Author: Kim du Toit

Great Idea; Never Gonna Happen

Economics

I beseech all of you to read this article in full.  Here’s a taste:

Put simply, Trump is trying to beat countries with a stick until they agree to dismantle red tape that is holding back global demand for US goods and services. America is resorting to tariffs for one main reason. Over the past four decades, many countries have followed the US in lowering their tariff regimes, but they have not torn down regulatory barriers, or dealt with anti-competitive distortions. 
Trump’s masterplan is to create a new “coalition of the willing”, with the world divided into those who welcome competitive dynamism and those who cling to stagnation.

Then the writer puts forward an argument which contains so much common sense that it makes adopting it a slam-dunk for even the most foolish and doctrinaire of governments.

Which is why Britishland’s Labour Party will never adopt it.

Keeping Up

Trumpism

I am a man of advanced years and much-reduced mental- and physical capacity thereby, so I’m having trouble dealing with all the MAGA / Trumpist / Musk-y goodness these days.  Quite apart from Saturday’s posts, there’s this:

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sec. Scott Turner has announced the end of Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages for any “non-permanent residents,” effectively eliminating illegal aliens’ access to the taxpayer-funded program.

…and this:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is slashing 10,000 full-time employees as part of its effort to trim fat and reorient the department around Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Health Again” (MAHA) agenda.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

…not to mention this:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that as many as 300 foreign students have had their visas revoked due to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Rubio confirmed the number of revoked visas when speaking at a press conference in Guyana.

“Maybe more, it might be more than 300 at this point,” Rubio said. “We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”

Okay, let’s not let my enfeebled state and stamina be a hindrance to all this most excellent and long-overdue Chainsaw Activity.

Simple Solution

Seen On Campus

Via Insty, this from a college professor:

“I can’t assign papers any more because I’ll just get AI back, and there’s nothing I can do to make it stop.”

Seriously?

Far be it for me to tell credentialed teachers how to do their job [stop that irreverent laughter]  but allow me to propose a novel idea:  instead of assigning papers to be prepared as homework,

  • Create essay-based two-hour examinations in a closed classroom, under the supervision of invigilators who can ensure that the students don’t have access to phones or laptops.
  • All backpacks and such must be left at the side of the room, and the students are allowed only a ballpoint pen at their desk.
  • Keep the essay topics secret until the exam begins.
  • All essays must be handwritten.
  • Make these paper-writing exercises a bi-weekly (fortnightly) activity, and make them count for a substantial proportion of the final grade.
  • Each essay grade should comprise 70% for content and the remainder for literacy.

Here’s the fun part of all this, though.

Even assuming that the papers were legible (a huge assumption), I’ll bet that a substantial number of today’s so-called professors wouldn’t be able to grade the papers properly anyway — in no small part because they wouldn’t be able to use A.I. to grade the handwritten paper content.

Burn the whole rotten edifice down, and start from scratch.

The Last Appeal

Patronage

I know that everybody loves free ice cream, and certainly the past has proved that more than a few people enjoy the flavor of my ice cream to the point where they have made a financial contribution to the running of this place.  I cannot express my gratitude adequately for this generosity.

Nevertheless, the reality I face is that at some point, New Wife will have to retire from her job.  She is already well past the “official” age of retirement, and only her nigh-indispensable skill and dedication to her employer has enabled her to keep working there.  But that is going to end at some point in the near future, for the simple fact that she’s finding it harder and harder to cope.  I won’t go into details, but she is after all a cancer survivor, with all that that horrible condition entails.

This means that we would have to depend completely on my Social Security, which is not enough for us to keep going.  My family have all indicated that they are willing to support us as much as they are able, but there is a limit to that because none of them are that well off, and they have their own families to support as well.

I don’t have to tell anyone how difficult it is for senior citizens, even qualified ones like us, to get a job — any job — in today’s America.  But that’s what we face.  (When I’ve looked for work, incidentally, I’ve been greeted with incredulity by the dozen or so people I’ve spoken to so far — even though I’m physically fit not just for my age but for any prospective employee.)  And the ones that would accept me, for example as a carer for the elderly and infirm, don’t pay enough to make a difference to the situation, especially when the resultant reduction in my already-inadequate SocSec is taken into account, as it would.

I’m not the only one in this predicament, of course, but quite frankly I’m the only one I care about at this point.  Survival makes one selfish.

So I’m going to be exploring several avenues by which I can derive some kind of income from my writing — not the frenzied rants, hate speech and febrile diatribes which you all know and love, but actual writing of the intellectual / literary ilk.  The details are not yet finalized but are well in motion.

All this will, however, take some time to reach fruition, so I’m going to have one last fundraiser here over the next month,  because the funds are desperately needed, as always.

To start the ball rolling and to show my seriousness, I’m going to have a fire sale of almost all my guns, keeping only a couple for absolute self-defense needs.  (The hell with fun shooting;  even at the discounted range rate, that’s going to have to stop completely.)  If you’re interested, email me (kim@kimdutoit.com) for details.  (For obvious reasons, I’m not going to publish a list here.)  Even this treasure is going to go:


…in (of course) .45-70 Govt.

We are both proud people, New Wife and I, which makes it harder yet for me to do this.

But here we go.  Over the next month, please make whatever contribution you see fit via the usual conduits:

  • Venmo: @Kim-dutoit-3
  • PayPal: kim@kimdutoit.com
  • Zelle:  kim@kimdutoit.com
  • Dead Tree:  (sooper-seekrit mailing address)
    6009 W. Parker Rd Ste 149-141, Plano TX 75093

As I stated above, I’m hoping that this will be the very last time I’m going to be doing this, so please be as generous as you can afford to be.

And as always, many many thanks for all your support, both now and over the past couple decades.

P.S.  And please don’t read anything deeper or ominous in the above.  This website isn’t going to disappear, for starters.