THE FIVE SURPRISES OF INHERITED IQ
Recently, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, outraged the Left by claiming people of low IQ need people of high IQ to carry them on in life. Mr. Johnson has thus sparked a recent burst of interest in IQ, that despite the Left's apoplexy has been encouraging in one sense. As Robert Plomin, probably the world's leading expert on the genetics of intelligence, put it to me, there used to be a kneejerk reaction along the lines of "you can't measure intelligence," or "it couldn't possibly be genetic." This time the tone is more like: "Of course, there is some genetic influence on intelligence but . . ." The evidence from twin studies, adoption studies and even from DNA evidence is relentlessly consistent: in children, in Western society, the heritability of IQ scores is about 50 per cent. The other half comes equally from family (shared environment) and from unshared individual experiences: luck, teachers, friends. This numerical precision easily misleads us into thinking genes and environment struggle against each other. In fact, they are like two pillars supporting an arch: nature makes you seek out nurture, which brings out your nature. But here is where things get interesting. The acceptance of genetic influence on intelligence leads to some surprising, even paradoxical implications, some of which turn the assumptions of both the Right and the Left upside down. Particularly to those of Mr. Obama, who is totally clueless in this regard.
IT’S NOT POLITICIANS WHO DENY REALITY, IT’S VOTERS
"Only 12 percent of likely U.S. voters favor a federal budget that increases government spending, but that's just what the bipartisan budget deal passed by the House last week does. It restores billions cut by the sequester on March 30 and puts off potential savings for several years." This quotation does not come from some conservative blogger, but from the respected polling company, Rasmussen, in its report of Dec. 14. Why do the stated preferences of the voters so differ from the actions of their elected representatives in Congress and the White House? The simple answer is: Most people understand that the endless growth in federal spending is going to lead to disaster, but each voter likes the specific spending programs that benefit him and thinks that spending cuts ought to be made elsewhere. So, the reality is this:
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/13/13
Might as well have some fun first before we get to the grim stuff. Yesterday (12/12), Zero was awarded the Lie of the Year Award. Of course, virtually everything he utters is a lie, but "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," takes the prize. So much so that there's a new term in golf. Golfers now call a bad lie "an Obama." Then there's Selfiegate. Google the term and you'll get 350,000 hits even though it was just invented. On Tuesday (12/10) while attending the Mandela funeral service in Joburg, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, sitting between Brit PM David Cameron and Zero, snapped a "selfie" - a self-taken smartphone pic - of the three of them. A press pool photographer snapped a shot of them doing so - with Mrs. Zero looking witchily annoyed at her husband enjoying the hot blonde's company and not hers. It went totally viral. Selfies at Funeral! was the headline outrage all over the world. Like giggling teenagers! huffed the London Daily Mail. It prompted a plethora of spoofs, such as:
THE PRISON GUARDS OF THE PAST
It's a brilliant metaphor, isn't it? It's all encompassing, describing Democrats led by their Prison-Guard-in-Chief, Establishment RINOs from Boehner on down, public unions, teachers unions, the welfare-state/social-worker bureaucracy, EPA fascisti, climate alarmists, eco-luddites, the Enemedia, the majority of professors and administrators in academia, all supported by a libtard judiciary. All of them, epitomized by our Zero of a President, are prison guards of the past, desperately demanding they keep their corrupt perks and power by keeping us locked up in a prison of the status quo and government failure by force of arms - government guns and thieving taxes. I'd love to claim the metaphor as mine, but it's not. It's Newt Gingrich's in his new book Breakout. It's even in the subtitle: Breakout: Pioneers of the Future, Prison Guards of the Past, and the Epic Battle That Will Decide America's Fate. We've had an entrepreneurial information revolution - but we have seen no remotely revolutionary advances whatever in education, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, much less government. How come? Because the old order has a veto. Because the prison guards of the past are the enemies of the future.
THE FUNDAMENTAL THREAT
Rising income inequality poses "a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe," President Barack Hussein Obama said Dec. 4. He pledged to make reducing it the focus of the rest of his presidency. During his first term, the incomes of the top 1 percent grew by 31.4 percent, the incomes of everyone else by just 0.4 percent. On Mr. Obama's watch, 95 percent of income gains have gone to the top 1 percent. When George W. Bush was president, only 61.8 percent did. But if Mr. Obama is serious about reducing income inequality, he should focus on Washington D.C. The average wage of federal civilian workers in 2012 was $81,704, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. For workers in the private sector, it was $54,995. With benefits, compensation for federal workers averaged $114,976 -- 74 percent more than for private sector workers. Clearly, the way to end this unconscionable threat to our way of life and what we stand for is to cut federal workers' pay by 74%.
OBAMA’S OPIATE
Last week (12/04), Mr. Obama confirmed the suspicion of many that he is indeed a Marxist by giving a speech claiming that "income inequality" is, according to him, "the defining challenge of our time." Yesterday (12/10), the Drudge Report headlined a speech given by David Simon, producer of the HBO show, The Wire, entitled "My Country Is A Horror Show." Marx was right about capitalism, according to Simon, which is why capitalist America is heartless and cruel and doesn't care about the poor. Thus I was involved in a revealing exchange yesterday. Something I had tweeted about this prompted a series of responses along the lines of "Typical: like all capitalists, you don't like poor people." I couldn't help tweeting back: "I love all these ‘capitalists don't like poor people' tweets. It's true: we want to turn them into rich people. It's socialists who need their client groups." What's fascinating here is not just that the Leftie tweeters are wrong; it's that, like Mr. Obama and Mr. Simon, their premises are lifted directly from Karl Marx.
OBAMA’S ECONOMY IS NEARING EXHAUSTION
BlackRock, the world's biggest investor, has warned that central banks are poised to tighten monetary policy in the Anglo-Saxon countries and China, advising clients to be ready to pull out of global stock markets at any sign of serious trouble. "2014 is the year to squeeze more juice out of risk assets. But investors should be ready to discard the fruit when it starts running dry," says Ewen Cameron Watt, chief strategist for the BlackRock Investment Institute. The group says in its 2014 Investment Outlook that investors have "jumped on the momentum train, effectively betting yesterday's strategy will win again tomorrow," but vanishing liquidity could leave them trapped if the mood changes. "Beware of traffic jams: easy to get into, hard to get out of," it says. BlackRock, which manages funds worth $4.1 trillion, says the global system is still in the doldrums and far from achieving sustainable recovery. There are real warning signs for Oabama's economy.
FREE LUNCHES ARE NEVER FREE
Last week, President Obama said that "income inequality" is the major problem that his administration would focus on for the remainder of his term. He proposed increasing the minimum wage as a way to solve this issue. The president's statement is a perfect example of how politicians misdiagnose problems and then offer solutions that make matters worse. The real problem is the lack of economic growth, which reduces economic opportunity, particularly for the least skilled. Increasing the minimum wage helps those who actually receive an increase in their wage, but it makes it worse for all of those who lose a job or can't get one because the minimum wage is far above the market clearing rate. As can be seen in this table, most minimum-wage workers are young people who quickly obtain higher wages as their work skills improve.
OUR LO-FO MEDIA
The Sunday after he won re-election by a landslide, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was the guest on most of the major television talk shows. Nearly every question he was asked by the journalist panelists pertained to whether he'd run for president. Hardly any of the scribes expressed interest in what it was about how he has governed the Garden State that prompted so many Democrats to vote for him. Only if we know whether campaign promises have been kept or broken, whether the challenges that have arisen during his or her term have been met, side-stepped or botched can we make a reasonable judgment about whether an incumbent deserves re-election -- or higher office. Journalists pay more attention to froth and celebrity than they do to substance. We laugh at "lo-fo" (low-information) voters, but most journalists are just as lo-fo as their readers or viewers.
ADVENTURE 2014
