO2. Driving a Prius allows to you drive rudely and carelessly. Cutting someone off or running a stop sign or two are trivial matters compared to saving the planet. Everything’s relative. It’s probably no accident that Priuses have an unusual profile. That helps assure that your virtue signal will noticed.

A favorite demand of leftists on college campuses and endowment fund boards of directors is “divestment.” What is divestment? In the investment portfolios of endowment funds and retirement portfolios are stocks of companies involved in shunned activities such as producing and selling fossil fuels. In such situations activists demand that the colleges or foundations divest, i.e. sell, any stock of such despicable companies.

Divestment is possibly the most useless behavior anyone could ever imagine. How anyone thinks it will have any impact on anything real is a mystery. Because of the way capital markets work, divesting on anything but a massive scale will have no long-term impact on a company’s share price. If they manage to drive a stock’s price down, bargain hunters will drive it back up to its underlying value, relative to other stocks. Other than stoking sanctimony divestment accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Showing your disapproval of the names or mascots of sports teams demonstrates your sensitivity for the supposed feelings of various minority groups. How many of those demanding that the Washington Redskins change their name are Indians? My guess is that it’s a very small fraction.

Wearing ribbons is a popular form of virtue signaling. The ostensible purpose is to “raise awareness” for such things as breast cancer (pink ribbons). Is there anyone who isn’t already” aware” of breast cancer? And once your awareness has been raised, what are you supposed to do with it? As is the case with every variation of virtue signaling, the mission statement is nowhere to be found.

Virtue signalers are delicate creatures who are easily offended. They wouldn’t be caught dead laughing at stereotypical humor. They are overly serious about almost everything. It only hurts when they laugh.

There is a large element of virtue signaling in environmentalism. Devout environmentalists like to think they’re the only ones who care about the environment. Relative to how much they care about the environment you don’t care much at all.

Marching and demonstrating are two popular virtue signaling activities. The next big opportunity will be June 9. It is the “March for Oceans,” or what they’re labeling “M4O.” According the organizers’ website, “This summer we will see a new blue wave of resistance — and celebration — for the other 71 percent of our environment that is the Ocean. The ocean is rising and so are we!”

Uselessness and remoteness are two of the ingredients for virtue signaling choices. Driving a hybrid automobile will make not an iota’s difference to “climate change” (whatever that is). In any case, the “climate disruption catastrophe,” as it’s sometimes called, is not predicted to occur for another fifty years. It was more than two hundred years ago when some of our founding fathers owned slaves. The past is unchangeable and irretrievable. Problems that you can’t do a damned thing about are virtue signaling favorites.

A recent Dennis Prager column, “Three Reasons the Left Wants Evermore Immigrants,” had as reason number three, “the power of feeling good about oneself. It would be difficult to overstate the significance of feeling good about oneself as a primary factor in why people adopt left-wing policies.… In their eyes, they are moral heroes protecting the stranger, the oppressed, the marginalized, the destitute.”

Finally, this just in: The Arcata, California city council voted Wednesday night to remove the statue of President William McKinley from the town square. The statue has been in place for over a hundred years. As per usual, McKinley’s sins have not been clearly elucidated. He was assassinated in 1901. Like Matt Lauer, the statue will vanish into the ether. One of the groups demanding the statue’s removal is the Humboldt State University student group, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanco de Aztlan, whatever that means. I’m embarrassed to admit I’m a resident of Arcata. Our neighboring town to the north is McKinleyville. The town’s name is probably not long for this world.

These are just a sampling of the ways virtue signaling is dictating behavior far and wide. Being aware of its many manifestations will reduce your confusion and increase your amusement. It’s a shame it’s doing so much damage.

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◼ The Power and Prevalence of Virtue Signaling February 23, 2018

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.

Tax Reform Myths and Realities

The recently enacted tax reform/tax reduction is possibly the most misinterpreted and misrepresented policy change in the history of policy changes. For example, it has been accused of benefiting only the wealthy and of adding $1.5 trillion to the federal debt. There are numerous reasons to be highly skeptical of both these assertions.

The issue in the tax reform drawing the strongest criticism from Democrats is the reduction of the federal corporate tax rate. Democrats want you to believe that all the benefits of reduced corporate taxes flow to the wealthiest members of the population. Nancy Pelosi claims all the benefits go to “the wealthiest one-percent.” Knee-jerk reactions to reducing corporate taxes are a classic example of ignorance-based hysteria.

To say that cutting corporate taxes benefits only the wealthy is a gross oversimplification of economic reality. A major part of the damage done by the corporate tax is the profound dishonesty it is based on. The corporate tax is a charlatan’s playground.

It’s unfortunate that the misbegotten term “trickle-down economics” was ever invented. It’s been one of the terms used to demean cutting corporate income taxes. In an advanced, complex, free-market economy money flows in many directions. It goes down, up, sideways, backwards, and forwards. Trickle-down is a concept that does much more to obfuscate than illuminate. No reputable economist considers it a useful term.

Much of the opposition to cutting corporate income taxes is based on the popular myth that corporations are capable of paying taxes. Corporations do write checks payable to the IRS but corporations cannot bear the “burden” of a tax any more than cows or horses can bear the burden of a tax.

If you work for a corporation you pay the tax by having a reduced wage or salary. If you purchase goods or services produced and sold by corporations you pay the tax by paying a higher price for those goods and services. If you own shares of corporations you pay the tax through reduced dividends and lower share prices. It’s silly to think that all these people are wealthy.

No one can possibly know how much he is paying in corporate income tax. That’s one of the reasons a corporate income is a bad tax. There’s no way to know if the tax is progressive, regressive, or proportional. The tax is reducing someone’s real income; it’s just hard to know who that someone is. It’s what Milton Friedman used to refer to as, “Don’t tax me, don’t tax thee, tax that fellow behind the tree.” The corporate tax is the best way to pretend there’s someone behind the tree.

It would no doubt surprise Democrats that a study by William C. Randolph of the Congressional Budget Office estimated that “Domestic labor bears slightly more than 70 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax.” Other studies have come to similar conclusions. In other words, most of the payoff of lowered corporate tax rates would accrue to employees. Ideally the corporate income tax should be reduced to zero, but reducing it by two fifths (from 35 percent to 21 percent) is a major step forward and is already generating substantial positive changes.

Assume, for the sake of discussion, that the entire burden of the corporate income tax is borne by corporate owners. Are all of the owners of corporate shares wealthy? Of course not.

Trillions of dollars of corporate stock are owned by pension plans, which are owned by employees in all income levels. If a reduction of the corporate tax results in a higher level of stock prices and increased dividends, millions of Americans will enjoy more prosperous and worry-free retirement years.

All indications so far are that tax reform is stimulating faster economic growth. Even before tax reform became law, the anticipation of it was one of the causes of faster GDP growth, lower unemployment, and a booming stock market. Black and Hispanic unemployment rates are the lowest they’ve been since they’ve been measured.

In a single masterful stroke Trump and his fellow Republicans have increased the net profits of virtually every corporation in America. That is going to set off an economic chain reaction.

How are lower taxes connected to economic growth? When incentives change, behavior changes. If corporate owners benefit from increased after-tax returns they will have increased incentives to invest and grow their companies. They can’t do that without more employees. The demand curve for labor will shift to the right resulting in a higher equilibrium wage.

Some of the liberated corporate profits will be invested in capital, which will also eventually benefit employees. A higher capital/labor ratio increases average productivity and makes labor more valuable. The much discussed wage stagnation could well be coming to an end.

Both parties are self-identifying. Trump’s policy initiatives have increased the transparency of what each party stands for. It’s becoming clear that there is fundamental difference between the goals and objectives of the two parties.

Democrats are making a high-stakes bet that tax reform will not result in greater economic growth. They have put themselves in the awkward position of rooting against a booming economy. If there is robust growth, Democrats will find themselves in a world of hurt.

The difference between the two sides of the tax cut issue is supporters are optimistic and positive, opponents are pessimistic, defeatist, and negative. The Democrats not only do not believe that faster economic growth is possible, they do not want faster economic growth.

If the pace of economic growth increases, which income groups benefit most? It clearly is not just the wealthy. In fact, the benefits from robust economic growth accrue to all income levels. In a sense, wealthy people don’t need economic growth. They’re already wealthy. Robust growth gives more people the opportunity to become wealthy.

Also, contrast the difference between Obama’s Obamacare and Trump’s tax reform. Obamacare was a transfer of power from individuals to government. Cutting taxes is a transfer of power from government to individuals and private businesses. Not surprisingly, Obamacare failed to achieve most of its promises and has never been popular. Obamacare made government bigger, tax cuts make government smaller.

Furthermore, consider the vast differences between the results of this tax reduction and Obama’s trillion dollar “stimulus.” The stimulus never showed up on the economic radar screen. Tax reform is already showing substantial and measurable effects. Walmart has already increased its starting wage to $11 an hour, plans to lower prices, increase dividends, buy back stock, and increase employee training. All that and the tax reform is barely a month old!

Obama’s stimulus added a trillion dollars to the federal debt with nothing to show for it. In selling the stimulus Obama promised that it would all be spent on “shovel ready” projects. A year later he admitted that there were no shovel ready projects.

The outcomes of the 2018 and 2020 elections will be largely determined by the success or failure of tax reform. If voters feel they’re measurably better off Trump and the Republicans will be richly rewarded. The Democrat Party will be left wandering in the wilderness even more than it is now.

Critics of tax reduction also predict that it will increase the nation’s debt by as much as $1.5 trillion over ten years. That estimate assumes that lower taxes and fewer regulations will have no stimulative impact on the economy. However, if it increases the economy’s growth rate by as little as .6 percent, there will be no increase in the national debt. GDP growth has already increased by much more than .6 percent.

Consider the implications of what could well happen. Lower taxes, a healthier economy, more wealth, all accomplished with absolutely no help from the Democrat Party. Optimism wins, pessimism loses. If the tax cuts and reduced regulations continue to stimulate the economy, there is bound to be increased enthusiasm in the future for doing more of the same. That will be a body blow to everything the Democrats stand for.

Victor Davis Hansen recently described this point in history as “The Great Experiment.” Hansen writes we are going to see the outcome of a test between two competing economic and political philosophies: “the unapologetic progressivism under Obama… and the unregretful conservatism under Trump.… We have been given a great gift in seeing two ideologically opposed solutions back to back, and both may end up adjudicating rhetoric through deeds.”

What a wonderful opportunity we’ve been given. Thank you, Donald!

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◼ Tax Reform Myths and Realities January 17, 2018

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.

What’s Revealed by the Harvey Weinstein Saga

The significance of the Harvey Weinstein saga is what it reveals not just about him but rather the entire Democrat party, its leaders, and its supporters. Furthermore, it demonstrates the vast difference between the Democrat and Republican parties.

For Democrats Harvey Weinstein is nothing new. He’s more of the same. There’s little difference between Harvey Weinstein, John Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and countless other Democrat politicians and their enablers.

Any large group of humans will include some who are reprehensible. What’s notable about the names above is that in spite of their disgraceful behavior they’ve been elevated to the highest levels of leadership and admiration in one of America’s two major political parties. The Democrat party leaders and their voters apparently have not the slightest problem having abusers of women leading their party or being major campaign donors.

What is the Democrat party’s ethic? It is this: if it feels good, do it. If that’s not the Democrat ethic, what is? It’s clearly not the Ten Commandments, and it’s not “do unto others…” The proof is becoming increasingly obvious and the evidence has been accumulating for decades.

Democrats revere John Kennedy. For nineteen months between 1962 until shortly before his death in 1963 Kennedy carried on a sexual relationship with a 19-year-old intern, Mimi Alford. Four days after she arrived in the White House Kennedy “date raped” Alford who was at the time a virgin.

Although Kennedy had sex with Alford on numerous occasions both in the White House and on presidential trips, he never kissed her. He was, of course, married to Jackie during the entire period. The idyllic Kennedy marriage was a fraud, bought hook-line-and-sinker by Democrats and never questioned by the sycophantic media even though it was well aware of Kennedy’s numerous affairs while he was president.

The party that rails about the unfairness of inequality reveres leaders who exploit inequality. The inequality they exploit is about as wide as it gets, e.g. between a young, vulnerable intern and a middle-aged President of the United States.

Alford kept the abuse secret for over forty years. When it was finally reported by someone else Alford confirmed what had happened and eventually wrote a book entitled Once Upon a Secret. Alford’s story is fascinating and poignant. The abusive relationship left a wake of considerable psychological damage and feelings of guilt. Keeping what had happened to her a secret for all those years allowed Alford to avoid the life mangling notoriety that later befell Monica Lewinsky.

John’s youngest brother, Ted Kennedy, should have been charged with manslaughter for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a 29-year-old campaign volunteer whom he left to drown in a submerged car in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Kennedy pleaded guilty to “leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury.” Causing “injury” is not quite accurate. He caused a young woman’s death. He received a two-month suspended sentence. If you’re a Kennedy in Massachusetts you can pretty much get away with murder. It was after Ted’s role in Kopechne’s death that Democrats started referring to him as “the Lion of the Senate.”

I dare anyone who admires and respects Bill Clinton to read the 1999 interview of Juanita Broaddrick, a Clinton campaign volunteer, by Lisa Myers, NBC’s chief investigative reporter at the time. You will probably conclude that Broderick is very credible and that she was raped by Bill Clinton. NBC has long denied requests to release the video of the interview.

At the time Clinton was the state attorney general for Arkansas. Since he was the highest ranking law official in the state, there was absolutely nothing Broaddrick could do about what Clinton had done to her. The office he held allowed him to commit violence on women without fear or consequence. He had power, she had none. One of the reasons Democrats relish power is what it allows them to do to those without power.

In a way the Democrats do have high standards, but only for Republicans. Democrats went positively apoplectic (and still do) in reaction to Donald Trump’s taped comments about what celebrities can get away with with women. His words were crude and better left unsaid. However, they were words, not actions.

Trump has done nothing that remotely compares to what numerous Democrat politicians have done to women. How do we know he hasn’t? Because if he had done such things you can be damn-well sure we would have heard about it. You can be absolutely certain the media would not have kept it secret.

The Democrat party is a warm and welcoming environment for philanderers, lechers, lotharios, creeps, mashers, and cheaters. By example, the Kennedys and the Clintons let it be known that their party would protect, defend, ignore, and hide any despicable behavior if it helps advance the Democrat agenda (especially abortion) and defeat Republicans.

On the left there is a far-reaching and effective conspiracy of silence, a major player being the media. As much as being purveyors of “fake news,” the media’s main damage is done with incomplete news and crimes of omission. Hollywood reporters have known since the 1980s about Harvey Weinstein’s perverted and disgusting behavior. They were, among many others, the ones who enabled Weinstein to continue his abuse of women for decades.

When you enable an alcoholic the damage done falls primarily on the alcoholic himself. When you enable an abuser/rapist the damage done is borne by innocent victims. All those who helped keep Harvey Weinstein’s squalid secrets are guilty accessories-after-the-fact to who knows how many avoidable victims.

The enablers should be profoundly ashamed of themselves and many of them probably are. Unfortunately, many of his enablers in the media are incapable of shame. A primary responsibility of the media is supposed to be shining the light of the day on such crimes. Their dereliction of duty is almost criminal.

The Weinstein mess has opened the flood gates for more women to come forward to reveal their abuse by politicians and entertainers. The other week in deep blue California, “More than 240 women around the state Capitol, including some of the most influential women in Sacramento politics, signed an open letter to declare that sexual harassment, and a culture that encourages it, exists in Sacramento.”

Democrat Assemblywomen Autumn Burke said she “was surprised to find rampant sexual harassment in a building of well-educated and well-regarded people.” According the San Francisco Chronicle, some of the women “[c]haracterized the male-dominated hierarchy in state politics as a breeding ground for misbehavior, much like the film industry.” It would have been more accurately described as the Democrat male-dominated hierarchy. Sacramento is infested with Democrats. Republicans are hard to find there.

The open-letter signers have taken to social media to post “me-too” messages, “disclosing long-closeted stories of being propositioned and harassed, belittled and demeaned and cornered and groped.” Closeting the stories for so long has allowed it to continue. One of the letter signers said staffers “have told her about men in the Capitol who make it known when their wives are out of town.” For Democrats, marriage vows are so yesterday.

Gavin Newsom is the current Lieutenant Governor in California and former mayor of San Francisco. He is the odds-on favorite for succeeding term-limited Jerry Brown as governor. Newsom is one of the small number of young rising stars in the Democrat party. In 2007 he admitted to having an affair with his best friend and campaign manager’s wife. In numerous glowing articles about Newsom, that fact is rarely mentioned. Swamp is a good description of Washington, D.C., but Sacramento smells even worse.

Another candidate for governor is Democrat Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In 2007 it was revealed that he was having an affair with Telemundo news anchor Mirthala Salinas. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Villaraigosa’s admission casts a fresh shadow over his own personal conduct: He has two adult daughters born out of wedlock and his wife filed for divorce in 1994 over a separate affair for which he later publicly apologized. It may also have damaged his carefully crafted image as a family man. The revelation also raised ethical questions about Salinas’ decision to become involved with a politician she was covering as a journalist.”

Conservatives are frequently stunned when we witness the hypocrisy Democrats manage to get away with. Everyone is familiar with what’s called a “poetic license.” Somehow Democrats have managed to secure for themselves a “hypocrisy license.” It would be a wonderful day if that license got revoked.

Hypocrisy, however, is a misdemeanor compared to Democrats’ long record of disgusting behavior, abuse, and disrespect of women. We can only hope that recent events make it clear to more people that the Democrat party does not deserve their support.

Democrats have many times claimed that Republicans are waging “a war on women.” It appears that there is, in fact, a war on women, but the evidence indicates the soldiers are all Democrats. It’s far reaching and it has a long history.

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◼ What’s Revealed by the Harvey Weinstein Saga November 1, 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.

California in an Oyster Shell

Most people in the rest of the country know that the state of California is a strange place. Unless you live here, however, you can’t fully appreciate just how dysfunctional it has become.

A case in point is what is happening to Coast Seafoods Company, the state’s largest shellfish producer. The company has been operating an oyster farm in Humboldt Bay for the past 65 years. However, the company may cease operation because the California Coastal Commission in June voted 6-5 to deny permits for both the company’s existing 230 acres of shellfish farming as well as a proposed 265-acre expansion. Coast Seafoods has 80 employees and an annual payroll of $2 million. Doubling its capacity is a microcosm of what economic growth means and how it happens.

The commissioners who voted to deny the permit renewal and expansion asserted that the company “had not adequately addressed potential impacts to ecologically significant eelgrass beds in the bay.” Humboldt Bay covers a total of 17,000 acres. The disputed area, therefore, comprises less than three percent of the bay.

California has made the accomplishment of virtually any economic activity incredibly costly in both time and money. Coast Seafood’s project, for example, has to be approved by the Humboldt Bay Harbor District, the California Coastal Commission, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, the California Fish and Game Commission, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Even if all those agencies approved the project there would still be obstacles. Three environmental groups, Audubon California, Earth Justice, and California Waterfowl Association, have filed a lawsuit alleging that the oyster farm expansion would “irreparably harm eelgrass in the bay.”

In its attempt to expand its oyster beds Coast Seafoods has so far spent over $2 million for environmental studies. Although the company initially wanted approval to farm 500 acres, it has reduced its request several times in attempts to meet the long list of concerns and demands by the various agencies.

Jack Crider is the harbor district’s executive director. His agency voted unanimously to approve the oyster farm’s renewal and expansion. He said, “By the time we butcher the hell out of this, we’ll be lucky to have 100 acres, maybe 70 or 80 acres, divided up six different ways.… If you were in the oyster industry, would you consider investing in Humboldt Bay after this? It’s just a big trigger to say it’s going to be too expensive and difficult to get a permit. They’ll go to Oregon, they’ll go to Washington, they’ll go somewhere else. They won’t go to California.”

If Coast Seafoods ceases operation, it will not be the first oyster farm to succumb to out of control regulations in California. Two hundred miles south of Humboldt Bay is Drakes Bay. The oyster farm there, in operation since the 1930s, was forced by the U.S. Park Service to suspend operations in 2014. The dispute had raged for over ten years and was considered to be one of the ugliest environmental disputes ever. Fighting the forced closure were Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, renowned California cuisine creator Alice Waters, and Food Democracy Now. Even California leftists are powerless against the march of the inexorable agencies.

In her letter to the Park Service Feinstein wrote, “The Park Service has falsified and misinterpreted data, hidden science and even promoted employees who knew about the falsehoods all in an effort to advance a predetermined outcome against the oyster farm. It is my belief that the case against Drakes Bay Oyster Company is deceptive and potentially fraudulent.” Same old same old.

California stacks regulatory agency on regulatory agency. Permission for most projects requires approval from all layers. The result is that every agency has what amounts to veto power over any project. The agencies are populated by self-important board members who see themselves as vital guardians of the planet. Wildlife is assumed to have infinite value for which any minute risk or uncertainty is deemed to be unthinkable. Anything else, human well-being, for example, is assumed to have zero value.

Furthermore, each agency has tunnel vision. They aren’t allowed or motivated to consider anything outside their narrow focus. Nothing else can be considered, no compromises are allowed. Private property rights are given absolutely no consideration. They can do nothing beyond enforcing the rules they’re hired to enforce. This is not the way we should be making resource-allocation choices.

The agencies in no way bear the costs of the decisions they impose on the people and companies they regulate. When their rulings put a company out of business, it’s not their problem. Their job security is untouched.

There is absurd duplication and redundancy throughout the bureaucracies. The Coast Seafoods project must receive “water quality certifications” from the Army Corps of Engineers as well as the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. (Ironically, oysters filter water.)

The regulatory agencies and their environmentalist co-conspirators are expert goal post movers. Their favorite ploy is to add to the already long list of “threatened” species. For example, in the oyster farm issue a new concern is for the black brant goose. Supposedly a three percent reduction in Humboldt Bay eelgrass will constitute an existential threat for the geese in their annual migrations.

Eelgrass, black brant geese, marbled murrelets (a shore bird that nests in old-growth forests) have all been granted victim status and they will not be the last. The supposed at-risk species used to execute the Drakes Bay oyster farm was the harbor seal. Agencies don’t mind taking sides in imagined conflicts between species, e.g. eelgrass vs. oysters, seals vs. oysters, spotted owls vs. barred owls, whatever works.

An article of faith among environmentalists is that every ecology is a fragile, delicate system. Each ecology’s current state is perfect and the tiniest change will set in motion forces too terrible to contemplate. To describe the agencies as “risk averse” is far too tame a description. Negativity overwhelms positivity.

Besides having to cope with all the agencies, California grants incredible power and authority to every imaginable self-appointed protector of the “environment.” A traditional legal doctrine is that to sue someone you must demonstrate “damages” and “standing.” Environmental groups are given wide latitude in making such claims. Everyone is granted “stake-holder” status. In addition, “not in my backyard” resisters successfully stop or at least delay project after project.

In any economy, there are wealth creators and wealth preventers. In California, the wealth preventers hold the upper hand. Because the obstructionists have been so successful in the past at consolidating their power, there are few checks and balances left in the state. The state is politically and philosophically uniform and predictable. Diverse it is not.

The wealth preventers, i.e. environmental groups, trail lawyers, and Democrat politicians, hold the reins of power in California. They are all system wonks and are experts at gaming the system. They feign concern for spotted owls, delta smelt, and eelgrass.

In actuality, logging opponents couldn’t care less about spotted owls. Their real objective is to stop all logging or at least make logging so costly and such a hassle that it’s greatly reduced. If there were a population explosion of spotted owls it would have absolutely no impact on their opposition to logging.

The oyster company’s maddening regulatory mine field is the rule in California and there are only rare exceptions. California’s insanity has gotten so over the top even some liberals can’t ignore it. After the legislature and Governor Brown recently extended its asinine “cap and trade” policy for an additional ten years, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Joe Mathews wrote, “Can our system for controlling greenhouse gases be adopted around the world? Or is California pursuing a lonely one-state war on climate change that will land us in a bubble of economy-destroying regulations?… At its worst California is a bubble of distinctive and convoluted regulations and laws, which are hard to unwind, especially in a state with so many lawyers.”

California is like a petri dish for unbridled Democrat control. It’s the canary in the economic coal mine. The state is demonstrating to the rest of the country what’s in store if Democrats start winning elections. It’s what would have been in store for the whole country if Hillary Clinton had won in November. President Trump has made rolling back regulations one of his foremost priorities.

That California’s economy manages to function as well as it does in spite of the barriers placed in front of it is a tribute to the persistence, energy, and creativity of its wealth creators. California has such immense beauty, natural resources, and human resources the fact that they are being so squandered and wasted is a crime. The difference between what could be accomplished in the state and what is accomplished is incalculable.

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘What might have been.’” — John Greenleaf Whittier

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◼ California in an Oyster Shell July 27, 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.

Democrats and Republicans Are Not Morally Equivalent

The recent attempted mass assassination of Republican congressmen and its aftermath reveals much about differences between Democrats and Republicans. It’s a difference that Democrats are doing their best to pretend does not exist.

One of the ways Democrats are attempting to escape any responsibility for the shooter’s motives is by using one of their favorite and most insidious subterfuges — “moral equivalence.” Democrats are doing their level best to convince everyone that Democrats and Republicans are equally responsible for the poisonous atmosphere currently rampant in our culture.

The event ought to be an enormous indictment of the Democrat party and the left. There is what should be an obvious and blatant difference between the two parties.

It simply would not occur to a Republican to make a Democrat president symbolically an assassinated Julius Caesar, as they have been doing with their Shakespeare in the Park presentation in New York City this spring. We simply don’t think that way. There isn’t that much hate in our hearts. Any haters in the Republican Party are outliers. The haters on the left are mainstream.

Democrats are doing their best to gloss over and minimize the shooter’s political affiliations and the similarity of his attitudes and opinions with those of the Democrat party. The shooter’s beliefs were carbon copies of those of Democrat politicians. Democrats want us to believe that fact is irrelevant. Is it irrelevant that he specifically targeted Republican politicians? When in history has any shooter ever targeted Democrat politicians specifically because of their party affiliation? The attitude of Democrats reminds me of what George W. Bush said about al Qaeda, “They don’t oppose our policies, they oppose our existence.”

Following the shooting, the clueless FBI pretended not to know what the shooter’s motives were. As John McEnroe would say, “You can’t be serious!” Were they trying to be funny? Does the FBI not realize how ridiculous they sound? Has political correctness fried their brains? As they might say in the red states, “Don’t pee in my face and tell me it’s raining.”

There’s a whole lot of denial going on. They have sown the wind, but they deny responsibility for the whirlwind.

“Moral equivalence” is one of the left’s personality disorders. It is, for example, why liberals are uncomfortable with the idea of “American exceptionalism.” They would like us to believe that no one country is better than another or that no one religion is better than another. It is why they hold Israel and Palestine equally responsible for the murder and terrorism in that region.

The left does not want to take sides in any conflict. They do not like facing the existence of evil. Their inability to face that reality is part of their utopian mindset. They’re typically more sympathetic with the killer than the victim, more sympathetic with the law breakers than the law enforcers.

For Democrats, any incident involving guns is a terrible thing to waste. Whenever guns are involved, they exploit it for all it’s worth. Their tiresome obsession with that issue demonstrates their empty bag of issues. Democrats have no new issues or ideas. They have no young leadership. The party is worn out intellectually and demographically.

Democrats actually believe that an abortion is something positive. Unrestricted abortion is the political issue they are most passionate about. They believe that an abortion is as desirable, or even more desirable, than a live birth. The cold heartedness with which they view the issue is chilling.

Liberals know for certain that Donald Trump is a racist and bigot. How do they know that? Because he wants to protect our borders and enforce existing immigration laws. In order to categorize Trump as a hater they have to redefine and corrupt the meaning of hate. In their minds wanting to secure the borders and enforce existing immigration laws means he has hatred in his heart.

Another example occurred during the 2008 campaign against “Prop 8” in California. That proposition was about adding to the state’s constitution the following, “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” The most frequently seen bumper sticker seen at the time was “8 is Hate.” In other words, Democrats in California believed that you had to be a bigot to in favor of keeping the definition of marriage what it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. Prop 8 passed but was subsequently voided by the courts.

The good news for Republicans is that the Democrats’ worn out bag of tricks and duplicity aren’t working like they used to. There’s a huge difference between how the two parties behave and how they see the world, and most of the country agrees with the Republican version, at least as evidenced by the November and other recent elections.

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◼ Democrats and Republicans Are Not Morally Equivalent June 30, 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.

The Media’s Ominous Ambitions

The media have decided that reporting the news is no longer sufficient for them. They’ve decided they want to participate rather than just observe and report the passing scene. For example, they have taken upon themselves the negating of the results of the 2016 presidential election. They’ve arrogantly concluded they’re entitled to greater responsibilities and influence.




















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◼ The Media’s Ominous Ambitions June 1, 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.

A Reminder to Conservative Trump Critics

Conservative elites as well as some in the Republican establishment love finding fault with virtually everything Donald Trump says or does. There is almost a daily litany of what they know he should have done differently or not at all. They can always find something wrong with whatever he does.

Here’s the problem — like everything else in life, Donald Trump is a package deal. It simply is not possible to design your own idealized Donald Trump (or anyone else). Furthermore, he’s the president. They’re not. He actually ran for president, got nominated, and got elected. Pointing out what he could have said or done better is nothing more than pointless and tiresome kibitzing.

For example, Jonah Goldberg, a devout never-Trumper, had a recent column entitled “The Right Can’t Defend Trump’s Behavior.” The sub-heading stated, “President Trump’s defenders struggle to explain his unorthodox behavior.” Goldberg doesn’t seem to grasp that if it were not for Donald Trump’s “unorthodox behavior” Hillary Clinton would now be president. Unorthodoxy was what it took to overcome the standard brutal tactics of the establishment.

Life comes in packages, not discrete components. You can’t put in an à la carte order for life. You can’t mix and match, pick and choose your preferred combination of reality parts.

Conservatives who are offended by Trump’s style, personality, and tweets are akin to the campus snowflakes who need “safe zones” and “trigger warnings.” They are a bit too delicate and precious for the discomforts of reality. It’s time, however, for them to put their big-boy pants on and grow up.

Another inescapable reality is that life is comprised of choices. If you are a conservative who doesn’t like Trump, what are your alternative, real-world choices?

In debates, Milton Friedman would sometimes ask his opponent, “What perfect solution on what perfect planet are you comparing this to?” That is an excellent rhetorical question. It’s a good way to bring someone back to reality.

The political realities of 2016 meant voters had a choice between one of two candidates — Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. If the Republican nominee had been anyone other than Trump, conservatives would now be living with the hell-on-earth presidency of Hillary Clinton.

None of the other Republican primary candidates would have had a prayer against Clinton and her henchmen in the media. They would have been demonized, villainized, and defeated, just as John McCain and Mitt Romney were eight and four years ago. Trump was the only candidate capable of surviving the whatever-it-takes tactics of the Democrats and the media. He won, because he refused to play by the establishment’s ground rules and threw their obnoxious politically correct censorship right back in their faces.

Trump is a bare-knuckled brawler who never gives an inch. His counterpunches are fast, hard, and relentless. Like it or not, that’s what it takes to survive and win in today’s political environment.

Whenever you find yourself bothered by something President Trump says or does, repeat these three words to yourself: “President Hillary Clinton.” You’re bound to feel better instantly.

Spend a little time visualizing what a Hillary presidency would be like. It’s not hard. Her advisers would include Huma Weiner, John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Elizabeth Warren, and Madeleine Albright, just to name a few. It would be a four- or eight-year prolonging of the Obama presidency. You would have been forced to refer to Bill Clinton as the “first gentleman.” If all of that turns your stomach, you should be thanking President Trump every day for keeping it from becoming a reality.

Too many of the conservative elites use Trump’s imperfections as opportunities to feel sanctimonious and holier than thou. They seem to think we’re in the faculty lounge, rather than fighting against people who are serious about destroying everything we hold dear.

Dennis Prager recently wrote that America is now engaged in Civil War II. He’s right. Conservatives who find President Trump too coarse for their delicate sensitivities don’t seem to recognize the gravity of what’s at stake. This is not the time to go wobbly.

It’s been said that a liberal is someone who will not take his own side in a fight. It’s starting to look like that could be said of some conservatives. Politicians like John McCain and Lindsey Graham criticize fellow Republicans far more often and energetically than they do Democrats. With friends like these, who needs enemies? In many ways, McCain’s and Graham’s behavior is more repugnant than someone like Sen. Chuck Schumer. At least Schumer is open about being a Democrat.

Undermining your leader, particularly for unserious reasons, is equivalent to working for the enemy. Conservatives have few friends in high places, certainly not the establishment, the media, academia, or the bureaucracy. We cannot afford to have enemies within.

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◼ A Reminder to Conservative Trump Critics February 20, 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.