Lionel Richie joins lineup for The Music of The World Games
The Music of The World Games has announced the addition of Lionel Richie as a featured performer at this year’s event. The Tuskegee native is set to headline the World Games 2022 Closing Ceremony on July 17th at Protective Stadium. The performance will be Richie’s first performance in Alabama in over two decades. “I’m honored to be joining all the talented artists performing at The World Games Closing Ceremony, and to be headlining the closing ceremonies is truly special. I am so excited to be coming home to perform in Alabama,” said Richie. Richie will headline the evening, joining other performers from the state of Alabama, including the legendary group Alabama, the Blind Boys of Alabama and Jamey Johnson, American Idol alums Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard, and Bo Bice, and Martha Reeves. Funk legend and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Bootsy Collins will still serve as Master of Ceremonies for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. The World Games is held every four years, in the year following each Summer Olympic Games. Staged over 11 days, The Games represent the pinnacle of competition for 3,600 of the world’s best athletes in 30+ unique, multi-disciplinary sports. The World Games generates worldwide exposure for participating sports and provides a highly visible stage on which athletes from more than 100 countries compete for gold. More than 600 medals will be awarded to the competing athletes, including 200 gold medals for the ultimate champions in each discipline. The World Games is led by the International World Games Association (IWGA). This non-profit organization is composed of 37 International Sports Federations and is recognized by The International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Kay Ivey announces funding for two more Mental Health Crisis Centers
Gov. Kay Ivey announced the funding of two additional Mental Health Crisis Centers, further expanding the Alabama Crisis System of Care. The two new centers add to the four existing centers in Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile. These centers serve individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders. The fiscal year 2023 awarded Community Mental Health Centers are Indian Rivers Behavioral Health in Tuscaloosa County and SpectraCare Health Systems in Houston County. “The state of Alabama is proud to continue doing its part to offer top-notch crisis care to people in need,” stated Ivey. “During my time as governor, I’ve placed a renewed focus on finding innovative ways to support Alabamians that find themselves battling mental health issues, and I have no doubt that these two new facilities are going change lives for the better.” The two newly awarded centers in Tuscaloosa County and Houston County will serve large populations in the regions, including veterans and young adults. Mental Health Crisis Centers are a designated place for community members, law enforcement, and first responders to take an individual who is in a mental health crisis. The centers offer both walk-in access and the capacity for first responders and law enforcement to transfer individuals to the center for crisis care for a warm hand-off to staff, short-term admission, medication management, and case management. Services also include critical crisis intervention and stabilization services, discharge planning, and connections to ongoing behavioral health care services, if needed. “We are committed to ensuring all Alabamians have someone to call, someone to respond, and if needed, someplace to go in times of crisis,” said Alabama Department of Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswell. “We are thankful for Governor Ivey’s leadership and the Legislature’s continued investment in our state’s crisis system of care, expanding access to even more individuals and their families.” The initial three Crisis Centers were funded with an $18 million appropriation in the FY2021 General Fund budget, with continued funding appropriated in the FY2022 and FY2023 General Fund budgets to support the existing Crisis Centers and add new Crisis Centers across the state.
One week left for voter registration for Primary Election
Secretary of State John Merrill issued a press release to remind Alabamians that they have one week left to register to vote. May 9, 2022, is the last day to register for the May 24th Primary Election. Alabamians can register to vote online at alabamavotes.gov or through the mobile app “Vote for Alabama.” All online registrations must be submitted by 11:59 PM on May 9th to be eligible for the May 24th Primary Election. Eligible Alabamians have until the close of business on May 9th to return their physical registration applications to their local Board of Registrars’ Office. To register to vote in Alabama, you must be a U.S. citizen and an Alabama resident who is 18 years or older on or by Election Day, and the prospective voter cannot be convicted of a disqualifying felony nor declared mentally incompetent.
Kay Ivey campaign releases new ad highlighting recent laws fighting transgenderism
The campaign for Gov. Kay Ivey recently released a new campaign ad. The 30-second ad shows Ivey touting her efforts to ban transgender care for minors, arguing that gender is a matter of biology, not identity. Ivey states in the ad, “Some things are just facts: Summer is hot, the ocean is big, and gender is a question of biology, not identity.” A voice-over adds, “That’s why Ivey banned transgender youth sports, banned left-wing sexual propaganda from our schools, and made it a felony for transgender surgery on children in Alabama.” Ivey concludes, “Here in Alabama, we’re going to go by how God made us because we identify with something liberals never will – reality.” Ivey recently signed the Alabama Vulnerable Child Protection Act. The new law makes it a crime for doctors to treat trans youth under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm their gender identity. Additionally, she signed House Bill 322, which requires students to use the restroom that agrees with their birth gender. It also bans instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity to K-5 public school students.
Dan Sutter: Another housing bubble?
Rapidly rising house prices are contributing to inflation but may also signal a housing market bubble. Overpriced real estate contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession. Do we need to fear another housing crash in addition to inflation? How much have prices gone up? The Case-Shiller index has jumped 35 percent since January 2020; between 1996 to 2006, this index rose 125 percent. Some markets have seen increases of nearly 45 percent. Prices in Alabama have increased at about the national rate. What exactly is a bubble? A bubble refers to excessively high and rising prices for assets. What is too high? Consider how you could decide how much to pay for a house. One approach considers the value you would get from living in the house. This would depend on your income, other expenses, and preferences. You could also answer based on what others would pay. You might only be willing to pay $100,000 to use a Florida beach condo. But if you could sell it for $500,000, you would gladly pay more than $100,000. A bubble occurs when prices exceed the value in use, referred to as the fundamental value. High and rising prices can be self-sustaining. Someone might pay $500,000 for the condo to sell it for $700,000, and someone might pay $700,000 hoping it will go to $1 million. Eventually, the speculative bubble must burst because prices cannot rise to infinity. Investors can lose lots of money in a speculative bubble. But investors spend their money and should be aware of the potential for loss. Bubbles can though have detrimental effects for the economy. Prices serve as signals. Builders will build more homes in response. But these homes will not be needed after the bubble bursts. Temporarily high prices might lead homeowners to make decisions they will later regret, like thinking their house will fund their retirement and saving less or borrowing against equity which then disappears. Economists have developed new statistical tests to try to detect bubbles. One is produced by the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. Any test for a bubble must estimate the fundamental value, or price based exclusively on use. The main one the Dallas Fed uses is the ratio of home prices to rents. Purchase prices and rents should be related since potential home buyers could always rent instead. This method then considers economic factors affecting the price-to-rent ratio. If economic factors drive up the price-to-rent ratio, this is not a bubble. Finally, they consider whether an observed increase in the ratio might occur by chance. When the price-to-rent ratio sufficiently exceeds that based on economic forces, we are in bubble territory. The price-to-rent ratio has now been indicating a bubble for six consecutive quarters. When calculated retrospectively, this ratio indicated a bubble for a full decade before the Great Recession. It is not 2006 yet. And an index using the home price to income ratio has a weaker bubble signature. No one statistical test will ever conclusively identify an asset bubble. Part of the reason is the same reason bubbles start: people disagree over future fundamental values. Many Americans have decided to move due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote work is allowing people to move out of cities. Others are fleeing Blue States where governments enacted draconian COVID restrictions. Lumber shortages and price spikes related to COVID disruptions slowed home building. House prices may reflect economic forces after all. The prevalence of bubbles is one reason economists disagree over the desirability of free markets. Markets prices are supposed to act as signals, as described, but bubbles produce unreliable signals. Markets will not effectively direct production with frequent bubbles. Free market economists see bubbles as relatively infrequent, unavoidable, and often caused by government. What does a potential bubble mean for you or me? Would-be real estate moguls should exercise caution. Homeowners should be wary of capital gains they have not yet realized. If the Federal Reserve gets serious about controlling inflation, interest rate hikes may well burst a housing bubble. Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
Will Sellers: High five!
May is an interesting month for our neighbors to the South. This year, Mexico commemorates the 200th anniversary of the coronation of Emperor Agustín I and the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Puebla. These seemingly obscure events are vital to a complete understanding of the Mexican experience. As a colony of Spain, the internal government of Colonial Mexico was dependent upon the competency of Spanish officials sent to govern in the name of the King. The absolute power of the King was never debated, and his representative reflected a dictatorial bent in governing the country. But, as Spain liberalized under the limited influence of the Enlightenment, Mexico moved away from a central autocrat and, in a practical attempt at local government, divided the country into geographical territories resembling our states. The revolutions in both America and France had an impact on Mexico in two ways. First, given the close proximity to the American Colonies, Mexico was well aware of independence gained from England and shared a similar mother country/colonist relationship with Spain that was neither warm nor appreciated. Second, with close ties to Spain and the various 19th-century wars and dislocations in Europe, Spain was so completely distracted by continental concerns that governing Mexico became an afterthought. Mexicans saw the possibilities of independence and the idea of freedom. But, in as much as Spain might have been influenced by Enlightenment liberalization, Mexico as a culture and society had no basis to receive the fruits of these new liberties. So, when Mexico declared independence from Spain and actually became a sovereign country, that was as far as things went. It was a one-night stand with no long-term commitment. Mexico had no historical memory of self-government and no real system to replace the representative of the King with an alternative. The rule of law was arbitrary, and the structure for government as initially attempted never truly became anything close to a democracy, much less a republic. So, in freeing Mexico from Spain, there was no model of past experience to guide the new nation. And while there were military men who led by force, they were incapable of converting their military leadership to govern and build institutions for sustained self-government. In short, there was no George Washington. There were only strong men who gained power by force while attempting to unify the country, but they ultimately found despotism easier than the niceties of collaboration. Thus, in the preliminary stages of Mexican independence, government emerged from a survival of the fittest contest, and the execution of political rivals was often considered to be much easier than campaigning or submitting to a vote. Achieving independence was easy as Spain was distracted with its own internal issues. But, when the new government attempted to draft a constitution and establish a working government, discussions broke down, and factions buoyed with rational and enlightened ideas were unable to reach any consensus for a sustained period of time. With only ideas and no experience in self-government, the initial government disintegrated. Two hundred years ago, into this void stepped Agustín de Iturbide. He had been a successful general and had the presence of mind to unify his command with opposition forces to form a governing coalition. With the frustration that any new country would face and without the experience of history to provide any guidance for independence, the coalition failed. But there was one history lesson observed, and that from Napoleon, who crowned himself Emperor. Agustín de Iturbide followed suit and simply proclaimed himself Emperor Agustín I without any consent, approval, or other ratification. Truly an amazing feat and, in reality, a turn away from any enlightenment reason to dictatorial hubris. The Emperor’s reign was short-lived. He abdicated and left the country for the safety of Europe. General Antonio López de Santa Anna, known by all Texas schoolchildren as the enemy of the Alamo, now started his rise to power. While intending to unite the country under his leadership, Santa Anna was never able to fully control the country or provide a basis for continuity of government. He, too, would be forced into exile, and Mexico would again start the cycle of near-anarchy resulting in military rule, quelling freedoms so anticipated by independence from Spain. With significant natural resources even then, rampant corruption prevented any stable funding of a cohesive national government. Had a strong leader emerged with skills to create an effective government and pursue a viable constitution, outcomes might have been different. But given the abundant natural resources, dictators were able to obtain easy credit allowing a posh lifestyle for themselves and their supporters. Each extension of credit led to further debt renegotiations until the government was unable to pay. Collecting debts in our modern world is easy. There is a simple, reliable system that deals with debtors and creditors in an equitable manner to sort out disputes and allow repayment. The rule of law acknowledges the importance of debt and its repayment, so we have courts to manage disagreements and even an entire system of bankruptcy laws to effectively compromise legal obligations. Nations in the 19th century had no such system, so when Mexico’s debts were so large and could not be repaid, the country simply stopped paying. While this gave initial relief, the long-term consequences were not good; in Mexico’s case, the creditor nations, opting to collect by force, sent their armies across the Atlantic and invaded. At first, the major European creditor countries united and were able to achieve some level of credit satisfaction, but the French remained chagrined, so they embarked on a crusade to not only collect debts owed to them but also to conquer. While marching on Mexico City, a far superior French Army was checked and defeated at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Victory over a major European power was a significant and emotional victory for the Mexicans, and it offered ample cause and opportunity for celebration. The anniversary of this battle is recognized as
Joe Biden calls former VP Walter Mondale ‘giant’ of political history
President Joe Biden saluted his “friend of five decades” Walter Mondale on Sunday, traveling to the University of Minnesota to remember the former vice president and Democratic Party elder whose memorial service was delayed for a year due to the pandemic. Mondale died in April 2021 at age 93. He is credited with transforming the office of the vice presidency — which Biden himself held for eight years under President Barack Obama — expanding its responsibilities and making himself a key adviser to President Jimmy Carter. Mondale “was a giant in American political history,” Biden said of Mondale, known to friends as “Fritz.” He added that Mondale was one of the “toughest, smartest men I’ve ever worked with” both as Senate colleagues and as a mentor when Biden was Obama’s No. 2 and then later as president. Biden emphasized Mondale’s empathy, recalling his own promise during the 2020 presidential campaign to unite the country. That’s something the president has strayed from a bit in recent weeks as he seeks to draw a starker contrast between his administration and congressional Republicans who have opposed it on nearly every major issue. “It was Fritz who lit the way,” Biden said. “Everybody is to be treated with dignity. Everybody.” Biden added of Mondale: “He united people sharing the light, the same hopes — even when we disagreed, he thought that was important.” “It’s up to each of us to reflect that light that Fritz was all about.” The invitation-only, 90-minute service Sunday inside a stately campus auditorium featured plentiful organ music. Biden, who received a standing ovation, said he spoke with Mondale’s family beforehand and “got emotional” himself. Democratic Sen. Tina Smith called Mondale a “bona fide political celebrity” who still dedicated time to races large and small back in their home state. Minnesota civil rights icon Josie Johnson spoke of what a good listener Mondale was and how he championed inclusiveness. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar described once being an intern who climbed under chairs and a table to carry out a furniture inventory when Mondale was vice president. “That was my first job in Washington. And, thanks to Walter Mondale, this was my second,” Klobuchar said of being a senator, noting that Mondale encouraged her to run and taught “the pundits in Washington how to say my name.” Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Minnesota may be better known as Mondale’s home state than its moniker “The Land of 10,000 Lakes” and praised Mondale’s intellect, humility, humor, and optimism. “He embodied a sense of joy. He lived his life every single day,” Walz said. “At 91, he was still fishing for walleye. Unlike me, he was catching some.” A booklet given to attendees for the “afternoon of remembrance and reflection” quoted from Mondale’s 2010 book, “The Good Fight”: “I believe that the values of the American people — our fundamental decency, our sense of justice and fairness, our love of freedom — are the country’s greatest assets and that steering by their lodestar is the only true course forward.” Its back cover showed Mondale’s face next to the slogan, “We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace,” which Klobuchar described as being memorialized after the then-vice president said them at the end of the Carter administration. Mondale was a graduate of the University of Minnesota and its law school, which has a building named after him. During Sunday’s remembrance, Biden wiped his eyes as a performance of “Tomorrow” from the musical “Annie” played, and the service closed with the university’s marching band, which sent people away with the “Minnesota Rouser” fight song. Mondale followed a trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, serving as Minnesota attorney general before replacing Humphrey in the Senate. He was Carter’s vice president from 1977 to 1981. Mondale also lost one of the most lopsided presidential elections ever to Ronald Reagan in 1984. He carried only Minnesota and the District of Columbia after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won. But he made history in that race by picking Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, of New York, as his running mate, becoming the first major-party nominee to put a woman on the ticket. Mondale remained an important Democratic voice for decades afterward and went on to serve as ambassador to Japan under President Bill Clinton. In 2002, at 74, he was drafted to run for the Senate again after Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash shortly before the election. Mondale lost the abbreviated race to Republican Norm Coleman. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
J. Pepper Bryars: Inflation rate hits 12.5% (the real one, anyway)
Now that it’s the end of April, the federal government will soon release the latest numbers from the Consumer Price Index to officially tell us exactly how much inflation has risen in the past year. Some people will probably call “BS” on whatever number is generated by the CPI, though, because they believe it’s either inadvertently flawed, purposefully manipulative, or so dense and detached that it’s become practically useless as a means of measurement. And there’s just no amount of political spin or economic theorizing that can explain those concerns away. Like so many other aspects of our institutions, many people have simply lost trust in the CPI. That’s why I created my own index — a “No BS” one, or NBS-CPI as I like to call it — to measure precisely how much more I’m personally spending on my family’s primary non-fixed expenses — groceries and gas. And since we mostly shop through the Walmart Grocery App, I have detailed receipts to base the calculations upon. So, when a literal apples-to-apples price comparison is made between what I paid for something at Walmart in April 2021 and what it cost now in April 2022, plus the price of regular unleaded down the road, my own NBS-CPI shot up to slightly more than 12.5%. That number is probably much closer to measuring the true level of inflation being felt by our nation’s families, and it hasn’t been that high since President Ronald Reagan took office in January 1980. Here are the numbers: So, what’s up with the CPI? Some think the measurement was fundamentally broken after the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which comes up with the number, moved away from tracking a fixed list of products to one where items are removed or added based on price or quality fluctuations. Critics of the CPI, like stock trader and financial commentator Peter Schiff, have explained that until a couple of decades ago, government economists would track the price of the same basket of products, and the resulting changes would be averaged together to create the inflation rate. If broccoli was in the basket, it stayed in the basket. But some economists began arguing that a fixed basket isn’t how people actually shop. They said that if a product becomes too expensive, a shopper would scratch it off their grocery list and replace it with something else less expensive. So, if broccoli suddenly costs too much, economists assume shoppers will replace the broccoli with, say, Brussel sprouts. And then, the CPI starts tracking the less expensive product. It’s clear to see what they’re trying to do — base their measurement on dynamic, human behavior rather than a static list — but the flaw in their model is the many assumptions they have to make, and some are probably wrong. (I wouldn’t swap broccoli for Brussel sprouts in my house, for instance. It’d be a total waste. I’m sure you have limitations like that, too). The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts surveys and market research to inform those assumptions and make those changes, it says, so they’re not done on a whim. But still, when you dig into what changes they’ve made and then look at your own behavior (and your own grocery receipts!), it just doesn’t seem right. Then there’s the argument that the bureaucrat-economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics have simply made all this far too complicated. For instance, one would think that coming up with the rate of inflation for a product is a simple calculation: Increase in Price ÷ Original Price x 100 = % Increase. Do that for the entire basket of products you’re tracking, get the average percentage of them all, and voilà — the inflation rate. That’s how I calculated my NBS-CPI. Nope Here’s just one of the formulas they use at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate the CPI: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Decades of problem solving, generations of added processes, and the natural tendency of bureaucracies to construct Byzantine-like labyrinths rather than draw straight lines from problems to solutions has created a Rube Goldberg Machine to calculate what could originally be worked out by a fourth-grader. Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin (Rube Goldberg, Collier’s,1931) This is one reason people distrust these numbers: people aren’t capable of checking the government’s homework, and when they take a look, they see a myriad of perplexing systems and confusing jargon. This causes some to believe it’s all a scam and that these measurements are systemically manipulated for the benefit of those with wealth and power. Maybe. After what happened in the subprime mortgage crisis a few years ago, I wouldn’t put anything past Wall Street and their lackeys in Congress. Much of how the world works can be explained by incentives — what reason does a person have to do one thing and not the other? That, and repeating the question the great orator Cicero asked when evaluating legal claims: “Cui bono?”, which is a Latin phrase meaning “who benefits?” Find out what the incentives are for an action, and who benefits from it, and you’re probably going to be in the ballpark. The keyword in the title “government economist” is, alas, government. And with the CPI, we’re essentially trusting the government to not only grade its performance in managing the economy, but to create the test, and then change the questions when it doesn’t like the answers. The incentive, however underlying it may be, is to produce the lowest number for inflation possible. And who benefits? Consider what’s hitched to inflation — automatic cost-of-living increases for government employees, some large private employers, and retirees. While not automatic, higher inflation certainly gives employees across the board more of a justification to demand increased wages. And while I’m uncertain, I suspect that Wall Street has managed to make money from all of this. Maybe someday we’ll learn exactly how. Going Forward We’ll see how close the real CPI is to my own NBS-CPI in just
