Mythbuster
Sometimes I relish being that person who stands in the way of stupidity and BS. Mostly, I like writing about the fallacies that modern media perpetuates. From both sides. I won’t mince words here, they both suck. Left leaning gibberish is counter by right leaning BS. It’s next to impossible to understand where the truth lies.
There is an old saying, “There is my side of the story, there is your side of the story and then there is the truth”. I look at everything written and know the truth is somewhere in there but after a while, I just give up. It gives me a headache and really, what am I going to do about Donald Trumps indictments or Hunter Biden’s sketchy dealings? Nothing. I may bitch and moan about it but at the end of the day, it is what it is and we just have to exist in this World of misinformation, biased reporting and outright lies.
So, today I decided to do some mythbusting. It’s more about common sense than anything I specifically know and I will admit, I did do some research on some of these but most of it is me calling some ideas on the carpet.
MYTH 1
ESG investing is a load of horsecrap. There, I said it. As I said last week, most companies have a fairly good grasp on being a good citizen in this country. They have a growing number of women, blacks and Hispanics rising through the ranks. Is it where it should be? Not yet, but it is getting there. I firmly believe that there should be no place on any application for race. People should be hired on their qualifications, experience and their ability to work successfully with others. Communication skills, to me, should be paramount. Writing as well as verbal communication is incredibly important in the workplace and those that have that ability, should succeed. Those that don’t need to work on it.
Contrary to what our imbecile President has said in the past, this country is not racist. It has racists that live in it. However, by and large, if you asked most of the population this question with a simple yes or no, most would opt for no.
Would you hire a person with race in mind?
A qualified, educated well spoken person is of value to an organization no matter what color and most hiring managers would agree.
The two liberals that read my column would disagree and say that racism has kept people of color back throughout the years. Uh, yeah in 1958 or 1967 but I say, everyone has a opportunity to thrive, no matter what color their skin or where they grew up. It is the choices they have made that have helped keep them from climbing the socio-economic ladder.
Again, companies have done a great job over the years shoring up their environmental policies and have drunk the kool aide as far as climate change goes. That’s fine I can’t argue with a company that wants to lighten it’s footprint on the planet but there are some industries that are just nasty and while they can mitigate some of their impact, they can’t mitigate it all and I don’t think a company should be punished for it. If they are buying clothing made by forced labor in China, by all means find new suppliers, but you can not eliminate man’s impact on this planet. No matter what that Swedish activist (hypocrite) says to the World.
MYTH 2
The World has about 20 or 30 years before we sizzle from our own selfishness and pollution and yadda, yadda, yadda. UGH! Enough with the climate change BS. Yes the planet is getting warmer, as it has over the millenia. Yes, there are extreme heat and flooding conditions. Yes, there are tornadoes in the Midwest. Let’s put an end to this right now. Not every weather event has anything to do with climate change. We have tornadoes. We have had devastating tornadoes since man walked upright. We have heat in Phoenix like nothing they have ever seen. Stop with that as well. It is a hotter summer than usual. Big deal. They have hot summers every year. people die from heatstroke every year.
The hurricane season has started. The Gulf Stream is the hottest it’s ever been. Storms will be pounding the East Coast like nothing we have ever seen. The Category five storm will be the standard and there will mass destruction and mass loss of life. That all was written in the NYTimes in the spring and a couple of times this summer. Not one hurricane has made landfall this year on the East Coast. So much for the Gulf of Mexico breeding multiple Cat 5 hurricanes because the temperatures are so hot.
The media has perpetuated this story for way longer than it deserved. Yes, I do think humans are impacting the planet. There are nine billion of us, WTF did you think was going to happen? Now we are pushing towards a disaster of our own making. We have signed on to renewables and we will be dependent on the sun and the winds if it kills all of us. I did some calculating. To get the US on a full renewable path we would need over 300 wind farms of 1,000 or more turbines plus solar power farms that will take up 4.89 million acres of land (at the minimum). That’s 300,000 turbines off West Cost and the East Coasts. Not ever anticipating what these gigantic wind farms will do to the natural habitats of those oceans and the fisheries as well. What happens to the land under those massive solar farms. Those ecosystems will be destroyed. What happens when it 100 degrees in the Northeast corridor and not a breeze to be had and wait, what happens when it gets dark or when it’s stormy and God forbid we have a hurricane roar up the East Coast and destroy half of the Turbines on the Eastern Seaboard. Where will our power come from? You want full conversion, you are an idiot.
I am not against using the powers of nature to help take some pressure off of the environment but let’s be honest here., unless we can truly harness fusion power and make it work on a sustainable basis, we will always need fossil fuels.
MYTH 3
This one is easy. China is our friend. They are not our friends. They never were and never will be. We think we can understand the Chinese Communist Part and it’s exalted leader Xi Jinping but we can’t. The CCP has such a control over the Chinese people that Adolf Hitler would be very impressed. Big power players disappear on a regular basis with no explanation. Business leaders disappear and reappear as different versions of themselves. The country is like something out of a Rod Serling story. It would be a fantastic read if it weren’t actually happening.
Blame the Chinese miracle of ourselves. we bought everything we could when times were good or bad from China. There products at first were so cheaply made that we could afford to but something, use it three times and throw it out and not get pissed. “Oh thats cheap China crap”. We would rather buy a cheap drill made in Chine rather than a more expensive one from a US manufacturer. We were addicted to cheap. We didn’t care where it came from, we just didn’t want to pay up for something. Then the Chinese took the next step. They increased the quality (along with a modest increase in price) and basically destroyed US manufacturing in the process. We still had the brainpower but the Chinese were equally adept at stealing our intelligence as replicating our products. The problem was and still is, the rising middle class in China while helping sustain growth because they had more money to spend, also caused a problem with wages. That rising middle class now is stagnating and this is going to be a huge problem going forward.
I believe about 1-2% of what comes out of Chinese officials. I think things are worse in China than they lead everyone to believe. Xi Jinping has continued to consolidate his power and while they announce a 5% GDP rise, I doubt thats true. The results from a lot of this makes you wonder where it will lead to.
The Chinese have seen the US push back with tariffs and now they are pushing back by rebuilding the strength of the manufacturing sector. With efficiencies and the ability to ship real time with no tie ups in ports, Americans are starting to buy more and more US made products. China is still one of our biggest trading partners and will be as long as WalMart exists but their influence is shrinking. There will be a time when the Chinese military will start making moves toward Taiwan and possible deeper into the South Pacific because they know the US has less financial leverage over them. They have less to lose economically.
I have heard various retired military analyst say they expect China to make such a move in 2027 or so but who really knows. We have such little intelligence compared to other spheres of influence and it really is just a guess but it makes sense. They have been modernizing their navy. Their air force has been adding tactical fighters for years and they have a standing army of over two and half million men and women. They are poised for something. They say this military build up is defensive in nature. Yeah and I am holding Willie Wonkas Golden Ticket.
We can’t be friendly with a nation that we can’t trust and has only one motivation, domination. A major problem with this domination is that the Chinese hold a substantial portion of our debt and that could be used to finance something other than the Road and Belt initiative.
MYTH 4
The US Woman’s National Team is unbeatable. Uh yeah. Good riddance to these whiny, spoiled superstars that have zero respect for the country they represent. I barely watched any of this World Cup but what I did see was a team of American athletes representing a country that has given them more opportunities than anywhere else in the World and they decide that they won’t sing the National anthem? Who gives a damn about these women anyway? From Megan Rapinoe and her “disbelief” to the rest of this team of overrated, under-performers, I say go back to your European teams and enjoy Denmark or Estonia or wherever they are playing. I read a poll this morning that said basically, the respondents were happy the USWNT lost. Look at the how the Nigerian team sings their National anthem, or the Japanese. They love their country’s and are very very proud to represent them on this World stage. Shame on them.