How Dwelling in a Sukkah During Sukkot Can Help in Living More Modestly and Humbly

Having completed Yom Kippur, I pivot from the fasting and chest-thumping of Yom Kippur towards celebrating the time of joy that is Sukkot. Traditionally a harvest festival (Exodus 23:16; Deuteronomy 16:13, 15), the Jewish holiday of Sukkot has two main mitzvot (commandments), one of them being sitting in an dwelling in a sukkah (Leviticus 23:42-43). A sukkah is a temporary booth or hut covered with vegetation that commemorates the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness after the Exodus. You can read more about the particular legalistic requirements of what constitutes as a sukkah here. I do not want to get into the details today because I want to ask a more fundamental question of why Jews dwell in a sukkah in the first place. 

The great rabbi Moshe ben Maimón, also known as Maimonides, gives us an answer. In his text The Guide for the Perplexed (3:43), Maimonides states that Passover teaches us about the miracles which G-d wrought in Egypt, whereas Sukkot teaches about the miracles wrought in the wilderness. The moral lesson is "to remember his evil days in his days of prosperity. He will thereby be induced to thank G-d repeatedly, to lead a modest and humble life." Maimonides then goes on to say that Jews "leave our houses in order to dwell in tabernacles (a sukkah), as inhabitants in the dessert do that are in want of comfort." 

To recap, Maimonides opines that the end-goal of dwelling in a sukkah is to teach us to live modestly and humbly. The two ways we go about that is to remember the past miracles along with leaving our own homes for a temporary dwelling that is less comfortable than our current homes. So how does dwelling in a temporary hut lead us to be more modest or humble? 

In the Mussar text Duties of the Heart, Rabbi Bachya ibn Pakuda teaches that "All virtue and duties are dependent on humility." Another Mussar text, The Ways of the Righteous (ארחות צדיקים), the author teaches that humility is the root of Divine Service. Upon examining various character traits, I found truth in these statements when tying it to the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah: 

Gratitude. Having Sukkot be during the harvest time teaches that there are fat years and lean years, much like the story of Joseph teaches. A farmer can control for technique and taking care of crops, but cannot ultimately control for what the yield is or whether there is a drought that year. We are to be humble enough to be grateful for the bounty, regardless of its size. Shifting from pride in our possessions to recognition of the blessings we receive humbles us. To quote Pirkei Avot (4:1), "Who is rich? The one who is satisfied with their lot."

The Jewish philosopher Philo (1 c. CE) takes the gratitude concept further. Maimonides actually got the idea of being in a sukkah to remember the "bad old days" from Philo. Philo says remembering the "bad old days" is a reminder of how far we have come. It can be challenging to appreciate that concept when we are dealing with the worse anti-Semitism since the Holocaust, but recognizing the progress in the overall arc of history and praising G-d for the good in life helps us remain more humble. 

Our relation to material wealth. With regards to being modest, the very nature of a sukkah leads to a more modest mindset. Here you have a semi-flimsy structure that is intentionally exposed to the elements of nature. It is designed as to not be luxurious. Modesty is in contrast to luxury because modesty in part is about avoiding excessiveness or extravagance. 

As Maimonides points out, entering a sukkah means leaving the comforts of home. The sukkah teaches a lesson about not being obsessed with material wealth. The sukkah is a manifestation of minimalism and a lesson on how to be satisfied with less material wealth. After all, Pirkei Avot (2:8) teaches that "the more possessions [you have], the more worry." Sukkot gives us a spiritual time out to de-emphasize the material to focus on what truly matters. This is not to say that we need to forego material comfort of any sort, but rather that we do not need material extravagance or to be materially focused or obsessed to live a good or happy life. Our actions, character, values, and experiences are worth more than our material wealth. 

Impermanence. The Rashbam taught that the sukkah's temporary, fragile structure teaches us about the fragility of our lives, which includes our mortality. Per the previous point, we ultimately are not going to care about how much material wealth we amassed. Most likely, we will care more about the experiences we had and the people with whom we shared those experiences. Realizing how short our lives are is meant to give us pause, as well as a sense of humility. 

We are small in comparison to the vastness of the universe and time itself. The sukkah reminds us that even the most seemingly secure and solid aspects of our lives are ultimately temporary. This realization of permanence does not only give us humility. In 2021, I wrote a blog entry about how meditating on death (memento mori) paradoxically brings us more joy because we are more likely to enjoy life's experiences with intensity and motivation when we are aware of how short life is. 

Adaptability in the face of vulnerability. Death is not the only form of vulnerability we deal with during Sukkot. Dwelling in a sukkah means being exposed to the elements of nature. What does this teach? No matter what we do to prepare or protect ourselves, there are always forces beyond our control. Reminding us of our limitations amidst the vulnerability teaches us to be more humble and accepting of whatever may come our way. Six years ago, I wrote about how we adapt our environment for optimal performance when things go awry. A couple years later, I wrote a blog entry on how nasty weather during Sukkot gives us an opportunity to expand our comfort zone, thereby enhancing our experiences. Both blog entries came with the theme of learning to adapt to conditions that we previously deemed sub-optimal. 

Dealing with ego and arrogance. One beautiful lesson I found from Slovie Jungreis-Wolff from Aish HaTorah is that there is a height limit for a sukkah of 20 amot, which is about 37 feet. Why the height limit? Because when you are so full of yourself, the arrogance does not make room for anyone else in your life, even G-d. She goes on to say that "if you want your life to be filled with love and meaning, discover the gift of humility." Per a quote misattributed to C.S. Lewis, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it's thinking of yourself less." The world does not revolve around you. This is not woo-woo spirituality talking. The longitudinal Harvard Study of Adult Development is a good example of showing how social connections and community can be the single most important factor determining happiness and long-term health. 

Another aspect of dealing with ego comes from the Rashbam's commentary on why we sit in the sukkah. For him, it is a matter that one's wealth ultimately comes from G-d (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). Rabbi Yitzhak Haboab went as far as saying that this is to remind us that we ultimately should not put our trust in man, but G-d. 

Even if we want to make the insight less theocentric or make it completely secular, the sukkah can still provide that lesson that we are not capable of providing or creating everything we need. We can never be truly independent or self-sufficient in the strictest of terms, short of going off the grid and living in the wilderness as a hermit. No one is so talented or has the time to be a mechanic, author, welder, doctor, professor, farmer, flight attendant....you get the idea. The beauty of living in a market-based economy is that we can use comparative advantage in a way where we mutually benefit from voluntary exchanges. By recognizing how interdependent the economy is, it helps us come to terms that we cannot do it all on our own, thereby instilling a sense of humility. 

Compassion. A couple of years ago, I argued that one of the spiritual benefits of fasting is that it helps create greater empathy for those who deal with food insecurity. For those who do not experience housing vulnerability year-round, living in a sukkah gives a taste of what an unstable housing situation feels like. That humility can lead to compassion towards those in need (Rabbi David Golinkin).

Is J.D. Vance Correct in Blaming Immigrants on Rising Housing Prices?

Last week, two Vice Presidential candidates went head-to-head on the debate floor: Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz. As two Midwesterners, the debate has been the most civil during a U.S. election cycle in a while. One of the topics that they debated was immigration. More specifically, J.D. Vance claimed during the debate that "you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes." It makes for an interesting form of interdisciplinary politicking because Republican politicians tend to harp on immigration. Plus, housing costs rising relative to income (see Harvard data below) is a concern for those who are struggling to "live the American Dream," thereby making his assertion more palatable to voters. I have to wonder how true Vance's claim is. 

Intuitively, it sounds plausible. Housing supply has become more constrained in recent years. I pointed out that reality in 2017 when criticizing land use regulations. There has been an increase in unauthorized border crossings since the pandemic. There is a report from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that points out that there have been 5.6 million crossings from January 2021 from August 2023. 

Conversely, as I pointed out last year when scrutinizing Trump's Title 42, the number of repeat crossings increased considerably under Title 42. Pew Research found that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States increased from 10.2 million in 2019 to 11.0 million in 2022. 

With an increase in population, it puts stress on an already constrained housing market that cannot expand quickly. After all, immigrants need a roof over their head like everyone else because they are human beings deserving of dignity, too. An increase in demand increases costs, which is a reality you can find in an Econ 101 textbook. 

As the Cato Institute points out, "Even immigrants who work in construction increase housing demand first before they can construct more housing. That increase in demand drivers up prices and incentivizes new supply through further construction, renovation, or increasing the supply of rental units through other means." Two questions that come to mind are "Does immigration drive up housing prices in the long term?" and "How much of an impact does immigration have on housing versus other factors?"

Similar to other markets, there are multiple factors that contribute to rising prices. To name a few that come to mind: high housing demand; low housing supply caused by such government obstruction as land use regulation, zoning laws, and permitting delays; inflation in the construction industry and economy generally; stagnant wage growth; the mortgage interest deduction; increased mortgage rates; and rent control in certain U.S. cities. Going back to the Cato Institute, "over 90 percent of housing prices comes from other economic factors and immigration has become less important since 2015."

While the undocumented immigrants increase the demand, they also contribute to the housing supply. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25.3 percent of construction laborers are foreign-born, which is higher than the 16.8 percent for the entire labor market. It is higher in other parts of the country. Per National Association of Home Builders data, that foreign-born percent is 40 percent in California and Texas; 37 percent in Florida, New Jersey, and New York; and 33 percent in Nevada. 

As such, it would not be surprising to find research from professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Utah showing that deporting undocumented construction workers worsens the housing shortage (Howard et al., 2024). This finding of "immigration lowers housing prices in the long-run" is confirmed with research from the United Kingdom (Braakmann, 2013; Sá, 2011) and Italy (Accetturo et al., 2014). Economically speaking, that finding makes sense and it is another reality you can find in an Econ 101 textbook. When you reduce the number of available workers, the price of construction increases. The increased construction costs reduce residential housing output, thereby exacerbating the housing shortage.  

Postscript

To conclude, is Vance correct in saying that immigrants contribute to increasing housing prices? Yes, because an increase in demand increases costs. However, he is only correct to a point. Immigrants contribute both to the demand and the supply of housing. Immigrants help fill these labor shortage gaps, whether it is in construction, healthcare, agriculture, or other service-based industries. When you reduce the supply of labor, you end up increasing prices of the good or service in question. Plus, there are other factors that act as larger drivers of the increasing housing prices. 

On some level, Vance is technically correct, but not nearly as much as he or anti-immigration nativists think. As research organization New American Economy illustrates, immigrants have created $3.7 trillion in housing wealth, thereby stabilizing less desirable communities that would have otherwise declined. All this research reminds that whether it is in the housing market specifically or the economy more generally, immigrants creates more benefits than they produce costs.

"Islamophobia" Is Far From Being the "New Anti-Semitism": Stop Minimizing Anti-Semitism by Equating the Two (Pt. I)

One year ago today, Hamas terrorists snuck into Israel's borders and carried out the worst pogrom against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Israeli civilians were raped, kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and decapitated. The death toll from this horror was over 1,200 civilians. Some of those murdered that day were not even Israeli. They were young adults attending a music festival that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

What should have been a time for the world to rally in support of Israel ending up being a wave of global anti-Semitism. The innocent lives lost were barely cold in the grave and the anti-Semites were already protesting against Israel. The moral inversion in which "rape is resistance," kidnapping Holocaust survivors is social justice, or "the situation in the Middle East is complex" justifies parading unconscious women or decapitating babies is astonishing. Do not be at all surprised if there are protests across the globe today cheering on the murdering, raping, genocidal terrorists who carried out the atrocities on October 7, 2023. 

Another aspect that has been astonishing is lumping together anti-Semitism with "Islamophobia" in response to October 7. Any response given in October 2023 by the Biden White House about anti-Semitism included a caveat for "Islamophobia." The European Parliament has made a similar grouping, and Human Rights Watch did something similar in December 2023.

I imagine you have noticed my objection towards equating anti-Semitism with "Islamophobia." I do not deny that discrimination against Muslims simply for being Muslim exists. I will explore those data in Part II of this blog series. Abusing citizens for merely believing in Islam, vandalizing mosques, or attacking those who are visibly Muslim is morally wrong. Part of being in a tolerant, multicultural society means supporting their freedom of conscience and freedom of worship as long as it does not harm others vis-à-vis the non-aggression axiom. On the other hand, "Islamophobia" is nowhere being nearly as heinous as anti-Semitism for a number of reasons. 

How long has each form of bigotry existed? Anti-Semitism has existed since the Egyptians per the account in the Book of Exodus. The Jews were in exile from the year 69 to 1948 when the State of Israel was created. Whether it is the ancient Romans, the English Expulsion of 1290, the Spanish in 1492, the pogroms in the Russian Empire, rule under various Islamic polities, or the Nazis carrying out the Holocaust, the Jews have dealt with this universal hatred for a few millennia. 

If the past year has reminded me, anti-Semitism has not died. It simply evolved and skyrocketed in the past 365 days. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recently released a report about anti-Semitism in the United States one year after October 7, 2023. Anti-Semitism was already at an all-time high before the 10/7 attacks. The anti-Semitism has only skyrocketed since 10/7, whether in the form of increased harassment, assaults, vandalism, threats, intimidation of Jews, or violent anti-Semitic posts on social media. 

While the United States has the largest Jewish diaspora population, European Jews have also been pressured to stop expressing their Jewishness in public. Do not be surprised if today, October 7, 2024, does not have pro-Hamas rallies across the planet celebrating this pogrom because Muslims do not feel the same pressure to hide their Muslim identity or their political opinions about the Middle East as Jews do. 

In contrast, let us ask when did Islamophobia begin. According to this publication from Cambridge University's Review of Middle East Studies, "Islamophobia" was developed as a concept in the late 1990s. While the term was first used over a century ago, the Runnymede Trust takes credit for inventing the term as used in its contemporary meaning...in 1997. That makes sense to me not only because hundreds of thousands of Muslims emigrate to the western world while many Muslims comfortably assert their Islamic identity in public. Why am I not surprised that "Islamophobia" is a new concept? 

Muslim polities have a history of colonization and oppression. Muslims have not been persecuted around the world for centuries like the Jews have. If anything, Muslims persecuting non-Muslims dates all the way back to Muhammad in the Qu'ran. Whether it was the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, or the other caliphates, non-Muslims living under Muslim rule were either relegated to a second-class status of dhimmi, forced to convert, or executed.  There were a number of other caliphates throughout history that illustrate my point regarding Islamic colonization.  Israel is the size of New Jersey. When you compare Israel's square mileage (8,469 square miles) to the Arabian Peninsula (1.2 million square miles), never mind the entire Arab-speaking world, the Middle East, or Muslim world, it makes you wonder who the real colonizers have been in the Middle East. 

There will be more to explore in Part II of this series.

Matt Walsh Documentary Exposes DEI for the Racism-Perpetuating Scam It Is (Part II)

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become trendy in multiple circles. DEI is meant to be an organizational framework aimed at promoting the fair and inclusive participation of all people, particularly those who have historically been underrepresented. At first glance, DEI sounds like an acronym filled with lofty goals to improve racial and interpersonal relations. Proponents present it as an asset allowing for multiple perspectives and a learning opportunity to grow from those who are different from us. That sounds peachy in theory. But when the Far Left, woke crowd applies DEI to its "anti-racist" efforts, DEI becomes synonymous with the word "discrimination." The DEI proponents teach that white people are evil racists, racial minorities are hapless victims, and racism should be treated as an "irreducible, essential characteristic of the human condition...rather than a prejudice we can and must overcome." 

In his documentary "Am I Racist?", Matt Walsh exposes the over-simplistic backwardness of DEI and reminds us that DEI is as counterproductive as it is racist. Not only was I intrigued enough to watch it at the movie theater, but I have now written two blog entries about it. You can read Part I of this blog series at the link here. The only other time I have blogged on a movie was when I saw Everything, Everywhere, All at Once because I thought it was that prolific. In Part I, I first highlighted the crazy "anti-racist" moments in the documentary. I then pointed out how DEI backfires and perpetuates racism, followed by providing some analysis on the logical fallacies involved in a DEI mindset. I now resume with my criticism of DEI and the so-called "anti-racists."

DEI is a narrow-minded view that results in lousy problem-solving and public policy. My criticism of DEI proponents is more than a group of so-called "anti-racists" denying their own racism, biases, and general small-mindedness or basing their assertions with zero empirical evidence. By erroneously thinking that disparity automatically means racism, it not only means inaccurately diagnosing the problem. They have reduced complex social issues into a grossly inaccurate, oversimplified view of the world. 

With a warped view on how the world works, it means that the public policy recommendations will also be warped. For the folks obsessed with equity, their stated goal is to eliminate racial disparities. I hate to break it to these people, but there is always going to be inequality in the world. The fact that those on the Left have a harder time accepting that inequality and unfairness are an inherent part of reality is a reason why they are less happy than everyone else. In order to chase this fantasy, the DEI crowd uses puritanical and authoritarian measures in the hopes to expunge what they deem as impurities. In many ways, the adherents of DEI and "anti-racism" have significant parallels to fundamentalist religion.

DEI not only hurts white people and Asians, but also racial minorities. When I criticized Critical Race Theory (CRT), I pointed out that CRT also hurts students of racial minorities in addition to white students. Why? Because CRT propagates a toxic victimhood that patronizingly teaches that racial minorities are hapless victims stuck in their circumstances. This sort of victimhood keeps racial minorities trapped. Conservatives being more likely to reject victimhood and value resilience, personal control, and responsibility helps explain why they are on average happier than their liberal counterparts. 

As someone who used to work in K-12 education policy, I cannot help but notice how DEI and CRT have harmed minority students. I have written on two examples on how the DEI folk have used equity as a guise to dumb down education to make minorities feel better: removing honors classes and removing basic skills requirements in the name of equity. Not only is it insulting to insinuate that racial minorities are incapable of educational achievement and attainment, but DEI does nothing to help lift minority students up and succeed. What I find rich is when the woke Left blames the amorphous "system," especially when it comes to education. That irony tickles my funny bone because K-12 education is dominated by the woke Left, which means they are "the system" and, as previously mentioned, they are the problem that they do not want to have to look at in the mirror.  

If minorities overcome hardship and adversity, it means that DEI, and by extension, woke ideology, is a sham. This explains why the Left is willing to throw Asian-Americans under the bus when it comes to affirmative action, disparage those who exercise as right-wing extremists, or show disdain for the State of Israel while supporting Palestine. For minorities to use personal agency and responsibility while subsequently becoming stronger, more resilient, and happier human beings in spite of what they underwent is a smack in the face for a group of people for which the political is the personal. The cognitive dissonance for those who succumb to this sort of groupthink is too much for them to bear.

Postscript

With a brilliant use of humor, narrative, and straightforward questions, Walsh shows that DEI is not about diversity, equity, or inclusion; it is about conformity. DEI does not heal; it stirs up hate. DEI does not unite; it divides us further. The only winners from DEI are the grifters and those who feel a sense of moral superiority by adhering to this fundamentalism. Ultimately, the documentary is a comedic endeavor to expose the "anti-racism" consultants and DEI professionals for the grifters that they are, which is rich given how anti-capitalist and anti-profit the Far Left is. In that respect, Matt Walsh succeeded with flying colors. 

Walsh emphasizes the importance of us needing to stand up to the "anti-racism" grifters and stop obsessing over race. The fact that university faculty and best-selling authors have exploited racial shame and sowed racial disharmony to make a ton of cash for this long is unacceptable. Making assumptions about the entirety of an individual based on the superficial assessment of their skin color, gender, or sexual orientation is truly dehumanizing, yet that is a major underpinning of DEI. When the "anti-racists" argue that "colorblindness is racist", their statement that the color of skin is more important than content of character seeks to re-racialize this country and indeed the world.  

Something that I have noticed is that universities and corporations are beginning to abandon DEI initiatives. People are fed up with the counterproductive divisiveness, myself included. What I hope is that Matt Walsh's document provides more momentum to leave DEI in the ash heap of history where it belongs. Martin Luther King once taught us that we should judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Ultimately, we need to ditch the identity politics and this toxic Age of Grievance so we can embrace colorblindness once more if we stand a chance at living in a tolerant, post-racial world. 

Trump's Tax Exemption on Overtime Will Do Little While Costing Many Pretty Pennies

President Trump has made taxation a major part of his campaign this time around. Remembering that tariffs are another word for "import tax," Trump has proposed multiple types of new tariffs, including a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods and a 10 percent universal tariff. On the other hand, he has proposed exempting taxes, including exempting Social Security benefits and exempting tips. I can add another tax exemption to that list: overtime. 

Earlier this month, Trump proposed exempting overtime workers from taxation while at a campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona. Vice Presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance clarified that this exemption would cover both income and payroll taxes. Politically, Trump's proposal makes sense since it is an attempt to pander to blue-collar voters. For an economy in which inflation has increased rapidly relative to historic averages and where wages cannot keep up with the increased cost of living, it can sound appealing to employees. Employers also like it because it de facto acts as a raise that the employers themselves do not have to pay. However, it begs the question as to whether such a policy makes sense. 

First, there is a matter of the price tag. Last week, the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) released its estimates on the exemption while comparing it to some other cost estimates. On a static basis, it would cost $1.7 billion over the next decade. 

Then there is the CRFB's dynamic estimate of Trump's proposal costing $6 trillion over the next decade. As CRFB admits, this is an extreme case estimate because it assumes that all eligible workers switch from being salaried to hourly. Employers could plausibly exploit the loophole and convert their workers from salaried to hourly workers. Why would the exemption encourage hourly pay over salary pay? 

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), any FLSA non-exempt and hourly workers are legally obligated to pay 1.5 times the regular rate. At least with the current tax code, there is a consistent tax treatment across workers. With Trump's proposal, it would be a zero tax rate on a completely unprincipled definition of income. From the employee's perspective, it would mean paying less taxes and higher take-home income. For employers, it means paying less in payroll tax. It certainly would not translate into more government revenue since the extra work would generally be non-taxable. 

As the Tax Foundation points out, this exemption would "increase time spent on overtime decisions for employees and worker classification arrangements between employees and employers purely for tax purposes, distracting them from productive activity." It would also increase compliance and administrative costs. Why? 

Because it would not be exempting a portion of wage income. Instead, this exemption would be based on hours worked, which would mean additional reporting of hours. As such, it would be more complicated than Trump's proposals to exempt Social Security benefits or tips. 

While exempting overtime from taxes could create a small boost in hours worked and economic output, I have to question the extent to which it would. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute reminds us, employers have found ways to work around the FLSA. This overtime rule also would not apply to self-employed workers, managers, or freelance workers since they are not covered by FLSA to pay overtime. The number of employees that would be able to work additional overtime would thus be small, thereby rendering the most probable outcome as marginally positive economic input.  

Lowering statutory tax rates could create the increase in labor supply and economic output without complicating the tax code. Yet Trump is opting for the costly choice that will complicate the tax code and increase administrative costs while doing little to boost the economy. 

Instead of buying votes, maybe Trump (or any other politician) could focus on fitting their tax proposals in a way that match revenues to expenditures while being able to pay down the debt. Creating solvency while not ruining ourselves with massive amounts of debt. What a concept! Yes, reducing taxes can and should be part of a greater plan to bring this country's fiscal state into one of good health. Yet all Trump is proposing is distortive tax reform in a bleak fiscal environment in hopes of getting re-elected. We might deserve better, but as both Trump and Harris show us with their policy proposals, we are not going to get better tax policy with the next president.  

Matt Walsh Documentary Exposes DEI for the Racism-Perpetuating Scam It Is (Part I)

I rarely have gone to the movie theater since the COVID pandemic. Last week, I went to see Matt Walsh's documentary "Am I Racist?", which has already ranked as the highest-grossing documentary this year at $9 million. I was both surprised and amused--surprised that people buy into white guilt and amused at the genius of how Walsh gave just enough rope to the anti-activists to hang themselves and expose their extremism, thereby discrediting themselves. I cannot remember the last time I laughed that hard. I really appreciated this comical take on the "anti-racist" crowd. Even Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle seemed to enjoy it enough. In the style of Borat, Walsh goes undercover to pretend he is a Diversity Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) specialist and sets up ruses to expose the DEI movement. A few gems from the documentary (Spoilers Contained):  

• So-called "progressive" white women pay $2,500 to attend a dinner hosted by anti-racist activists Saira Rao and Regina Jackson so they can be chided about how racist and privileged white women are. In the documentary, Rao and Jackson called Republicans Nazis and essentially called the United States an irredeemably racist hellhole that needs to be scorched.
• During the documentary, Walsh was interviewing DiAngelo. In the middle of the interview, Walsh gives his black producer, Ben, some money as a form of reparations. Looking stunned and confused, DiAngelo goes to her purse and grabs $30 to give to Ben, although her honorarium for doing the interview was $15,000. She later was mad because she felt duped. She stated that solving reparations needed to be done on a systemic level. Maybe she was mad because it is not good for her business to be caught in her hypocrisy of not putting her money where her mouth is or exposing how much of a racket DEI really is. 
• In 2021, Robin DiAngelo earned $728,000 from speaking gigs and workshops, nothing to say of book royalties (see DiAngelo's accountability statement here). It is not normal for someone to get paid for an interview, DiAngelo would not have taken $15,000. The fact that she does not openly take interviews to spread "the good word" suggests that DiAngelo's motive is financial. 
• Anti-racist activist and co-director for Black Lives Matter in Phoenix Sarra Tekola harassed two white male students in a multicultural center and accosted them trying to get them to leave. In the documentary, she ironically stated that all white people are racist and that we should abolish whiteness.  
• At the end of the documentary, Walsh hosted his own DEI training in which he earned $3,000. The training reached its apex of absurdity when Walsh pulled out whips so the attendees could engage in self-flagellation. What is even crazier is that some of the attendants were considering it. 

One of the features that Walsh illustrates is that with these DEI and anti-racism workshops, the demand for racism exceeds the supply. Pathological, white liberals and self-identifying "progressives" pay to be berated about de-centering whiteness, de-colonizing oneself, and not "tone policing" people. This level of gullibility means that DEI specialists can make money off of white guilt, which is illustrated by a global DEI 2022 market size of $9.4 billion. 

DEI makes racism and racial tensions worse.  As I brought up in 2018, there have been a plethora of studies done showing how diversity training and "implicit bias" training backfires (also read this article from Harvard Business Review here). Diversity training or dealing with "implicit bias" do not help with reducing prejudice. Apparently, the more you obsess over racial differences or publicly shame people for perceived "implicit bias," there ends up being more prejudice and less diversity. That makes sense given the obsession over race results in woke people being racist against white people in a way that eerily parallels Klan members. 

Even Mahzarin Banaji, who pioneered the research on implicit bias, wrote that "the typical DEI training doesn't educate people about bias and may even do harm" and that "people often leave diversity training feeling angry and with greater animosity towards other groups." Is it a surprise that Gallup polling shows a decline in race relations as DEI became more popular? No, because DEI is not about genuine reconciliation or moving past racism, but rather wallowing in racism. 

Not only is DEI discriminatory, but it perpetuates racism. Blaming everything on the nebulous, unfalsifiable concept of "systemic racism" means that the only solution in the woke mind is reverse discrimination. That is not merely my opinion. Anti-racist activist Ibram X. Kendi says that the only way to mitigate racist discrimination, and that the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. This traps us in a perpetual state of racism that does nothing to create a post-racial world. 

DEI tries to prop itself up using faulty reasoning.  For the DEI folk, they believe in collective guilt. This logical fallacy of guilt by association drives the inanity of the support for reparations. In addition to believing in collective guilt, it is not a question of whether racism took place in a given situation, but how it took place. There is no room for alternative explanations in a given situation. As I will discuss further in Part II, not everything is caused by "systemic racism," whatever that unfalsifiable term means.

To solidify their moral high ground on their unfalsifiable accusations, the "anti-racist" grifters implement a logical fallacy known as a Kafka trap. What this logical fallacy entails is that someone who is accused of something and denies it is taken as evidence that they are the thing of which they are being accused. 

In this case, if you are a white person and you deny that you are racist, that denial is inaccurately taken as evidence that you are indeed racist. An example of "damned if you do, damned if you don't." No actual evidence of racism is required. Woke people claiming that all white people are racist is a) an example of the racism that they purport to be against, b) a way to trivialize actual racism, c) a rejection of such things as the scientific method and "innocent until proven guilty," and d) helps "anti-racists" avoid the counterfactuals and the massive amount of cognitive dissonance that comes with being "anti-racist." 

In Part II, I will discuss how DEI is problematic beyond perpetuating racism and how DEI does not mitigate racial tensions. 

Credit Card Interest Rate Cap and Removing the SALT Deduction Cap: Trump Should Put a Cap on Economically Unsound Policy

There has been no shortage of economically illiterate and tone-deaf ideas in this presidential election. I have already criticized Kamala Harris on five occasions: excluding tips from taxation, providing a down-payment subsidy for first-time homebuyers, raising the corporate tax rate, price controls on groceries, and a capital gains tax on unrealized gains. Trump has had his own share of economically inane ideas, whether that is exempting Social Security benefits from taxation, excluding tips from taxation, subsidizing in-vitro fertilization, a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods, and a universal 10 percent tariff. 

I now get to add two more unsound ideas to Trump's policy recommendation list. Normally, I would cover each topic in separate blog entries. However, the reason I am covering them both today is because I have covered these topics in the past. 

The first is Trump's policy to temporarily cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent, which he proposed at a rally last Wednesday. Trump wants to find a way to help everyday Americans recover from the credit card debt that so many have amassed, and he thinks an interest rate cap is the way to go about it. What I find amusing is that Trump called Harris' plan to implement price controls on groceries as communist. But guess what Trump's credit card interest rate cap is? You guessed it--an example of a price control. 

I take issue with price controls generally and Trump's proposal is no exception. I criticized the policy recommendation in 2018 when Democrats Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed a 15 percent interest rate cap for credit cards and other consumer loans. As I pointed out then, Trump's interest rate cap would a) cause thousands (if not millions) of Americans to lose their access to the mainstream credit system, and b) lenders will find a way to modify the loan terms to make up for the loss induced by the cap. You can read the libertarian Cato Institute's analysis of Trump's proposal here.

The second policy proposal is removing cap the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. This deduction allows taxpayers who itemize their deductions to deduct certain state and local taxes from the federal income tax form. Prior to passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), there was no cap. It was with the passage of the TCJA and approval of President Trump that there was a $10,000 cap on the deduction. I would prefer the deduction did not exist because it is costly and it creates perverse incentives for states to increase state-level taxes. I thought the TCJA's cap on the SALT deduction was a step in the right direction in no small part because those who benefit from the SALT deduction are high-income earners in states with high taxes. 

It might seem like a hypocritical flip-flop on his end, but Trump's consideration for the SALT deduction is not economic, but rather political. In 2018, the House went from being Republican to Democrat in no small part because the Democrats that were voted in pledged to restore the SALT deduction. Essentially, Trump is using this policy reversal to try to win over states in the blue-state battleground districts so that the Republicans do not lose the House. 

A resounding pattern emerges with these policy recommendations from both sides of the political aisle is that the economic impact of what they recommend is not a concern. Why let facts or economic reality get in the way of good politics? Perhaps this has always been the case and what has increased is the magnitude of the problem. But it does make it clear that the myopic nature induced by the election cycle means that getting re-elected or maintaining power plays a bigger role than asking if the policy in question actually makes a positive difference for its citizenry.