Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2012, Energy, Junk Science, Liberalism | Tags: Inadequate Investigation, Solyndra Bankruptcy, Squandering Taxpayer Money
And these voices are from some of the members of the media most in the tank for Obama. Experienced investors were even more dubious.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Energy, Taxes, The United States | Tags: Mitt Romney, Bain Capital's Record, Obama's Failed Investments
The Obama Campaign, noted for its brilliance, oddly seems to want to have a debate about which of the two candidates is more qualified to run the world’s largest economy. Obama’s economic policies vs.Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital? Um, you might want to rethink that.
Obama has made it clear that he really doesn’t understand the concept of profit. Liberals are often taught that profit is a bad thing that the rich sometimes do to line their disgusting pockets and pay for their yachts.
It is obvious that the administration is a little unclear about just how jobs are created. Today’s dismal jobs report makes that very obvious. Three and a half years later is really too late to keep blaming George W. Bush. At what point does the economy become Obama’s? When the recession is over? That happened in June of 2009, officially, from the agency that makes those decisions.
The Obama team does understand hiring, and have done a lot of it, creating new government departments and issuing new regulations; but they miss the detail about who pays for what. Government jobs are just another bill for the taxpayers to pay. From the president on down to the lowliest janitor, taxpayers pay their salaries and benefits. Government has no money of its own, a fact that liberals forget until they need more revenue, at which point they expect taxpayers to pony up without complaint funds which, when received, will become ‘government money.’
Bain Capital buys failing companies that they hope to revive, with private money from themselves and from investors. They look at the books carefully before they invest, and determine what is needed— money, better management, eliminating a sector that is losing money, a new business plan — and consider what they can successfully provide. If the business still fails, Bain and their investors will lose money, and have a harder time raising investment money the next time. Not every business can be made to succeed, but under Mitt Romney more than 70 percent of their businesses did succeed, many dramatically so. It’s a very good record.
The Obama Administration has picked businesses to fulfill their ideological interest in green energy. They have listened to promoters’ talk of capacity and potential, and had the benefit of having supporters or campaign bundlers in charge or as investors so there were some familiar faces.
They did not ‘invest” their own money, but invested billions of taxpayer funds in speculative businesses that had no track record nor no evidence of expertise or professionalism. When one of those businesses goes bankrupt, it is just another total loss for the taxpayers. The administration’s goals are policy driven — intended to fulfill green ideology, not return on investment driven. We’re still looking for one clean energy success. Just one.
Mitt Romney showed up at Solyndra’s empty building to make the point that when the administration invested in Solyndra, it wasn’t the administration that lost money, it was the taxpayers. The Obama campaign is trying to claim that Romney’s policies in Massachusetts were an economic failure because during his tenure, Massachusetts unemployment rate was 4.7%. Um, 5% unemployment is usually considered full employment.
Obama has big problems arising from his inexperience. He has made universally bad bets. Attempting to invest in “green” energy in spite of the abundant evidence from Spain and other European countries is folly. You would need extensive investigation from trained professionals in the technology and business prospects. Making investments with politically connected business ventures has led to charges of corruption and cronyism. The largest bets went to friends and contributors to Mr. Obama. The biggest losses went to the taxpayers.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Election 2012, Politics, Taxes, The United States | Tags: Fear Of The Future, Fist Quarter Revised Downward, Unemployment Up
The economic news is all bad. First quarter economic growth has been revised downward to 1.9% growth, which is downright anemic. Now the preliminary May jobs report shows the unemployment rate (U3) rising to 8.2 with only 69,000 new jobs. All momentum is gone. This is the third subpar tally, with downward revisions for the two prior months.
The U6 unemployment rate which tracks the marginally employed or completely discouraged — increased to 14.8% from 14.5%. Labor earnings are almost, but not quite, keeping in line with the growth in inflation.
Obama doesn’t seem to understand that businesses create jobs. If businesses don’t make profits and expand, they don’t create jobs — yet here is Obama out on the campaign trail criticizing Mitt Romney for making profits.
Well, today, faced with such dismal news, Obama hopped on Air Force One, at your expense, to fly to Minneapolis for “official business” at an event at a Honeywell factory in a Minneapolis suburb (which excuses putting the trip on the taxpayer bill. That there just happen to be six fundraisers on the schedule is just a coincidence. At the first, the president will address a group of 100 guests ($5,000 a plate), followed by two small roundtables of deep-pocket supporters ($40,000 a plate) and ($50,000 a person).
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted that businesses are holding back on investing for the future because, “In short, there is a fear of the future.”Tax Armageddon still awaits us on January 1. and a new survey shows that uncertainty in the tax code is causing businesses to sit on the sidelines. Most financial officers, according to the tax firm Alvarez & Marsal Taxand, rate eliminating uncertainty in the tax code as their top issue. “Confidence in knowing precisely what the tax code will require has become more important than how much it will cost them.” They are operating in holding patterns.
President Obama has been notably silent on the prospect of keeping the United States from heading over a fiscal cliff. Speaker John Boehner has announced that the House will vote in July to prevent tax rates from rising. The Senate should so the same. There is time for Washington to take action, but the fiscal cliff is not all that far away. Where is the Corporate tax reform? Ours is still the highest in the world. And, unsurprisingly, corporate profits rose at the slowest pace in more than three years.
The White House has fallen once again back on its old theme (foregone briefly yesterday) it’s all George W. Bush’s fault. Nearly four years and the man cannot take responsibility for anything slightly negative, and makes up everything slightly positive out of whole cloth.
I wish I believed that the president was deeply concerned about the economy because of the misery it is causing the American people, but I don’t. It’s all about the election.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, Progressivism, Capitalism, Election 2012 | Tags: The Minimum Wage, Income From Gratuities, Waiters and Waitresses
In an election year, one of the big problems is that everyone wants to do nice things for their voters. They want to appeal to the heart. But your government does not love you, much as they try to make you think they do. They love getting re-elected. Case in point: Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) has introduced the Rebuild America Act. (Good names make it harder to vote against). Among other things, the Iowa Democrat wants to raise the minimum wage by 220% for employees who receive tip income, such as waiters and waitresses. Huh?
Seems like only yesterday, Congress was railing about waiters and waitresses not paying taxes on their tip income. Fact: the federal minimum wage for employees who earn tip income is $2.13 an hour. The Labor Department permits this lower minimum wage so long as the employee earns at least the full federal minimum wage of $7.25 when tips are included. If tips fall short of that amount, employers kick in the rest. According to Census Bureau data, the average hourly wage for a restaurant employee earning tip income is $11.82. Top earners can collect $24 an hour or more. It pays to be a nice waiter or waitress.
The difference between the two minimum wages is called the “tip credit.” It is a political acknowledgment of the single-digit profit margins in tipped industries, and of the income supplement that gratuities provide.
Economic studies show no relationship between a boost in restaurant employee base wages and their take-home compensation. A study that examined 20 years of Census Bureau data found that each time the mandatory state wage for tipped employees rose by 10%, hours worked fell by 5%.
Economists William Even and David Macpherson analyzed Sen. Harkin’s bill, and they estimate that the combined loss of hours would translate to the loss of 447,000 jobs. There are always consequences. Table-service restaurants have experimented with computer terminals tat allow customers to order and pay at the table. When a server is only carrying food to the table, restaurant jobs won’t be as lucrative.
Progressive politics is simple. Just make the employer pay more. The law of unintended consequences always applies. But if Sen. Harkin’s bill doesn’t pass, restaurant employees in Iowa will know (maybe) that he tried, which is the point.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Energy, Environment, National Security, Politics | Tags: "Beyond Natural Gas", American Energy Abundance, Greens Target Fossil Fuels
America has undergone a monumental change, and the major media are just waking up to it. The administration has apparently not heard. America is awash in fossil fuels. We have lots. All that bit about being dependent on foreign oil — nevermind. America has a boom in shale natural gas, and even Fortune magazine admitted it in a cover story.
So, naturally, as night follows day, the Sierra Club has announced a new battle plan called “Beyond Natural Gas.” This is a companion piece to “Beyond Coal,” in which the Sierra Club has been lobbying for rules to force the shutdown of America’s coal-fired power plants, the closure of coal mines, an end to the use of coal — which supplies just a little less than half the electricity in the country.
The theme was previously that coal was dirty, disgusting, dangerous, and we should rely instead on clean natural gas. Now that they have the closure of coal-fired power plants well underway, they are turning to eliminating natural gas. Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune announced their goal this month.”We’re going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can.” They have rolled out a new website that says:
The natural gas industry is dirty, dangerous and running amok. The closer we look at natural gas, the dirtier it appears, and the less of it we burn, the better off we will be.
Sounds vaguely familiar. But this is no idle threat. The Sierra Club has deep pockets, with 1.4 million members, generous funding from liberal foundations, and the knowledge of just how to work the media and the politicians. The lobby has successfully helped to block new nuclear plants for more than 30 years, the “Beyond Oil” campaign helped to keep much of America off-limits to oil drilling, and its “Beyond Coal” campaign has all but shut down new coal plants, and is working on shutting down the old ones.
The Sierra Club was once a modest affair, founded by John Muir in 1892, to “make the mountains glad.”It is the oldest and arguably the most powerful environmental group in the nation. But it is no longer my father’s Sierra Club. It used to offer summer horse packing trips into the high Sierra, featured Ansell Adams’ beautiful photographs of Yosemite, and grew into photography books, animal books and all those nice things that make us love nature — that we can put on our coffee tables to show how ecologically with it we are. It has grown into a radical environmentalist organization of 1.4 million members with leadership positions held by activists with radical ties. It has managed to maintain a “mainstream” image, but its goals are hardly mainstream.
The radicalism of radical environmentalism is way out there, and makes little sense. They essentially oppose modern civilization, and all its peoples. They are attempting to shut down the power plants that power the wind farms and solar arrays that they, for now, favor. How long will wind energy be acceptable when Congress offer special waivers to the wind farms for the eagles they chop up? The green energy bubble is bursting everywhere. The Energy Tribune notes:
The EU’s ideologically-driven Energy Road Map prioritized ‘green’ renewable energy, diverting away from Russian natural gas dependency and harmonizing energy and environmental needs. The result: a devastatingly inept screw up that threatens continent-wide power outages even, as Die Welt recently reported, in Germany as early as next winter.
In short order, EU energy policies have created an unsustainable, publicly-subsidized, market-skewing ‘green’ energy bubble, eschewed a cheap fossil fuels policy and realistic alternatives to Russian gas imports. Together those failed policies have resulted in the double double-whammy of soaring of energy prices and, as is now being reported, diminishing European industrial competitiveness.
The Sierra Club gets no awards for consistency. They were all for natural gas when the price was $8 or more per million BTUs and the supply seemed to be limited. But gas prices have fallen to $2.50, and natural gas may come to dominate U.S. energy production. Wind and solar and biofuel power may never be competitive. If the subsidies are removed, there will be no profit in wind and solar anyway. It’s ordinary people who will benefit if there is a plentiful supply of cheap natural gas. It will benefit industry and the economy, and there are somewhere around 600,000 jobs in the natural gas industry alone, not to mention the jobs provided by a thriving economy fueled by cheap, abundant energy from natural gas and coal.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2012, Energy, Politics | Tags: Campaign 2012, Chicago Style Graft, Solyndra & Friends
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2012, Politics | Tags: Excess Regulation, Excess Uncertainty, Sluggish Job-Growth
Recovery? What recovery? In almost every speech, President Obama proudly claims that he inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression. He has added new jobs each month, and while we need to do more, we are heading in the right direction.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis which tracks economic performance for each recovery, compares the growth of gross domestic product for each recovery, and job growth for each recovery; there have been 11 recessions and 11 recoveries over the past 60 years. This recovery is near the bottom of all 11.
Average normal job growth is 6.5%. Cumulative non-farm job growth is just 1.9% 34 months into the ‘recovery.’ Cumulative growth of GDP is just 6.8% 11 quarters into this ‘recovery.’ The average is 15.2%, and GDP growth is the worst of all 11 recessions.
The administration has tried every Keynesian method for achieving economic growth to no avail. The recovery remains one of the worst since World War II. The problem lies with the way the “stimulus” was carried out, the uncertainty of a looming tax Armageddon, the anti business rhetoric, and the piles of new regulation. This is, I believe, the first President that has ever run for office opposing capitalism and the free market.
The monetary policy of the Federal Reserve has resulted in extraordinarily low interest rates — almost zero for the past three years. In a normal world, low interest rates wold lead to increased borrowing by individuals and businesses — increasing economic activity. What it has done instead is to help the government to borrow more cheaply, the big banks to recapitalize quickly, and homeowners to refinance at low rates.
The uncertainty concerning ObamaCare and what it will do to business and individuals, higher taxes on business combined with anti-business rhetoric from the administration, and the constant threat from EPA actions has discouraged the kind of borrowing and lending that low rated usually encourage. The low interest rates have meant historically low yields on savings, and encouraged riskier investments.
The president’s fiscal policy has increased expenditures by about $700 billion per year since 2008. The increased spending has had a temporary stimulating effect, but has resulted in an increase in the national debt of over $5 trillion. Where has all the spending gone? The money for the most part, was badly spent. Billions went to reward government employees, and the auto unions. More billions went to training programs that don’t work, (the government has 49 job training programs administered by nine agencies — all ineffective), extended unemployment insurance that reduces the incentive to find work. That which was directed to infrastructure was mostly wasted because those “shovel-ready” jobs weren’t shovel ready.
In Obama’s first three years, 105 major federal regulations have added more than $46 billion per year in new costs for Americans. 32 new major regulations in 2011 increased regulatory costs by another $10 billion annually with an additional $6.5 billion in one-time implementation costs.
The mindset that says that innovation, growth,and job creation come from government; and that the economy will perform better if government tells people what to do; is a real problem. It’s not just the hubris that assumes that they know better, nor the contempt they have for the American people. It is that they simply do not understand who Americans are.
We are a courageous people who picked up our lives and went forth to an unknown country in the hopes of more freedom and a burning desire for a better life. That’s true for the first immigrants, and the most recent. Those who were lacking in courage or content with things the way they were stayed put.
Those who didn’t find what they dreamed of on the East coast picked up and struck out for the West. Americans don’t need a lot of regulation, they don’t need to be told what to do, and they just want government to get out of their hair, and leave them alone to innovate, create, to try, fail, and succeed.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, News of the Weird, Politics, Statism | Tags: Credit Card Companies, Moms Need Co-signers, Regulation and Red Tape
Oh dear, those wise elites in government really don’t think the ordinary folk who pay their salaries are very bright. They are so anxious to protect us from ourselves. Lawmakers apparently believe that Visa, Mastercard and Discover and might not have the incentive to properly manage their own credit risk. If not aided by new regulations from Congress, people might run up more debt than they could repay — like the elected officials who have run up the national tab by$1.2 trillion just this year.
The Federal Reserve Board has issued the specific regulations called for in the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (CARD). I love the way the acronym comes first, then they figure out the name. The name is a little odd for a regulation that prohibits private companies from acting independently.
Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth Duke declared the new rules to be a milestone in the effort to ensure that consumers who rely on credit cards are treated fairly.
It’s that old bugaboo “consequences.” The law is widely interpreted as prohibiting millions of stay-at-home-moms, and stay-at-home-dads from obtaining credit cards of their own. The “ability to pay” regulation requires credit card applicants to have an independent source of income to open an account or else find a co-signer.
(a) General rule. (1)(i) Consideration of ability to pay. A card issuer must not open a credit card account for a consumer…unless the card issuer considers the ability of the consumer to make the required minimum periodic payments under the terms of the account based on the consumer’s income or assets and current obligations.
(ii) Reasonable policies and procedures. Card issuers must establish and maintain reasonable written policies and procedures to consider a consumer’s income or assets and current obligations…It would be unreasonable for a card issuer to…issue a credit card to a consumer who does not have any income.
Homemakers actually do most of the household purchases, and over 45,000 of them have signed a petition of protest that has gone to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s really special being regarded as incompetent.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2012, Politics | Tags: He Can't Stop, President Obama's Whopper, The Spending Binge
“Since I’ve been President, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly sixty years. Think about that. This other side, I don’t know how they’ve been bamboozling folks into thinking that they’re the responsible fiscally disciplined party. They run up these wild debts , and then when we take over we’ve gotta clean it up.”
The President of the United States actually said that. Is this what Valerie Jarrett advised? Is he so unfamiliar with the real numbers that he thinks he can get away with such a whopper? Did he read the Rex Nutting of MarketWatch attempt to portray the president as being downright stingy “Obama Spending Binge Never Happened?” and being unfamiliar with what the numbers actually were — believed it?
Right at the beginning of Obama’s term in office, Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, set up a daily economics briefing with his Council of Economic Advisers. We have been told that Obama found it boring and shortly eliminated the meeting. He clearly believes in the part of Keynesian economics that says to pump money into the economy to promote growth, because he is endlessly trying to stimulate the dead economy with more jolts of taxpayer money. Unfortunately, Keynesian stimulus has no record of success.
Mr Nutting uses a typical D.C. trick, often used by Congress. He speaks of annualized growth of federal spending. The trick is — where’s the starting point? Is it zero, or is it just the previous number? You have perhaps heard the frequent plaintive cry from Republicans about zero-based budgeting. Let’s say the Orwell Agency’s budget last year was 1 billion. Congress wants to give them another 20 million. Instead of correctly indicating that the agency budget is now $1 billion, 20 million, they speak of the “annualized growth of the agency is $20 million, That much smaller number sounds ever so much better. That’s the trick Rex Nutting is using.
Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Usually, the previous president will have signed a budget for the coming year into law around the end of the fiscal year. However, in 2008, Congress refused to pass the budget while George W. Bush was still in office (he might have vetoed?) and they sent to budget to Obama when he took office, and he signed it. But Mr. Nutting gives the whole 2009 budget to George W. Bush. It has TARP, the Auto Bailout, the Stimulus, Cars for Clunkers all Obama’s spending in it, but it doesn’t count under Mr. Nutting’s analysis. Then that number becomes the new base from which Obama’s spending is counted.
Until Barack Obama took office in 2009, the United States had never spent more than 23.5% of GDP, with the exception of the World War II years of 1942-1946. Here’s Obama’s spending record.
— 25.2% of GDP in 2009
— 24.1% of GDP in 2010
— 24.1% of GDP in 2011
—24.3% of GDP (estimates by White House) in 2012
If Obama wins another term spending, according to his own budget would never drop below 22.3% of GDP. He established 2009 as the “new baseline,” and turned a one-off surge in spending due to the Great Recession into the new normal through 2016 and beyond.
Or to put it differently — From the Treasury Department — spending per day: President Reagan– $2.5 Billion. President Clinton–$4.1 Billion. President Bush–$6.8 Billion. President Obama– $9.7 Billion.
President Barack Obama is spinning a fable. His record on the economy is dreadful. He has spent more than all the previous presidents put together, and he is fully responsible for that.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Election 2012, Politics | Tags: Anything to Distract, Hypocrisy, Lily Ledbetter?
About the “War on Women” — “A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called ‘gender pay gap’”, and urged their colleagues to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. But it turns out that there is a substantial gender pay gap in their own offices according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data.
Of the five senators in the Wednesday press conference: Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Patty Murray (D-WA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) — three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.
Patty Murray, “who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war on women” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent” — way more than the the 23 percent Democrats claim as a nationwide difference.
The other offenders were Feinstein and Boxer. Of the 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, 37 senators paid their female staffers less than male staffers. Women working for Senate Democrats in 2011 pulled in an average salary of $60,877. Men made about $6.500 more.
Golly darn, that just makes their “War on Women” even sillier, doesn’t it.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Politics, The United States | Tags: Death of Hope, Election 2012, Obama's Economy
Filed under: Capitalism, Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Politics, Religion, United Nations | Tags: Conference on Sustainable Development, Hold Back Human Progress, World Wildlife Fund
Are you familiar with the World Wildlife Fund? Huge, wealthy worldwide organization, preserving wildlife, caring for the environment, doing good environmental works. If you visit their website and look at their board of directors, it’s an impressive list of the prominent and very well-to-do.
The other face of the World Wildlife Fund is as an extremist green campaigning group. In their just-issued Living Planet Report for 2012, they state that economic growth should be abandoned, that citizens of the world’s wealthy nations should prepare for poverty and that all the human race’s energy should be produced as renewable electricity within 38 years from now.
The hard greens demand that the enormous numbers of wind farms, tidal barriers and solar arrays required under their plans should be built while at the same time severely rationing supplies of concrete, steel, copper and glass. The document is endorsed by the European Space Agency (ESA) an organization which would cease to exist were the document’s recommendations to be fully carried out. They’re important. Nobody said they had to make sense.
Ben Pile, the convenor of the Oxford Salon, said simply: “The real enemy is humanity itself.”
At Rio+20 next month, the world’s elites will meet in Brazil with the aim of holding back human progress.
Forty years ago, two ideas about humanity’s relationship with the natural world caught the imagination of the richest and most influential people. The first was that the demands of a growing population were taking more from the planet than could be replaced by natural processes. The second, related idea was that there exist natural ‘limits to growth’. These two reinventions of Malthusianism became the basis of a new form of global politics, which has sought to contain human industrial and economic development ever since.
Organizations like the WWF draw their supporters for emotional reasons. Love of baby animals, love of large and noble species like African elephants, pandas, rhinoceros, giraffes; beautiful photography can be very moving.
Fears of out-of-control population growth led Malthus and then Paul Erlich, author of the 1968 prophecy The Population Bomb to fear that we would run out of food, and humanity would starve. Fortunately Norman Borlaug came along with the Green Revolution, and put that worry aside.
The Club of Rome, a talk-shop for diplomats, noted politicians and researchers fostered the development of all sorts of organizations and conferences and commissions designed to save the world. An entire ecosystem of global, national, governmental and non-governmental organizations has emerged to advocate closer integration of human productive life with environmental care and to observe “the limits to growth.” Most notable is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which seeks a global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Well, all the predictions of doom didn’t happen. Average life-expectancy has increased by 10 years, the number of infants dying before the age of five has fallen from 134 per thousand to 58 per thousand. Human population has nearly doubled, and we are healthier, wealthier (even in spite of the recent downturns) and global GDP has risen threefold. We’ve learned to grow more food on less land, cured diseases, and made amazing progress, but those who joined the church of the doomed have established “sustainable development’ as an imperative of global politics. The first ‘Earth Summit’ was held in Rio leading to Agenda 21 and ‘the blueprint for a sustainable planet.’
If you are perpetually worried about very big things, with other, um, planetary leaders, you are moving in rarefied circles.The conferences are held in the world’s finest resorts, the finest people attend, the finest food and drink is served, and you discuss the finest subjects. It seems quite proper to be discussing surrendering national autonomy, solving the problem of world poverty, solving the problems on inequality.
What if you think we do pretty well with progress, that an emphasis on sustainability is not particularly useful, and that in general the planet is in pretty good shape? Doesn’t matter. These NGOs, world leaders, celebrities, and environmentalists have moved to a higher level where no such dissent is allowed. These meetings are already far beyond democratic control. The slogan is “global problems need global solutions.”
It is simply another political drive for power, this time on running the world. The participants, drunk on the association with the most important people and the most important ideas, think big thoughts. Easy. All the real dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and the real enemy is humanity itself.
