Taking Back California

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AUDIO:  An attempt to understand the financial challenges now facing California’s cities and counties, an exploration of possible citizen ballot initiatives that might help make California affordable again (and solvent), and ideas for how to make that happen – 39 minutes on KTIE San Bernardino – Edward Ring on the Unite Inland Empire radio show.

How Much Water Went Into Growing the Food We Eat?

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The rains bypassed sunny California in January and February 2020, encouraging talk of another drought. California’s last drought was only declared over a year ago, after two wet winters in a row filled the states reservoirs. To cope with the last drought, instead of building more reservoirs and taking other measures to increase the supply of water, California’s policymakers imposed permanent rationing.

This predictable response ignores obvious solutions. Millions of acre feet of storm runoff can not only be stored in new reservoirs, but in underground aquifers with massive unused capacity. Additional millions of acre feet can be recovered by treating and reusing wastewater, and by joining the rest of the developed nations living in arid climates who have turned to large scale desalination.

All of this, however, would require a change in philosophy from one of micromanagement of demand to one that emphasizes increasing supply. To understand why a focus on increasing supply is vastly preferable to reducing demand, it helps to know just how much water California’s urban residents consume compared to other users.

As a matter of fact, the average California household purchases a relatively trivial amount of water from their utility, when compared to how much water they purchase in the form of the food they eat. For this reason, reducing residential water consumption will not make much of a difference when it comes to mitigating the effects of a prolonged drought.

To illustrate this point, it is necessary to determine just how much water is available to Californians, and how much of that water is being consumed by residential households in California. When making this analysis, one must not only estimate how much water California’s households purchase from their utility, but how much water is embodied in the food they eat.

Total Annual Water Supply and Usage in California

Here’s a rough summary of California’s annual water use. In a dry year, around 150 million acre feet (MAF) fall onto California’s watersheds in the form of rain or snow, in a wet year, Californians get about twice that much. Most of that water either evaporates, percolates, or eventually runs into the ocean. In terms of net water withdrawals, each year around 31 MAF are diverted for the environment, such as to guarantee fresh water inflow into the delta, 27 MAF are diverted for agriculture, and 6.6 MAF are diverted for urban use. Of the 6.6 MAF that is diverted for urban use, 3.7 MAF is used by residential customers, and the rest is used by industrial, commercial and government customers.

Put another way, Californians divert 65 million acre feet of water each year for environmental, agricultural and urban uses, and the planned permanent 25% reduction in water usage by residential customers will only save 0.9 million acre feet per year – or 1.4% of total statewide water usage. One good storm easily dumps ten times as much water onto California’s watersheds as would be saved via a 25% reduction in annual residential water consumption.Armed with these facts, there’s a strong argument that cutting back on residential water consumption will not make a significant difference in California’s overall water use. There are additional facts that can put this argument into an even sharper context: How much water do California’s households consume in terms of the water that was required to grow the food they eat, and how does that amount compare to the water they purchase from their utility for indoor/outdoor use?

The “Water Footprint” of Food per Ounce and per Calorie

While the information to determine this is readily available, it isn’t typically compiled in this context, so here goes. The best source of comprehensive data on the “water footprint” for various types of food comes from the Water Footprint Network, a project initially funded by UNESCO. An excellent distillation of that information was produced in April 2015 by Kyle Kim, John Schleuss, and Priya Krishnakumar, writing for the Los Angeles Times. Information on calories per ounce was found on the website “fatsecret.com.” Information from these various sources is summarized on the following table.

As can be seen on the above chart, when evaluating the water efficiency of various food sources, it is misleading to rely only on gallons per ounce, since the number of calories per ounce are highly variable. But putting these two variables together to calculate a gallons per calorie measurement is quite useful. Clearly, meat products require a huge amount of water per calorie. The most efficient sources of meat protein are found in chicken, which at 0.37 gallons per calorie is around four times as water-efficient as red meat. Some sources of protein from vegetables are surprisingly efficient, including avocados at 0.20 gallons per calorie, and the almond – much maligned as a water waster – at 0.15 gallons per calorie. But we digress.

How much water does it take to feed the average household in California, and how does that compare to the amount of water they buy from the utility for indoor/outdoor use?

Total Annual Consumption of Water-in-Food per Household

The next table, below, provides this estimate based on a typical diet. The estimate of 2,000 calories necessary to sustain the average human (men, women, children) comes from WebMD. The breakout of food consumption by category, while somewhat arbitrary, relies on data on “the average American diet“c ompiled by researcher Mike Barrett, writing for the Natural Society website. In turn, Barrett relied on USDA and other government sources for most of his data, which is reflected here.To summarize, in one year, the average American consumes a quantity of food that required 1.3 acre feet of water to grow. In turn, at 2.91 people per household in California, the average household consumes a quantity of food per year that requires 3.9 acre feet of water to grow.

Average Annual Water Use per California Household

Putting all of this together yields a revealing table, below, that shows that the average California household purchases a relatively trivial amount of water from their utility, when compared to how much water they purchase in the form of the food they eat. By dividing the 3.7 million acre feet of water used by residences each year in California by the 12.8 million households in California, the average annual water consumption per household is 0.289 acre feet. By contrast, the amount of water that is eaten, so to speak, by the average California household is 3.9 acre feet, thirteen and a half times as much.

By the way, it is irresistible to point out that drinking water, that quantity each human requires for their daily hydration, based on the 0.5 gallon per day recommendation from the Mayo Clinic, comes out to a paltry 0.0016 acre feet per year per household – not even a rounding error when compared to the other uses. Think about that the next time you have to ask for your water at a California restaurant.There is no Reason Water Cannot be Abundant and Affordable

For decades, when it comes to water, California’s policymakers have prioritized demand restrictions instead of supply enhancements. This is consistent with their priorities in other critical areas, certainly including energy and transportation. “Induced demand,” the idea that if you build it, more will use it, is the nightmare axiom that governs this policy. It certainly would never have to do with the possibility they’d rather put all those operating funds into their pay and pensions instead of expanding public infrastructure.

The problem with this, however, is that eventually the conservation option begins to yield diminishing returns, and then all you have left is punitive rationing. And once via punitive rationing you have wrung all of the redundancy and surplus out of the system, you have no resiliency if any part of the system fails. That is where California is today. The abundance choice is the only viable option if Californians are to improve their quality of life. In no particular order, here are some reality checks that California’s voters and elected officials ought to consider:

(1)  Projects that increase water supply via sewage reuse, runoff storage via reservoirs or aquifers, and desalination, are options that benefit all users, urban and agricultural.

(2)  Increasing the supply of water from diverse sources creates system resiliency which can be of critical benefit not only in the face of persistent drought, but also against catastrophes that may, for example, disable a pumping station on a major aqueduct.

(3)  The energy costs to desalinate seawater, approximately 4.0 kilowatt-hours per cubic meter, are overstated. Desalination plants can be co-located with power plants, eliminating power loss through transmission lines, whereas far-flung pumping stations consume significant amounts of electricity. Depending on transmission loss and desalination plant efficiency, the amount of lift beyond which desalination consumes less power than pumping is only about 1,500 feet.

(4)  Public investment in water saving home appliances, for example via tax rebates to consumers to purchase them, by contrast, do not increase the overall supply of water.

(5)  It is nearly impossible to engage in excessive use of indoor water in a household, because 100% of the sewage is treated and released as clean outfall to the environment. Moreover, sewage is increasingly treated and reused as potable water, and eventually 100% of indoor water waste will be cycled immediately back for reuse by households.

(6)  One preferred way to reuse household sewage is referred to as “indirect potable reuse,” where the treated water is percolated into aquifers where it is eventually pumped back for household reuse. This practice has the virtue of banking the water against supply disruptions, recharging the aquifer which is especially beneficial in coastal areas where there can be salt water intrusion, and even, as water is repeatedly cycled through the aquifer, causing an ongoing improvement to the quality of the water in the aquifer as treatment progressively reduces levels of undesirable residual toxins.

(7)  While achieving 100% reuse of sewage will render indoor water conservation pointless, the virtues of outdoor water use are understated. Healthy landscaping, consisting of abundant vegetation including lawns, reduce the incidence of dust-borne pathogens, reduce the incidence of asthma, and clean and moisturize the air. Replacing grass playing fields with artificial turf introduces toxins, causes more ACL and other sports injuries, and retains heat – often to the point of making these faux fields unplayable unless they are, ironically, watered.

(8)  Simply giving up consumption of red meat would reduce the average household’s water consumption by nearly 2.0 acre feet per year. By comparison, the average Californian household’s total water consumption from the utility averages 0.29 acre feet per year. That is, just replacing consumption of red meat with an equivalent caloric intake of chicken will save the average household seven times as much water as they buy from the utility for all uses, indoor and outdoor.

Policies designed to reduce household water use are a good idea, but must be kept in perspective. What has already been done is more than enough, and priorities now must shift towards investment in infrastructure to increase the supply of water. Nearly all water diversions in California, about 90%, are either to preserve ecosystem health or to supply agriculture. Indoor water overuse is becoming a myth, and will become entirely irrelevant as soon as 100% sewage reuse capacities are achieved. Outdoor water use should not be thoughtless, but allowing grass and perennials to die, or converting landscaping to “desert foliage,” is a cultural shift that is not necessary or desirable.

Along with investing in infrastructure to increase the supply of water, public education to help Californians adopt healthier diets would have the significant side benefit of being sound water policy. A trivial change in patterns of food consumption yields a major reduction in water required for food. For example, a public education campaign that caused a voluntary 10% reduction in red meat consumption (from 25.0% of all calories to 22.5% of all calories) would reduce California’s water consumption by 2.5 million acre feet per year. By comparison, total outdoor residential water consumption in California is estimated at only 1.8 million acre feet per year.

Perhaps, in lieu of renouncing escalating and entirely unnecessary mandates to reduce household water use, those of us who love our lawns might at least be granted a waiver if we were to present an annual affidavit to document our below-average consumption of red meat. Our smart refrigerators might actually submit the report to the utility, sparing us the paperwork.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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California Cities in Critical Condition

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The specter of California’s cities and counties becoming insolvent is nothing new. Three major California cities have already declared bankruptcy, Vallejo in 2008, Stockton and San Bernardino in 2012. In October 2019, the California State Auditor’s Office reported on the fiscal health of 471 California cities.

On what the California State Auditor’s office describes as a “Local Government High Risk Dashboard,” they identified 18 high risk communities: Compton, Atwater, Blythe, Lindsay, Calexico, San Fernando, El Cerrito, San Gabriel, Maywood, Monrovia, Vernon, Richmond, Oakland, Ione, Del Rey Oaks, Marysville, West Covina, and La Habra.

This so-called “dashboard” includes data for all the 471 cities on financial variables such as liquidity, debt, reserves, pensions and other retirement benefits. It also provides an excellent map. On this zoomed in segment, the financially troubled cities of (from north to south) Richmond and El Cerrito (contiguous), and Oakland can be seen highlighted in red.

Southern California also has its share of financially troubled cities, as shown on the next map segment taken from the California State Auditor’s dashboard. Clockwise, starting from the top, the most financially endangered cities are Monrovia, West Covina, La Habra, Compton, Vernon and Commerce (contiguous), and San Gabriel.

Back in October 2019 when the California State Auditor warned Californians about 18 cities in immediate financial peril, the overall economic situation looked very different than it does today. And at that time, articles that reported on the auditor’s warning published by Reason, Governing, and Associated Press all pointed to underfunded pensions as a primary cause of their financial distress.

Not long ago, but still prior to the events of the past few weeks, during a hearing in the California State Assembly on February 26, the California State Auditor requested authorization to conduct in-depth audits of the financial health of five California cities, Blythe, El Cerrito, Lindsay, San Gabriel, and West Covina.

The one financial threat that was mentioned in all five of the California State Auditor’s requests was pensions.

“Blythe has incurred substantial debt and increasing liabilities pertaining to its city employee retirement costs, which could result in the city needing to divert more of its general fund resources to cover these costs in lieu of providing essential public services.”

“El Cerrito has not developed a long-term approach to improve its financial condition and has not addressed its increasing pension costs.”

“Lindsay anticipates its pension and other post-employment benefit costs to at least double by fiscal year 2025-26.”

“My office identified San Gabriel as the eighth most fiscally challenged city in California primarily because it has insufficient cash and financial reserves to pay its ongoing bills and it faces challenges in paying for employee retirement benefits.”

“West Covina’s unfunded pension liability is very high compared to its annual revenues, and it has only set aside a portion of the funding it will need to pay for the pension benefits already earned by its employees. Its growing pension costs will also put additional pressure on its finances.”

The Market Correction Will Affect More Than Pension Payments

It’s interesting to wonder why California’s State Auditor selected five relatively small cities for the scrutiny of a state audit. The most troubled of the five, Blythe, was number three on the auditor’s ranking by overall financial risk, behind Compton and Atwater. The City of West Covina was number 17. So why not big cities? Why not Oakland, ranked number 13, or San Jose, ranked number 23, or big Los Angeles, ranked number 32? When the denominator is 471, being ranked 32 is not good – that puts Los Angeles in the worst seven percent.

But now what? Now that the economy is slowing, and the value of investments are correcting dramatically downward?

No matter what position one may take on the financial wisdom of offering defined benefit pension plans to public employees, one point needs to be reiterated at a time like this: While it is true that an 80 percent funded status is considered adequate for a pension fund, it refers to an average across the business cycle. It does not represent what should be necessary at the end of a bull market. California’s public employee pension funds, a few weeks ago and at what we now know was the end of an 11 year bull market, were only about 70 percent funded.

This cannot be stressed enough, because it puts into proper perspective what has to be faced today. A healthy pension system at the end of over a decade of extraordinary investment returns should be overfunded. Perhaps it is credible to be sanguine about falling a bit short of the 80 percent threshold after ten years of investment doldrums, but it is absurd, and dangerous, to pretend such a level of funding is adequate after ten or more years of spectacular investment gains.

And it isn’t just pensions, anymore, that are going to affect the financial health of cities across California, from San Jose and Oakland in the north down to Los Angeles in the south. The recent and long overdue correction in the stock market was triggered by a global pandemic that is going to paralyze huge segments of the U.S. and global economy for the next several weeks, if not months. This will cause sales tax revenues to crater for as long as “social distancing” mandates remain in place, and afterwards, even an extraordinary rebound is unlikely to make up for the loss.

The impact of investment losses will impact the pension funds in two ways. Obviously they are going to have to require more from taxpayers to cover their losses, and they were already phasing in a near doubling of their required contributions – which California’s cities and counties had no idea how they were going to pay for. But the other impact, lower revenue, will pose a much bigger challenge, affecting the ability of cities and counties to pay for anything, including the pension funds.

Not only will sales tax revenue falter, but state income tax revenues will fall. California’s state government is highly dependent on income tax revenue from the wealthiest Californians. As reported by Cal Matters, “California’s tax system, which relies heavily on the wealthy for state income, is prone to boom-and-bust cycles. While it delivers big returns from the rich whenever Wall Street goes on a bull run, it forces state and local governments to cut services, raise taxes or borrow money in a downturn.”

California’s state and local governments have had over a decade to get their financial house in order. Instead, they have largely ignored the pension problem, with even Gov. Jerry Brown calling the PEPRA reforms of 2014 an inadequate compromise offering only incremental improvements. They have continued to make punitive demands on businesses, increasing taxes and spending at every opportunity. They have enacted regulations that make affordable housing and energy financially impossible for private sector interests to develop. They have emptied the prisons and opened the borders, putting additional stress on public services. They have created a state where one little push will end the good times.

That push has come.

Even the nonreligious may find an apt parable for today’s dilemma in Genesis chapter 41, verses 17 through 33. During good years, you prepare for bad years. Too bad the wisdom of the ages emphatically does not apply in woke California.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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Sustainable Megacities

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Modern urban centers around the world now have neighborhoods that house well over 100,000 people per square mile. The Choa Chu Kang district in Singapore, defined by boulevards lined with 10 to 12 story mid-rise residential buildings, has a population density of more than 125,000 people per square mile. The entire borough of Manhattan has an average population density of more than 70,000 people per square mile, with far higher densities in areas of midtown and lower Manhattan.

According to a 2018 report released by the United Nations, today 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is estimated to increase to 68 percent by 2050. At the same time, the United Nations projects the global population to increase from 7.8 billion today to 9.7 billion by 2050. These projections lead to a surprising calculation: the absolute number of people living in rural areas is expected to decline, from 3.5 billion today to only 3.1 billion in 2050.

What should not be surprising by now is that people around the world, voluntarily and inexorably, are migrating from rural areas to cities. But the corollary effect is relatively unheralded; that around the world, open land is slowly depopulating. For the most part, this is happening absent government coercion. It flies in the face of the conventional wisdom—heard endlessly in the United States—that we are running out of open space. We aren’t.

If we have a sustainability challenge, it is not to preserve open space—not only because the world’s population is already moving into cities faster than the world’s population is increasing, but because the absolute urban footprint on the planet is relatively insignificant.

This reality was explored at great depth in “The Density Delusion,” and can be distilled down to this: If 10 billion people were all to live in four-person households that were each on quarter-acre lots and everyone had an equivalent amount of space allotted for commercial and industrial use, that would equate to a population density of 5,210 people per square mile, and at that density would only consume 3.8 percent of all land area on earth. Actual estimates of worldwide urbanization as of 2018 are only 2.7 percent of global land area excluding Antarctica, and some analysts believe this estimate is grossly overstated.

But not everyone wants to live in a home with a yard that big. Most people would be content living on a smaller lot, and a large proportion of the population prefers to live in homes with no yard at all. Billions of people, for that matter, apparently prefer to live in high-rise apartments. It is not suburban sprawl that constitutes the prevailing sustainability challenge to humanity, it is building megacities that are resilient to environmental and economic threats, and constitute an inviting destination for migrants from rural areas.

Cheap Energy Is Vital 

The consequences of environmentalists making “climate change” their central focus instead of population growth are epic. Two factors, more than anything else, induce people to voluntarily limit the size of their families: prosperity and urbanization. Both of these require cheap and abundant energy.

It is estimated that as of 2020 there are 38 “megacities” on earth, defined as a metropolitan area with over 10 million inhabitants. Of these, only six—Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and London—are located within high-income nations. Moreover, nearly all the forecast growth of megacities will be in developing nations, in places like Jakarta, Dhaka, Mumbai, Kolkata, Karachi, Lahore, Lagos, and Kinshasa.

So what innovations being pioneered today will enable megacities in the future to provide a high quality of life, and how will cities of such size and density reduce their vulnerability to economic or physical disruptions?

The biggest variable governing the success or failure of megacities is energy. Abundant, affordable, and reliable energy is not only a nonnegotiable prerequisite for prosperity around the world, but it is also the only way megacities are feasible. Environmentalists typically observe, correctly, that per capita energy consumption is lower in cities, but they ignore the converse—if you make energy too expensive by curtailing the use of fossil fuels, you prevent people from vacating rural areas where they can forage for energy—unsustainable, dirty, and free—by stripping the biosphere.

Global prosperity and peace, glorious destination megacities, abundant water and food, voluntary population stabilization, and plenty of open land for those who still want to live under a big sky—all of this could be just around the corner.

If the energy challenge is addressed realistically, meaning an “all of the above” energy strategy is adopted worldwide, all the other building blocks of megacities can be assembled. But this means that the legal and financial obstacles that are preventing developing nations from exploiting their oil and gas reserves and building nuclear power plants will have to be lifted.

With abundant energy, for example, the challenge of creating water abundance is manageable. This is because for nearly every type of water infrastructure, the biggest single operating cost is energy. Investing in 100 percent reuse of wastewater, augmented by desalination of seawater, offers nearly every megacity on earth the opportunity to never experience water scarcity. Closely related to this is the rapidly maturing technology for indoor agriculture, including high rise agriculture.

Making Cities Self Sufficient Food Producers

Since a megacity, by definition, is an epicenter of human habitation, then by definition, it is also antithetical to the notion of being “off-grid.” But on the other hand, the megacity needs to be as self-sufficient as possible, since having 50,000 or even 100,000 people per square mile means that any resource that needs to be imported, stored, or removed is going to have to be handled in very high volumes.

Energy efficiency, waste management, as well as energy and water harvesting and treatment are technologies that are extremely important to the megacity—along with smart systems to interconnect all of them. Fortunately, water supply and treatment can be synergistic with indoor agriculture.

Indoor urban agriculture makes a lot of sense. It is possible that using hydroponics, aeroponics, and aquaponics, industrial agriculture operations sited within urban areas can produce enough food to feed the inhabitants, reducing the need to import food from farming regions. These facilities would also be able process wastewater from elsewhere on the utility grid—using it to water the plants and to reuse as drinking water.

Here’s how: The grey water extracted from sewage would be subjected to biological and mechanical filtration, then it would be used to water the plants. The plants, in turn, would transpirate heavily in the indoor environment, and dehumidifiers would harvest this water as pristine drinking water, able to be pumped back upstairs or into the utility grid for reuse.

This concept of using transpiration from plants in a commercial high-rise agricultural operation to provide the last mile of greywater purification in the urban environment is revolutionary. Along with the surprisingly low—and dropping—cost of desalination and advances being made in primary sewage treatment, this innovation could help solve the issues of potential water scarcity in the urban environment.

The quantity of food that a high-rise farm might produce is also surprising. Because the plants are grown in optimal conditions—optimized light and water, and no pests—they can yield three to four crops per year instead of one, and each crop may require only a few vertical feet of space. This means each story of high-rise space occupying an area of one acre, for example, could produce several times as much food per year as an acre of ordinary farmland.

This multiple order-of-magnitude increase in potential productivity per unit of land, combined with the proximity to market, means high-rise farming is merely waiting for economic and political conditions to align in its favor. The technology for high-rise farming continues to commercialize and it will be available when we need it to feed the burgeoning megacities of this world.

Building Up, Out, and Down

It is common for the smart growth crowd to say “build up, not out,” but this ignores the fact that building out as well as up increases the overall supply of dwellings, making them more affordable, and reduces the pressure to increase density in suburban areas where the people living there want to preserve their way of life. But what about building down as well?

It isn’t as if building down hasn’t been tried with success already. The New York City subway system. The London Underground. The Paris Metro. What about Boston’s “Big Dig?” Mistakes were made, to put it mildly. But today, anyone who tries to get to Logan Airport from downtown Boston during rush hour will have nothing but good things to say about the much-maligned project. It’s too bad we don’t have more big digs—in the heart of urban centers we could put freeways and rail underground, our cities could reach for the sky, and there would never be traffic jams.

Tunneling on a grand scale may seem mundane, but the industry is rapidly innovating—incorporating new technology across multiple disciplines as fast as it becomes available. From GPS systems that allow a tunneling machine always to know precisely where it is beneath the earth, to better cutting bits, to debris removal conveyances, to mechanical conveyances that simultaneously bring forward shoring material, to worker shelter and control rooms, modern tunneling machines can exceed a mile in length and cost billions to acquire and operate. The global leader in tunneling systems is Herrenknecht AG. An emerging and very disruptive new competitor is Elon Musk’s The Boring Company.

Tunneling, like blasting payloads into low earth orbit, is extremely expensive. But The Boring Company claims tunneling costs can be dramatically reduced. The Boring Company proposes five innovations on its FAQ page: 1) Triple the power output of the tunnel boring machine’s cutting unit; 2) Continuously tunnel instead of alternating between boring and installing supporting walls; 3) Automate the tunnel boring machine, eliminating most human operators; 4) Go electric; 5) Engage in tunneling research and development, “the construction industry is one of the only sectors in our economy that has not improved its productivity in the last 50 years.”

Skeptics may consider the fact that Musk’s Space X brought the price of delivering cargo into orbit down from $26,000 per kilogram in 1995 to $1,800 per kilogram by 2017, courtesy of the 100 percent reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon Heavy promises to drop that cost by another 50 percent within the next few years.

As the megacities of the future are built, tunneling machines will play an integral part in endowing these cities with efficient transportation systems. Tunneling underground to create upgraded, higher capacity, and smarter utility conduits to transport water and energy will also be necessary in cities of ultra-high density. Using the volume of underground space to host much of the physical plant of megacities will make the surface areas less congested and more pleasant.

The implications of building upwards and downwards as well as employing novel technologies ranging from enhanced geothermal systems to high-rise farming hold forth not only the oft wished-for promise of attracting humanity’s billions off the land and into densely populated megacities, but also the promise of cities that live nearly off the grid—cities that may, despite their magnitude, require very little from the rest of the world.

This is the optimistic scenario that is altogether feasible. A planet of megacities that might actually export power and food, along with culture and technology, in exchange for raw materials. There are many paths from here to there, but none of them are easy even with abundant and clean fossil fuel remaining an unhindered and major part of global energy supply until replacement energy technologies are fully competitive at scale.

Global prosperity and peace, glorious destination megacities, abundant water and food, voluntary population stabilization, asteroid mining, restored wilderness, and plenty of open land for those who still want to live under a big sky—all of this could be just around the corner.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Government Pensions Are Dividing Americans and Damaging the Economy

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Now that financial markets around the world are experiencing a long-overdue correction, the best we can hope for is that we hit bottom before a deflationary cascade causes a worldwide depression. Those economists who believe in the long-term debt cycle may claim that this time the end has arrived, and they may be right. COVID-19, oil price wars, traders and investors hating Trump—these are just pinpricks. This bubble has been inflating for decades.

There have been plenty of warnings. Interest rates at near zero in the United States and actually negative in European nations. Record borrowing by the federal government, and, possibly worse, record levels of consumer debt. Corporate borrowing to buy back stock instead of invest in R&D and plant modernization.

In January 2000, at the peak of the internet bubble, total credit market debt in the U.S. was $27.8 trillion. By October 2007, at the peak of the housing bubble, total debt had climbed to $51.4 trillion. As of October 31, 2019, the most recent period for which data is available, total debt had climbed to $73.4 trillion.

Debt accumulation is not a sustainable way to stimulate growth. At some point, there is not a mere “correction,” such as what was seen in 2000 and 2008, but a fundamental restructuring of the financial economy of nations, such as happened in the 1930s. Has that reckoning arrived?

Either way, as of close on March 12, the Dow Jones had given up nearly three years of gains, with no real end in sight.

Wall Street’s Biggest Player: Public Employee Pension Funds

Which brings us to public sector pensions, which are among the most socially divisive, economically damaging scams that nobody has ever heard of.

To get an idea of the financial scale of public pensions, note that the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the total invested assets of pension funds managed on behalf of local, state and federal government employees is $4.3 trillion. Roughly 17 percent of Americans either work for or are retired from a local, state, or federal government agency.

By contrast, the Social Security Trust Fund, serving all 327 million Americans, and in which many government employees also participate along with receiving their pensions, has a total asset value of $2.9 trillion.

This is an incredible fact. Taxpayers—who it should go without saying, are paying for both systems—have contributed to a public employee pension system that is 50 percent larger than the Social Security Trust Fund, even though Social Security serves six times as many Americans.

By now most Americans, most definitely including voters, will have stopped reading. Pension finance is a boring topic. But public sector pensions pose a far bigger threat to America’s government budgets than Social Security ever will.

For starters, Social Security is adaptable. Lower the benefits, establish means-testing for benefits, raise the contribution percent, raise the contribution ceiling, raise the retirement age; all of these options are but one congressional vote and presidential signature away from implementation. Not so with public pensions, where financially responsible modifications to the pension systems are thwarted by collective bargaining contracts and union power. How bad is the problem?

Determining just how in the red public pensions are today depends on who you ask. And thanks to lax reporting requirements, good data is typically about two years behind. A Pew Research study released in June 2019 estimated the pension funding gap, “the difference between a retirement system’s assets and its liabilities,” for all 50 states, to be just over $1 trillion. But that’s only the officially reported number.

A study conducted by the prestigious Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research put the total at over $5 trillion. This massive disparity in estimates is because how much has to be invested today in order to fund pension payments in the future largely depends on how much pension system fund managers think their investments can earn. Private-sector pensions have to use the bank lending rate as their required earnings estimate, which is why private-sector pensions are, generally speaking, not in financial trouble.

Public-sector pensions, on the other hand, are heavily influenced by government union bosses who want to maximize pension promises with minimum input either from their members through withholding or through direct contributions by government agencies. So they hire actuaries and money managers who claim they can earn, on average, 7 percent (or more) in interest on their investments, every year, year after year.

But what happens when they don’t?

That is where we find ourselves today. Pension funds, over the long term, are considered financially “healthy” if they are 80 percent funded or more. That means, for example, if the official numbers for 2018 are correct, the public sector pension assets nationwide were $4.3 trillion, the total liability was around $5.3 trillion, and the funds in aggregate were around 80 percent funded. There are big problems with this, however.

First of all, nobody believes the collective unfunded liability of America’s public employee pension funds is only $1 trillion. As noted, the Stanford researchers put that number at over $5 trillion. But most ominous is the fact that even if these pension systems were 80 percent funded, that is not where they’re supposed to be at the tail end of an 11-year bull market. Over the past 10 years, the U.S. stock market has tripled. Why are these pension systems, at best, only 80 percent funded?

Dividing Americans, Damaging the Economy

Public employee pension funds are among the biggest players, if not the biggest players, on Wall Street. If you want to know where literally trillions of dollars are being aggressively invested in private equity deals, hedge funds, and countless other speculative investments in debt, real estate, and foreign securities including in fascist China, look no further. These funds are under relentless pressure to deliver rates of return that are historically unsustainable, and the reason they are historically unsustainable is intimately connected to the populist discontent sweeping America today.

Public-sector pension funds, because they involve trillions of dollars, are too big to beat the overall rate of investment returns, and ultimately the rate of investment returns cannot exceed the rate of economic growth. The fact that investment returns have exceeded the rate of economic growth over the past few decades is precisely the reason there has been a widening in the gap between the super-rich and the desperately poor in America. It is the reason for the financialization of the American economy, where asset bubbles create collateral to create debt to create liquidity to create consumption to create profits.

This can’t go on, but the money managers want it to go on so public sector pension systems can buy another quarter of phony solvency. The alternatives are unpleasant to contemplate.

A few years ago the largest public sector pension system in the United States, the California Public Employees Retirement System with over $300 billion in assets, announced it was going to double the required payments from participating agencies over the next five years. That process is well underway and is the primary motivation for the hundreds of local tax and bond proposals on every primary and general election ballot in the state. If there is a recession, much less a depression, it won’t be enough.

Meanwhile, in the rest of America, those private-sector workers who are required to save money in 401k plans to supplement their eventual Social Security benefit, are now watching their retirement security vaporize before their eyes.

How is this fair? How is it that public sector employees can collect guaranteed pensions that pay, on average, two to three times as much as Social Security and, on average, are collected ten years earlier in life.

Defenders of public employee pensions point out that investment returns pay most of the cost for these pensions, not taxpayers. That’s only true, however, as long as those investments continue to deliver excellent returns. Once that assumption goes off the table, taxpayers pay for public-employee pensions. This results in higher taxes and lower services, and still doesn’t solve the problem of poorly regulated pension funds rampaging through the financial sector with trillions of dollars and grossly inadequate risk aversion, since they know taxpayers will pick up the tab whenever their schemes falter.

Public Sector Union Agenda Aligns with Big Finance

Public-sector pensions are yet another reason why the big corporate and financial sector political contributions in America overwhelmingly favor Democrats. These pension systems, and the benefits they provide, establish a common interest between government workers and big finance. Through the political agenda of their public-sector unions, which are overwhelmingly Democrat, the economic interests of public employees and America’s wealthiest elites are kept in perfect alignment.

No wonder public employee unions don’t fight open border policies. Not only do millions of destitute immigrants require more government administrators at all levels, but corporate profits—to help the pension funds—are boosted by the influx of cheap labor. No wonder public employee unions love draconian environmental regulations. The regulations create artificial scarcity—especially the policies of urban densification—and scarcity creates asset bubbles which help the pension funds.

No wonder public employee unions don’t object to exporting private sector jobs—international corporate profits translate into higher investment gains. No wonder public employee unions always support more bonds and borrowing—the proceeds expand government payrolls at the same time as underwriters and investors reap billions in commissions and interest payments.

And no wonder public employee unions don’t care if the welfare state implodes when the debt bubble pops and government deficits become unmanageable. Public employees don’t depend on the same network of taxpayer-funded social entitlements as the citizens they serve. To put it in terms that are crude but regrettably accurate, American citizenship is economically irrelevant to public employees. They are a separate class of Americans, exempt from the pitfalls of stressed public services, and exempt from the perils of market crashes.

The best thing that could happen to unite Americans would be to eliminate all public sector pensions and transfer the assets into the Social Security Trust Fund. One may endlessly argue the virtues or vices of Social Security, but compared with government pensions, Social Security has not split the nation in two, nor does it pose the same financial threat.

Unlike public employee pension formulas, Social Security benefits are progressive, meaning that high-income Americans have a lower ratio of contributions made to benefits received than low-income Americans. Unlike public employee pensions, there is a cap on Social Security benefits, and there is the ability to fine-tune the system to retain solvency.

Most important, however, if there is going to be a taxpayer-funded retirement security net for all Americans, it should be one system, with one set of formulas and incentives, equally applied for all citizens. If police, firefighters, nurses and teachers are heroes that deserve generous compensation, fine, let that take the form of higher salaries. Then they might invest their monthly surpluses into 401K plans, like the rest of us. And if that’s unacceptable, then they might make common cause with their private citizen counterparts to arrive at ways to improve Social Security. But all Americans would be confronting these problems together.

Patriotic members of the public sector must make some tough choices in the coming years. If lean years come, do they want America to be run by an international plutocracy, where citizenship is meaningless, but their own jobs as government enforcers are secure and lucrative? Or do they want American citizenship to still mean something? Pensions might be a useful litmus test.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Deep Pocket Democrats Intend to Buy Congress

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Michael Bloomberg made a stunning admission last month during his second appearance in a Democratic presidential primary debate. Speaking in defense of his new identity as a member of the Democratic Party, he said, “All of the new Democrats that came in, put Nancy Pelosi in charge, and gave the Congress the ability to control this president, I b . . . bought . . . I got them.”

Indeed he did. He bought them.

Bloomberg bought congressional seats in 2018, spending an estimated $110 million to help Democrats win. This included $28 million through his super PAC Independence USA, which backed 22 Democratic congressional candidates, 19 of whom won. These efforts promise to be minor compared to what is happening now.

And the scale of his spending in the 2020 political season, especially when matched with the ongoing torrents of cash coming from other Democratic megadonors, dwarfs anything we’ve ever seen in American politics. With an estimated net worth of nearly $60 billion, Bloomberg may be out of the presidential race but he still has money to burn.

Starting in early 2019, in fact, Bloomberg began building what The Atlantic described as “the most powerful political organization in America,” which will “collect data about voters on an unprecedented scale, match those data with consumer data, and then hire a team of engineers to do high-level analyses, looking for new ways to identify potential voters, and new ways to appeal to them. They want to match voter data to consumer information and social-media profiles, and look for new ways to break through. Then they want to build a new “tech stack,” or system for processing and applying the data. The goal, they say internally, is to fundamentally change the core Democratic infrastructure.”

This “political machine” is up and running. And regardless of Bloomberg’s personal political fate, it will be used in 2020 to support every Democratic candidate in every contested congressional race in America.

Democratic Megadonors Outnumber GOP Megadonors

When it comes to deep pockets for the Democrats, Bloomberg’s hardly alone. Onstage with Bloomberg was fellow oligarch and failed presidential contender Tom Steyer, who has already spent over $100 million to elect Democrats all over the nation, and he’s likely to spend another $100 million before he’s through.

And then there’s Donald Sussman, James and Deborah Simons, George Soros, Fred Eychaner, Karla Jurvetson, George Marcus, Reid Hoffman, Dustin Moskovitz, and Joshua Bekenstein, who collectively have contributed additional hundreds of millions of dollars to Democrats over the past few years. Expect that to continue.

While the Republicans do have donors with deep pockets, they are consistently outspent by the Democratic megadonors. Worse, many Republican megadonors are willing to destroy Republican congressmen and senators who don’t agree with their globalist agenda. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

This reality, that big donors largely control the political destiny of congressmen and senators in America, exposes the wishful absurdity of a recent article published by Fox News. The story, headlined “Republican Party war chest dwarfs Democrats’ going into 2020 high season,” sounds encouraging until you read the numbers: “According to the latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) data released Thursday, covering Jan. 1 through Jan. 31, the Republican National Committee has $76 million cash-on-hand compared with the Democratic National Committee’s $9.9 million.”

This GOP advantage of $66 million sounds great. It’s a lot of money. Until you realize that Steyer is likely to spend at least that much between now and November 3, and Bloomberg could easily spend that much every month between now and November 3. And they’re not the only Democratic super donors.

And then there are the unions.

Saturation Spending Works

To get an idea of how effective political spending can be when you have virtually no constraints on how much you can spend, Bloomberg’s candidacy was instructive.

In states where he competed on Super Tuesday, you couldn’t turn on a television or radio for longer than 10 minutes without seeing or hearing a Bloomberg ad. If his microtargeting machine deemed you worth prospecting online, his ads blanketed your screens. And they’re good ads, tailored to the region, the audience, and wherever possible, the individual.

Expect similar expertly crafted saturation level ads to be run this year by the Democrats in support of every Democratic congressional and senate candidate in every battleground district and state. But they won’t be run by the Democratic party. They’ll be run by independent expenditure campaigns controlled by Bloomberg, Steyer, and public-sector unions.

California, which has been run almost exclusively by public-sector unions for at least 20 years, provides abundant examples of how Democratic candidates are vetted and chosen by these unions, then elected via independent expenditure campaigns over which the candidates have no control.

As a matter of campaign finance law, these candidates cannot even try to influence the campaigns waged on their behalf, or they’ll face disqualification, punitive fines, and possible jail sentences. That’s awfully convenient for the public-sector unions, which control the Democratic Party in California.

From the perspective of national political outcomes, it might be tempting to think that whichever party controls California’s 10,000 local elected positions doesn’t matter that much. If so, that would be a dangerous misconception. California and other deep-blue states, all of them largely controlled by public-sector unions, endure the consequences of Democratic policies across the entire continuum of political jurisdictions. And these consequences are contagious.

Local and state policies are the reason Californians can’t build homes without paying public bureaucracies literally $100,000 or more in permit fees, per home, and encounter years of delays in approval.

Local and state policies are the reason Californians can barely run small businesses, or attend decent public schools, or drive on well-maintained and adequate roads, or afford the necessities of life unless they’re wealthy.

More to the point, this critical mass of political power at the state and local level allows Democrats to consolidate their power, sweep up congressional districts, create a standing army of seasoned professional political operatives, and train the politician farm team from which spring the national politicians that threaten to “fundamentally transform America.” Adam Schiff was once a California state senator. Maxine Waters was a California assemblywoman. And so on.

The Preposterous Overkill of Saturation Political Spending

To observe the local campaign tactics of public sector unions in California, where they collect and spend more than $800 million per year, is an exercise in surrealism.

For just one of the 80 seats in the state assembly, a constituent may expect to receive at least a dozen flyers in the mail. Not the two or three undersized postcards that a Republican candidate might hope to mail. No, from union-endorsed candidates, expect glossy full-sized booklets, or 8 x 10 flyers, or 10 x 12 flyers, and yes, even 11 x 14 flyers—thick, ink drenched and varnished, full-color extravaganzas. How do they even stuff these in the mailbox? How much must each one of them cost?

It doesn’t matter. Public sector unions are the other deep state, with pockets just as deep as the oligarchs, and they’re fighting on the same side.

For Democrats. It doesn’t even matter if the race is for a safe seat. They’ll make certain to saturate the mail and the air with constant messages, making certain their candidate has name recognition. If their Democratic candidate is competing in one of California’s pathetically few remaining battleground districts, they’ll run a campaign so dirty you’ll feel the filth blasting into you with a mere glance at the favored candidate’s latest flyer.

As for the candidates themselves—they have no say in how these independent expenditure campaigns are run. And afterward, they’ll be owned.

It’s important for Americans to realize that the Democratic party is the party with the deep pockets, and the party of the deep state—from the federal bureaucracy down to every union-controlled local agency across every state and city. Naturally, there are RINOs who are also part of this establishment. But by far, the locus of corporate socialism lies with the Democrats, supported by an ironclad alliance between leftist oligarchs and public-sector unions.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Californians Reject New Taxes and Borrowing

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The preliminary election returns reported on March 4th – the day after the election, and the day when we used to get final returns – indicate that California’s voters delivered a stunning rejection of new taxes and borrowing. It’s about time.

At the state level, Prop.13 which would have authorized $15 billion in general obligation bonds for schools and colleges, required a simple majority for approval. But as of March 9th the “yes” votes only stood at 45.6 percent. This is unprecedented. As reported by Cal Matters, “since 1998 voters have passed five state school bonds, including a $9 billion measure in 2016 that Gov. Jerry Brown opposed.”

While Prop. 13’s likely failure is surprising enough, the dismal fate of hundreds of local bond and tax proposals indicates a broader shift in California’s electorate. One state school bond may fail for various reasons, but that’s only one data point. On the other hand, California had 121 local school bonds on the March 3 ballot. The returns on March 4th had 86 of them falling short of the 55 percent threshold necessary for passage, nearly 70 percent. That’s a lot of data points.

Local taxes didn’t do much better. Of the 111 local tax measures proposed, voters as of March 4 were rejecting 65 of them, or nearly 60 percent. The table depicted below uses data compiled by CalTax as of March 4th. It shows that local school bonds, had all of them been accepted by voters, would have piled $18.5 billion in debt onto California’s taxpayers, more than Prop. 13.

These preliminary March 2020 election results amount to a near inversion of tax and bond approval rates compared to previous elections in California. In November 2018, November 2016, and November 2014, California’s voters were reliable supporters of local bond and tax measures. Across those three elections, voters approved local school bonds at a rate that always exceeded 80 percent, and they approved local taxes at a rate that was consistently at or close to 70 percent.

Bond are Taxes

The previously mentioned Cal Matters article suggested that voters may have confused the 2020 Prop. 13 school bond with the famous 1978 Prop. 13 which froze property taxes. “That presented an opening to philosophical opponents,” wrote author Ricardo Cano, “such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which likened the measure to a tax increase.”

First of all, the fact that the 2020 Prop. 13 had the same number as the historic 1978 “Prop. 13” might have been misleading in both directions. After all, for several decades, opponents of new taxes in California have made the centerpiece of their agenda a desire to “protect Prop. 13.” Why wouldn’t low information voters with anti-tax inclinations simply vote yes on Prop. 13 to protect it? Of course, it could be that “low information voters with anti-tax inclinations” is an oxymoron. Fair enough. But the second half of Cano’s assertion is even more debatable.

The reason the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association “likened the measure [Prop. 13] to a tax increase” is because it is a tax increase. Refer again to the above chart and consider the row “additional taxes (30 years, 5 percent interest).” Based on March 4th election results, the annual payment on just the school bonds that passed, $398 million per year, exceeds the projected annual collections on the local tax measures that passed, $316 million. How is this not taxes? Who will make these payments of principle and interest?

Late Voters Change Outcomes

As a result of California’s voters suddenly displaying a petulant reluctance to approve billions in new taxes and borrowing (also taxes), two things are certain. First, the recent measures enacted by California’s legislature to “improve turnout” and “ensure voting access” and “prevent vote suppression,” are about to bear fruit. Because a lot of these local tax and bond measures remain “too close to call.”

Back in the Pleistocene period (you know, the 20th century), California’s electorate suffered under the barbaric indignity wherein if you wanted to vote, you had to register at least six weeks ahead of time, and you voted on election day at a polling place unless you had a compelling reason to request an absentee ballot. This was based on the troglodytic assumption that people who cared enough to vote would make these simple arrangements. The problem, of course, is that responsible citizens who are capable of making these simple arrangements don’t reliably vote the way California’s unionized government bureaucrats want them to vote. As California’s unionized government tightened the screws on everyone who works for a living, responsible citizens have become increasingly disgruntled.

For this reason, California’s legislature, which for all practical purposes is under the absolute control of these unions, realized something had to be done if their insatiable desire for more money could be realized. They took it upon themselves to permit voting by ballots that are mailed anytime up until midnight on election day. They enlisted the support of that paragon of efficiency and probity, California’s Dept. of Motor Vehicles, to automatically register licensed drivers – only if eligible, of course – as voters. They implemented same day registration and voting, so they could canvas neighborhoods and campuses right up until and during election day to register voters and enable them to vote. They even legalized “ballot harvesting,” so they could go door to door and collect ballots from lazy voters who hadn’t yet voted, and deliver those ballots to a polling place for them.

Housebroken pundits do acknowledge the impact of these laws, but are too potty trained to acknowledge the negative consequences. As if the fact that legalizing these practices, and, presumably, eliminating any possible fraud that is invited by these practices, results in nothing that might be legitimately questioned. “Conservatives tend to vote early,” they’ll say, and that’s supposed to be the end of it.

The more accurate way to describe what’s now happening goes as follows: “Responsible people who bother to register to vote and turn up at a polling place on election day are also the people who pay taxes, and irresponsible people who have to be herded into casting a vote by a unionized government operative tend to be the people who do not pay taxes.” Or put another way, “early voters pay taxes, and late voters receive taxpayer funded entitlements.”

So put away the crystal ball, because everyone knows what is going to happen. Of the 38 local school bond measures that were reported as approved on March 4, there were 14, totaling $2.3 billion, that were only ahead by 3 percentage points or less. How many of those might one expect to eventually fail once all the votes are counted? Zero. Conversely, of the 86 local school bond measures that were reported as rejected as of March 4, there were also 14, totaling $1.6 billion, that were failing by 3 percentage points or less. How many of those might one expect to eventually succeed once all the votes are counted?

In the short run, Californians, thanks to efforts to goose the electorate in the name of “voter access,” may expect another billion or two in debt via school bonds, once final results are available and certified on April 10th – 38 days after the election.

In the long run, California’s legislature is doing everything it can to remake its electorate into a reliably socialist voting bloc, as they deny the lessons of history.

The other thing that is certain as a result of California’s voters becoming less willing to cooperate with their ravenous government bureaucrats is that we can expect more local tax and bond proposals in November and from now on. Far more.

To understand why this is, consider King City Union School District, in Monterey County. Their voters on March 3 had two measures to consider. Measure A will approve a $19 million bond to pay for “campus safety,” and alongside that is Measure B, which will also borrow $19 million, to “modernize classrooms.” Perchance to make these classrooms safer? As of March 4th, both were too close to call. But double your measures, double your chances.

It is redundant to cite yet again the litany of failures logged by California’s state and local governments just in the past few years, much less the accumulating long train of abuses over the past few decades. But Californians of all ages, incomes, ethnicities and genders are awakening, and alas, it isn’t the compliant, manipulable, programmable “woke” that was planned for by California’s government unions and their plutocratic partners. The next few years should be very interesting indeed.

This article originally appeared on the website of the California Globe.

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Gathered for the Feast at the Hotel California

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Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place… Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year, you can find it here…
– “Hotel California,” by the Eagles, 1977

For decades California’s aristocracy has engaged in unsustainable feasting, as they consume the leviathan carcasses of what were for a time the world’s the finest water project, freeway system, and the public universities. Living off a capital endowment that once provided abundance, the aristocrats of California have neglected all of these achievements, instead imposing scarcity on a quiescent populace.

California’s aristocrats get wealthier as they ration supplies of every necessity, from housing to water and energy, and the money they should have invested in maintaining affordable abundance goes instead into pay and pensions for their armies of usefully co-opted, unionized public servants, and entitlements for a growing underclass that votes reliably Democrat.

By now California’s so-called “up down coalition” of Democrat voters has enabled its ruling class to acquire absolute power. Meanwhile, California’s beleaguered middle class either flees to other states or continues to vote against their own interests because they think it will demonstrate their commitment to the twin Gods of “diversity” and fighting climate change. And as the old adage goes: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

California’s political economy today is set up to reward the wealthiest political insiders, destroy the hardest working middle income citizens, while expanding the ranks of the lowest income residents and pandering to them by pretending to care about wealth inequality, social “equity,” and “environmental justice.” This explains the status of California as a sanctuary state. It also explains California’s burgeoning, unaccountable homeless population.

These deplorable social conditions as well as the neglected infrastructure in California could easily be managed, but then there would be no reason to expand the unionized state, no reason to drive down private sector wages while elevating public sector wages and benefits, and fewer opportunities for the wealthiest Californians to profit from asset bubbles. This is textbook political corruption. California is a one-party banana republic, ran by a plutocracy that is looting the people’s inheritance to further enrich themselves.

The Hotel California Is Now Open on Venice Beach

In February 2020 the Venice Beach homeless “bridge housing” complex was opened for occupancy. It is a prime example of how crony capitalist corruption hides behind the mask of social justice and “inclusion.” This shelter is situated two blocks from the beach, on a three acre parcel where land is valued at $30 million per acre. This city owned land could be sold, and the proceeds could be used for shelter housing in far less expensive parts of Los Angeles County.

Instead, 154 homeless individuals are now occupying a “temporary” shelter that cost $8 million to construct, and will cost another $8 million per year to operate. Eventually, supposedly within three years, “permanent supportive housing” will be constructed on-site for these homeless – or as they are now referred to, the “unhoused” – so they can continue to live two blocks from the beaches of the Pacific on one of the most expensive pieces of real estate on earth.

This is an example of “inclusive zoning” at its most extreme. It is based on the premise that if disadvantaged people, low income people – even those struggling with mental illness or substance addictions – are brought into an affluent neighborhood, the habits and attitudes of the affluent residents will be absorbed by these less fortunate individuals, and “foster greater social and economic mobility and integration.”

The entire affordable housing policy agenda, enshrined in zoning regulations and tax incentives across America and especially in California, is susceptible to corruption. Why develop market housing, when you can get tax credits and tax exemptions if you build subsidized affordable housing. In California, the government implemented regulations and fees so punitive that they effectively rationed housing for all but the very wealthy, and now are soaking the taxpayers to subsidize “affordable housing” at an average cost of over $600,000 per unit. But why seed the most expensive parts of California’s cities with homeless shelters a cost of over $50,000 per bed?

Here where we could be seeing corruption disguised as compassion at its worst, because the easiest way to acquire tax subsidies and tax credits is if an area can be officially declared “blighted.” Once this label applies to any census tract, not only do the federal money coffers automatically open wide for redevelopment, but the local cities can declare eminent domain to force homeowners to sell their homes which are then demolished to make way for hotels, hospitals, shopping malls, and residential high-rises.

It doesn’t take much to tip the balance in a census tract to a “blighted” status, and even less to earn a score that qualifies the area for less draconian but still very lucrative tax credits and subsidies. It is based on three variables, average median income, rate of unemployment, and rate of poverty. Take a look at this map of the coastline of West Los Angeles. The census tracts are outlined with yellow lines; some of them are only a half-mile in area, only a few hundred acres in size.

Notice that large parts of Venice Beach are already shaded yellow, meaning they are “eligible” for tax incentives based on “blight.” Flip that shade from yellow to red, as has happened in Santa Monica to the immediate north, and even more tax incentives arrive. How many people with perfect scores for “blight” would it take to transform these areas?

Don’t Walk Your Dog After Dark in Venice Beach

The homeless in Venice Beach have been a growing menace to law abiding, hard working residents for years. The problem has became considerably worse in just the past year, but if you object to the presence of people smoking methamphetamine and defecating on the sidewalk in front of your home or business, apparently that means you’re a fascist, a social darwinist, and a sociopath. Never mind the fact that you and your spouse may both be working overtime to pay a mortgage, or that you have young children you want to keep safe.

Now that the Hotel California “bridge housing” is officially opened up, a new breed of homeless have arrived on the scene. As if the nonstop distribution of shit on Venice’s sidewalks and syringes on the local lawns wasn’t bad enough, eyewitness accounts offer lurid details of local women now being aggressively followed and harassed by gangs of young men who correctly identified this new “shelter” as a place where they can get free meals and free overnight accommodations.

Common sense would suggest that if the civic authorities had the slightest respect for the residents, this shelter would have a curfew, and would not admit intoxicated individuals. But the opposite is the case. Out of respect for the human rights and dignity of the “unhoused,” Venice Beach’s Hotel California is a “wet” shelter, meaning that any time of day or night you can stagger in as stoned or smashed as you wish, get some sleep or a free meal, then leave again.

Exactly how is something like this not expected to pull even more of the “unhoused” to make Venice Beach their free home? They have everything they need – free food, free shelter, freedom of movement, “tolerance” of their “lifestyle,” and no accountability. But in a census tract of only a few blocks, a facility of 150 people without jobs (perfect score on “unemployment rate”), without income (ditto), and clearly living in poverty, watch out. Blight, and with that, eminent domain by the City of Los Angeles, could swiftly follow.

Inclusive zoning, California style, includes the practice of redistributing poverty to make certain neighborhoods blighted and low income, so that developers, working closely with the city bureaucrats, can use major federal financing incentives and eminent domain to completely demolish previously intact neighborhoods where residents invested their lives and fortunes to call home.

The ideal underlying inclusive zoning is overtly communist. It suggests that everyone has a right to live anywhere they want, and that private property rights are a manifestation of privilege and oppression as much as hard work. What great irony that this seductive siren call is a useful tool in the hands of political cronies and profiteers.

And so California continues its descent into madness. At least, down in Venice Beach, one may get out as well as get into the Hotel California. But what incentive might prompt anyone want to do that? From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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The Humanity of a Fetus

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From Louisiana, to Missouri, to Texas — Republican legislatures are waging war on women — all women. And they’re taking away fundamental rights. I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.
– Senator Chuck Schumer, D, New York, March 4, 2020

Wading into the abortion debate is a perilous undertaking, but Senator Schumer’s recent incendiary remarks cannot be ignored. Leaders of the Democratic party, like Senator Schumer, are engaging in what is perhaps the most despicable form of pandering imaginable. To appease a militant fringe of nihilistic, self-absorbed “pro-choice” fanatics, they are willing to legalize murder. And as Schumer demonstrates, now they are even willing to threaten anyone who may object.

Most people can agree there is a difference between consuming a morning after pill and performing a late-term abortion. The former, however hideous it may be from a religious and moral perspective, is clearly more humane than the latter, which by any objective standard is killing a human being.

New York, a bastion of Democrat power and Senator Schumer’s home state, recently passed a law permitting “late term abortions.” Specifically, it permits abortions after 24 weeks if there is “an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life of health.”

Let’s not even speculate as to how subjective the assessment of “fetal viability” or “patient’s life or health” may be. That’s legitimate fodder for endless debate. But what about a perfectly normal fetus that’s 24 weeks old? What sort of a human being is that? It’s certainly more than a lump of barely differentiated cells that can be terminated in the first few days after conception, so what is it? To answer that, the following story is enlightening.

The Rescuing Hug

In 1995, two twins, Kyrie and Brielle Jackson, were premature infants. Born after only 24 weeks in the womb, both girls had health problems and were placed in separate incubators. One of them, Brielle, went into critical condition, and in desperation, against hospital protocol, nurse Gayle Kasparian moved the stronger twin into the same incubator with her dying sister. And then something miraculous happened.

The stronger twin, Kyrie, put her arm around Brielle, and suddenly Brielle’s temperature returned to normal, and her heart rate stabilized. These two girls are now healthy young women leading normal lives.

Chuck Schumer, and every other pandering Democrat, is invited to imagine what was going on in the mind of that human being, only 24 weeks after conception. Here was this little person, physically struggling to stay alive, missing the companion who had been by her side for her entire limited existence. She was alone, unable to understand why, and she was dying. And then her twin was returned to her side, and her world regained some of the comfort she’d been accustomed to. She got stronger. She lived.

This is not the story of a bundle of nonviable cells. This is the story of a person. This is the person that Chuck Schumer and every other extremist “pro choice” advocate has decided it’s ok to kill for no reason apart from being unwanted by the mother.

Even if you support the Roe vs Wade decision, it did not give anyone the right to murder. What it hinged upon, right or wrong, was the “viability” of the fetus. And “viability” is on a collision course with technology. In 2014, Courtney Stensrud gave birth to an infant girl in Texas after only 21 weeks of pregnancy. That baby is now a healthy five year old, with no mental or health disabilities.

Everyone knows that extremely premature infants can suffer extreme health challenges, and that many of them don’t survive long after being born. That’s not the point. What matters is that a 24 week old fetus is a human being, with thoughts and feelings, capable of feeling a sense of identity, capable of giving and receiving companionship. Argue all you like over where to draw the line of “viability.” But don’t pretend that aborting a normal 24 week old fetus isn’t murder.

The Stunning Hypocrisy

One of the reasons Democrats are willing to defend killing babies in the womb is because if these babies are born, they may end up leading problematic lives, trapped in poverty, raised by unwilling parents, facing a life of discrimination, ineligible for the entitlements or privileges that our society is unwilling or unable to afford. Yet these same Democrats insist that Americans open the borders to flood the cities with economic refugees from all over the world.

The only way to explain this paradox is to understand the common motivation, which is crass political opportunism. In the case of being “pro-choice,” Democrats want to defend laws that place few if any restrictions on abortion, because that helps them tag Republicans as waging a “war on women,” as if to recognize the humanity of a fetus somehow equates to misogyny.

In the case of immigration, Democrats call for open borders because that helps them tag Republicans as “racists” and “xenophobes,” as if it constitutes unforgivable bigotry to recognize reality: America can’t possibly absorb the billion or so people who would come here from elsewhere.

If the press and the social media monopolies weren’t overwhelmingly partisan in favor of Democrats, the extremists who think aborting a 24 week old fetus is a “human right” would be exposed for their cold blooded inhumanity. Have a look at these videos published by the Campaign for Life Coalition. Then go try to find them on YouTube.

When politicians like Chuck Schumer descend so low as to issue veiled threats of violence against sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justices, it’s time for everyone to speak out, not just pro-life advocates. Those of us who recognize the humanity of the fetus may still be able to acknowledge that, in some respects at least, there is a legal case to be made by pro-choice advocates. But we reserve our respect and empathy for those who choose life.

Senator Schumer is encouraged to avoid making those of us who have stayed out of the abortion debate have to pick one extreme or the other. Because if and when that happens, it will be Senator Schumer, and every other phony political hack who panders to the pro-choice extremists, who reaps the whirlwind.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Carbon Fundamentalists and War With China

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Throughout America and Europe, there are now fanatical millions who believe CO2 emissions are an existential crisis of planetary proportions. This terrifies them. What is frightening to the rest of us is how easily they are manipulated.

Witness the ease with which opportunists direct the passions of this mob. Examples are endless and span the political spectrum, from corporate and financial special interests reaping obscene profits via mandated “green” products and “carbon emissions trading markets,” to stone cold communists riding through the gates of Western Democracies inside the Trojan Horse of environmentalism.

Could climate fanatics be motivated to support World War Three in the name of saving the planet? Why not? Wouldn’t you do whatever it takes to stop the people who are causing the end of the world? These climate crusaders already consider people who question the “climate emergency” to be “deniers,” and tens of thousands of them are already militants, willing to move beyond rhetoric. Meanwhile, filthy rich establishment grandees (example: Al Gore) nod and wink, and cash in on the madness.

The origins of “carbon fundamentalism” can be traced back to the end of the Cold War. In 1995, writing for International Affairs, Deepak Lai may have been the first to coin the term “Eco-fundamentalism.” Lai characterizes this “secular religious movement” as attempting to “impose constraints upon non-Western countries’ economic development in the name of environmental protection,” and claims this could eventually lead to a bloody conflict between the West and the rest of the world’s nations.

In 2006, The Globalist published a very brief critique entitled “The New Religion of Eco-Fundamentalism,” identifying three dangers of passionate environmentalism: First, the rhetoric had become extreme – even back then! Second, the movement is “hostile to capitalism and the market economy.” Third, and most profound, this is “the worst time to abandon our own traditions of reason and tolerance, and to embrace instead the irrationality and intolerance of eco-fundamentalism, where reasoned questioning of its mantras is regarded as a form of blasphemy.”

It wasn’t until 2008 that “carbon fundamentalism” was specifically called out as a dangerous new form of extremism. Appearing in Greenbiz and entitled “The Dangerous Rise of Carbon Fundamentalism,” the author expressed reservations about the reframing of climate change debate, wherein “academics who disagree about interpretation of data are [now] compared to Hitler or to Holocaust deniers.” As he put it, “one does not debate Hitler.”

Nor, moving to the present, can anyone who questions “climate change” be allowed public debate. For example, in September 2018, the BBC announced their intention to censor any reports by climate skeptics. Similarly, search Google under the term “climate skeptics.” Instead of finding “climate skeptics,” all you’ll find are websites “debunking” climate skepticism. These conscious attempts to stifle debate are terrible mistakes. More than ever, now should be the time for people to look for hidden agendas and ignored evidence on both sides of this debate over climate change; the scope, the causes, and the proposed policies we support as a result.

Carbon Fundamentalists and Chinese Expansion

By now the tactics of the carbon fundamentalists and the eclectic gang of political and corporate puppeteers who manipulate them are well established. Massive indoctrination in school, persistent attempts at fomenting panic in the media, protests and “direct action” around the world. We could be one big weather event away from seeing violent physical attacks on outspoken “deniers.” But what about the biggest offender of all, the entire nation of China?

China’s total CO2 emissions overtook the U.S. in 2007. By 2018, China’s total CO2 emissions became greater than the U.S. and Europe’s combined. The American press has taken notice. In between their alarmist coverage of hurricanes and tornadoes and their obsession with the Trump administration’s inadequate response to the climate crisis, they cover China. Sometimes the coverage is only obliquely holding the Chinese responsible, but other reports are becoming more critical.

In August 2019, Reuters circulated an article entitled “China CO2 emission targets at risk from U.S. trade war,” with the implication being that China is trying to cut their emissions, but we’re making that difficult because we’re finally challenging their corrupt trade practices. In February 2020, Bloomberg Green published an article entitled “China’s Virus Clampdown Is Cutting Emissions, But Not for Long,” focusing primarily on the virus, but making ominous reference to China’s rising CO2 emissions.

And then there’s the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s effort to build infrastructure around the globe, while simultaneously sinking financial and military hooks into the nations that participate. Notwithstanding the fact that America’s half-trillion dollar per year trade deficit with China is paying for this, there has been a flurry of articles bemoaning the impact all this infrastructure may have on the climate. From the Yale Press, February 2020, “The potential climate consequences of China’s Belt and Roads Initiative.” From Eco-Business, September 2019, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative could lead to 3°C global warming, report warns.” From Brookings, April 2019, “The critical frontier: Reducing emissions from China’s Belt and Road.”

As tensions with China rise, these articles will make their way from academic journals and green trade publications into the New York Times and ABC Nightly “News.” And when that happens, will it really be about the climate? Or will it merely be the next turn of the ratchet, as two civilizations prepare to collide?

You can believe, as many informed skeptics do, that more atmospheric CO2 is actually a net benefit to both planetary ecosystems and human civilization. But even so, this doesn’t excuse China’s shameful failure to regulate all the rest of the filth pouring out of their smokestacks and polluting the world around them – CO2 may be good, it may be bad, but atmospheric SO2, NO2, CO and O3 are all bad.

A geopolitical reckoning with China is inevitable. China’s regime isn’t smiley face fascism, or soft fascism. Hiding behind deception and a blizzard of money to buy positive press, China today has a full blown fascist regime of the German Nazi variety; racist, nationalist, militaristic, expansionist.

The litany of repressive evil and high-tech enslavement practiced by the Chinese regime is well documented. None of the nations surrounding China welcome its growing influence. The people who support China, or apologize for China – from universities in America to political forums in the Philippines  – are almost invariably getting paid by China.

There is a great irony at work here. On one hand, America’s embrace of carbon fundamentalism undermines everything that makes America great – economic freedom, economic growth, land development, energy development, expansion and upgrades of critical infrastructure, and even freedom of speech and tolerance for diverse opinions. This benefits China, since none of these concerns slow them down. But on the other hand, it might eventually be carbon fundamentalism that drives Americans to support a blockade of China, rationing its access to fossil fuel. Needless to say, this would not benefit China.

How fascinating that carbon fundamentalism might actually be the latest expression of Western imperialism, relentlessly thwarting the aspirations of non-Western nations, allegedly to save the planet. But when it comes to relations with China, carbon fundamentalism merely adds additional moral vigor – misplaced or not – to the case for Western Imperialism to counter Eastern Imperialism. With China, the options are containment, capitulation, or war.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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