Linkage: The man behind the curtain.

SARAH HOYT: STARING INTO THE DUMPSTER FIRE.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2024/07/22/getting-it-out-of-the-way/
'Not that this is all that weird, except for the fact that it has all the appearance of a palace coup. As in, one does wonder if Biden knows he dropped out of his campaign. One does wonder, at that, if Biden is alive, or sufficiently compus mentis to know that he has dropped out. And that’s if he knew he was running in the first place, which one very much doubts.

Some people on Twitter are horrified that someone other than Joe Biden is obviously acting as president. I want to scream, vomit, laugh and hit my head on the wall. First of all, if they don’t think that’s been happening since 2020 they are such wishful thinkers they’re not even in this reality. Second, apparently they’re horrified because the people running the country “weren’t elected” which implies they think Joe Biden WAS elected. Despite the campaign run from the basement, which no one would do unless they were SURE they could win, and the only way to be sure was to have it fraud-locked in place; despite the obviously and clearly hackable voting machines; despite the kicked out poll observers, despite the glaring mathematical impossibility of the vote count; despite the way the democrats acted immediately after, like they were afraid the American people would catch on and tear them limb from limb. Despite all this, these people believed. Because they wanted to believe. ...'

USA: BIDEN APPEARS.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/07/24/reports-biden-determined-to-defy-lame-duck-status-with-oval-office-address/
'President Joe Biden is not yesterday’s man, or even the day-before-yesterday’s man. That will be the core message when he addresses the nation on Wednesday night barely three days after he exited the 2024 race for the White House and allowed Vice President Kamala Harris to be anointed as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.

It is only the fourth Oval Office of his presidency overall – and could well be his last – as he seeks to retain any symbol of relevancy possible in his last months of office.'

COMMENTARY. The next six months are going to be interesting, that's for sure. The elites, the technocrats, the governing class are losing control of the narrative. They want us all to believe their opposition is few in number and isolated, but we know that's not true. They will continue using the magic tricks of the media to sustain this illusion, but the small, puny man behind the curtain has already been exposed. The 2020 "election"? Go ahead and believe Joe Biden won a free and fair election if it makes you happy; you can believe in Santa Claus for all I care. But I know what I know.

Reading: Hannah's Children - Catherine Ruth Pakaluk.

This is the book I've been waiting for.

People of my generation grew up with the myth of "the population bomb", the notion that the Earth's human population was growing at a dangerously high rate, which would surely lead to widespread misery and mass starvation. In reality, what we are witnessing now is a birth dearth, with fertility rates plummeting worldwide and many affluent nations already losing population in absolute numbers, as more and more women bear children below the replacement level, or not at all?

But who are the outliers?

That's the question I wondered about for years, and that's the question this book sets out to answer. Catherine Ruth Pakaluk is the credited author, but this study is the work of Catherine, her colleague Emily, and their assistants Mary and Sierra respectively. These four women and their 55 subjects present us with a lively, detailed, and inspiring picture of college-educated American women who have become mothers to five or more children.

--

Of particular interest to me was the observation by many of the subjects - both those who came from large families of origin themselves, and those who did not - that the experience of growing up among many siblings, who require care and negotiation, matures a child in ways that growing up in a household of one or two children simply does not.

--

Without wanting to sound callous about the issue, I see the fertility decline as serious but I think it will ultimately be self-correcting. Clearly it is not the case that every woman in America is now giving birth to exactly 1.7 children; the low-fertility component of the population will select itself out, and the high-fertility portion will take its place.

As an economist, Catherine Pakaluk undoubtedly understands the Pareto Principle much better than I do. But if 5 percent of women are each bearing 5 children or more, then I am certain that those children will make up more than 5 percent of their generation. And if, as the evidence suggests, the propensity for large families is inherited (because children growing up with many siblings will be less intimidated by the prospect of parenthood themselves) then this effect will only be amplified from one generation to the next.

So, I am optimistic that the birth dearth will bottom out, and the "outliers" of today will in fact be the trend-setters of the next generation.

The future belongs to those who show up. This is a book about the ones who will show up.