Decline in Birth Rates in U.S. - Partially a Result of Pressure on Women to Work Outside the Home?

It seems to me that the social pressure on women to pursue a career outside the home, because equality or something, is causing lower U.S. birth rates. Also the social stigma of "only" working at home as a mother and housewife. What a shame. Parents (but mostly women) should be able to consider raising children a valid career choice. It is good for the kids to have a full-time parent, and it is good for the parent not to have to juggle two full time jobs and be forever living an exhausted and chaotic life. Or three full time jobs - career, raising a family and running a household.

1. Two-income vs. one-income family, but mitigated by costs of work clothing, transportation to work, child care and pre-school, nannies etc. Also higher tax rate.

2. Costs of being a parent:
   a. Social cost - disparagement of choosing to parent a child(ren) vs. having a career.
   b. Legal exposure - regulations and laws that penalize a parent for letting children takes some risks         and thus grow up.
   c. Kids raised by third parties undercut their development of family values and attachments.

Social Media as Mob

Social media has become a scary tool for mobs intent on silencing or, worse, destroying those they don't like or with whom they disagree. IMHO, this tendency to mob antagonists has been emboldened by the laxity with which many college administrators have dealt with students who wish to shut down conservative speakers. Several issues are at stake:
1. Free speech
2. Endangerment of the targets of mobs
3. Economic destruction of the targets of mobs
4. Inculcation of a sense of entitlement and invulnerability in college students

There need to be legal penalties for this sort of mistreatment of people.

Elected Politicians Should Not Control Spending and Budgets Because of the Incentive to Buy Votes

There should be a system for making spending and budget decisions, limits and goals that is controlled by independent agencies and not by politicians. Politicians have every incentive to vote for spending on constituents as a means to buy votes. Decisions on spending government funds should be completely firewall divorced from politicians who rely on the voting public to acquire power.

Trump Negotiations with Kim Jong Un

Trump walked away from the negotiations and left Hanoi ahead of schedule for the United States. Good move. It appears Kim was asking for sanctions to be lifted before he did anything about denuclearization. Same ploy as he father and grandfather, it appears. Trump would have been left with no leverage except to reapply sanctions. Had he gone that route, he would have appeared to cave to Kim's demands, and it would have taken some time to reinstitute the sanctions.

Now North Korea is still subject to economic sanctions and Kim has failed at his maneuver. Where to go from here? If Kim comes back with a counter-offer, Trump will have something to work with. If Kim does not, then it will be a stalemate with NOKO still under sanctions. If these sanctions do indeed cause economic pain, Kim will presumably have an incentive to reopen the talks. And if he does dream of getting credit for establishing a thriving NOKO economy (who knows what motivates him), he will be more motivated than he would have been if sanctions had been lifted.

All in all, probably the best move Trump could have made under the circumstances, and given the history of the Kims.

Offense as the best defense

Preemptive strikes. He throws out accusations in anticipation of actions he plans to take so that when he does make his move, the opposition is neutralized by these prior declarations.

Point one - when he lectured the Supreme Court that they had better not rule against Obamacare. That put them on the defensive about appearing to be too politicized and may have caused them to corkscrew a favorable decision by calling the mandate a tax.

Point two - he is now anticipating his extra-legal executive order to keep illegal immigrants from being deported by prefacing the order with complaints that opponents plan to try to impeach him. Again, it puts them on the defensive about trying to invalidate the order, prejudicing the public to interpret their resistance as an effort at impeachment.

Not doing his job

So, he is bored with his job, so say the sycophants proclaiming that his superior intellect prevents him from finding the job a challenge.

I would say he is hiding behind that mask because he does not understand the job and cannot succeed at it. Bluster about how something is not worthy of your attention is often a cover for fear of failure if you try.

Trying for Optimism Here

By 10:00 PM on November 6, 2012, the results of the election were obvious. You could tell by the jaunty leg-swinging and the body language of the MSM reporters. At that point, I felt sorrow for what could have been and would not be in a Romney presidency. I also felt that there is a lot more complexity and there are often unpredictable long-range consequences to a single event such as this.

In the short term, it would have felt good and validating to replace the current overbearing and high-handed administration with a rational, managerial and significantly less political team. It would have provided the immediate pleasure and satisfaction of remonstrating them through defeat.

However...

Had Romney won, the liberals would have had a martyr. They would also have forever after wailed about how things were just turning around and ever-growing government power was just about to demonstrate its efficacy when - boom - the rug was pulled out from under them. And finally, any future problems, many set in motion by this administration, would have been laid at the feet of the new administration.

Now, the consequences of the policies and actions of the first four years are becoming manifest. The arrogance of the first term has become hubris. The caution (such as there was) of an administration trying to get reelected has given way to carelessness and imperiousness. Enough time has passed to allow the weakness of the philosophy of centralized top-down big government to result in various failures.

My hope is that the current administration will now suffer real consequences where a loss in November would have insulated them forever. There are no what-ifs to ponder but only concrete results.

And finally, this may result in a far more effective correction to overweaning government (IRS and the dysfunctional tax code, inefficient government management of health insurance and care, tax revenue mis-allocation to favored industries) than would have occurred if Romney's election had provided partial relief and taken the pressure off these issues.

And I Reiterate... (please see prior post)

Benghazi - where the president refused permission to attempt to save the four Americans killed. Then lied about the genesis of and response to the whole terrorist attack. Then got re-elected.

IRS political harassment - where the president's administration allowed (?) directed (?) did not suppress (?) IRS implementation of slow-walking applications for tax-exempt status by conservative organizations that generally want lower taxes and smaller government. Long and intrusive questionnaires caused several of these entities, prior to the presidential election, to close shop out of frustration, legal costs and fear of the IRS. Then the president lied about his knowledge of this behavior (several of these organizations had been publicly complaining about it and reporting it in 2012). Then he got re-elected.

Deep dive into AP news organization telephone records - where the "Justice" Department obtained two months' of telephone records for a very large number of office, home and cell phone numbers or reporters, compromising their ability to provide confidence that sources would not be revealed. But the president says he just heard about this abuse of the First Amendment. But hey, be quiet out there in medialand or you will hear from my AG.