Pondering

You cannot turn an economy off, then turn it back on. Here are the results when hubris makes you think you found the magic switch. Part 2.

Modern Cargo container ship giving an idea of the amount of cargo that can be carried. Each of those containers is one semi-load on the freeway. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Seems like most industries have a tangled supply chain. The entire transportation system is sorely distressed.

The elitists in federal and state governments have a staggering level of hubris. They think waving their hands, clicking away on their laptops, and issuing press releases will make the entire economy bend to their will. What they accomplish is willfully causing disruption in your life and in my life.

Here are merely a few of the recent articles describing the tangled impact of Covid dictats and sundry government policies:

  • Lots of cargo ships are waiting to unload off the California coast.
  • Large port operator expects disruptions to last into 2023.
  • Workers in transportation sector warn of possible system collapse.
  • Chip shortage for carmakers will last into late 2022.

Looks like it might take another 15 or 18 months to untangle the worldwide supply chain.

Wall Street Journal – 8/17/21 – Cargo Ships Are Again Idling Off Jammed Southern California Ports – Back in the middle of August the tally of cargo ships sitting off to coast of California was 37.

A tweet I saw this morning (10/9/21) from someone flying out of Long Beach indicated the individual counted 50 ships waiting to unload.

At around 10,000 containers per ship that is somewhere around 370,000 containers waiting to be unloaded back in the middle of August and is now currently somewhere in the range of half a million containers sitting off the coast.

Article says a few months ago it was only nine. Normally it is zero.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

You cannot turn an economy off, then turn it back on. Here are the results when hubris makes you think you found the magic switch. Part 1.

Random stock outages are still common. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The supply chain in most industries is tangled up somehow somewhere.

The people in federal and state governments with the staggering level of hubris to think they can wave their hands and make the entire economy do their bidding are willfully causing disruption in your life and in my life.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Financial conflict of interest on the federal bench and stock trading by presidents of regional Federal Reserve Banks. Alternate headline – Is there any group of powerful people who bother to follow the rules?

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Major investigative effort by the Wall Street Journal revealed 131 federal judges who own stock in one of the firms appearing before them in 685 lawsuits.

The Journal found that about two thirds of all federal judges disclosed ownership in individual stock. Of those who made such disclosure about one fifth had a conflict of interest but did not recuse themselves.

For CPAs, this illustrates the importance of our independence rules, both independence in fact an independence in appearance.

What shall we call judges who were trading stock of litigants who were appearing in front of them? Perhaps a reasonable label would be integrity impaired fools. Even those judges who had a trivial investment and had a mere procedural motion in front of them have a serious appearance of conflict of interest and thus impaired integrity.

It would be wise for CPAs to read this story as a caution to keep a scrupulous eye on their own independence. The same lessons can be drawn by leaders of nonprofit organization.

The story doesn’t end with the federal judges, but we start there. More discussion in a moment about stock trading by presidents of two regional Federal Reserve Banks, who are the ultimate insiders.

Failures to recuse when federal judges have financial conflicts of interest

The investigative report may be found at the Wall Street Journal, published online 9/28/21:131 Federal Judges Broke the Law by Hearing Cases Where They Had a Financial Interest.

A 1974 federal law requires federal judges to monitor their investments, maintain personal awareness of those investments, and then recuse himself of any case in which they have a financial interest, no matter how small their interest may be.

In spite of a 40-year-old law and in spite of software that checks disclosed ownership against parties to the lawsuit, 12% of federal judges completely blew off the ethical obligation. That means one out of eight judges failed to recuse themselves when they had a financial interest in a case before them.

I’m wondering if there’s any group or category of people in this country who have significant power or influence who actually bother to follow the rules

More specific tallies from the article:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Those Covid bugs are really smart. Alternate headline: The ruling caste knows that masks are useless.

Those little critters are smart enough to follow written instructions from the LA Department of Public Health. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Those little Covid critters are really, reeeeeally smart.

How smart are they?, I hear you ask.

They are so smart that they accessed, read, and comprehended correspondence from the Los Angeles County Department of Health that all those people sitting shoulder to shoulder at the Emmys were perfectly safe without wearing any masks.

Thus, those little bugs obediently obeyed.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Protests emerging around the world against lockdowns and vaccination mandates.

Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock.

For example, multiple protests have taking place all across France for the last 10 weekends or so.

Over the last several months protests have developed in multiple countries. Seems that people are fed up with being told they can’t move around, go to restaurants, or enjoy entertainment without getting government permission to do so.

Here are some of the articles describing people who are fed up:

7/31 – Wall Street Journal – Covid-19 Vaccine Health Pass Feeds French Protest – Photos of protests in France show massive crowds. Estimates are 204,000 people gathered in many cities across the country to protest the so-called Health Pass, which is needed to get into restaurants or movies or museums. There were 14,000 people protesting in Paris at four different locations with 3,000 police officers mobilized to control the crowds.

This is the third weekend in a row with massive protests. Last week there were 161,000 across the country with 11,000 in Paris alone.

7/31/21 – The Local – In Pictures: over 200,000 people protest against health Pass in France – Ministry of the Interior reports there were protests at 184 locations.

Lots of pictures of big crowds in the article.

8/2/21 – The Guardian – Hundreds arrested in Berlin protests against Covid restrictions – The government of Germany does not allow protests against Covid restrictions, according to the article. Regardless, there were 13 protests around Berlin on 8/1.

Police used pepper spray, truncheons, water cannon, and armored vehicle to break up crowds. Over 600 people were arrested.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

$5.5 Million. Cost to taxpayers to cover legal costs of churches forced to close their doors in violation of constitution. Another $9.5M to defend cases.

Things that should not have been banned during the government imposed shutdown. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Over five million bucks.

That is how much money state and county officials have taken from California taxpayers. Why did they need to take that much money out of our pockets?

Because they can’t read the constitution and thus decided that churches and religious faith are not essential. Due to their lack of reading comprehension they ordered all churches in the state to close their doors.

The Supreme Court found said reading failure to be a flagrant violation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Thus the state and various counties are starting to reimburse churches for their legal costs.

How much?

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Additional three settlements in California for violations of First Amendment.

Because of its attacks on the first amendment, the State of California has been doing a lot of this lately. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Turns out there are even more settlements for religious freedom civil rights violations in California than I have yet covered.

Current tally is over $5 million reimbursement for legal fees in 11 settlements, 8 of which are for repressing free expression of religion. One settlement did not have any dollars attached.

In addition, the state has spent $9.5 million in an effort to defend its willful violation of civil rights.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago