Kamala Harris' Poisoned Chalice

Earlier this week President Joe Biden put Kamala Harris in charge of solving, or at least ameliorating, the immigration crisis on the Mexican border. Because the Mexican border has been in an on-off crisis state for over two decades, her task, to say the least, will be extraordinarily difficult. Further the solution in the long run involves fixing the failed states of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala is no easy task and it will take years. Importantly, Harris does not have the administrative experience needed for the task. Perhaps she will rise to meet the challenge, but that is no ways certain.

Thus, in the here an now, Harris might have to resort to Trumpian-like tactics to at least put a band-aid on the problem. Of course that would inevitably give rise to a hue and cry on the Democratic Left. Simply put the president has put her in a no-win situation and has given her a poisoned chalice.

My Amazon Review of David Downing's "Wedding Station"

 

Berlin on the Brink

 

I read and enjoyed all six of David Downing’s “Station” series novels featuring the journalist John Russell set in prewar and wartime Berlin. This is his seventh effort which serves as a prequel of what was to come and trust me, I was not disappointed. As the title suggests much of the action takes place in Berlin’s gritty working class Wedding district which historically had been a hotbed of communist activity. Russell lives in a small apartment in Wedding.

 

The novel opens with Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933. Within a month Hitler was granted broad dictatorial powers. Against this dramatic backdrop we find John Russell working as a crime reporter for a Berlin newspaper that is gradually losing its freedom to print.   We see him arriving at the scene of the murder/mutilation of a seventeen-year-old “line boy” at night club catering to homosexuals. The presence of a brown shirted SA officer at the scene indicates that politics maybe involved.

 

He next works on the murder of a genealogist who was researching the past of high Nazi officials for the purpose of blackmail. More than a few of them had stronger Jewish connections than they would like to admit. With the discovery of the genealogist’s code book, he is led to a high officer in the intelligence division (SD) of the SS. Here we see the growing rivalry between the black shirted SS and the brown shirted SA.

 

Russell, as a favor to a friend, takes on a freelance assignment from a member of the German general staff in seeking to find his 19-year-old communist daughter. Russell is chosen because as recently as 1927 he was a member of the German communist party. (KPD) Through is contacts he finds her, but the net result is not pretty. Along the way Russell get beat up pretty badly.

 

Because Russell is not a German citizen his relationship to the authorities is very tenuous, especially because he is estranged from his wife. What is keeping him in Germany is his five-year-old son. Fortunately, the couple is on friendly terms.

 

Along the way we witness the attacks and boycott on Jews themselves and their businesses. The SA hooligans run riot through the streets of Berlin. At the very end Russell meets Effie Koenen who would become his paramour for the series.

 

I was really impressed the look and feel of 1933 Berlin that Downing brings to his work. By making his characters real your get a sense of the speed Hitler was operating at. To me the book represents a novelized version of Peter Fritzche’s very academic “Hitler’s First Hundred Days.” ( Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Peter Fritzche's "Hitler's First Hundred Days")To sum up, Downing does not disappoint!

For the full Amazon URL see: Berlin on the Brink (amazon.com)

My Amazon Review of Wright Thompson's "Pappyland: A Story of.........................."

 

Good Whiskey, Fast Horses and Family

 

ESPN writer Wright Thompson tells the story of the rise, fall and resurrection of bourbon in America through the eyes of Kentucky’s Van Winkle family, particularly through the life of Julian Van Winkle III. Because Thompson is also a son of the South, he brings many of his own life events into the story, including the role of race, his wife’s pregnancy and the birth of his daughter. In that sense the book is partially autobiographical.

 

Pappy Van Winkle opened the Stitzel-Weller distillery on Derby Day 1935. His innovation was to add wheat, instead of rye, to the bourbon mix which is what we drink today. Wheat was local, while rye had to imported from the Dakotas. His business booms, but with the coming of the 1960s, brown liquor gave way to white liquor in the form of gin and vodka. As a result, that by 1972 the family had to sell the distillery to Norton Simon, and it is now owned by Diagio. The family continued to make bourbon using other distilleries.

 

In 1981 Julian Van Winkle III inherited the business and he struggled with it for many years. But make no mistake, the Van Winkle family came from money and he still retained a residue of stock from the sale of the business. Through it all Thompson offers an intimate history of the family and the role of fatherhood and friendship. Thompson and Van Winkle become the best of friends and Van Winkle even writes an afterward for the book.

 

Van Winkle’s big break occurs when bourbon comes back into style in the late 1990s and in 2002, he establishes a joint venture with the Buffalo Trace distillery to manufacturer different variants of Pappyland bourbon. Distilling bourbon is an act of faith. The raw materials enter the barrel anywhere from 10-23 years before it is bottled. A lot can happen during those time periods. But, by the early teens, the bourbon became a bit hit, with bottles selling for over $300 and some for as much as $5,000. Artisanal bourbon has become very “in.”

 

Whether it lasts, who knows. But remember bourbon is about nostalgia for a past that was never as good as we remember it. Meantime “Pappyland,” is a wonderful book to learn about the origins of the bourbon business and more importantly, the importance of family.

For the full Amazon URL see: Good Whiskey, Fast Horses and Family (amazon.com)

My Amazon Review of Ed Douglas' "Himalaya: A Human History"

 

A Mountain too High

 

My book club chose Ed Douglas’ book for our April selection. I and most members of the club were very disappointed, and we elected to call an audible to switch books. The book is dry and way too academic in its writing style. To be sure it could have been interesting given that the Himalayas stand at the crossroads of three major religions: Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. They also stand amidst the geopolitical rivalry involving China, India, and Pakistan.

 

The problem here is that Douglas gets way to wrapped up in socio-political history going back a thousand years where he highlights the rivalry of the various tribes in the region. With all of the names he mentioned the reader would need a scorecard which he does not provide. As a result, unless the reader is really interested in a very deep history of the region, I would pass.

The full Amazon URL appears at: A Mountain too High (amazon.com)

My Amazon Review of Robert Elder's "Calhoun: American Heretic"

 

 Slavery’s Theoretician

 

John C. Calhoun was brilliant and was one of America’s most dominant politicians for nearly four decades serving as congressman, senator, vice-president under two presidents, Secretary of War, Secretary of State and sought the presidency on several occasions. Unfortunately, he used much of his brilliance in cause of slavery. Baylor University history professor Robert Elder tells the story of his life with nuance and great detail. Unfortunately for the lay reader it 656-page length is a bit much.

 

Calhoun was born in 1782 in South Carolina’s up-country and was inculcated in his slave-oriented society. Unlike most of his brethren he goes north to Yale for his education and after returning to South Carolina he becomes one of the state’s leading politicians. After his election to Congress in 1810 be joins forces with Henry Clay to become a leader in the war hawk faction that leads the U.S. into the War of 1812.

 

His alliance with Clay continues after the war and he becomes an initial supporter of Clay’s American System. He supports the establishment of a national bank, the tariff, and a program of internal improvements. However, the coming of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 he breaks with Clay as the fight over tariffs becomes a proxy war over slavery. By 1832 he triggers the Nullification Crisis where South Carolina sought to overturn the Tariff of 1828. It almost came to war, but Clay came up with a compromise.

 

Calhoun believed the United States to be a compact of sovereign states with each or with a substantial minority having the right to nullify federal legislation. He called his theory “concurrent majority”. He basically sought a minority veto over policy. To be sure part of it was based in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 authored by Madison and Jefferson in opposition to federal power. That theory was expounded 160 years later by civil rights activist Lani Guinier was nominated to be an assistant attorney general under Bill Clinton. She supported a minority veto over majoritarian rule. Calhoun was pro-union, but only on southern terms.

 

Calhoun viewed slavery as a positive good. To him it guaranteed equality among whites thereby dampening the class struggle between white factory workers and their employers. After all South Carolina was way ahead of the rest of the country in promoting universal suffrage for white males. In a way he was a Jacksonian ahead of his times.

 

To Calhoun America’s original sin was not slavery, but rather the “all men are created equal” line in the Declaration of Independence. This completely undercut his support of slavery and further although Elder does not mention it the preamble to the Constitution begins with “We the people...” not “We the states…”

 

As an international statesman Calhoun had a hand in drafting the Monroe Doctrine in 1820 and avoided war with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory in 1845. He actually opposed the Mexican War because he believed President Polk usurped the power of Congress in declaring a state of war existed between the U.S. and Mexico. Further his free trade ideas became conventional wisdom in the second half of the 20th century.

 

Elder goes into great deal about Calhoun’s family life. His wife Floride and her dozen pregnancies and his relationship with his daughter Anna who became his intellectual confidante. The last a rarity in that era. The reader will learn much about America and Calhoun in this book, but I caution it is long.

For the full Amazon URL see: Slavery's Theoretician (amazon.com)

 

Teachers Union Sponsored Child Abuse

The sprawling 550,000 student Los Angeles Unified School District remains closed, being held hostage by the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA). This is after the State of California passed a $6.5 billion aid package and the imminent passage of a $125 billion federal school aid program. The UTLA is not only demanding vaccinations for all school staffers, but they are also asking for a lower COVID spread rate, more PPE and better building ventilation.

On the surface this sounds reasonable, but wait, look at nurses, grocery workers, bus drivers, factory workers etc. all going to work without those protections. What makes teachers special? Indeed schools are open in over half the country largely without incident. Given that data the CDC has said schools should open without a complete regime of vaccinations.

Another factor not mentioned is that there is a significant minority of anti-vaxxers within the UTLA. That means those teachers will not go back to work in school, but get paid for on line learning. What this all adds up to is that the UTLA is engaged in a massive program of child abuse where the lives of 550,000 school children are being systematically abused. The cost of keeping these children out of the classroom is far higher than any risk the teachers and staff may face. Also remember 80% of the district's students are Black or Latino. 

What is Warren Buffett up to?

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway recently disclosed new positions in Chevron (CVX) and Verizon(VZ), neither of which are typical Buffett investments. These new positions added to already established positions in ABBVIE(ABBV) and Merck(MRK). What do these four positions have in common? Answer: they are all investment grade and they all sport dividend yields at least twice that of the bonds issued by those companies. Buffett is old enough to remember when stock yields were always higher than bond yields in the years before 1957 when share prices were significantly undervalued.

My guess is that Buffett thinks the shares are undervalued, but the real reason for his purchases is that these equities are really bond substitutes for his insurance company subsidiaries (See Table 1 below). Simply put Buffett is asking the question would you rather own, for example, Verizon stock yielding 4.57% with upside potential rather than the Verizon 1.75s/31yielding 2.26% to maturity. It is a no brainer and sooner or later pension fund managers will soon wake up to this fact. One more thing, Berkshire Hathaway benefits from a 50% dividends received tax deduction making the dividends even more attractive.

                                                                    Table 1.

                     Dividend Yield and Yield to Maturity for Selected Buffett Stocks

Company     Div. Yield     Bond Yield     Issue             S&P Rating

ABBV            4.82%          2.16%            1.75s/31        BBB+

Chevron         5.04             1.94                2.23s/30        AA-

Merck            3.57              1.80               1.45s/30         AA-

Verizon          4.57              2.26               1.75s/31         BBB+     

Prices as of 3/2/21 close.