Whitcomb: Predictions, Again; Deporting the Fisherfolk; Those Drug Ads; the Eagle Has Landed

Whitcomb: Predictions, Again; Deporting the Fisherfolk; Those Drug Ads; the Eagle Has Landed

All within is warm,
   Here without it's very cold,
   Now the year is grown so old
And the dead leaves swarm.

In your heart is light,
   Here without it's very dark,
   When shall I hear the lark?
When see aright?

Oh, for a moment's space!
   Draw the clinging curtains wide
   Whilst I wait and yearn outside
Let the light fall on my face.

—“In Tenebris,’’ by Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), English poet, novelist and editor

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“We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.’’

—Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), American playwright and screenwriter

 

“Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.’’

—William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 

 

There’s something to be said for mid-week major holidays, such as Christmas and New Year’s Day this year: They don’t cause quite as massive transportation messes as do holidays that create long weekends.

 

I’ve rarely seen it so quiet in our neighborhood as in the past few days.

 

I gaze at the bare branches of the maple tree next to our house, which looks like something in a charcoal sketch, and think of how, in a little more than five months, those branches will be obscured by thick green, sometimes the air-conditioning will be on and we’ll already be changing our summer plans.

 

Happily, you don’t witness the number of old-fashioned New Year’s Eve parties that you used to --- drunks with lampshades on their heads, etc. You see these horror shows in a lot of 1950s movies.

 

With each year, there’s pleasure in becoming less and less of a participant and more and more just an observer of the jarring parade that is the world. Take notes and photos!

 

 

But Who Knows?

Making predictions for the new year seems almost mandatory.

 

I predict that most predictions for 2025 will be wrong in varying degrees. That’s because there are too many changing variables. But here goes:

 

The second Trump administration will often be chaotic, as to be expected when the boss is an extreme narcissist with no core principles or plans except to expand his power and wealth and make sure he remains the center of attention.

 

As part of this, personnel changes in a regime thick with billionaires feathering their own nests will be frequent, and some policies will be gyrating all over the map in response to political pressures or just the whims of the leader. But some core policies will be predictable – especially cutting taxes for the rich and reducing regulations.  Those deemed “enemies’’ will be persecuted, and the lies will reproduce without stopping. Exhausting.

 

In foreign affairs, look for Trump to continue to be friendly to tyrants and often nasty to traditional U.S. allies – e.g., threatening to take back the Panama Canal (recalling old-fashioned “American imperialism’’), being cold to NATO and trying to pressure Denmark to sell us Greenland. And, working with the guy he likes to call “Vladimir,’’ trying to make Ukraine permanently give up land stolen in Russia’s horrifically bloody invasion.

 

(Read this look at Putin’s dictatorship in the  context of past and present fascism:

 

https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-is-putinism-fascism-by-another-name/

 

Dementia runs in The Don’s family, including his father and his sister. How much will he exhibit it himself? Note that his vocabulary has shrunk in the past few years, and he’ll be 79 next June. But, as with the aged Biden in his decline, his staff would presumably work hard to obscure the more obvious signs.

 

Demented or not, our new leader and his family will continue to make truckloads of money by marketing Trump-related merchandise. Millions of Americans love the show.

 

 

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Around here, the anger will continue over the Washington Bridge's partial closure. That and such administrative snafus as failure to block the cyberattack on RI Bridges,  the main portal for the state’s health and public-benefit programs, will lead Gov. Dan McKee to decide not to run for re-election. Anyway, at 73, he’s too old to run. Who knows who the next governor will be. The very smart and well-connected Helena Foulkes would have seemed to have been in line, but she has to deal with bad PR, fair or otherwise, as a result of her time helping to run CVS, which made a lot of money off the opioid addiction epidemic.

 

 

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What will happen to the big fishing industry in New Bedford when Trump’s anti-immigrant program starts its mass deportations, presumably soon after Jan. 20? There are an estimated 20,000 people born outside the U.S. living in the city of about 100,000 people, with perhaps half these immigrants there illegally. Many of them work in the economic dynamo that is the Port of New Bedford, said to generate more than $11 billion in annual economic activity, primarily from the fishing industry, whose working conditions are often very harsh.

 

Well, one thing that seems a sure bet is that the price of seafood – in New Bedford’s case, especially scallops – will rise as the availability of cheap labor shrinks.

 

Of course, it would be nice if companies raised wages enough to attract more U.S. citizens to these jobs, even if it meant lower profit margins for a while. More and stronger unions would help make businesses do that, as would tougher and more orderly immigration laws and enforcement, including cutting back on our asylum system.  Immigration needs to be slowed so that the newcomers can be more smoothly integrated into this crazy, stressed-out country.

 

Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants is hideous but the immigration wave of recent years poses big socio-economic and mass-psychology challenges, however much we can gain from these newcomers in the long run.

 

Meanwhile, a friend who’s an immigration lawyer sent me this:

https://immigrationimpact.com/2024/12/19/mass-deportations-will-undermine-our-safety/

 

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Every year at this time stock-market soothsayers/entrails-readers come forward (whether they want to or not) with their forecasts for the new year and review of how well they did in the one ending. But the financial markets are among the toughest things to predict. Too many unknowns! For instance, will Putin step up his undeclared war on Western democracies? Will a huge natural disaster, such as an earthquake on the West Coast or a gigantic hurricane on the Gulf or East Coast, hammer the insurance industry? Will bird flu became a pandemic?  Will there be big surprise interest-rate moves by the Fed? Will there be many more strikes by big unions?

 

Then, perhaps most importantly, there’s artificial intelligence, which will continue to revolutionize the economy at an accelerating rate, boosting productivity while destroying many jobs. We haven’t come to grips with its promise and perils.

 

Humility is essential. Legendary baseball catcher and philosopher Yogi Berra (1925-2015) reportedly said: "I never make predictions, especially about the future."  He also wisely noted: “The future isn’t what it used to be.’’

 

 

 

Finally Official!

I’m sure that a lot of us thought that the Bald Eagle, a symbol of America, had always been the National Bird, but in fact, it just got that honor with a bill signed into law by Biden!

 

And most people now don’t know that bald eagles almost became extinct in the middle of the 20th Century because of illegal shooting and habit destruction and, increasingly, because of the widescale use of DDT, an insecticide that washed into water from which the raptors caught fish. This caused the eggshells of the birds to become so thin that the chicks couldn’t survive.

 

Thanks to the heroic efforts of scientists and conservationists, DDT was banned in 1972, and the Endangered Species Act became law in 1973. (The Nixon administration was good on conservation. The old Republican Party!) Much credit was due to biologist and best-selling writer Rachel Carson’s (1907-1964) history-changing book Silent Spring, about the effects of pesticides. Predictably, the chemical industry left no stone unturned in personally attacking her and trying to stop new regulations. And so it always goes when profit is worshipped above all.

 

 

Unhealthy Drug Commercials

I agree (yes!) with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that drug ads on TV are a bad thing. They promote the sale of expensive prescription pharmaceuticals of sometimes dubious efficacy that may not work as well as older and much cheaper out-of-patent drugs. This jacks up America’s worst-in-the-world health-care costs. The ads are especially heavily targeted to older people with Medicare coverage, who tend to take the most meds. Kennedy is right that too many Americans are over-medicated.

 

After seeing these ads, with their persuasive wording and slick visuals, many viewers march to their physicians and ask for prescriptions to new drugs without knowing more than what the commercials’ creators have pitched.  Some physicians, whatever their reservations, then write prescriptions to please their patients.

 

Since the late 1990s, drug companies have spent billions of dollars on these ads.  Their banning would be a big hit to  network television. They bring in tremendous ad revenue.

 

Large pharmaceutical companies report profit margins of 15 to 20 percent, compared with the average profit margin of about 11 percent for the S&P 500.

 

The dangerously anti-vaccine Kennedy, nominated to be health and human services secretary, is joined in his desire to stop these ads by Elon Musk, who is acting as Trump’s deputy (or co-?) president. But the pesky First Amendment will probably be used to block a ban if it gets to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

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As residents in some ‘’liberal’’ affluent suburban towns around Boston – e.g., Milton -- continue to battle efforts by state policymakers to get housing for low-income people built there, you’d think that many foes find poor people and their troubles anxiety-provoking and embarrassing. They’d naturally rather live in a bubble than be confronted with signs of social and economic fragility. Forget “But for the grace of God, go I,’’ etc.

 

There are some ironies. Milton is blocking a plan by the town’s Affordable Housing Trust to put 35 “affordable’’ apartments on land that used to be part of a “poor farm’’ – meant to house the otherwise homeless – that would be close to a bunch of upscale houses.

 

 

Practical Education

Governors in some states are commendably pushing harder for programs that promote vocational education in the schools and work-based learning in the trades (electricians, plumbers,  mechanics, construction workers, etc.) for many high-school students in lieu of college, where tuition and other charges have been soaring. Many jobs in the trades pay more and are more reliable than many of those that require a college degree. At the same time, California and some other jurisdictions are changing hiring criteria for state jobs to make it easier for those without degrees to get hired.

 

These are good moves, which may help reduce the nation’s yawning income inequality over the next few years.

 

Read what California is doing:

 

 

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A fascinating study reported on by WGBH suggests that North Atlantic Right Whales, which hover near extinction, could live to 130. But human-related factors, including whales being entangled in fishing gear, colliding with boats, and the effects of global warming caused by our burning fossil fuel, make their median age of death 22. There are only about 370 of these highly intelligent animals left.

 

Hit this link:

 

 

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It’s time for the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Liberal Party leader who has been in office since 2015.  Support for his minority government is weakening by the day. His country needs a prime minister with a popular mandate to negotiate with the U.S. as Trump threatens high tariffs and trade war with our northern neighbor, which would hurt both nations.