Top Three Takeaways – May 24th, 2021
- What’s in your wallet? No this isn’t a credit card commercial. This is about the non-plastic stuff in your wallet. See that dollar in your wallet? Now, what’s that worth? You’re thinking a dollar, right? Well, not quite because it doesn’t work that way. The surge in inflation we’ve experienced, with the largest year over year increase in consumer prices since 2008, is being predominantly driven by what your dollar is no longer worth. A year ago today the US Dollar Index was over $99 and today’s it’s $89. That 10% decline in the value of the US dollar means before supply and demand ever enters the equation you have to pay more for stuff because your dollar isn’t worth what it used to be. Why? Because all of the free puppies, and candy and Biden bucks aren’t free. The US is over $28 trillion in debt, it doesn’t have money for free puppies and candy and Biden bucks. That means it’s printing them. As they’re printing/digitizing new dollars for “free stuff”, it devalues the US dollar causing it to lose value. That’s why everything costs more. Your life is 10% more expensive today than a year ago because “freebies” like the $1,400 stimulus checks. Congrats, you got $1,400 and all it cost you was 10% of everything you earn. Some value proposition. This needs to be known lest people continue to think that the government can ever provide anything for free. That applies at the local level too. Those “free school lunches” for example, someone had their home foreclosed today to help pay for them. Congrats. Speaking of education though...
- Critical race theory isn’t banned in Florida, yet. On back of the Palm Beach County School District’s effort to attempt to backdoor CRT into public schools, countless parents have asked how this is possible because of Governor DeSantis banning CRT in Florida. Well, that’s because it hasn’t happened yet, because it can’t happen by order of the governor, or more appropriately the Education Commissioner, as the case may be. The state has proposed a ban of CRT as part of the newly revised BEST standards, however it has to be ratified by the Florida Board of Education and they don’t meet to consider the rule change until June 10th. Maybe it’s for the best. Rather than waiting until Governor DeSantis can do something about it, I’d prefer that as a community we fix the problem ourselves starting with tomorrow’s special school board meeting to discuss “equity”. If you are solely demanding “white advantage” be taken out you’ve missed the bigger picture. The entire addition to the District’s mission is Marxist. All of this needs to go: dismantling structures rooted in white advantage and transforming our system by hearing and elevating under-represented voices, sharing power, recognizing and eliminating bias, and redistributing resources to provide equitable outcomes. It’s time to engage and control what we can control locally starting right now. As I said yesterday... Imagine if we had Trump rally level engagement and enthusiasm aimed at accountability for our school districts? It’s possible, it’s just a matter of deciding to do it. That said...
- DeSantis is readying. After saying Friday, If we have to play whack a mole all over the state stopping this critical race theory, we will do it, he had this to say on the subject while signing the big tech censorship ban into law at FIU: There’s a movement now in some of the elite corporate outlets to gaslight people about what critical race theory is. It teaches people to view that as the most important characteristic. And obviously if you’re certain races, Caucasian, what-not, they view that in a negative fashion. That is not something that’s appropriate for schools. It’s based on historical falsehoods. If you continue to have some of this movement in spite of the state policy, it really should have funding consequences that flow from it. Look, have we done so well on the basics that we go off on these political and ideological tangents in our schools? They’re not supposed to be indoctrinating kids with faddish ideologies. Personally, I’m interested in exploring the implications of the whack a mole approach, though I do know there’s nothing that strikes fear in the heart of Marxist peddling public school officials quite like a cut in funding.
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