Newspaper Page Text
The ADVANCE, Morch 22, 2023/Page 6A
Stye Aiiuancg
OPINIONS
“I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his repute for the freedom to think,
And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t’other half for the freedom to speak.”
-James Russell Lowell
editorials
How To Crash the Economy,
Big Government Style
By Ben Shapiro
We are in a loom
ing financial crisis,
even if we don’t want
to see it.
Silicon Valley
Bank (SVB) was, ac
cording to Moody’s,
worthy of an invest
ment-grade rating as
of March 8, 2023.
S&P Global Ratings
similarly held a high
opinion of SVB. Two days later, SVB was
shut down; immediately, Moody’s dropped
SVB into junk territory. So did S&P Global
Ratings. Within days, Signature Bank —
with Barney Frank, co-sponsor of the famed
and much-ballyhooed Dodd-Frank Act, on
the board — went belly up.
The Biden administration, touting its
own heroism, immediately stepped in to fill
the gap. Concerned that unsecured deposi
tors would lose billions in cash, Team Biden
announced that all unsecured depositors
would get their money back; the Federal
Reserve launched a Bank Term Funding
Program, to create additional reserves for
the banks. Then President Joe Biden himself
claimed that he had stabilized the banking
system.
He hasn’t.
To understand justwhy throwing money
at the problem with the banks won’t solve
the underlying issue, we need to understand
just why SVB failed in the first place. It failed
thanks to three specific factors: from 2020 to
2022, the federal government injected more
liquidity into the American economy than at
any time in history, bar none; SVB, trusting
that the liquidity would keep on coming,
socked away a large amount of that liquidity
into bonds, which bore a low interest rate;
the federal government, having now created
an inflationary wildfire, had to count on the
Federal Reserve to cut inflation by raising
interest rates. Those increased interest rates
made SVB’s bond holdings lower; when de
positors, hampered by the lack of easy
money, started to withdraw their cash, SVB
had to liquidate the bonds at a loss, essen
tially bankrupting them.
So, what happened? Simply put, the fed
eral government created a carousel of easy
cash; investors thought the carousel would
never stop; it stopped. Now, the federal gov
ernment blames capitalism — and in the
process, claims that by injecting more liquid
ity into the system, it will prevent capitalism
from melting down the banks. But instead,
the federal government has created two new
problems: first, the Federal Reserve has now
given itself the unenviable task of simultane
ously quashing inflation (which requires
raising interest rates) and shoring up the
banks (which requires lowering them and/
or injecting more liquidity); second, the
federal government has created a new and
massive moral hazard, whereby bank manag
ers know that if they promise outsized re
turns to their depositors, they can gain their
business — and worst case scenario, the
government will bail out the depositors any
way.
Now the experts tell us that the Biden
team will achieve a soft landing — that
they’ll somehow square the circle, lowering
inflation while preventing bank assets from
depreciating, incentivizing financial respon
sibility while simultaneously backstopping
bad decision-making, promoting fiscal re
sponsibility while proposing $7 trillion bud
gets. No one has this kind of power, least of
all the team that’s brought America four-de-
cade-high inflation, the highest interest rates
since before the 2007-2008 financial crash
and an ever-soaring national debt.
No, the crisis will arrive. If it feels like
the federal government can fly, that’s just
because it always feels that way when you
jump out of a tenth-story window and you’re
nine stories down. Joe Biden and the econ
omy are not immune to the forces of finan
cial gravity.
Ben Shapiro, 38, is a graduate of UCLA and
Harvard Law School, host of "The Ben Shapiro
Show," and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a
three-time New York Times bestselling author; his
latest book is The Authoritarian Moment: How
The Left Weaponized America's Institutions
Against Dissent. To find out more about Ben
Shapiro and read features by other Creators
Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.
com.
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM.
State House passes bill banning
some gender-affirming care for
transgender Georgians under 18
By Rebecca Grapevine
Staff Reporter
Capitol Beat News Service
The Republican-con-
trolled state House of Rep
resentatives approved a con
troversial bill Thursday that
would ban some gender-af
firming care for transgender
Georgia youths.
Senate Bill 140, which
the House passed 96-75
along party lines, would pro
hibit hospitals and doctors
from providing hormone-
replacement therapy or
gender-affirming surgeries
to transgender minors. How
ever, it would allow some
gender-related treatment for
certain medical conditions
and let transgender youths
take puberty blockers.
Doctors and hospitals
could lose their licenses for
providing such care. And
earlier this week, a House
committee amended the bill
to allow doctors to be held
civilly and criminally liable
for providing hormone-re-
placement therapy or gen
der-affirming surgeries to
Georgians under 18.
“As legislators we are
charged with protecting our
most vulnerable population
in the state,” said Rep. Josh
Bonner, R-Fayetteville, the
bill’s House sponsor. “SB
140 does just that by estab
lishing guardrails to ensure
that children struggling with
identity issues are not rushed
into decisions that would al
ter their bodies forever.”
"Nothing in this bill
stops an adult from pursu
ing a different lifestyle based
on their feelings," said Rep.
Will Wade, R-Dawsonville,
in support of the bill.
"We must draw a line for
the long-term of children. ...
I believe that childhood is
about giving young people
time to develop and letting
them learn by trial and er
ror, but still protecting them
from long-term harms."
Democratic legislators
spoke out in opposition to
the bill, pointing out that
major medical societies in
cluding the American Acad
emy of Pediatrics support
gender-affirming care that
can include hormone-re-
placement therapy and sur
gery for transgender youths.
“We think this bill will
in fact do real harm to some
of our most vulnerable citi
zens,” said Rep. Scott Hol
comb, D-Atlanta. “I really do
fear that we may lose some
lives bypassing this, not save
lives but lose fives, and that
should give everyone pause.”
House Democrats cited
studies that show that trans
gender youths are much
more likely to contemplate
or commit suicide than oth
er young people. They also
contended the bill is at odds
with the GOP’s recent push
to protect parental rights.
“Most of us who are par
ents ... want the freedom
to make decisions for our
families and our children,”
said Rep. Saira Draper, D-
Atlanta. “Many of you in this
chamber have said as much:
You have declared that it is
a parent’s right to make de
cisions about where their
children go to school, which
books they read and which
subjects they study."
“Yet, SB 140 attempts to
substitute the judgement of
the state for that of the par
ents of some of our most vul
nerable children, those who
identify as transgender. That
is wrong, and it is not what
this body should stand for.”
Because the House
amended the bill in commit
tee, it now heads back to the
Georgia Senate.
Parade Magazine
by
Loran Smith
Although I
was not aware of
what was going
on, it was a little
disconcerting in
the last couple
of years when
on occasional
weekends no
Parade Maga
zine was among
the inserts in the
Sunday papers.
That should have been a signal
— that the popular supplement was
headed for extinction. Then
those absences seemed to
come with intermittent
frequency. Ultimately, the
hammer fell late last fall
when Parade Magazine
disappeared from Sun
day circulation altogeth
er. It no longer was part
of my weekend life as it
had been for years.
Parade remains via
the Internet, but that is not for this
reader. When I read on the weekend,
I make it a treasured routine to enjoy
and savor. Reading the newspapers
is a sacred ritual. When the chill of
fall starts setting in, I take the great
est delight in reading by the fireplace
with the smoke and flames providing
an atmosphere which is comforting,
uplifting, and inspiring.
Come April, I move to the
screened-in porch to my favorite
rocker and read the paper in the still
ness of the morning with the deer nib
bling at the greenery in the backyard
and my favorite cardinal, Stan Musial,
flitting about.
The computer can’t offer any of
that, so recently I held my own funer
al for Parade Magazine. (Expletives
deleted).
While I’m not much on movie
and television celebrities, I did enjoy
the inside front page of Parade where
Walter Scott posted a nice feature.
“Walter Scott’s Personality Parade”
was a very interesting Hollywood
gossip column. The real name of the
author was Lloyd Shearer, who wrote
the column for years.
The in-depth feature stories were
well done and, depending on the writ
er, were very insightful and entertain
ing. The sports profiles were some of
the best — when good writers, with
access to the inside, took you into the
depths of the sports scene and the life
and times of the heroes who were be
ing showcased.
Mickey Mantle, earning the
wrath of his manager, the colorful
Casey Stengel, for blowing bubbles in
the outfield, the original Stan Musial
in his corkscrew stance, a stately Wil
lie Mays at the plate, the underappre
ciated Hank Aaron, the iconic Jackie
Robinson, a youthful Sandy Koufax,
who was born in Brooklyn and got his
start at the unforgettable and seminal
Ebbets Field; eventually Koufax came
to hold the same view of the media
as General Norman Schwarzkopf —
keep all such practitioners beyond
arm’s length. In fact, avoid them as
if they were Tasmanian devils. No
publicity is the best publicity became
Koufax’s perpetual mantra.
Parade Magazine was founded
by Marshall Field III in 1941 and
enjoyed stunning success from the
outset of its first publishing date of
May 31. It sold 125,000 copies in its
first year and by 1946 its circulation
reached 3.5 million.
Parade was the most widely read
magazine in the U.S. with a circula
tion of 32 million and a readership of
54.1 million. Now that the publica
tion is no longer distributed to more
than 700 papers in the U.S., you can
still find out what Parade al
lows via the Internet.
Before there was ac
cess to Parade, the
Atlanta Journal-Con
stitution had its own
magazine, which was
always fun to read, es
pecially with its cover
age of personalities and
subjects related to the
state of Georgia.
In the back of the
magazine there was an interesting
layout which showcased a pretty girl
each week. It included a photo and a
short caption about her accolades and
interests under the heading of “Geor
gia Peach.”
For whatever it is worth, one of
the prettiest girls ever in Athens was
Marianne Gordon, who later became
Mrs. Kenny Rogers. She grew up on
Bloomfield Street. With un-retreating
temerity, I collected a photo of Mari
anne from her grandmother, who
worked in the Georgia football ticket
office, and sent it to the editor of the
AJC magazine. The magazine printed
the photo and a caption which result
ed in Marianne becoming the ben
eficiary of a few modeling opportuni
ties.
None of the Hollywood starlets,
featured in Parade looked better than
the AJC’s “Belle of Bloomfield.”
s,c A&uance
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