DICK BAYNTON: Déjà Vu All Over Again

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Dick Baynton

The Olympic Games have been staged every four years since 1896. Beginning in Athens, Greece, the first competition featured participation by 14 nations; the 2016 summer games in Brazil attracted 206 national participants.

Another event held every four years is called ‘The Presidential Election of The United States of America’ and is observed by many of the 7.5 billion people on Earth. The reason is that the USA is an upstart country just 244 years old that has become the world’s dominant industrial/commercial complex as well as the most powerful military power. Although some critics are concerned with our overwhelming commercial and military power, most observers realize that the U.S. is a nation with a stern affinity for peace, prosperity and liberty for all humankind.

On Tuesday, November 3rd of this year 2020, voters will visit the polling places throughout our land and vote for many government offices, the most significant being that of President. Campaigns are under full steam ahead by both Democrats and Republicans; the difference between 2020 and 2016 is simply that the Democrats have fielded an array of more than a dozen candidates. The Republicans may have several candidates but the person most likely to be the Republican nominee will be incumbent Donald J. Trump.

If a Democrat wins the presidential prize, the ‘resist’ movement will be suspended and the nation will be submerged in new welfare programs, increased debt, reduced commitment to armed forces (security) and introduction to a new form of ‘sovereignty’ that allows illegal aliens to vote and have driver’s licenses; sanctuary cities will burst forth like mushrooms after a rainy summer night.  If a Republican wins the oval office the ‘resist’ movement will acquire new fervor and the difficulty of federal governance will be even more contentious than it has been over the past term.

Déjà vu all over again.

The Paris Climate Accords (COP21) lasted almost two weeks in December of 2015, with 22,000 attendees from 195 countries (about 112 per country) with the result of agreement to ‘try’ to keep temperature rise below ‘about’ 2°C equivalent to 3.6°F over the next 15 years. The 2015 Paris Accords have been ratified by 187 counties as of 2019.

In 2004 two distinguished authors, Peter Schwartz, consultant and former head of planning for Royal Dutch/Shell and Doug Randall of Global Business Network in California released a report that planet earth was already over-populated and that by 2020 catastrophic shortages of water and energy would prevail. The authors predicted that weather in Britain would ‘plunge into Siberian climate’ and many European cities would be inundated with sea water and incalculable droughts, famine and riots would break out over the world.

Déjà vu all over again.

On November 9th, 2016, retired Princeton Economist Professor Emeritus and 2008 Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said that election of Donald Trump was the ‘mother of all adverse effects’ adding that the ‘Fed’ will lose its independence and that global recession will have no end in sight. He added that ‘A terrible thing has just happened.’

Here’s what really happened to our economy: the DJI (Dow Jones Industrial Average) rose 22.3% to over 28,500 in 2019, wages increased by 2.7%, unemployment was steady at 3.5%, 256,000 jobs were added in November  and 145,000 in December and our 2019 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) will almost certainly eclipse the 2018 GDP output of $20.58 trillion. The USA remains the world’s most robust economy. It must be easy to win a Nobel Prize as Dr. Krugman is guilty of faulty economic forecasting and Barack Obama won a Nobel Prize just months after being elected to the office of President.

Déjà vu all over again.

Judge Cecelia G. Morris of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. has discharged a student debt loan amounting to about $221,400 incurred by 46 year old Kevin Rosenberg. Rosenberg earned a degree in history from the University of Arizona and a law degree from Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University in NYC. He is not disabled or unemployable. Earning $37,500 a year, the Judge ruled that ‘satisfying his law school debt in full would impose an undue hardship.’ Another liberal progressive socialist handout; taxpayers will pay the debt – and then some if the ruling is followed as precedent.

Déjà vu all over again.

Perhaps it would be a good idea for Americans to VOTE for past performance, not ‘promises.’

Dick Baynton