This week we want to review some important updates. There is much positive karma going on out there - which of course you would never hear in the news - and the potential is even so much greater if capitalism and education are permitted to keep quietly flourishing (well maybe not so quietly). Here are some facts:
1. Neel Kashkari, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, recently released a report explaining the true job growth and "reversing of income inequality" now occurring in the United States. Low tax rates and deregulation are creating 200,000 new jobs a month for our citizens in 2019, which is roughly double the number needed to keep up with population growth. So, 100,000 citizens per month are still coming off the unemployment rolls! More than 70% of the people taking these new jobs reported that in the prior month they weren't even looking for work! Yes, the opportunities are too good to resist, even for all of the people who had considered themselves disabled and preferred a government check. Wow.
Interestingly, as unemployment has plummeted to 3.6%, unemployment for recent community college and vocational school grads is 30-40% less than four-year college grads. Wake up call for the under-achieving university system in our country? Wages are increasing over 3% and the "less educated" wages are growing nearly double the "educated." Wages in mining are up 7.5%, leisure and hospitality 4.4% and retail 4.3%, while wages in finance are up 2.3%. No wonder the elites, technocrats and trust fund babies are losing their minds! Go with the facts, not the false narratives spread by those with the microphones.
2. The smart ones understand that nuclear energy is the energy answer for the future, and holds a far greater potential than the next-best alternative. Yet, the elites continue to pursue nonsensical agendas to simply stir up voters. Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public works, recently attempted to overcome the barriers to finally completing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waster storage facility in Nevada. He claims that if the U.S. is serious about climate change, we must become serious about nuclear energy. Nuclear power generates roughly 20% of our power today and 60% of our carbon-free energy, which is more than 3X the energy produced by wind and 18X the amount of solar.
The Yucca Mountain storage site is larger than Massachusetts and is determined to safely contain this material for at least a million years, while new technologies are dramatically reducing even this storage requirement. Because of "New Green" plans, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stopped work on Yucca in 2015, and eight states have passed laws against building more nuclear capability until this is resolved.
Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, attempted to clarify the true "waste and destruction" which must occur to meet global agendas such as the Paris Accord. A single electric-car battery weighs 1,000 pounds, while fabricating one requires digging up and processing 500,000 pounds of raw materials "somewhere on the planet." Building a wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete, and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic, while solar power requires even more cement, steel, and glass plus rare-earth elements.
To meet these "renewable" agendas, silver mining must jump 250%, indium 1,200%, and other elements 300-1,000%. Finally, don't forget that more than 90% of the world's solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electric grids blacking out the sky at today's levels, and the 2050 Paris Accord targets for solar will result in the disposal of more than double the tonnage of today's global plastic waste. [But at least Starbuck's is using paper straws!].
3. In our continuous campaign to support school choice and charter schools, we wanted to highlight Baker Mitchell's fantastic efforts in North Carolina. A retired electrical engineer who sold his company and began volunteering as an elementary school science teacher, Mr. Mitchell became inspired by Thaddeus Lott, the principal of the high-achieving, low-income Wesley Elementary in Houston. He became so inspired that he founded the Roger Bacon Academy which oversees four charter schools in southeastern North Carolina. He recently published a report to counter the opposition's current strategy to play the race card to stop these successful schools. He reports that in North Carolina charter schools have a 26.1% black enrollment versus 25.2% for state district schools. The report presented to the North Carolina General Assembly this year confirmed that at virtually every grade level and virtually every student subgroup - white, African American, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency - charters outperformed the district schools in English, math and science. As 40% or more of Roger Bacon's students come from low-income households, Mr. Mitchell says his critics simply "do not want families making education decisions for their children. The system does not want to lose control or money." We are incredibly grateful for warriors like Mr. Mitchell.
Know the facts. Don't succumb to the narratives. Have a great week!
"The two of us are quite rich...both of us are sons of immigrants who came to these shores with almost nothing...we know that we can spend our dollars more wisely, and in ways that benefit our communities and our country, than politicians can...the businesses we created have employed hundreds of thousands of Americans...We have given more than $2 billion to charity...Our patriotism is measured not in how much we pay in taxes - which is a lot - but in the businesses and the wealth and the jobs we create." - Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot, and John Catsimatidis, owner of Red Apple Group.
** Thank you very much to the WSJ, Forbes, and Fortune for the above quotations and statistics.
** For more information on Jeff's Books, Blog, and Legal Challenge, please visit www.jeffmartinovich.com.
** To access JAM Views directly please visit jeffreyamartinovich.blogspot.com
