The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1470094
C-2 Wednesday, June 8, 2022 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel See GUN LAWS on page 3 See FORMULA on page 3 Gun laws won't fix culture, spirit Once again, the nation has wit- nessed a horrible, pointless act of violence, with innocent children the victims. And, once again, we hear from lib- erals that the answer is gun control. If we look at what generally charac- terizes the mindset of those — gener- ally young men — who commit these acts, we see what generally charac- terizes the mindset that has taken hold of our whole culture. Victimhood, blame and denial of personal responsibility. Can this be an accident? Kudos to The Wall Street Journal for having the courage to point to these incidents as signs of a "social and spiritual" problem in the coun- try. "The rise of family dysfunction and the decline of mediating insti- tutions such as churches and social clubs have consequences." The signs of a society that is sick are all around us: the collapse of fam- ily, the collapse of interest in mar- riage and having children. In 2021, 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, an all-time high and a 15 percent increase over the previous year. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the suicide rate in the U.S. increased 35.2 percent from 1999 to 2018. Suicide was the second leading cause of death among young peo- ple, ages 10 -34, and the fourth lead- ing cause of death among individu- als ages 34-44. A characteristic common to sui- cides and mass killings is that the perpetrators are disproportionate- ly men. Men — generally young men — commit indiscriminate mass mur- der, and men take their own lives at a rate almost four times higher than women. So, men demonstrate in a most un- pleasant way another truth that our liberal friends want to deny. Men are different from women — not just in physical makeup but also in spiritu- al, psychological makeup. For whatever reason, our increas- ingly Godless, materialistic, morally empty culture seems to take a partic- ularly heavy toll on men. American Enterprise Institute scholar Nick Eberstadt has looked in- to the recent phenomenon of prime- age men — ages 25 -54 — who have bailed out of the labor market. These are men who have stopped working and seeking work. The official label is NILF — not in the labor force. According to Eberstadt, the total number of NILF men held steady in the 1940s and 1950s at around 1 mil- lion. Then in the late 1960s it explod- ed. There are now 7 million prime- age men who have withdrawn from the workforce. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the labor force par- ticipation rate of men — the percent of working age men in the work force — was 86.2 percent in January 1950. In April 2022, it was 68 percent. The labor force participation rate for women has almost doubled over the same period — 33.4 percent in January of 1950 to 56.7 percent in April 2022. We've gone from a culture cen- tered on church to a culture centered on government. According to Gallup, in 1950 over 70 percent of Americans belonged to a church. In 2020, it was 47 percent. Among those born between 1981 and 1996, it's 36 percent. Over the same period, take of all levels of government from our GDP went from 22.6 percent to 43.4 per- cent. Sanctity of life was devalued with Roe v. Wade. Military conscription was abolished around the same time, erasing any personal responsibility, beyond paying taxes, that men have to serve. In this vacuous culture of enti- tlement and meaninglessness, lost young men periodically make their presence known through violent ex- pressions, sometimes directed at oth- ers, sometimes toward themselves. I do not pretend that this is simple. I certainly agree that security mea- sures should be taken, particularly in schools. George Washington warned the nation in his farewell address that there is no freedom without faith, tra- Out of Formula Parents still struggle to find baby formula. The left and most media (sorry, same thing?) blame "corporate pow- er run amok." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, "There might be a need for indictment! " They blame Abbott Laboratories, because it shut down a Similac plant. The Food and Drug Administration says unsanitary conditions led to deaths of two infants, but Abbott de- nies that its formula recall had any- thing to do with those deaths. In any case, one factory closure doesn't normally cause massive shortages. My new video gives the real reason for the formula shortage. First: bans on imports. There's plenty of formula on supermarket shelves in Mexico and Europe. Nor- mally, American companies would just buy that and ship it here. But they can't, because of sever- al destructive government policies. "The dairy industry in the Unit- ed States has a really long histo- ry of lobbying the government and achieving protection," explains Cato Institute trade policy specialist Scott Lincicome. That "protection" includes fat tar- iffs on formula from overseas and outright bans by the FDA. There was a gray market where people were getting around these rules. "American parents enlisted third-party sellers to obtain Europe- an infant formula," says Lincicome. Boxes of formula arrived, but cus- toms won't let American parents have it. They've "been seizing Euro- pean baby formula shipments at the border, much like a drug seizure," says Lincicome. Why are imports banned? For safe- ty, says the government, but formu- la is often banned for stupid bureau- cratic reasons. "If you have the wrong scooper, banned! " says Lincicome. "If you don't list a certain ingredient that the FDA demands, you're banned! " If in- gredients are listed in the "wrong" order or aren't listed in English, the food is banned "even if a third-par- ty retailer provides you with the En- glish translation." I say to Lincicome, "I would think that government now would suspend those rules." "It certainly should," he replies. "But the dairy industry lobbied very hard for these rules that provided them essentially a captive market. They're not going to give that up easily." Because of the shortage, our gov- ernment has now approved imports from one British company. They al- so launched "Operation Fly Formu- la," which flies formula here in mili- tary planes. But these responses are pathet- ic. They pick up only the few bottles made in FDA-approved facilities, and then they waste time re-inspecting it on arrival. "They want make sure the formula is safe," I say to Lincicome. "A legitimate concern if it were in- fant formula from China," he replies. "But the largest producer of formu- la is in Europe. Maybe the European product isn't as safe. "It is! " says Lincicome. "It's ex- ported all over the world." But we can't have it because "the FDA is ex- tremely jealous of its regulatory au- thority." Another reason for the shortage is government limits on competition. America's food stamp-like pro- gram, WIC, grants exclusive licens- es in each state to just one company. Like all welfare programs, WIC (it stands for women, infants and chil- dren) has grown. It now buys half of all baby formula in America. Abbott Nutrition grabbed most of that market by offering government the lowest price. Good for them. But after Abbott's recall, there were few alternatives for parents to turn to. "It's going to take weeks for Abbott to get manufacturing up and running again because they're going to need FDA clearance," says Lincicome. "The time for fixing this was months before the crisis hit, because now we have a highly concentrated domestic market (and) a tariff and regulatory wall around the country." Much of what government does involves trying to fix things govern- ment messed up in the first place. But politicians rarely admit that. The latest data from the Depart- ment of Commerce shows gross do- mestic product (GDP) contracted in the first quarter even more than orig- inally estimated, falling 1.5% , the first downturn since the pandemic's onset. Just as economic growth has turned on its heels and headed back- wards, so too has the White House's messaging on the economy notably shifted. President Joe Biden has repeat- edly taken credit for the economic recovery from the government-im- posed shutdowns, completely ignor- ing the fact that former President Donald Trump added 12.5 million jobs during the current recovery, while Biden has added fewer jobs in more time. Too busy bragging about his han- dling of the economy, Biden has spent the last 18 months trying to kill the goose that was laying gold- en eggs for him. Yet for more than a year, the White House has touted the strength of the economy, particularly the labor mar- ket, and has proceeded to take cred- it for the nation's economic growth. The fact that Trump bequeathed Biden an economy that was ener- gy independent and flourishing af- ter tax reform and deregulation was ignored. It was Biden who deserved full credit for the splendid econom- ic recovery. These unforced errors are directly responsible for the current economic malaise, but you would never know that from listening to the White House. Instead, a host of other fac- tors are to blame, like the cessation of pandemic-era "stimulus" checks. Rather than touting the economy, the president now seeks to distance him- self from it. Somehow, the president is no lon- ger single-handedly responsible for the economy, or a stock market that had more consecutive weeks in the red than any time since the Great De- pression. It is reminiscent of the White House's Orwellian talking points on inflation over the last 18 months. First, they denied inflation existed, and then said it was transitory af- ter it became impossible to deny ris- ing prices. Shortly thereafter, it was a high-class problem, and then in- flation was somehow good for you. More recently, inflation is back to be- ing bad and is now caused by Rus- sia, greedy corporations and specu- lators—anyone but Biden. The depth of that liability is more than the 1.5% decrease in GDP, which was worse than expected. Prices rose by 8.0 % , also worse than expected. Inflation is so high that all of the savings accumulated during the pandemic have now be- gun to dwindle, with savings collaps- ing 79 % since Biden took office. Re- al earnings (earnings adjusted for in- flation) are down. Credit card debt is exploding. And all in an environment of rising interest rates as the Fed fi- nally gets around to doing its job. The initial data for April from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureaus indicate more of the same for the second quarter. This is rattling financial markets which are finally realizing that much of the ap- parent growth we've seen over the last 18 months was not real growth but monopoly money sloshing around the economy. Biden was tak- ing credit for the illusion of growth, but now wants no blame for the real- ity of recession. By the time the midterms roll around, it is very likely that the economy will officially be in a re- cession, at which point the Repub- licans will want to talk about noth- ing else. Meanwhile, the Demo- crats' only options will be to ignore the topic or ironically blame those who warned them about the conse- quences of spending trillions of dol- lars, financed by the hidden tax of inflation. This political arithmetic will al- most surely yield widespread Re- publican victories in the midterms. Those Republicans would then do well to remember why they were sent to Washington—to stop the spend- ing, borrowing and printing charade. EJ Antoni is a research fellow for Regional Economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foun- dation. With President Joe Biden's Build Back Better agenda in ruins, Demo- crats want to blame Big Business for the mayhem of high inflation and a collapsing stock market. The White House has pointed its finger at every industry, from Big Tech to meat producers, oil and gas producers, the poultry industry and pharmaceutical companies. Appar- ently, corporate America sudden- ly became incredibly greedy when Biden entered office. Now another move against capital- ism is in the works. Sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobu- char and supported by the Demo- crats' leading business-basher, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Senate Demo- crats want to punish Big Business by pressing for a vote on a bill to break up big technology firms and oth- er companies in the United States. Financial success is today seen by many Democrats as prima facie evi- dence of a monopoly ripping off the little guy. Klobuchar's bill would limit merg- ers and acquisitions, increase penal- ties for supposed price gougers, en- rich thousands of lawyers as they ha- rass America's employers and put America's technological superiori- ty in grave danger as China tries to take over these industries. Note that there are no credible antitrust laws to speak of in China. Meanwhile, in the House of Rep- resentatives, an almost equally dan- gerous bill is being sponsored by a Republican, Rep. Ken Buck of Col- orado. Some of this "punish Big Tech" agenda is being driven by le- gitimate conservative anger over so- cial media censorship. Those of us on the Right are all fighting for more equal treatment and free speech pro- tections on the major social media platforms. Thank goodness we now have crusaders such as Elon Musk talking about clean- ing up Twitter's bias against conservatives. But mimicking a Klobuchar-War- ren agenda, as Buck and too many oth- er "free-market" Re- publicans are pro- posing, will only give more power to regu- late our tech compa- nies in ways that are unlikely to give a bet- ter shake to conservative voices and companies. More likely, bills such as Warren's and Buck's would empower Biden regulators to police the inter- net and prohibit legitimate business practices. That will only give more power to the woke Left. Klobuchar's bill will ban the way that Amazon Prime and Google Maps operate. This won't benefit consumers — because their prices are very low. The big winners will be their businesses' rivals. Many of them are Chinese. The federal reg- ulators are salivating over the new controls and powers to oversee and punish U.S. businesses, and the left- ist social justice groups openly boast that the law will give unprecedented new powers to regulate commerce. Republicans like Buck are plead- ing with their liberal allies to keep their mouths shut about what this bill would empower Big Government to do. "I will not get a lot of support if there is a picture of Ken Buck and Joe Biden giving a thumbs up to- wards moving forward on antitrust bills," he said last month at the 2022 Antitrust and Competition Confer- ence. Indeed, the biggest winner from the Warren-Buck legislation would be Biden superregulator Lina Khan. Khan is the young progressive academ- ic who was raked over the coals by Senate Re- publicans during her confirmation hearing for her wrecking ball approach to business. She sees a monopoly at every street corner. Again, Buck is wor- ried. "When Khan talks about using an- titrust for climate change, labor issues and racial is- sues," he complains, "I've got a lot of explaining to do on my side." Yes, you do, congressman. Why would Buck want to hide from his House GOP colleagues the true in- tentions of his bill? This is as subver- sive as saying we will read the bill af- ter we pass it. And to what end? Consumer prices in many of the technology industries are falling, not rising. This is why the new trust- busters want to sidestep the "con- sumer welfare standard" for anti- trust. If a supposed "monopoly" is lowering prices, then just who is the victim that Buck and Warren are try- ing to help? Free-market Republicans would be wise to scamper away from these bills. It won't solve the censorship problem, but it will give a sword to Biden regulators whose disdain for profitable businesses is only matched by their contempt for con- servatives. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: "Govzilla: How The Re- lentless Growth of Government Is De- vouring Our Economy." Heritage Viewpoint By EJ Antoni Will voters want change? Weak economy could have consequences for Democrats Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore House GOP trust-busting bill is a disaster