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Its little known today, but a major driver of Henry Fords interest in machines was an aversion to work. And horses. Born into a farming family in Michigan, Fords migration away from the land was rooted in a desire to avoid the dawn-to-dusk toil that defined life for an overwhelming majority in the 19th century.

So, while Ford is most known for having democratized access to the automobile, its less known that Ford Motor Company also mass-produced tractors. 650,000 in 1927 alone. In his words, What a waste it is for a human being to spend hours and hours behind a slowly moving team of horses in the same time a tractor could do six times as much work."

Fords intimate knowledge of how machines multiply human productivity while reducing time on the job came to mind while reading Washington Post columnist Max Boots recent assertion that Russia is in a demographic death spiral. Who is the source of Boots pessimism, or optimism? Its none other than American Enterprise Institute fellow Nicholas Eberstadt.

Eberstadt is the leader of a strain of conservatives thoroughly convinced that the main crisis awaiting us is a consequence of people in more developed countries choosing to have fewer kids. Eberstadt is to demographic death spiral what Michael Mann is to catastrophic global warming. Both have flocks to feed, and feed them they do with narratives that actual market signals formed by actual information thoroughly reject.

The global warmist in Mann promotes an endless picture of the worlds coastal cities literally going under water, all because the people in the well-to-do parts of the world now avail themselves of cars, air conditioners, and other mechanized advances that make living so pleasurable today. The only problem with Manns preaching about the hell that awaits us is that human migratory patterns and pesky market prices disagree. At present something north of 45% of the worlds population lives in coastal areas, and the previous number is expected to grow.

In concert with this migration to coastal cities allegedly set to go under water is a rather evident surge in the price of real estate. Yes, you read that right. In the global locales that Mann and his warming crowd claim will be washed away, the cost of dwellings on whats set to be washed away grows and grows.

It makes you wonderabout Mann. Smart as he surely is, he cant possibly know more than the markets. And if you doubt the latter, he surely cant have anywhere close to the combined knowledge of half of the worlds population.

Which brings us back to Boot. Under the sway of Eberstadt, hes convinced that Russias birthrate of only 1.5 children per woman has it as previously mentioned in a demographic death spiral. Except that people are not static creatures. Theyre instead dynamic parts of an increasingly global whole.

The 1.5 Russian children per women being born today are entering a world in which every good and service produced within it is a beautiful consequence of intensely sophisticated global cooperation. To use but one of countless examples, Boeing airplanes are comprised of millions of intricate parts manufactured around the world. And that only tells part of the story.

To see why, think back to Ford and his fascination with machines. He yet again understood that machines multiply human effort. A man working today can do the work of hundreds and realistically thousands of men born when Ford was. Throw in technology that increasingly thinks for us, and its easy to see that the babies being born today will be the productive equivalent of tens of thousands born when Ford was in 1863.

Yet Boot thinks Russia days are numbered because of 1.5 children per woman? How much time did it take for him to read the fascinating report written by Eberstadt in which the demographic death spiral was bruited as a negative factor for so many developed countries, and by extension, the world?

The good news for Boot is that age 53, hes got time to make up for time wasted on a pessimistic assessment of the future that is mocked by markets (watch investment flows, including a surge of investment into low-birthrate countries like the U.S. and South Korea), machines, and simple common sense. Whats true for Boot is happily true for Eberstadt too, age 67. Indeed, with machines increasingly thinking for us, its only a matter of time before man aided by machines unlocks the secrets to ever longer life.

Its all a reminder that contra the pessimists, the only threat to people who populate the closed economy that is the world is a lack of freedom. Everything else will be taken care of by the very market forces that presently look disdainfully at catastrophic fear-mongering promoted by the dominant ideologies.

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Beware Liberals and Conservatives Delivering 'Catastrophic News ... - thepress.net

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the Constitution did not guarantee a right to abortion, many expected the result to influence where students chose to enroll at college.

There were anecdotal reports of some students changing colleges, but the timing of the decision, in June, limited students from changing, especially at competitive colleges with strict May1 deadlines for responding to an offer of admissions.

This is the first year when the decisions students are making about where to enroll will be after that Supreme Court decisionand after a palpable coarsening of relations between conservatives and liberals.

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We wont know the impact for sure until after the May1 deadlines, or, for more colleges, until students actually enroll. But a new study from the Art & Science Group, being released today, found that nearly one in four high school seniors ruled out institutions solely due to the politics, policies, or legal situation in the state where the college was located. Further, the study found that this behavior was statistically true across liberals, moderates and conservatives.

In addition, Intelligent.com found that 91percent of prospective college students in Florida disagree with the education policies of Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and one in eight graduating high school students in Florida wont attend a public college there due to DeSantiss education policies.

Of those who arent likely to attend a public school, nearly half (49percent) say its due to DeSantis education policies. This group makes up 12percent of all prospective college students, including those who are in agreement with DeSantis education policies. Of students who are likely to attend a public school, 78percent are concerned his education policies will negatively impact their education, said Intelligent.com, a website focused on students.

The first thing about these studies is to gauge their significance. Most college students attend a college in their home state, and this has been the case for decades. And even states that send a lot of students out of state (say, California or Illinois) also import students. In fact California colleges (public and private) are 88.9percent made up of Californians, and Illinois colleges have 88.2percent of students from Illinois. Students who attend community colleges, the plurality of all students, stay close to home. And despite the extensive press coverage of the Ivies and the Universities of California, Michigan and Virginia, all which have tons of out-of-state applicants, they are not the norm.

David Strauss, a principal of Art & Science, which advises colleges on enrollment issues, said his study doesnt have a large enough pool to determine which colleges are in danger of losing students. He suspects that Harvard and Yale Universities (and similar institutions) will be fine with conservative students, just as they have been fine even if they are known for attracting liberal students. The problem will be colleges that are a few spots below Harvard and Yale on the (ever-changing) prestige index.

What should colleges do in this environment, especially colleges in Southern states that value their liberal (and Northeastern or Midwestern) students or colleges in New York or Massachusetts that value their conservatives?

Colleges ought to continue to advance their missions and their students, he said. And the college should make clear how they can help students by communicating their intentions.

For instance, if a college wants to offer funds for travel out of state to students who need an abortion that may not be available, the college should state that.

But he acknowledged that this was new territory for colleges.

Liberals were more likely than conservatives to rule out a college because of its location, but only by a small margin (31percent to 28percent). Moderates were 22percent, and 12percent didnt categorize themselves.

Other groups that were more likely to eliminate a college because of its location: LGBTQ students (32percent versus 21percent for straight students) and non-first-generation students (26percent versus 19percent for first-generation students).

In terms of where liberals and conservatives are ruling out colleges, liberals were most likely to be ruling out colleges in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. But they also were against enrolling in Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and Utah.

Conservatives ruled out colleges in California and New York.

Among the quarter of students who ruled out a school in our survey, about a third (32percent) passed over schools in their home state on the basis of a political or legal situation they found unacceptable, the report said. Interestingly, students who identified as Republican were significantly more likely to make that decision than were self-identified Democrats. While we dont know for sure, this might make the most sense if many Republican students live in blue states, which tend to be heavily populated.

The top reasons cited by liberals for eliminating a college from consideration were location in a state that was too Republican, too conservative on abortion laws, that showed a lack of concern on racial equity, too conservative on LGBTQ laws, too easy to get a gun and showed an inadequate focus on mental health.

Conservatives cited states as being too Democratic, too liberal on LGBTQ laws, conservative voices are squashed and having laws that are too liberal on abortion and reproductive rights.

Likewise capturing a different kind of concurrence across the political spectrum: about one-third of both liberal-leaning and conservative-leaning students registered apprehension around the practice of free speech on campus, assuming that voices like theirs politically might be squashed at colleges or universities located in certain states, the report said.

The findings were based on survey research fielded in January and February 2023, and it covered 1,865 domestic high school seniors. Respondents were 62percent female and 62percent white. The average reported household income was around $93,000. Responses were weighted by income, race, region and gender so that findings represent the larger domestic college-going population. The margin of error for this population of students is plus or minus 3.5percent, Art & Science said.

All this leads us to conclude that many prospective students are paying attention to political issues, be they general, longstanding perceptions and/or new and particular initiatives, and that is manifesting in the decisions of about a quarter of them to eliminate specific colleges and universities from their consideration sets. Liberal-leaning students are more likely to see an array of specific priorities playing out alarmingly in many states throughout the South and Midwest, the report said. Conservatives seem focused on a broader context and a more limited number of particular political issues.

With political polarization on the rise, and all regions set to see declines in the number of high school graduates in coming years, lawmakers and campus administrators would do well to take student convictions into account as political change-making continues to infiltrate campus life. And importantly, as the regional student markets shift, institutions will likely need to pay particular attention to their individual and distinctive positioning in order to attract students in their market despite challenges posed by state social policies, the report said.

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The role of politics in where students want to go to college - Inside Higher Ed

With the next EU elections only one year away, ALDE Party and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom hosted an event on 21 March to take stock of the current situation for liberals and how they plan to address key challenges for Europe in the upcoming months.

The event was moderated by ALDE Party Vice-President Svenja Hahn MEP, and included Karin Karlsbro MEP and Member of the German Parliament & Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the German Federal Foreign Office Michael Link as speakers. The discussion focused on the EUs role in the world, trade relations, enlargement, security and rule of law.

In her remarks, Hahn said:

The EU is struggling to position itself in the fast-changing world. The autocrats of the world are supporting each other. The EU should ask itself, what are we doing?

Speaking on the importance of trade, Karlsbro added:

Its more important than ever that democracies stand together. If we really wanted, we could cooperate and exchange in a way that benefits the climate, the economy and people. If we compete in state subsidies and try to follow the road that Biden has now started, I dont know how we will end up. Liberals have to address this in the next election.

When it comes to European security, Link addressed the efficiency of sanctions imposed on Russia since Putins invasion of Ukraine:

My biggest concern is that we can do 11, 12, 14 sanction packages, that would not be enough. Too many important countries are sitting on their heads. We need to find ways to convince other countries to participate in these sanctions. Its not enough to go and lecture others on sanctions. We need to find ways for these states to understand whats in it for them. We need them to understand that it is in the interest of India and Brazil and to win them over by getting them more share in cooperating with the EU. Russia has a capacity to circumvent the sanctions and unless we get more countries to join us, they will continue to do so.

Hahn concluded the discussion by reflecting on the upcoming European Elections in 2024:

We have a very important election next year and we clearly have a lot of challenges ahead of us, but we are liberals and we are working to find the solutions by getting close to the people.

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Liberals discuss a stronger EU in the world - ALDE Party

Published March 26, 2023 8:00 a.m. ET

Updated March 26, 2023 2:51 p.m. ET

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NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says hes not satisfied with his partys confidence-and-supply agreement with the Liberals signed a year ago this week because its shown him he could do a better job running the country than the current government.

And so it's led me to not be satisfied with the position I'm in, he said. I want to be the prime minister, but I'm proud of the work we've done.

The deal sees the NDP support the Liberals and keep them in power until 2025 in exchange for progress on certain policy priorities.

In an interview with CTVs Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, airing Sunday, Singh said hes really, really proud of the commitments hes secured through his agreement with the Liberals, citing the first phase of a national dental care program as an example.

That's something I'm really proud of, but I'm not satisfied with it, he said. Maybe that's a better way to put it.

I'm not satisfied, because I don't want to just push government, he added. I want to be the one making the decisions for the interests of people, and having been in a position where I can actually influence decisions, I've seen how much better we would do if we were the ones calling the shots.

Meanwhile the confidence-and-supply deal has some key line items that are expected to be in this Tuesdays federal budget, such as expanding the dental care program. But to avoid worsening inflation, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has pointed to plans for fiscal restraint in the budget, while promising targeted measures to help struggling Canadians.

Singh said while he agrees targeted spending is whats needed to help people weather the high cost of living, he also thinks the dental care program, and expanding the GST rebate, are the ways to do that.

Since the confidence-and-supply agreement was struck, Singh has yet to name a deal breaker. The NDP sided with the Liberals in invoking the Emergencies Act to dismantle the trucker protests last year and have declined to pull their support for the government amid ongoing calls to hold a public inquiry into foreign interference.

"We always have the right, if the government breaks any conditions of the agreement, if they don't follow through with what we forced them to agree to, we have then the power or the option of withdrawing our support," Singh told his caucus in January.

With files from CTVNews.cas Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello

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Singh 'not satisfied' with agreement with Liberals - CTV News

OTTAWA The political fallout of the latest allegations of foreign influence involving a Toronto MP dominated debate on Parliament Hill Thursday. But it wasnt enough to get the Liberal government to agree to opposition demands for a public inquiry into alleged Chinese interference in Canadian democracy.

The Conservatives, Bloc Qubcois and New Democrats all pressed for answers and called for a public inquiry after Don Valley North MP Han Dong tearfully resigned from the Liberal caucus Wednesday night to sit as an Independent.

On Thursday, hours after he left the Liberal caucus, Dong voted against the government to help the opposition parties pass a non-binding motion calling for an inquiry into foreign election interference.

But the government has so far resisted those calls, which emerged with renewed vigour after the latest allegation that Dong has dismissed as a false attack on his reputation that questioned his loyalty to Canada.

Dong was referring to a Global News report, which cited unnamed national security sources who alleged Dong secretly advised a Chinese diplomat in 2021 that Beijing should refrain from releasing two Canadians who were jailed by the authoritarian regime at the time.

The Star has been unable to verify the report, and Dong did not respond to questions from the Star on Thursday.

The imprisonment of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig was denounced widely as retaliation for the 2018 arrest of a Chinese telecom executive in Vancouver at the request of the United States. The Canadian government railed against the jailing of the Two Michaels and rallied international support against hostage diplomacy until their release in September 2021 after more than 1,000 days in Chinese detention.

In the House of Commons on Thursday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre repeatedly demanded to know when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau learned of the allegations against Dong. Conservative MPs suggested it was unlikely that security sources would leak the information to a media outlet without informing the government.

A government official confirmed to the Star that the government only found out about the allegations when Global News asked questions about them.

Describing the report as a startling revelation, Poilievre said it would be a devastating scandal if the allegations were true and Trudeau knew about them.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mlanie Joly fired back that Trudeau made sure the government was standing up to China over the detainment of Spavor and Kovrig.

We will never accept any sort of premise that this government and Canadians didnt work enough to bring them back home, Joly said.

Even alluding to the contrary is absolutely false, she later added.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who was among the first to call for Dong to step down from the Liberal caucus, said he will bring up the prospect of a public inquiry when he meets with David Johnston, the special rapporteur appointed by the government to look into allegations of foreign interference.

Yet Singh whose party is propping up the Liberal minority government in a parliamentary co-operation deal also rejected any suggestion that the issue is worth triggering an election over. The Star reported this week that the Liberals allowed speculation to float about whether they would stage a confidence vote over the matter as a test of their relationship with the NDP.

We dont want an election in the context of a time when people are raising legitimate concerns about foreign interference, said Singh, who stated this week that he still thinks the parliamentary deal is worthy of maintaining.

Meanwhile, some Liberals praised Dongs decision to leave caucus. International Trade Minister Mary Ng told reporters Thursday that Dong made the right decision, given the seriousness of the allegations against him.

Another Liberal MP, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about internal party matters, said Thursday that Dongs departure from caucus was likely inevitable after the latest Global News story, which materially changed the pressure on the government over allegations of foreign interference.

There was some sense of closure after Dong resigned from caucus, the MP said.

Now it would be preferable to call a public inquiry instead of allowing security sources to continue leaking sporadic information that is fuelling the political firestorm over foreign interference, the MP said.

Arguing a public inquiry might not be able to air all information on sensitive national security matters like this, the government has instead appointed Johnston to guide its response, as two closed-door investigations one by a special committee of MPs and senators, the other by an independent national security agency look into the issue.

The Liberals have also agreed to allow Trudeaus chief of staff, Katie Telford, to testify at a parliamentary committee studying foreign interference.

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MP who quit Liberals over China allegations votes with Tories for ... - Toronto Star