Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter The frontrunner in the New York mayoral race, has a lot of bad ideas. Soon after Zohan Mamdani won the Democratic primary, John Catsimatidis, owner of New York City’s 2 oldest and largest independent supermarket chains, wrote an op ed for the Wall Street Journal.  In it, he warns about what is probably the worst of the candidate’s campaign promises:  “a government-run alternative to private supermarkets.” Mr. Mamdani calls this a “public option” and he wants to start…

Kerby Anderson No one knows for sure who called the U.S. Senate the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” but it is often attributed to President James Buchanan. It was the venue where orators like Daniel Webster and Henry Clay delivered great speeches. That is not the U.S. Senate of today. The senators today spend most of their time voting on routine presidential nominations to the executive and judicial branches. And as I documented last week, they haven’t even been doing that…

Kerby Anderson A recent NPR story begins with this introduction: “About a year before the pandemic hit, a scientist in China, He Jiankui, revealed that he had secretly engineered the birth of the first CRISPR gene-edited babies.” The scientist was imprisoned for three years for violating medical regulations. But now some are beginning to suggest we should begin to genetically engineer babies. One bioethicist observes that there seems to be “a convergence of people who are thinking that they can…

Kerby Anderson New job creation in this country is down. There are many reasons, but one of those is artificial intelligence. Microsoft said it was laying off thousands of engineers because of AI. Walmart cut more than a thousand corporate jobs in anticipation of AI. Texas-based CrowdStrike slashed part of its workforce because, they said, “AI is reshaping every industry.” Dario Amodei (CEO of Anthropic) has been willing to go on record saying that AI will result in much more…

Kerby Anderson You have probably heard the observation that often the military is “fighting the current war with the tactics of the previous war.” There has been a tendency for military leaders to rely on strategies and approaches that were successful in the past, even when they were ineffective due to new technologies. Christian Brose argues that “America Must Prepare to Face the Foes of the Future.” He illustrates that by quoting the Washington Post, “Ukraine Attacks Russian Air Bases in…

Kerby Anderson When Texas Democrats fled the state to avoid a vote on redistricting, all of us started learning more about the phenomenon of gerrymandering. Even though I have written at least a half dozen commentaries about gerrymandering, I learned how significant the issue has become. For example, most of those Democrats fled to Illinois, which was given two F grades by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and described by some commentators as “the most gerrymandered state in the Union.” Many…

Penna Dexter The fertility rate in the United States just hit 1.6 children per woman, an all time low. The replacement rate — the level that will keep the population stable —  is 2.1 children per woman in the U.S. and 2.25 globally. Drop below 2 and depopulation begins. Two economists at the University of Texas, Austin outline the factors leading toward depopulation and warn against allowing it to happen. The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip reviewed their book, After…

Kerby Anderson You may have seen the announcement that astronomers have found an asteroid (Asteroid Psyche 16) that has been found to contain gold reserves worth $700 quintillion. That announcement was followed by the statement that this would be enough to make everyone on Earth billionaires. Numerous comments correctly noted that it would make gold worthless, and we would all still be poor. Many recommended that the person writing the headline should take an economics class. There is no evidence…

Kerby Anderson Many companies have made the decision to move their headquarters out of California. But the latest decision by In-N-Out Burger is something new because most of their restaurants are in the state of California. And the president of In-N-Out says she is leaving not only for financial reasons but also for personal and family reasons. Allie Beth Stuckey (who used to be one of the regular cohosts of the Point of View millennial roundtable) recently interviewed Lynsi Snyder…

Kerby Anderson Professor Gad Saad always provides great insights on a variety of topics when he has been on my radio program. In this case, I want to focus on an interview Charlie Kirk recently did with him to explain why so many Muslims were moving to Western countries. He began by acknowledging that many Muslims are moving to the U.S. and Europe for economic opportunities for them and their children. But he agreed with Charlie Kirk that a percentage…

Kerby Anderson President Trump has accomplished quite a bit in his six months, especially when you consider that he has had to do that without many of his nominees. As of late July, there were 256 nominations pending in the Senate. To put that in perspective, only 86 of his nominees have been confirmed. Not one U.S. attorney had been confirmed at that time. The confirmation process is taking too long due to many factors. I suggest it may be…