All posts by Jim

Left HS before report cards came out. Enlisted in the Marines for four years. By the time those years were over, I was hooked - they had me for life. Spent nearly ten years as enlisted. Received a Silver Star, Bronze Star w/V, Purple Heart as a Sgt during first RVN tour. Upon returning to the State's received a combat commission to 2Lt. Retired after 36 total years as a Colonel. Book follows my career, but is more about the heroes with whom I served, the great mentors I had, and the leadership principles they instilled in me.
Current Events

Biden’s Vaccine IP Debacle

4 Comments

Okay Mr. Joe Sanders-Pelosi-Harris-Warren-Ocasio-Cortez , you have done it now. How dare you do this to companies who have spent billions on research and development providing the world with safe, effective vaccines. You sir are a blooming idiot. If I were the CEO’s of Pfizer and BioNTech. I would tell you to go pound sand and refuse to give up the ingredients and processes for my vaccines. What would that fool do, close my business? Yeah, right. How would that settle with the American public? This is a travesty that we as Americans should not put up with. Note my opening sentence, Biden’s name isn’t there since I feel certain he was not able to come up with this communist scheme, they did! WHO IS IN CHARGE IN AT THAT PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE BUILDING? It sure isn’t him. 

Date: May 9, 2021 at 8:29:31 AM PDT

 “In one fell swoop he has destroyed tens of billions of dollars in U.S. intellectual property, set a destructive precedent that will reduce pharmaceutical investment, and surrendered America’s advantage in biotech, a key growth industry of the future.”

His patent heist is a blow to the Covid fight and U.S. biotech.

By The Editorial Board

May 6, 2021

We’ve already criticized President Biden’s bewildering decision Wednesday to endorse a patent waiver for Covid vaccines and therapies. But upon more reflection this may be the single worst presidential economic decision since Nixon’s wage-and-price controls.

In one fell swoop he has destroyed tens of billions of dollars in U.S. intellectual property, set a destructive precedent that will reduce pharmaceutical investment, and surrendered America’s advantage in biotech, a key growth industry of the future. Handed an American triumph of innovation and a great soft-power opportunity, Mr. Biden throws it all away.

***

India and South Africa have been pushing to suspend patents at the World Trade Organization for months. They claim that waiving IP protections for Covid vaccines and therapies is necessary to expand global access, but their motivation is patently self-interested.

Both are large producers of generic drugs, though they have less expertise and capacity to make complex biologics like mRNA vaccines. They want to force Western pharmaceutical companies to hand over IP free of charge so they can produce and export vaccines and therapies for profit. Their strategy has been to shame Western leaders into surrendering with the help of Democrats in the U.S.

But suspending IP isn’t necessary to expand supply and will impede safe vaccine production. The global vaccine supply is already increasing rapidly thanks to licensing agreements the vaccine makers have made with manufacturers around the world.

Pfizer and BioNTech this week said they aimed to deliver three billion doses this year, up from last summer’s 1.2 billion estimate. Moderna increased its supply forecast for this year to between 800 million and a billion from 600 million. AstraZeneca says it has built a supply network with 25 manufacturing organizations in 15 countries to produce three billion doses this year.

AstraZeneca and Novavax have leaned heavily on manufacturers in India to produce billions of doses reserved for lower-income countries. But India has restricted vaccine exports to supply its own population. IP simply isn’t restraining vaccine production.

Busting patents also won’t speed up production, since it would take months for these countries to set up new facilities. Competition will increase for scarce ingredients, and less efficient manufacturers with little expertise would make it harder for licensed partners to produce vaccines.

There’s also the problem of safety. Johnson & Johnson has experienced quality problems at an Emergent plant making its vaccines, and that’s in Baltimore. Imagine the potential problems with unlicensed producers in, say, Malaysia or Brazil. If vaccines made there have complications, confidence in licensed vaccines could plummet too. And who would Pfizer and Moderna sue to get their reputations back?

The economic self-damage is also hard to fathom. The U.S. currently has a competitive advantage in biotech and biologics manufacturing, which could be a growing export industry. Waiving IP protections for Covid vaccines and medicines will give away America’s crown pharmaceutical jewels and make the U.S. and world more reliant on India and China for pharmaceuticals.

Moderna has been working on mRNA vaccines for a decade. Covid represents its first success. Ditto for Novavax, which has been at it for three decades. Small biotech companies in the U.S. have been studying how to create vaccines using nasal sprays, pills and patches.

Thanks to Mr. Biden, all this could become the property of foreign governments. Licensing agreements allow developers to share their IP while maintaining quality control. Breaking patents and forcing tech transfers will enable China and low-income countries to manufacture U.S. biotech products on their own.

China’s current crop of vaccines are far less effective than those in the West, but soon Beijing might be able to purvey Pfizer knock-offs. The U.S. has spent years deploring China’s theft of American IP, and now the Biden Administration may voluntarily let China could reap profits from decades of American innovation.

***

Instead of handing over American IP to the world, Mr. Biden could negotiate bilateral vaccine agreements and export excess U.S. supply. If Mr. Biden wants to increase global supply safely, the U.S. could spend more to help the companies produce more for export. Then the jobs would go to Americans. We thought this was the point of the production deal Mr. Biden negotiated between J&J and Merck.

Alas, this President seems to be paying more attention these days to Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi. They think vaccines and new drugs can be conjured by government as a public good with no incentive for risk-taking or profit. This really is destructive socialism.

Mr. Biden ought to listen to Angela Merkel. Pfizer’s partner BioNTech is a German firm, and the German Chancellor said Thursday that she opposes the WTO heist: “The protection of intellectual property is a source of innovation and it must remain so in the future.”

At least IP is safe in Germany. Mr. Biden has sent a signal around the world that nobody’s intellectual property is safe in America.

There is nothing I can add to this pitiful, destructive, and downright idiotic  decision by that fellow who is supposed to be our president.

 

Originally posted 2021-05-10 12:37:20.

Recent Posts

A Star-Spangled Misfire

2 Comments

I have been remiss from posting any gobbly gook from the swamp creatures of late, but with good reason. We just returned from a weekend in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to witness our granddaughter graduating from the University. WOW.  Impressive is an  understatement! I’m sure some of you attended a university as large and impressive, as Alabama, but I had not. I was awestruck. At my granddaughter’s suggestion, I even had a “Yellow Hammer,” actually I had three, and I might add suffered the entire next day. LOL

But then I digress. Great article from my favorite presenter. Although growing up only 30 miles from D.C., and having been stationed there for two years, I must admit I really did not know much of  its history. Oh I knew it it was not a state, but beyond that I have to claim ignorance. Just in case you fall into the same category, please copy and paste the link below for a very good explanation of D.C. and why it is not a state from the Encyclopedia Britannica. 

https://www.britannica.com/place/Washington-DC

Then read Greg’s excellent article about Biden’s attempt to simply expect Congress to make it a state.

By Greg Maresca

In May 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama announced during a campaign stop that he had been to 57 states. Such an embarrassing blunder was glazed over like a Crispy Cream donut. In retrospect, it was perhaps a Freudian slip. Provided Democrats get their way, they will get closer to 57 by adding Washington D.C. as the 51st state with Puerto Rico waiting on deck.

As president, Obama must regret not going for broke with the whole socialist agenda when he had the chance. President Biden has certainly wasted no time in picking up the slack in his first 100-days in office.

Provided you need to be reminded: elections have consequences.

In Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers created a special federal district for the sole purpose of not being a state. Writing in The Federalist No. 43, James Madison clarified that without a separate federal district, the federal government “might be insulted and its proceedings be interrupted with impunity.” It is obvious the Founders did not want to subject the federal government to the sway of any state government.

Moreover, D.C. statehood would violate the intent that states have substantial land mass. Aside from the original 13 states, no state was smaller than 30,000 square miles until Hawaii entered the union in 1959. However, with a total of 137 islands and over 10,000 square miles, Washington D.C. does not even come close.

If that’s not enough, the 23rd Amendment enfranchised D.C. residents in presidential elections with three Electoral College votes, tenured its venue and size, designating it as the “seat of Government.” The amendment established that the only way to repeal a constitutional amendment is with another amendment.

It was no oversight that the nation’s capital is not a state, but rather an exclusive territory under the absolute authority of Congress, where elected representatives and senators from every state in the union could meet on neutral ground to conduct the nation’s business.

The nation understands D.C.’s unique constitutional status. A 2020 Gallup poll said 64% of Americans opposed DC statehood vs. just 29% in favor. Sorted by party and region, there were “no major subgroups of Americans voice support for DC statehood.”

If the city’s denizens do not appreciate their longstanding historical significance, they can always vote with their feet and move. This legislation symbolically labeled H.R. 51 would turn the District into exactly what the Founders rebuffed.

In a dichotomy of the times, Democrats desire to localize what the Constitution explicitly has federalized, while at the same time trying to federalize everything else. The statehood push is ultimately a power play for Democrats who want to turn D.C. into a city-state as the deep blue District will guarantee them two seats in the Senate changing the chamber’s partisan composition in their favor. With the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee wanting to pack the Supreme Court, adding two additional Senators via D.C. is a Democrat two-fer.

Democrats’ carry-on like this because they know Republicans will not put up a fight. Here is yet another version of Democrat unity and healing where the end goal is a one-party totalitarian centralized state.

This legislation is nothing but a power grab in the first-degree. If it were truly about statehood and the fabricated mantra of “taxation without representation,” Democrats would introduce legislation for D.C. to become part of Maryland from which it was initially ceded. But that doesn’t work as it would not obtain the desired two additional Senate seats.

Without missing an opportunity to race bait, New York Democrat Rep. Mondaire Jones, called arguments against D.C. statehood “racist trash.” Naturally, if you oppose D.C. statehood on any level be it Constitutional, historical, you name it; you are to be smeared as a racist because a majority of its residents are black.

With the Senate filibuster requiring 60 senators to advance any legislation, the odds of D.C. statehood are formidable. Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he will not support the legislation or efforts to eliminate the filibuster. “If Congress wants to make D.C. a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment,” Manchin suggested.

Manchin is one Democrat who actually gets it.

Perhaps more will join him.

What  did surprise me was the  29%  who were in favor of making it a state. I wonder how many of those were ignorant, as I, about its history?

Originally posted 2021-05-06 14:13:55.

Recent Posts

Punishment

LOL, this is so funny. Some may have trouble understanding what Mr. Lindsey is saying in this article. Heck I had to read it again slowly to get the full drift. The bottom line is simple, raise the tax and get less revenue. LOL Makes sense to me, What an idiot this president is. That is unless he is doing it as Mr. Lindsey thinks, to punish the rich and the hell with revenue. OMG.

 

And if anyone is qualified to talk on this subject it is certainly Dr. Lawrence Lindsey, former Governor of the Federal Reserve System for six years.

The Biden administration last week proposed to increase the capital-gains tax rate—currently 20% for most assets held for at least a year—to 39.6% for people making more than $1 million. Since capital gains are also subject to the 3.8% Medicare tax, the new capital-gains rate would be 43.4%.

What makes this unusual is that 43.4% is well above the rate that would generate the most revenue for the government. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, which does the official scoring and is no den of supply siders, puts the revenue-maximizing rate at 28%. My work several decades ago puts it about 10 points lower than that. That means President Biden is willing to accept lower revenue as the price of higher tax rates. The implications for his administration’s economic thinking are mind-boggling.

Even the revenue-maximizing rate is higher than would be optimal. As tax rates rise, the activity being taxed declines. The loss to the private side of society increases at a geometric rate (proportional to the square of the tax rate) as rates rise. The government collects more revenue, but its gains slow as the taxed activity declines. The revenue-maximizing rate is the point at which the government starts losing from higher taxes. Tax rates above the revenue-maximizing rate are punitive: The government is giving up revenue simply to punish the rich.

Punishing the rich is distinct from redistribution. Higher taxes on the rich to finance spending, or to transfer money to lower-income people, may be good for society’s welfare. Economists express this idea in a “social-welfare function,” which weights additional income received by different people, usually based on income. The same sum is considered less valuable if it goes to a high-income person than a lower-income one. The weights are subjective and different analysts will choose different weights.

Still, economists can agree that the ideal is to make someone better off without making someone else worse off. The simplest case is a voluntary exchange of goods for money, in which the buyer values the purchase at least as much as the price, while the seller values the money at least as much as the item being sold. Economists call such an exchange Pareto-optimal after Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist who formally framed the concept.

There is no choice in paying taxes, and usually the government is better off and the taxpayer is worse off. But above the revenue-maximizing rate, even the government is worse off. This is called Pareto-pessimal.

Generally, the government can raise tax rates and transfer the money to lower-income people, thereby improving social welfare. The government can do this even after incurring the economic burdens caused by higher rates and the costs of transferring money (known as the “leaky bucket”). The trade-off depends on how much tax rates distort the economy, how big the leaky-bucket effect is, and how one evaluates the difference in value of money going to people in different income groups.

As indicated by other proposals, the current administration rates money going to lower-income people extremely highly relative to higher-income people—higher than has traditionally been the case in U.S. economic policy. It also seems to put little weight on excess economic burdens and leaky-bucket costs. The wisdom of those choices will be tested at the ballot box.

But to an economist, a Pareto-pessimal choice is unwise by definition. There is no set of “weights” one can devise to justify this proposal, because there are no highly prized winners to offset the losses to the low-weighted losers.

The concept of social-welfare maximization has been a cornerstone of economic thinking across the political spectrum for the past century. It dates back at least to Adam Smith in the 18th century, and arguably to the 17th, when Jean-Baptiste Colbert, King Louis XIV’s finance minister, declared “the perfection of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to procure the greatest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of squawking.”

That’s why it is shocking that this policy got past the economists in the administration, many of whom have had long and distinguished careers. The Biden administration is blowing up one of the key concepts that has united the economics profession: maximizing social welfare. It now believes in taxation purely as a form of punishment and is even willing to sacrifice revenue to carry it out.

Mr. Lindsey is president and CEO of the Lindsey Group. He served as a Federal Reserve governor (1991-97) and assistant to the president for economic policy (2001-02).

Originally posted 2021-04-26 15:14:18.

Current Events

Officer Tatum

3 Comments

Okay swamp watchers, let’s see what others think of the systemic racism the swamp keeps telling us we have in the U.S.

This video needs no introduction or comments from me. It speaks very well for itself.

 

If you do not know who Officer Tatum is, please right click on Home below and open in new window; it is safe. Quite a guy!!

Home

Originally posted 2021-04-23 11:58:21.

Current Events

All Dollars and Little Sense

3 Comments

Good day fellow patriots and conservatives. Haven’t posted in a few days as I have been overwhelmed with tales from the swamp creatures and their devious ways. The trial is over, and as we expected he was was found guilty, albeit with Joe and the b**ch from california ( I refuse to capitalize the name of that foreign land) spouting off at the mouth there is lots of ammo for an appeal. Let’s keep praying for it to happen..

And of course the House voted to make DC a state. Oh isn’t that great two more leftist senators and one congressman for the swamp. I don’t hold out much hope from the senate to strike it down; too many leftist republicans in there. So, how will we arrange the stars in the flag?  That will be fun to watch.

From my tone you may wonder what is going on. Well at my ripe age, I refuse to get excited about what happens. Oh, don’t get me wrong. When the war comes, I shall man the lines as I have done before, and if anyone offers me a billet such as a battalion commander, I shall rise to the occasion, as I am sure you will as well.

Had lunch today with two old fellow retired colonels with whom I have served several times, but not seen them in a while — I really don’t know why since we are all retired.  Joining us was another local retired colonel and a retired captain. Of course the items of discussion was a few war stories and lots about the swamp. It’s always a good time when Marine brothers can get together — I miss that.

Okay, what’s the post? Well , as many of you know, I am an Economist by education and full time hobby. I enjoy playing in the market. Today’s post came from my old friend and contributor , Eric Maresca. As a market player I found the article interesting and a dire warning to those who do as I do. Read and learn

By Eric Maresca

The stock market bull rally that got underway after a giant fall last February and ushered in the COVID era has been relentless. Who would believe record highs were even possible after such a swift drop during a pandemic, followed by political turmoil and civil chaos.

After the Federal Reserve cut interest rates again and went on a printing spree pumping trillions into the economy through three stimulus packages, the benchmark S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were catapulted to virgin territory. Likewise, we are in the midst of a cryptocurrency revolution where their hourly values run like an amusement park roller coaster.

With the M1 Money supply – the amount of liquidity available for spending – also at an all-time high at $18.4 trillion, the potential for one of the biggest economic booms in U.S. history is primed.

This optimism has predicted a strong 2021 second half.

The larger concern is 2022 and beyond.

Historically, long periods of low interest rates combined with a growing federal debt is no yellow brick road to Oz. You cannot ignore the laws of physics, gravity, or economics, as the government is spending itself into oblivion. From 2010 to 2019, the aggregate GDP growth was nearly the same Uncle Sam spent in COVID stimulus.

With so much stimulus finding their way to Wall Street, stock prices have been inflated. To underscore how pricey stocks are all you have to do is to juxtapose the price-to-earnings multiple at 31.5 and the price-to-sales at 2.9. At the peak of the dot-com bubble in March 2000, the price-to-earnings ratio was 29 and the price-to-sales ratio at 2.3. In addition, the stock market capitalization-to-GDP ratio that measures markets relative to the economy that peaked in 2000 at 140%, stands today at 190%.

Can you whisper bubble? Such a pop would result in a fiscal 9/11 and catch many nascent investors napping. Many were too young to recall the dot-com bubble burst over a generation ago and will pay dearly.

As the stock market rolls along, so does the national deficit. In fact, it seems to be about the only thing that is mushrooming faster. This should concern plenty, but along the D.C. Beltway such matters are dismissed.

 Stock trading has drawn plenty of new players armed with their “stimmy.” Rather, than paying bills, buying necessities, or paying down their debts, these emerging investors have turned day trading into gamification. With success they gain confidence and buy more shares, but the market’s present trajectory won’t last. When it drops many will see it as a fire-sale opportunity.

The stock app at center stage is aptly named Robinhood having taken its namesake from the English Democrat who robbed from the rich and redistributed their wealth. In this stimulus era of Robinhood fever and GameStop, why waste time researching good companies at reasonable prices, and then waiting years for returns to compound?

Apps like Robinhood, SoFi, Webull, and Public.com can be fun, but addictive, and a bookkeeping nightmare.

Such internet trading platforms make basic tax-abating strategies difficult to implement. Buying and selling stocks by the lot can lower your tax bill by choosing which shares to sell. However, selling specific lots are difficult or impossible to do online as sales are based on a first-in-first-out (FIFO) basis, where the oldest shares are sold first.

These time-honored tactics may be the least of their concerns when the market turns because it will. Once the public buys in, time is short and the potential for disaster gains momentum. When the melt down commences, nearly everyone will lose more on the way down than they made on the way up. Melt Downs do not end quickly, but over time. If the market is one thing – it is unforgiving.

Market peaks are clear in retrospection, but not in the moment, but the warning signs are there.

Do not confuse a bull market for brains.

As the timeworn adage rings: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” That applies for booms, too.

Mot people do not have an exit plan like trailing stops that protects your gains and prevents you from losing more money. A diversified portfolio and fixed selling points is always your friend.

In my ECON 101 class the professor told a story that I have found over the years to an absolute. “Put five Economists in a room and ask them a simple question and you will always get at least six answers.” I have been trimming my portfolios for the last two months. I have more cash than I have ever had, upwards of 30% cash, and I keep building it. I have good stocks e.g., DOW down over 300 points today and my portfolio was up 1.9%. But I keep taking some profits and paring down. I believe it is coming folks; somone has to pay the bills the swamp is piling up.  Greg is talking common sense.

Originally posted 2021-04-22 17:16:31.