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Here are some of our latest articles you may have missed:
Interesting New Paper On How The Fed Produces Disinflation
Analysis: Excellent New Paper Makes National Security Case for Free Trade
Religious Dads Are More Engaged (And That’s Important)
Yesterday, we learned two things. First, Vox.com still exists. Second, it has published a hit pieced about what it calls “The right’s plan to fix America: Patriarchy 2.0” full of innuendos and dark warnings about the right’s concerns about broken families and collapsing birth rates.
In particular, this kind of neopatriarchy would involve men going back to some “old John Wayne vision of masculinity” and therefore outsourcing raising children to women.
As Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies points out, the piece, while long on innuendo and scare words, cites no data. Wilcox, who always comes armed with data, points out that in the real world, the more religious dads are, the more time they spend with their kids.
In the real world, not only are religiously conservative men the most engaged husbands–but their wives are the happiest.
This is important not just to brag, but because it shows that whatever “neopatriarchy” looks like, it won’t be a straight return to the ’50s.
The Vox piece does make a good point, however, which is that this right-wing effort to strengthen the family will run aground of another rising constituency on the right, so-called “barstool conservatives” after the “bro-y” Barstool Sports website and its founder Dave Portnoy who called Vance- a “moron” after he suggested that tax policy should support families.
The problems with pieces like this one is that there’s nothing to engage with in them, because they are entirely built on innuendo and vague accusations.
But the underlying issues will keep rising up, as the gender divide becomes the defining divide in American politics.
Policy Links
#PublicHealth – Bellwether? California Governor Gavin Newsom calls for schools in California to go phones-free. Scholar Jonathan Haidt, who has been beating this drum for a long time, is obviously overjoyed. Here’s his summary of his studies (admirably open access) which he believes support this policy.
#DOE – Words of wisdom from Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl: “People…Trump is not going to close the Dept. of Education. This has been a brainless talking point for 40 years that would be lucky to get 20 votes in the House. Despite all the tough talk, there is no way even conservative Republicans simply terminate all Pell grants, student loans, special ed funding, impact aid, all federal standards or the GOP platform’s laundry list of invasive new federal micromanagements of schools (ahem, hypocrisy). You can argue they should get rid of all that. And, yes, the federal education footprint is way too large and demands reform. But simply eliminating the entire dept is comically unworkable, and there is a 0.00% chance even Republicans would pass that. Maybe 1% they’d even allow a vote. They’ve refused to even cut it notably. Sorry, we’ve seen this show repeatedly for 40 years. Its a gimmick – bait for the base that will be forgotten the day after the election.”
#AI – From the great Sam Hammond at FAI: “The ENFORCE Act Secures America’s AI Leadership in the Race against China“
#Infractructure – Permitting reform has been one of the obstacles on the way to building more energy, which is in turn key to winning the AI race against China. Apparently, Kamala Harris’s new “climate adviser” is extremely anti-permitting reform.
#DEI – From Center for Renewing America Senior Fellow Steve Friend: “Just spoke with a police chief for a midwestern city. He told me the FBI field office in his area recently hosted a meeting with local law enforcement officials and told the chiefs and sheriffs that white supremacy is its top counterterrorism priority.” We see no reason to distrust this report, which is unjustifiable. Via
#FinReg – Very interesting: Brookings did a report on offshore ownership of American real estate. The bottomline is: “it’s a black box.” “American real estate is likely to be a popular destination for dirty money from abroad. Due to the fact that billions of dollars worth of property is held through opaque corporate structures, policymakers and civil society have little sense of how much foreign investment there is in real estate. The authors find that a large proportion of real estate in three major cities—New York, Miami and Boston—is opaquely-held, with no way of determining the ultimate owner using publicly-available information.” Sounds like something worth looking into.
#Energy – We are one of the few remaining nerds who are excited about the prospects of using hydrogen as fuel, so we were disheartened to read that nobody wants to buy hydrogen.
#Economics – Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who smears free market advocates as progenitors of “fascism”, has been a significant booster and defender of the disastrous Venezuela regime. Such episodes shouldn’t be forgotten or whitewashed and they should inform our perspective on left-of-center economics and rhetoric.
#SocialIssues – Sometimes think tankers try to influence public policy. But sometimes they just try to help people. We feel several of our subscribers may be in the potential audience for this book, so we will note it: EPPC Fellow Andrew Walker has just published the self-explanatory book “What Do I Say When . . . ?: A Parent’s Guide to Navigating Cultural Chaos for Children and Teens“
Chart of the Day
Between 2000 and 2020, Americans became gradually less willing to express their beliefs publicly. Via Paul Graham
Meme of the Day
Elon Musk’s X just released the new version of its AI, Grok. The main feature of its image generator seems to be that, unlike other popular generators, it allows you to generate images of popular figures and copyrighted material. Look for even more Trump memes in the future!
