The Rise of the Metrosexual

I first heard the term "metrosexual" when my daughters were living in Arlington, Virginia. about 15 years ago.

If you are not familiar with the term, here is a New York Times description of a metrosexual and the rise of that genre on the cultural landscape.

Picture this: a young, professional male who loves tailored shirts, $40 face cream, wine bars and shopping with friends — and he’s not gay! I know, stop the presses. But 15 years ago, metrosexuals were news, and a gold mine for marketers.

Here are a couple of images that came up on Google when I typed in "metrosexual man".

Credit:
Wikipedia

Credit: SpringAir-Textile.net

How did I get interested in writing about "metrosexuals"?

I happened across a tweet by a woman on Twitter who was questioning why she saw so many women around her who were dating men they could share jeans with.

It seems she found her answer in credible research that indicates that women on birth control over long periods of time are more likely to choose less masculine men.

Being a curious guy, I checked out the research and it seems there is something to what she says.

This is an excerpt from a Scientific American article on the subject written in 2008.

This year 2.25 million Americans will get married—and a million will get divorced. Could birth control be to blame for some of these breakups? Recent research suggests that the contraceptive pill—which prevents women from ovulating by fooling their body into believing it is pregnant—could affect which types of men women desire. Going on or off the pill during a relationship, therefore, may tempt a woman away from her man.

It’s all about scent. Hidden in a man’s smell are clues about his major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which play an important role in immune system surveillance. Studies suggest that females prefer the scent of males whose MHC genes differ from their own, a preference that has probably evolved because it helps offspring survive: couples with different MHC genes are less likely to be related to each other than couples with similar genes are, and their children are born with more varied MHC profiles and thus more robust immune systems.

In other words, a woman who is not on the pill is generally going to be more attracted to a mate.  that complements her and satisfies her more on a physical level.

A woman on the pill (which mimics the hormonal changes in the body associated with pregnancy) seems to be attracted more to people with similar genetic makeup--nurturing relatives for example.

Therefore, a woman who selects a man while on the pill may be making the wrong selection for the long term. It may eventually feel like she married her brother ( or someone resembling her sister) rather than a soul mate.

The Atlantic also did an article on this subject in 2013 citing research from Scotland that found that women on birth control pills prefer less masculine men.

This is how the article describes the results of the research that gave women the ability to digitally alter images to make them more attractive to themselves.

After beginning a regimen of hormonal birth control, the women's ideal of attractiveness in a potential romantic partner skewed significantly less masculine. They were more likely, for example, to prefer narrower jawbones and rounder faces. These preferences appear to translate to real life decisions: the men whose partners had been on the pill when they first started dating were found, as a whole, to be less masculine-looking.

The article concluded that it might actually be advisable for young masculine men on dating sites to digitally alter their face and features to make themselves more attractive to the many young women who may well be on the pill.

It all goes to show you that there are unseen effects every time we try to mess with Mother Nature.

It is also pretty clear to me that there would have been no rise in metrosexuals if there was no market for what these guys are selling. There would be few metrosexual men and guys sharing jeans with their girlfriends if they could not get a date on Saturday night.

Make no mistake. When it comes to basic biology there is a lot of marketing going on with both genders. There always has been and it will always be. It is all about attraction. And it appears that women on the pill are more likely to be attracted to what metrosexuals are selling. They are dating men who then can share their jeans because the birth control pill has fooled their genes.

Who knew what caused the rise of the metrosexual?

Now you do.

I Hope You Enjoyed The 4th of July

I hope you enjoyed the 4th of July.

Based on what is transpiring in this country it may not be too much longer before we don't celebrate the holiday any longer.

There seems to be a determined minority who want to denigrate, diminish and deny America's greatness.

They don't want to celebrate America. They only want to criticize and condemn  it.

To be sure, some of this has to do with the fact that they do not like the current President of the United States.

However, I did not care for the manner in which Barack Obama governed the country but I never doubted America or demeaned it.

What I find most interesting is the selective manner they use to exhibit their outrage.

For example, take the recent decision by Nike to recall new patriotic shoes that were adorned with the so-called Betsy Ross flag. This was the first American flag used during the Revolutionary War.

Nike spokesman Colin Kaepernick reportedly urged Nike to recall the shoes because "he and others consider it an offensive symbol due to its connection to a time when slavery was legal".

Credit: The Wall Street Journal

If that is the case where was Kaepernick when Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2013 and the Betsy Ross flag was right behind the podium in which he took the oath of office for a second term?

Credit: @DavidMartosko

Similarly, there have been many who have criticized the 4th of July parade and festivities that President Trump presided over in Washington, D.C. this year. It seems that they were upset with the military presence, the aircraft flyovers and the tanks on display as evidence of a totalitarian country. I guess it never occurred to them that it might have something to do with simply honoring our freedom and the veterans and military that have made it possible. That sounds like something that should be done on Independence Day.

Does anyone really think we would have our independence and freedom without that military presence and might?

Again, why are these people also not upset with Democrat legends Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy?

FDR Inaugural Parade

JFK Inaugural Parade

Underlying all of this is a troubling narrative that is being promoted by prominent players on the liberal left that calls into question whether it is appropriate to honor and celebrate the United States of America.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, “America was never that great.” Former Attorney General Eric Holder told us the “notion of greatness” hearkens back to “an American past that never existed.” Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is running to lead a nation that he said “was never as great as advertised.”

Of course, who can forget this famous statement by Michelle Obama when her husband gained the Democrat nomination for President in 2008.

"For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country..."

That sentiment seems to be shared by many liberals. The only time they were half-way proud of the country was during the eight years of Obama's presidency. Everything before and after is something that Americans needs to be ashamed of.

The New York Times celebrated Independence Day this year by producing a video that proclaims that it is a myth that America is, or ever was, the greatest nation on earth. The United States is nothing better than merely OK.

This leads me to ask why then are people literally dying to come here, and why is that those that make these types of statements never leave, if everything about the greatness of America is a myth?

Most troubling is that this negative attitude about the United States is seeping down into the masses. During my lifetime, with the exception of a few years in the Vietnam War era, it would be hard to find many who would say they were not extremely proud to be an American.

That is no longer the case.

Gallup released a survey this week that shows that just 70% of all Americans say they are proud of their country. Only 45% state that they are extremely proud.

Compare the percentages that are  "extremely proud" between Democrats and Republicans.

Just 22% of Democrats are extremely proud versus 76% of Republicans. That GOP number also has little to do with who is President. It averaged in the mid-70's during the Obama administration. Even with Obama as President, barely 50% of Democrats were extremely proud of their country.

Here is a breakdown of the answers to that Gallup polling question by different groups.

How proud are you to be an American?

Liberals            21%

Democrats       22% 
   
Ages 18-29      24%

Ages  65+        63%

Conservatives  70%

Republican       76%

Credit: Gallup Survey, 2019

I hope you enjoyed the 4th of July.

Those numbers suggest that this holiday may one day be considered as offensive and odious as those Nike sneakers.

Checking All The Boxes

There are 25 candidates now seeking the Democrat nomination for President.

Former Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA) is the latest to announce.

If this was major league baseball the Democrats would have reached the roster limit. If someone else announces does that mean that someone has to be sent down to the minors or released?

I don't know who is going to win the Democrat nomination for President but I believe I know who the Establishment Democrats and Mainstream Media are backing.

You can expect that candidate to receive the most glowing reviews and the candidate who will get the most protection from the media.

Her name is Kamala Harris.

Credit: Politico.com

Why do I say that?

For Democrats, she is the candidate that checks the most boxes. When I refer to Democrats in this instance I am talking about the Democrat establishment and the media that amplifies their message. I am not talking about voters.

✓ Not too old or too young.
Harris is 52. It is hard to imagine that the Democrats want to nominate someone like Biden, Sanders or Warren who are all over age 70. The Democrats have traditionally fielded the younger candidates for President. It is also hard to believe that the Democrats would be comfortable nominating one of the under-40 group of Buttigieg, Gabbard or Swalwell. Harris is right in the sweet spot on age.

✓ She is a woman.
Democrats are heavily dependent on the women's vote. They particularly need to turn out the vote for young women and single women. The defeat of Hillary Clinton and the opportunity to have the first woman President was a tremendous disappointment for many women. The Democrats clearly want to have a woman leading the ticket in 2020. Harris checks that box.

 ✓ She is a minority.
Harris is the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father. Harris identifies as an African-American which has caused some to question how valid that characterization is. Her background gets more complicated when it is considered that her father's grandmother was reportedly the product of a man who was a slave owner in Jamaica and Harris spent a great deal of her childhood in Canada. In a Democrat primary race against two old white guys, and a white woman who for 35 years claimed she was an American Indian, you can't underestimate how attractive that makes Harris as a candidate. She may be hard to classify but she clearly is a minority candidate.

✓ She is the child of two immigrants
As I mentioned above, Harris the child of a mother who immigrated from India who was a research scientist and a father who immigrated from Jamaica who was an economist. Her parents were both pursuing graduate degrees at UC-Berkeley and met while participating in protests and demonstrations on campus during the 1960's. A child of two immigrants and liberal activists to boot? It does not get any better than that for a Democrat primary candidate in 2019/2020. It also makes for a compelling counter-narrative to President Trump's immigration views.

✓ She is a California liberal.
In the primary it helps to be from California because that state will have the most delegate votes at the Democrat convention. California has 495 delegate votes. That is nearly twice as many as the next state. California has also moved its primary date up to March 3 which is much earlier in the process than it has been in the past. Harris should be at an advantage if she can survive the early primaries. She also probably has the best chance to benefit from the large amount of California donors that make up the core of Democrat fundraising.

Harris is not just a liberal, she is a California liberal. That means she is generally much further left than most other Democrats. In a year in which it seems that being far left is important, Harris is unquestionably much further left than most other candidates . For example, the left wing website ProgressivePunch.org ranks Harris as the third most liberal U.S. Senator, trailing only Ed Markey (D-MA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Credit: ProgressivePunch.org

 


GovTrack.US ranked Harris as the fourth most liberal U.S. Senator in 2018. This chart graphically shows just how far left Harris is compared to her Senate colleagues.

Credit: www.govtrack.us

 


Kamala Harris checks all the boxes the Democrat operatives and the media want.

She is sure to get a lot of favorable press and favorable endorsements as we move forward.

However, will Democrat primary voters buy what she is selling?

More importantly, does Kamala Harris have the ability to get blue collar Democrats and Independents to support her progressive, far left agenda against Donald Trump in the general election?

Kamala Harris checks a lot of the boxes that we hear are important for Democrats.

There is only one box that matters in the end.

Can she get voters to check the most important box?

It does not matter what the consultants, power brokers, office holders, donors, pundits and mainstream media want. Donald Trump proved that.

The voters control the only check mark that counts.

Kamala Harris promises to have a lot of wind at her back. Can it push her over the finish line in the end?

Don't Trust Those Who Can't See What Should Be Seen

I have always believed that a fundamental difference between a Democrat and Republican is how they view the world. Democrats see the world in much more theoretical and idealistic terms. Republicans tend to be more practical and pragmatic in their outlook.

Democrats want policy solutions based on how they think the world should work in theory. Republicans favor policies based on how the world really works in practice.

Democrats generally confine themselves solely to visible effects.  They seem to consider only first-level effects and ignore everything else that might flow from that. All of their focus is on what they see in front on them. They ignore the unseen issues. Republicans, on the other hand, are considering both the immediate effects and second-level effects. The seen and the unseen.  Especially the unseen effects which should be foreseen.

A few examples that I have written about previously.

Welfare-  Democrats can't do enough to help the people in need that they see.  Food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid, long-term unemployment assistance.  It is natural to want to help people who need the help.  However, what about the unseen problem that in all of this we may also be creating a cycle of dependency?  In the end our compassion may end up feeding the problem rather than solving it.

Abortion- A woman who is pregnant is seen and known. An unborn baby is unseen and unknown for most Democrats. We see the life affected today with that pregnancy. The life of that baby's future and their potential is unseen.

Gun control-  A person with a gun who uses it in a horrific crime is seen.  Democrats see that. However, unseen are the millions of guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans as well as the thousands of crimes that may have been deterred by that fact .

We can see this playing out right now in the immigration chaos on the southern border.

We historically had very few children arriving at our southern border either alone or with adults. Most illegal immigrants were single adults. Many were men looking for work.

That all changed right after Barack Obama implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order  (DACA) in June, 2012. (I am sure that it was just a coincidence this was done right before the 2012 election.)

This chart by Pew shows that after Obama put DACA in place the number of children apprehended at our southern border started trending upwards. The number of single adults dropped and the number of family units and unaccompanied children rose. People clearly saw the policy and believed that they had a chance to get taken care of as well.

Obama may not have seen it at the time he did DACA but we surely see it now.

Of course, as I also pointed out in my recent post on "The Indefatigable Donald Trump", this trend turned into an explosion once people also started to believe that President Trump was serious about building a wall and closing the border.

How can anyone look at this chart and not admit that we are in the midst of a full-fledged invasion on that southern border right now?

This all ought to be a lesson to anyone proposing any major changes in policy that they should be carefully considering the seen, but the unseen effects, as well.

Where do I see real risk in unseen effects with some of the popular Democrat policy proposals?

Let's take Medicare for All.

All of the Democrats seem to assume the underlying health care system will continue just as it is today if they were to move to a Medicare for All system.

However, what if doctors decide that they don't want to continue working in that system? You might not realize it but Medicare only pays doctors and hospitals about 60% of what private insurance pays.

I have talked to several doctors recently who told me that they would likely retire if Medicare for All is implemented. They are close to, or already at retirement age, but they still enjoy making a contribution as well as getting paid for it. The same calculus would not apply for them under Medicare for All.

The average U.S. doctor makes about 5 times the average wage in the United States.

Compare that to what general practitioner physicians earn in other countries that some Democrats say should be models for our healthcare system.

Australia   1.7x
Canada      1.8x
France       2.1x
Norway     1.8x
UK             3.6x

Make no mistake, doctor and nursing pay would be significantly squeezed in a Medicare for All world. In some Democrat proposals, doctors and nurses would actually become government salaried employees. It is likely many hospitals would have to close.

Consider as well the age distribution of physicians in the United States. Nearly half are 55 years of age or older.

Do you see an unseen problem?

What would the Democrats do if tens of thousands physicians decided to retire rather than keep working under a Medicare for All model? Pass a law requiring them to work? Wait times to get medical care would clearly increase substantially as doctor shortages quickly became evident. Bear in mind that, even without any "unseen" effects from Medicare for All, it is projected there will be a 120,000 doctor shortage by 2030 according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Let's also look at the proposal to forgive student loan debt or provide free college to everyone.

As I have written before, it is not hard to predict that those who sacrificed and paid for college would be unhappy about seeing others have their debts cancelled while they got nothing for their hard work and effort. I can foresee problems galore with that.

To begin with, only about 1 in 3 adults in the United States went to college and they generally are making less money than those that went to college. How is it fair to tax them in order to forgive college debts.

Of course, Bernie Sanders will tell people he is taxing Wall Street. However, who will really pay that tab? The tax is actually on financial transactions. Wall Street is just a middle man. The cost burden will fall on those who own 401k's, mutual funds, IRA's and use bonds to finance capital investment. In other words, Mr. and Mrs. America. What happens if that tax on transactions means that a lot less transactions take place? You might very well destroy the capital markets and have little revenue to show for it.

Every effect has other effects. Nothing stays the same when you introduce different incentives and penalties to the system.

What else could be wrong about free college?

Have you ever thought how much GI benefits mean to recruiting enlisted personnel for our armed forces? We have a voluntary military and one of the real benefits recruiters have at their disposal is offering recruits GI Bill benefits that can provide as much as $50,000 in tuition assistance for as little as two years of service.

I could not find a reliable number on what percentage of enlisted personnel are motivated to join the military based on the promise of these benefits.

However, the Congressional Budget Office reported recently that $65 billion was spent on GI college benefits between 2010-2016 for 1.6 million beneficiaries.

In that there are about 1.3 million active duty personnel right now you can see that a substantial number of veterans must have been motivated to enlist, in part, due to the GI benefits.

What happens to the all-voluntary military if college is free and those who are now enlisting to pay for college don't have to do that anymore?

Do you see an unseen problem?

Could we soon have to bring back the military draft to maintain force readiness?

Have the Democrats thought of this?

Everything is always going to be wonderful in the theoretical mind of a liberal Democrat.

They see a problem and they have a ready solution to solve the problem they think they see.

However, every problem that is seen has a series of untold effects that are unseen.

It is these effects that the Democrats never seem to see... or even consider.

Trump +4

The focus is on the Democrat debates this week as I wrote about in my last post. I thought I would also provide some thoughts on where I believe Donald Trump stands now that he has officially announced he is running for re-election.

There have been a lot of polls out recently that are telling us that Donald Trump will be a one term President.

Fox News had a poll last week with Trump down 10 to Biden and down 9 to Sanders

Quinnipiac had similar numbers for Trump against Biden and Sanders and showed him down 8 to Kamala Harris and 7 to Elizabeth Warren.

What do I make of all this?

Not much. We are still almost a year and a half from the election.

In the last cycle most pollsters did not have it even close the day before the election.

I am much more interested in analyzing fundamentals right now than looking at polls.

What do I mean?

At this point four years ago Donald Trump had just announced his candidacy ( June 16, 2015).

Four years ago this week Trump was favored by only 3.2% of GOP in the Real Politics polling average.

Let's look at the fundamentals. All of these suggest that Trump is in a much better place right now than he was four years ago when it was generally assumed he had no chance.

Incumbency
Trump is President and history suggests that incumbents have a built-in advantage.

The Economy 
Incumbents are particularly difficult to beat if the economy is good. As I pointed out in an earlier post, an incumbent President has not lost one time in the last 100 years when there was no recession in the two previous years before the election.

Money
Four years ago Trump was self financing his campaign and had to defeat 16 other GOP rivals for the nomination. He never was able to tap into traditional Republican money sources for the general election. He ended spending half the money that Hillary Clinton did in the general election campaign.

This time is altogether different. Trump will have access to those GOP money sources. His campaign has also demonstrated it is very good at raising money from small donors.

For example, Trump raised $30 million in the first quarter, 2019. The average donation was just $34.26. 98.79% of the donations were from people who gave less than $200! That is better than Bernie Sanders has ever done with small donors.

Trump raised a staggering $24.8 million in the 24 hours immediately after he officially announced his re-election campaign. No Democrat candidate raised $20 million in the entire first quarter.

It should be remembered as well that this is all before the Trump campaign starts going after large donors.

Trump looks like he will have an enormous financial war chest

He will also likely only have token opposition in the primaries so he will not have to spend as much as his Democrat rivals do either.

Solid Base
It is very difficult for any candidate to win if they do not have a solid base of support from within their own party. Being an outsider, Trump had a challenge in getting the base behind him four years ago. Ultimately, he got the votes he needed but he took office in a vulnerable position as many GOP officeholders held him at a distance as did many traditional conservatives.

Most of that opposition has faded. Trump has won over most of his detractors. Trump's approval rating with Republican voters has consistently been around 90%.

There were many traditional Republicans who were very unsure about voting for Trump in 2016. I personally talked to a half dozen friends who did not know if they could vote for Trump in the days leading up to the election. I asked them what the alternative was? In the end, most told me they held their nose and voted for him.

Where are they today? I have not talked to one of them who is disappointed in Trump's performance. Yes, they still complain about his antics, and his use of Twitter, but every one of them says he has vastly exceeded their expectations.

I think that has to be true of almost all of his voters. Where are the people who voted for him who would not do it again? Again, there may be voters who do not his behavior or the way he acts as President. However, they knew that when they voted the last time. There is nothing new here. At the same time, the things he said he would do, he has done. There has been no bait and switch.

Trump got 63 million votes the last time. If he is going to lose, you have to find people who voted for him and think  it was a mistake. I am not sure how many people there are like that out there.

Energy
It is hard to win elections if your supporters are not energized about your candidacy. It is also hard to win if the candidate lacks energy.

Trump still has both and I have yet to see a Democrat candidate who can match that energy on either dimension.

I continue to be amazed that Trump can fill arenas like he does. I am also amazed at the energy and stamina that he brings to the job. I don't know how anyone can say that Trump does not work hard at what he does.

Out From The Shadows
Four years ago you had very few people who would admit in polite company that they were Trump supporters. Yes, he filled arenas and you saw a lot of yard signs in rural areas but you did not generally see these things in typical Republican suburban locales.

I see that changing from four years ago. The "silent" voters from four years ago may be much more visible this time in telling people they support Trump.

Inroads With Minorities
I said above that I don't necessarily trust polls at this point. However, it is hard to ignore some of the polls that show Trump has made significant improvement in his approval rating with African American and Hispanic voters. For example, in a recent Quinnipiac poll 30% of Black voters and 55% of Hispanic voters said they were better off under Trump than they were before he was elected.
Those are huge numbers coming from voters that Trump and other Republicans have had a hard time in attracting support from in the past.

We are a long way from November 3, 2020. However, when you analyze the fundamentals, Donald Trump is in a much better and stronger position than four years ago.

Biden +9? Sanders +8?

Those are hard to believe when you analyze the facts.

Trump +4 looks awfully good.

The polls might not show that number but Donald Trump is in an infinitely better position than he was four years ago when you look at the fundamentals.

Enjoy The Show

The first debates for the Democrats seeking that party's nomination for President are this week.

20 out of 23 announced candidates have qualified to appear at the debates. This means that there were will be two nights of debates with 10 candidates appearing each night.

USA Today's graphic nicely shows the lineup for each night.

These are the three candidates that did not qualify for the debate stage based on the DNC rules.

The candidates were assigned to each night randomly from two categories---those polling greater than 2% and those polling less to insure that there is equal representation of polling leaders and laggers on each night. That may have been the intent but 4 of the top 5 in recent polls (Biden, Sanders, Harris and Buttigieg) ended up together on Thursday, June 27. This was done to avoid a "kid's table" debate but it appears that is where Elizabeth Warren ended up. It remains to be seen whether that will help or hurt her.

I think debates are very valuable as they are the first real chance that most voters have to really see, hear and evaluate the candidates.

Some of the people on that debate stage are well known but most voters probably have never seen them outside of a 10 second news bite or their picture on the internet.

Little known names have become big-time once they got to the debate stage. Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are good examples.

Big names have also fallen hard in the glaring lights. Look no further than Jeb "Low Energy" Bush.

I have no doubt that one or two of these candidates will get a major boost from the debates due to their performance.

It is also more than likely that one of those near the top of the pack may find the debates will mark the beginning of the end for their campaign.

The biggest challenge for the Democrats generally is to sell themselves to primary voters while still being able to attract mainstream voters in the general election.

This has been an issue for Democrats and Republicans alike in past elections but it appears to be a particular problem for Democrats this year with the hard left-turn the party faithful have taken.

With the candidates running so hard to the left will it be impossible to convince mainstream voters to vote for them in November, 2020?

I recently came across an interesting graph that illustrates the problem.

As the graph illustrates, voters who participate in primary elections are decidedly more partisan than other voters. This is true for voters in both parties. Those who vote in primaries are much more partisan and ideological than general election voters.

The further left on this scale the more liberal you are. The further right the more conservative.

The height of the lines represents the number of voters.

Note how primary voters of both parties spread ideologically left and right as you would expect.

However, independents or non-primary voters of both parties cluster around the middle. In fact, the greatest number of non-primary voters for both parties are almost the same ideologically as Independents.

Notice as well that Independents are actually a little right of center. They are not directly in the middle. They lean a little right. Democrat non-primary voters are almost right on the center line ideologically. That is a long way from what many Democrat candidate appear to be selling right now.

In some ways this graph explains why Donald Trump won the Republican primary and also won the general election. Part of that was due to the fact that he had positions on some big issues like trade and foreign policy that were not what were considered "conservative" positions. His strong position on immigration and protecting American jobs also helped with those middle of the road Democrat voters.

He won because he was able to retain a strong core of ideological Republicans to his cause but also broadened his voting bloc with Independents and Democrats that were not ideological firebrands. As noted above, there are a lot of Democrats voters in that category.

You are likely to see one Democrat after another on that stage spend all of their time trying to appeal to those left-wing Democrat primary voters. However, with each word they risk losing those Democrats and Independents in the middle that they need to win the general election.

Here is another graph from The Economist that is interesting in that it shows the distribution of ideology of House primary candidates by party since 1980. We often hear that the widening gap in ideology between the parties is a reason little can get done in Washington any more. As you can see, Republicans have moved a little right since Reagan. Democrats have moved massively to the left.

If you wonder where the divide we have today comes from, look no further than this graph.

If I was advising one of the long shot candidates like Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet or Tim Ryan, who are not as well known and who do not have the same high profile liberal reputations as others, I would urge them to be be contrarians on some of the standard Democrat issues of the day. Come out strong for law and order, national security and a secure border. Show support for stronger trade deals. Have a more nuanced view of abortion. In other words, they might end up sounding a lot like Barack Obama did in 2008.

They are not going to stand out saying the same things as everyone else on that stage. Donald Trump understood that better than anyone.

These debates could be the launching pad for the Democrats to capture the White House. Or they may ultimately lead to the Democrats becoming nothing more than a fringe, regional party that only appeals to large urban and special interest voting blocs.

Bring out the popcorn and enjoy the show.

However, if you are sitting anywhere near the middle or right of center in the audience, I would not expect to get much eye contact from those on the stage.

Water, Waste and the World

In my last post I wrote about form and substance in politics.

Form always seems to be preferred over substance in politics.

Barack Obama was all about form. However, there was little in the way of results or substance in anything he said or did.

Donald Trump lacks almost all form. He is nothing like we have come to believe a politician is supposed to act. However, as I pointed our in my previous blog, the things he has accomplished are substantive.

There are no bigger issues in politics where form is given more weight than substance than those involving the environment and climate change.

There are a lot of people talking and acting like they care about these issues and are quick to lecture everyone else about how noble they are. However, if you look at the facts, most of what they are doing is merely a show. Their actions will do little to address the biggest problems.

Even if their motives are pure, what they are doing is mere window dressing when you actually look at the issue. Perhaps it makes them feel good that they think they are doing good even if it matters little in the larger scheme of things.

If you really want to solve a problem, you address those things that have the greatest impact. You don't dance around the margins.

I consider myself a strong conservationist and environmentalist. I firmly believe that we have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of what God has blessed us with. 

We must use our resources wisely and insure that they will continue to bless and benefit future generations.

For a little perspective, consider the amount of water on earth.

We often hear that 70% of the surface of the earth is composed of water. However, how much water is there compared to the total volume of the earth?

The amount of water is shockingly small when looked at this way as this graphic from the US Geologic Survey shows.

All the water on earth would only fill up a small orb that would not even cover half of the United States. (the blue orb centered over the Western United States in the graphic below). The diameter would be about 860 miles meaning it would be as deep as it is wide if you are wondering how all the water of the oceans could fit in that little orb. The deepest parts of the ocean are only about 7 miles deep. 

The smaller blue bubble centered over Kentucky represents the volume of all fresh water on earth which includes all underground aquifers, ice caps, atmospheric moisture, glaciers, rivers, lakes and swamps. The diameter of this bubble is about 170 miles.

There is a pin prick blue bubble over Atlanta, Georgia that represents the volume of the fresh water that excludes those sources that are generally not accessible to us. This blue pin dot represents the volume of all lakes and rivers on earth which is the source of most fresh water used today. This little bubble would be about 35 miles wide and deep. By contrast, Lake Michigan is only about 300 feet deep.

Here is a summary of all the water on earth by source and volume.

Seeing this ought to make us better understand the need for conservation of water on our planet. It is a most valuable resource.

However, how is that water used?

A lot is made about using low flush toilets and not letting the water run while brushing our teeth, but how much water is really used in our daily activities?

The fact is that it is very small compared to industrial and agricultural uses. Only 13% of water use annually is for domestic purposes--drinking, bathing, cooking etc. 

Source: CIA

Every little bit helps but anyone really serious about water conservation should first worry about ways to save water in industry and farming before worrying about a low-flush toilet.

Similarly, there is a large hue and cry now about banning plastics---straws, grocery bags and the like. The argument is that these are bad for the environment and contributing to climate change.

We see images of gigantic swaths of plastic waste in the ocean which are horrific.

California and Hawaii already ban plastic bags and a ban in New York state is scheduled to take effect March 1, 2020. Plastic straws are banned in restaurants in California unless the customer asks for one.

Will banning plastic straws and bags have any effect on improving the picture above? Almost assuredly no.

Almost all of the plastics in the ocean are coming from China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Almost nothing is coming from North America.

Credit: http://apeuk.org/ocean-plastics-come/

Furthermore, almost half of the plastics are fishing nets. 

Straws make up just .03% of all ocean plastics.

It is especially interesting that the same people who want to ban plastic straws in California are so vehemently opposed to President Trump and his agenda. Look at the numbers above and tell me if you think it is a great idea to be outsourcing so much manufacturing to China and others in that region with their environmental standards. You may recall that President Trump refused to proceed with the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement with many of these countries due to concerns about the fairness of the deal to the USA. Those concerns included the tremendous difference in environmental standards between the USA and those countries.

There is also a new study out on plastic bags that indicates that those bags are actually many times more beneficial to the environment,and in limiting carbon emissions, than other alternatives.

For example, it is now in vogue to take your cotton bag to the grocery store to bring your purchases home like the one below and eschew the plastic bag. This is supposed to be a symbol to show how concerned you are about saving the planet. After all, when you use it you advertise it right on the cotton bag.

However, a 2018 study by the Danish Ministry of Environment and Food found that you must reuse an organic cotton shopping bag 20,000 times before it will have less environmental damage than using a single plastic bag and then disposing of it.

Let's put that in context. If you go to the grocery store twice a week it would take 191 years of using that cotton tote in order to come out ahead on total environmental terms compared to using that plastic bag,

The plastic bag also beats out the plain paper bag. It would take 43 uses of a paper bag to do a better job for the environment than using a plastic bag. Of course, I doubt much would be left of the paper bag after as few as 10 uses.

Here are the actual numbers from the study. Note that the assumption made is that the plastic grocery bag is also reused once as a garbage bag. This is exactly what Mrs. BeeLine and I do.

Feel free to avoid plastic bags, plastic straws and turn the water off when you brush your teeth.

It is good form to do so. You are being a good steward.

However, in the world we live in today it does not matter as much what you are doing as what billions and billions of other people are doing half way around the world.

That is the substance of the issue that we hear almost nothing about.

Form and Substance

So much in a world today is about form rather than substance.

On a personal level, how you look, dress or speak often carries much more weight than what you do or who you really are.

In politics, this has been true for a long time. Promoting noble ideas and talking a good game is the rule. Delivering results is the exception rather than the rule.

There is no one that better exemplified form over substance than Barack Obama.

He looked the part. He acted the part. He talked the part. However, he never really got much done. And those things he got done never really met expectations. Form always trumped substance.

It was a lot of talk for eight years with not much to show for it in the end.

The Affordable Care Act was his signature achievement but it destroyed the individual health insurance market in the process and resulted in huge premium increases for everybody else unless they were Medicaid-eligible or qualified for subsidized premiums.

Donald Trump is the exact opposite. He doesn't look, act or talk according to form. We often hear that he does not speak or act like a President should.

In many ways, this is the reason that he won the 2016 election. Trump did not talk like a politician. He said things that others saw and knew to be true. However, no other politician was willing to say it.

Just as clearly, Trump's unwillingness to conform to the expected political norms is why so many in the Washington establishment and the liberal media dislike him. This also seems to explain why they seem unwilling or unable to appreciate the substance of what he has accomplished. If Trump is right, what does that mean about them? Could they have been wrong?

Victor Davis Hanson has written an excellent article with a slightly different slant on what I refer to as the form and substance of politics above. Hanson writes about "When Normality Became Abnormality" at American Greatness.com. It is worth the full read.

His point is that we have been living in a world in which the powerful political elites have been trying to convince us that what is common sense is, in fact, abnormal thinking. He points to this as being the result of a progressive agenda that came to be accepted as conventional assumptions with the Clinton-Bush-Obama-Romney generation. That agenda became an ingrained status quo that could not be questioned even if common sense suggested that what was being sold to us was very much suspect. To do so got you instantly branded a heretic that should be censured or worse.

Hanson frames it this way.

The current normal correctives were denounced as abnormal—as if living in a sovereign state with secure borders, assuming that the law was enforced equally among all Americans, demanding that citizenship was something more than mere residence, and remembering that successful Americans, not their government, built their own businesses and lives is now somehow aberrant or perverse.

What sets Trump so far apart from his predecessors and the Washington elites is he is not worried about form. He is looking at the substance of a problem or issue.  He also has the confidence and courage to not be afraid to challenge that status quo when necessary.

Here are a few examples from the article.

Iran Deal

Everyone knew the Iran deal was a way for the mullahs to buy time and hoard their oil profits, to purchase or steal nuclear technology, to feign moderation, and to trade some hostages for millions in terrorist-seeding cash, and then in a few years spring an announcement that it had the bomb.

No one wished to say that. Trump did. He canceled the flawed deal without a second thought.

Iran is furious, but in a far weaker—and eroding—strategic position with no serious means of escaping devastating sanctions, general impoverishment, and social unrest.


Paris Climate Accord

Everyone realized the Paris Climate Accord was a way for elites to virtue signal their green bona fides while making no adjustments in their global managerial lifestyles—at best. At worst, it was a shake-down both to transfer assets from the industrialized West to the “developing world” and to dull Western competitiveness with ascending rivals like India and China. Not now. Trump withdrew from the agreement, met or exceeded the carbon emissions reductions of the deal anyway, and has never looked back at the flawed convention. The remaining signatories have little response to the U.S. departure, and none at all to de facto American compliance to their own targeted goals.


NATO

Rich NATO allies either could not or would not pay their promised defense commitments to the alliance. To embarrass them into doing so was seen as heretical. No more.


Trump jawboned and ranted about the asymmetries. And more nations are increasing rather than decreasing their defense budgets. The private consensus is that the NATO allies knew all along that they were exactly what Barack Obama once called “free riders” and justified that subsidization by ankle-biting the foreign policies of the United States—as if an uncouth America was lucky to underwrite such principled members. Again, no more fantasies.


China

China was fated to rule the world. Period. Whining about its systematic commercial cheating was supposedly merely delaying the inevitable or would have bad repercussions later on. Progressives knew the Communists put tens of thousands of people in camps, rounded up Muslims, and destroyed civil liberties, and yet in “woke” fashion tip-toed around criticizing the Other. Trump then destroyed the mirage of China as a Westernizing aspirant to the family of nations. In a protracted tariff struggle, there are lots of countries in Asia that could produce cheap goods as readily as China, but far fewer countries like the United States that have money to be siphoned off in mercantilist trade deals, or the technology to steal, or the preferred homes and universities in which to invest.


Immigration

Open borders were our unspoken future. The best of the Chamber of Commerce Republicans felt that millions of illegal aliens might eventually break faith with the progressive party of entitlements; the worst of the open borders lot argued that cheap labor was more important than sovereignty and certainly more in their interests than any worry over the poor working classes of their own country. And so Republicans for the last 40 years joined progressives in ensuring that illegal immigration was mostly not measured, meritocratic, diverse, or lawful, but instead a means to serve a number of political agendas.


Most Americans demurred, but kept silent given the barrage of “racist,” “xenophobe,” and “nativist” cries that met any measured objection. Not so much now. Few any longer claim that the southern border is not being overrun, much less that allowing a non-diverse million illegal aliens in six months to flood into the United States without audit is proof that “diversity is our strength.”


I don't know how many times I have heard political pundits talk about issues like those above and add a sentence or two about about Trump's position on the issue that includes the following--- "Trump can't do that." "He just doesn't understand." "It won't work."

Somehow he has gone ahead with it, the world did not end and it has improved the position of the United States in the process.

It is quite remarkable when you take a step back and see how significantly Donald Trump has changed the conversation on these topics. He also accomplished all of this almost single-handedly. He did not have a lot of others offering political support on these when he started. Too many were interested in their form.

In the process, form has been shown to be vastly overrated. Substance also appears to have been vastly underrated. Could it be that the last several decades we were being taught to not expect enough of our leaders?

Hanson would say that a lot of this came about because we were being told that normal was abnormal.

The current normal correctives were denounced as abnormal—as if living in a sovereign state with secure borders, assuming that the law was enforced equally among all Americans, demanding that citizenship was something more than mere residence, and remembering that successful Americans, not their government, built their own businesses and lives is now somehow aberrant or perverse.

The big question in the 2020 election may well be determined by which view of "normality" wins. The Democrats seem intent on doubling down on a progressive agenda. What makes this election particularly interesting is that the Democrats are not hiding that agenda. Heretofore it seemed to be understood that Democrats would campaign as moderates and only govern as liberals. Now they seem to want to campaign as socialists and govern as socialists (or worse).

If nothing else, Trump has clearly delineated the political battle lines.

Choices will need to be made.

What is normal and what is abnormal when it comes to America?

Is form more important than substance?

Do we want to make America great again or do we think that America was never that great to begin with?

Trump officially kicks off his campaign tonight in Orlando. The Democrats have their first debate in Miami next week (June 26 and 27).

Enjoy the show between now and November, 2020 but always be thinking about form and substance.

Time and Markets

It has been said that most people should not be so concerned about market timing as they are about time in the market.

The reason is that for most people the best way they have to participate in the economy and the innovation that accompanies it is to be invested in the stock market.

Most people will never own their own business. They will never invent anything. They will never come upon a great idea that will capture the imagination of the masses.

These are the typical pathways to wealth. For some these paths have led to enormous fortunes. Andrew Carnegie. Henry Ford. Sam Walton. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. Jeff Bezos.

Most people will labor every day and be paid for that labor. However, their are finite limits to the amount of money anyone can earn from their own labor. 

Why is it difficult to become wealthy simply by your own labor and talents?

It is a question of time. We all only have so many hours in the day. We may be very productive but time is a finite resource. It is a limiting factor in utilizing our labor.

The amount that any one person is willing to pay another for their labor is also limited. For these reasons, it is hard to grow rich simply by your own individual labor.

Entertainers and professional athletes are exceptions to this rule. They are able to showcase their talents and labor to a broad audience and are able to get many, many people to pay them for it in the form of ticket prices or a media audience. However, each member of that audience is paying just a small price that gets leveraged with the size of the audience.

Inventors and authors are similarly advantaged. An invention that is used by millions of people or a best selling book creates large royalty payments that allow them to leverage their sole labor effort.

Entrepreneurship is the most common path to wealth because owners can leverage their time by getting other people to work for them thereby gaining a portion of others' labor for their own benefit. Starting a business is the path that entrepreneurs follow to gain this advantage.

If you are not following one of these paths, your only option to become wealthy is to  work, save and invest. You leverage that savings  by getting your savings working for you through compound returns. As your money begins to work for you the need for you to labor to support yourself is reduced. If you can get enough money saved and invested you eventually do not have to labor at all. Your money does all the work to support your lifestyle.

That is why time in the stock market is so important for most people. You may not own a business, or invent or innovate anything, but you can effectively partner with people who do. If you are widely invested in the stock market you can participate in the growth of the economy as a whole. 

The U.S stock market has been a particularly good place to have your money invested over the last 10 years.

Here is a chart that shows the performance of the S&P 500 for the last decade. It has advanced from 912 to 2887 over the last 10 years. Looked at in simpler terms, if you had $1,000 invested in the stock market on this date in 2009 you would have $3,166 today.

Source: BarChart.com

Of course, the stock market does not alway go up. You only need to recall what happened at the end of last year to know that. That retrenchment is very evident looking at the chart above.

However, if you believe that the United States (or another country, region or the world) is going to continue to be a place where humans will continue to be more productive, more innovative and more inventive over time you can participate in that growth by being investing in the stock market.

I came across some interesting charts recently that puts the long-term performance of the stock market in perspective. These charts were put together by The Visual Capitalist based on data from The Measure of a Plan.

It shows U.S. Stock Market annualized returns from 1872 to 2018 for 1/5/10/20 year rolling periods. Bear in mind these are "real" returns and have been adjusted for inflation

Notice that there is not one 20-year period in 146 years of stock market data where there was a negative return. The average real return was 6.7%. That would be about 10% in nominal terms.

Credit: The Virtual Capitalist

However, looking at all 145 one-year periods, the stock market has produced a loss 31% of the time. 

Here is a chart showing the distribution of those one-year returns. 

Credit: The Measure of a Plan

The largest one-year loss has been 37%. The largest one-year gain was 53.2%.

All of this should show you why the famous investor Benjamin Graham once said this about the stock market.

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”

What did Graham mean by that?

Stock market prices are driven by expectations, emotion, investor psychology and sentiment in the short run. Look no further than stock prices day to day. In almost all cases there is nothing substantive that has changed with a company from one day to the next. Or even one minute to the next. However, the stock price of that company is changing all the time based on investor perceptions. That is a voting machine.

However, in the long run, all of that emotion, psychology and perception gets subtracted. What is left is the real economic value of the company or of the entire market. That is a weighing machine.

Weigh all of this as you think about your financial future.

Weigh all of this as you vote as well.

Wealth follows private sector business ownership, invention and innovation. The individual incentives and rewards of a capitalist society is what creates wealth and lifts a society up.

Socialist ideals sound great in theory. However, history has shown that the theory has never held up when it comes into contact with the real world and the humans that populate it.

If you doubt it, you might want to take a look at stock market returns in Venezuela since the people of that country took the turn towards socialism. A decision that most have now come to regret.

The Venezuelan stock market was down 94% in dollar terms in 2018.

Choose wisely in everything you do.

It Is the Way It Is

The United States women's soccer team is making headlines at the World Cup.

They beat Thailand 13-0 in the open round this week. They were also criticized after the win for the excessive celebrations they participated in on the goals they scored later in the contest when the game was well out of hand.

Earlier in the week the team was also in the headlines for the lawsuit they filed in federal court alleging "institutional gender discrimination" in that the United States Soccer Federation is paying women on the US World Cup team less than it pays the men.

The women would appear to have a good argument in that the women are the defending World Cup champions and the United States men have made it to the quarterfinals only once (2002) in modern history.

However, is that the end of the story?

US Soccer seems ready to vigorously defend against the complaint and argues that that the women’s and men’s national teams “... receive fundamentally different pay structures for performing different work under their separate collective bargaining agreements that require different obligations and responsibilities.”

Whenever you have compensation questions you first must consider the revenue source that is going to pay that compensation. The bottom line is that no one gets paid unless a willing consumer is willing to pay for a product or service.

In sports, you need to sell tickets. Or tv rights. Or get revenue from corporate sponsors. Someone has to want to pay to see the athletes perform. Compensation of an athlete is almost always a function of revenue. Ticket price, tv rights and sponsor packages have to support the pay the athletes receive.

Let's look at World Cup revenues between men and women.

The last men's World Cup in soccer brought in $6 billion in revenue.

This year's women's World Cup in soccer is expected to generate $131 million.

Let me do the math for you. The men are bringing in almost 60 times the revenue the women are in their world cup competition.

It is no different if you look at other major sports like golf or basketball that have highly skilled men and women professional athletes. There is a tremendous revenue disparity between men and women. The women just do not command the same audience. As a result, they do not command the same pay.

Women do better on this score in tennis. All Grand Slam tennis events pay the same purse to both men and women. However, all of the Grand Slam events (men and women) are played at the same time and share the same venue. The women do not have to sell tickets, tv rights and get sponsor packages alone. They gain leverage and synergy through their relationship with the men. This is a big difference compared to other sports.

We often hear the statistic that women only earn 79 cents for every dollar that a man earns in pay.

This is accurate but is a bit misleading. It does not take into account the larger number of women working part-time hours or choosing lower paid occupation groups. For example, women are vastly overrepresented in Healthcare, Personal Care & Service, Education, Office & Administrative Support, and Community & Social Services — typically lower-paying occupations. At the same time, men are overrepresented in higher paying occupations like Engineering and Computer Science.

Women make up only 26% of Computer Science and Mathematics jobs. They only make up 16% of jobs in Architecture and Engineering.

On the other hand, women make up 87% of jobs in healthcare support, 77% in personal care and service and 67% in community and social services.

There is also an argument made by some that this results from women being directed into these occupations by some type of cultural stereotyping or bias. There is some type of gender inequity at work that pushes women away from higher paying STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) degrees and careers.

However, as I wrote in a blog post last year, the facts are exactly the opposite.

Research indicates that in countries with the greatest gender equity you actually have the lowest percentage of female STEM graduates.

It seems that the greater the gender equity, and the higher the economic security for women, the more freedom females seem to believe they have the freedom to major in what they really want to do.

Don't expect to find many female STEM graduates in Finland, Norway, Netherlands or Belgium.

On the other hand, in Algeria, Turkey, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates you will find lots of them. All of these are Muslim countries which are hardly known for gender equity.

Could it actually be true that women have a more nurturing side that causes them to gravitate to jobs that this is an important factor such as in healthcare, education and community and social services?

It is not politically correct to suggest that but what do the facts tell you?

The facts on gender pay equity are also different when you adjust for the differences in job selection by men and women.

When the data is adjusted to to look specifically at men and women in the same jobs and with the same qualifications, the pay gap narrows so that women are actually paid 98 cents for every dollar that a man makes. You rarely see this fact reported in stories on pay equity.

Credit: Payscale.com

This clearly is still not fair but who is responsible for this pay gap in business?

It would seem that the finger would have to point primarily to the Human Resources function within businesses since that is the group within companies that have primary responsibility for pay scales and compensation. Human Resources is also generally responsible to insure that employees are treated fairly and equally within an organization.

Who exactly are these Human Resources people?

I used to be one. I had specific responsibility for Benefits and Compensation for a Fortune 500 corporation. I can also tell you that not once did gender ever enter into any compensation decision that I was a part of. Not once was there any thought that if a woman was in a job that she would be paid less than a man.

Moreover, the fact is that 73% of all the people who hold Human Resources managerial positions in the United States are women.

Are we to believe that these women in HR, who are setting the compensation structures, pay scales and advising others on hiring pay, annual increases and promotional increases, are discriminating against other women?

I can think of nothing more important than pay equity when it comes to anyone's labor. However, like anything else, it is important that the issue be put in proper context.

A woman laboring as the CFO at a struggling start-up or small family business may be just as talented and hard working as a female CFO at a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 company. Guess who is going to make more money?

It is not discrimination. There are facts and economic realities that make that the case.

The same is true for professional women athletes like the US Women's Soccer team.

The same is true for the 2 cent differential in the pay gap between men and women with the same jobs and same qualifications. I don't know why it exists today but I sincerely doubt that it has anything to do with conscious gender discrimination. After all, most of the decisions on what women are being paid today are being made by other women.

My guess is that we will see the gender pay gap in business disappear in the future, if not reverse, in favor of women. The fact that almost 60% of college degrees now go to women would seem to put men at a severe disadvantage over time regarding compensation. With each additional year more women are also gaining experience in their positions that inevitably factors into pay. It is important to also remember that we are only 25-30 years removed from when there were very few female managers in most businesses.

If that does not occur, I know who to blame.

Blame Human Resources.

I did it when I wasn't in HR. I took the brunt of it when I was in HR.

There is no equity in this either. However, it is the way it is.