TFR Around The World And Global Population Trends

From Wikipedia. The 2023 data above does not exactly track the 2024 UN data analyzed below.

If you want a single indicator to measure economic development in a country or region, total fertility rate is one of the better ones.

Replacement rate for the world as a whole at TFR 2.3 is a bit higher than the replacement rate in the developed world of 2.1. 

The TFR of the world as a whole is 2.3 right now, which is right at global replacement rate. Thus, the world's population as a whole is on track to be neither growing nor shrinking in the long run once the "bumps" in existing demographics work their way though the overall population trends. In 1970, the global TFR was 4.8 and it was 5.1 in 1965.

From here.

The world population is currently at an all time high of 7.95 billion. The world population is expected by the U.N. to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, to 9.7 billion by 2050, and to 10.4 billion by 2100. I suspect that this estimate is high and that a peak will be reached sooner in time at a lower peak population, because that is the direction in which population estimates have been corrected in the past few decades. After that, the long term downward trend in TFR everywhere in the world as economic development advances is expected to gradually reduce the global population.

The highest TFR in the world, as of 2024, is in Niger at 6.6 and the lowest is in South Korea at 0.9 (Hong Kong would be lower still at 0.8, if it were a separate country). This is a significant shift since 1970, when the highest national TFR in the world (to the nearest 0.1) was 8.1 in Kenya, and the lowest national TFR in the world, in Finland, was 1.8.

A broad summary

If we break the world into a greater than 2.3 global replacement rate TFR and a 2.3 or below TFR bin, the countries in the higher TFR bin are:

Sub-Saharan Africa (45-5)

45 countries are in the higher bin (up to 6.6). This includes all 14 countries with TFR 4.4 and above, and 28 out of 29 countries with TFR 3.9 and above (the exception in Afghanistan at 4.3 in 15th place). 

5 countries: South Africa, and 4 island countries or dependencies near Africa, are in the lower bin.

Central Asia (6-0)

All 6 are in the higher bin (up to 4.3). 

Oceania (9-4) 

9 small countries or dependencies in the South Pacific are in the higher bin (up to 3.8). 

4 are in the lower bin (New Zealand, Australia, and 2 small island dependencies).

The Middle East, and North Africa (9-10)

9 countries or dependencies are in the higher bin (up to 3.6). 

Southeast Asia (4-7)

4 countries are in the higher bin: Papua New Guinea (3.1), East Timor (2.9), the Philippines (2.7) and Laos (2.4). 

The Americas (4-32) 

4 countries or dependencies are in the higher bin: French Guiana (3.4), Haiti (2.7), Bolivia (2.5), and Paraguay (2.4). 

West Asia (Turkey and Iran) and South Asia (1-8)

Pakistan (3.3) is in the higher bin. 

Europe (0-44)

All are in the lower bin (up to 2.0).

East Asia (0-6)

All are in the lower bin (up to 1.8).

A detailed summary is available below the break.

Historic Comparisons To Russian Casualties And Prospective Casualties In The Ukraine War

Russia has annexed four regions, or oblasts, of eastern Ukraine, although it does not control all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Moscow also controls Crimea, the peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine which it annexed in 2014. Russia's control over the regions is not internationally recognized, and Kyiv has vowed to reclaim the annexed territories.

From Newsweek.

The same link recounts that the top British General and Admiral say that to control the four regions in Eastern Ukraine (in addition to Crimea), that Russia claims to have annexed, would require a total of 1.5 to 1.8 million casualties and five years. This is double the size of the entire Russian military in early 2022 which had about 900,000 active duty service members at the time.

The British military estimates that Russia has suffered 550,000 casualties since early 2022 (only modestly less than Ukraine's estimate of 570,000), and the BBC estimates that this includes at least 60,000 deaths, so far. According to Ukraine, Russia adds about 30,000 new soldiers a month, and has slightly more casualties each month.

There were about 7,000 deaths in the 2014-2015 Donbas phase of the Ukraine war for Russia and Russian allied militias, and about 16,000 wounded. The Russian annexation of Crimea was almost bloodless.

This is in addition, of course, to the immense losses of military equipment Russia has suffered which continue to accrue daily. For example, Russia has already lost tanks equal to 125% of the number initially assigned to the mission in February of 2022, and has lost daunting amounts of almost every other conventional military resource.

The British military estimates that it will take Russia at least five years after the conflict ends to restore itself to something approaching its 2022 situation.

Ukraine is suffering epic casualties, both civilian and military, as well, in addition to losing control of a significant part of its territory, since the war is being fought mostly on its territory.

But the Ukraine War has strengthened the military position of NATO.

NATO has expanded, has seen its members strengthen their militaries in reaction to the Ukraine War, and is seeing Russia, the primary adversary it exists to protect members from, incredibly weakened in its capacity to engage in conventional warfare from casualties and loss of military equipment. The Ukraine war has also revealed Russia's military tactics and weaknesses, and its actual state of readiness free of propaganda claims of a larger military, which was hollow, which helps NATO prepare for any future conflicts with Russia.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Russia has one of the largest nuclear arsenal's on Earth if it gets desperate enough to use it.

Comparisons To U.S. Wars

By comparison, in the Vietnam War, the U.S., which had a population one-third larger than the current population of Russia, suffered about 48,100 deaths and 153,300 non-deadly casualties over nine years. In the three years of the Korean War, the U.S., which had a population 5% larger than the current population of Russia, suffered about 35,600 deaths and 103,300 non-deadly casualties over three years. The current Ukraine War has cost Russia more than either of these wars cost the U.S., but are on the same order of magnitude.

Despite suffering lower casualties in those wars, the U.S. had more troops involved in the Korean War (5.7 million) and Vietnam War (8.7 million) than Russia does, either in absolute terms or proportionately, in the current Ukraine War.

The current Ukraine conflict is on track to be more costly to Russia than World War I was for the U.S. with 106,500 deaths and 204,000 non-deadly casualties over a year and a half, when its population was 70% of Russia's current population. Relative to the U.S. population at the time, the total U.S. casualties in World War I are already comparable to those of Russia in the Ukraine War, and the number of Russian deaths is so far about half of the U.S. deaths in World War I adjusted for population (but has no end in sight).

Russia's war in Ukraine is so far, not so costly to it as either World War II or the U.S. Civil War were to the U.S., however. Both World War II and the U.S. Civil War also involved far more U.S. soldiers relative to its population than the Russia has deployed in the current Ukraine War.

The ratio of deaths to total casualties in the current Ukraine war is likewise lower than in any of these five major historic U.S. wars (probably, to a significant extent, due to better medical care).

Other U.S. Wars Compared

Russian casualties in the current Ukraine War far exceed those of the U.S. in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War of 1846-1848, Spanish-American War, Persian Gulf War, Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, and other lesser U.S. military engagements (like the "Indian Wars" with tribes in U.S. territory, and the most recent invasion of Panama) in both absolute terms and relative to the U.S. population at the pertinent times.

The number of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf War (2.2 million) was roughly comparable, relative to the U.S. population in 1991, which was about 75% larger than Russia's current population (the U.S. force then was equivalent to about 1.3 million soldiers on a population adjusted basis) to the number of Russian troops involved in the Ukraine War. But, the Persian Gulf War was a rout that resulted in few U.S. casualties.

Comparison To Historic Soviet And Russian Wars

Russia and the Soviet Union have been involved in many military conflicts over the course of history.

How does the current Ukraine War compare to some of the bigger conflicts it has been a part of since the mid-19th century?

The Crimean War of 1853-1856, resulted in about 450,000 Russian deaths, including 73,100 in combat, in a war it lost, in an area that overlaps with the site of the current Ukraine War, when Russia's population was about a third of what it is now. This was clearly worse than the current Ukraine War so far.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 resulted in 43,300 to 71,500 Russian deaths, 146,000 non-deadly casualties, and 74,400 Russian soldiers captured. There were also 18,600 combatants killed on both sides combined, at least 20,000 wounded, and at least 38,000 captured in the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. These two wars took place when Russia's population was about 60% to two-thirds of its current population. These conflicts combined are of the same order of magnitude of losses as the current Ukraine War so far.

The Ukraine conflict has been much more costly for Russia than the war in Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union (although a vastly greater number of its Afghan allies and civilians died in that war than have died in the Ukraine War so far). The Soviet Union fought a counterinsurgency action in Afghanistan for nine years from December of 1979 to February of 1989, a war that ended pretty much as badly as the U.S. war in Vietnam and the U.S. war in Afghanistan, in terms of benefits achieved. At the time that war started, the Soviet Union had a population 80% larger than the current population of Russia. The Soviet Union suffered about 14,500 deaths and 53,800 non-deadly casualties in that war.

It was also more costly than the Russia's First Chechen War of 1994-1996 that left 14,000 Soviet soldiers dead, or Russian's Second Chechen War of 1999 to 2009, which left 6,000 Soviet soldiers dead.

The Russo-Georgian War in August of 2008, meanwhile, only caused about 200 deaths.

There were about 7,000 deaths in the 2014-2015 Donbas phase of the Ukraine war for Russia and Russian allied militias, and about 16,000 wounded. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was almost bloodless.

Indeed, the Ukraine War has in two and a half years been more costly to Russia than all five of these conflicts (counting Donbas and Crimea in 2014-2015 as one conflict) from 1979 to 2015 combined.

The Soviet Union's casualties in World War I (and including the overlapping Russian Civil War from 1917-1923, and Polish-Soviet War of 1918-1919 which itself caused 60,000 deaths which is comparable to current Ukraine War casualties), however, were far greater than Russia has suffered so far, with about 2 million deaths at a time when the population of the USSR was about 2% smaller than the current population of Russia (of 144.2 million) and would have been almost exactly the same but for 1-2 million people emigrating from Russia at that time.

World War II (including the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, and the Soviet-Japanese War in 1945) was likewise much worse, causing about 27 million Soviet deaths, including 8.7 million military deaths, at a time when the Soviet Union had a population about 26% larger than the current population of Russia.

IQ, College, Engineering, Law, And National Merit Scholarships

College

Students who are below a 22 on the ACT composite, a 1073 on the new SAT composite, a 1610 on the older SAT composite, are not in the top 35% of his high school class (in a high school that is representative of the general population), or have below a B+ GPA, have a significantly impaired, low chance of graduating with a four year degree. 

This cutoff is not very sensitive to the selectivity or to the type of institution attended.

The threshold for any ordinary college program corresponds to an IQ of about 110 on a 15-point standard deviation scale or 111 on a 16-point standard deviation scale which is about the 75th percentile of the general population (a higher percentage because the general population includes high school dropouts who aren't included in SAT and ACT percentiles).

But a strong work ethic and grit can make it possible for you to graduate despite a lower IQ in many majors.  

Certain programs (e.g. some STEM programs such as math, physics and engineering), however, have a higher effective minimum threshold for a student to have a reasonable chance of graduating. Basically 0% of people who earn such a degree have an IQ of under 111 (and the threshold to have a better than 50-50 likelihood of graduating is an IQ of 119). Unlike some undergrad majors, engineering has a strong threshold effect.

Under 15-point standard deviation WAIS IQ scaling standard, an IQ of 100 is average for the population as a whole, an IQ of 105 is average for a high school graduate, and an IQ of 115 is average for a college graduate. So, an effective cutoff IQ of about 110 for a reasonable likelihood of graduating from college, fits with the concept that one must be discernibly better than average high school student to be likely to graduate from a college or university with a four year degree.

The Bar Exam

Maximal test prep can increase an LSAT score by about 3 point in the 120-180 range of the test. The maximum impact on other standardized tests scores is similar (but there is more room to improve in math than verbal on the SAT).

An IQ of 100 is roughly an LSAT score of 133, and almost no one who gets below 145 on the LSAT has any realistic chance of passing the bar exam. The bar exam is highly correlated with IQ test results. It takes an IQ of about 117 to pass the bar exam eventually after multiple tries, and the average IQ of a lawyer who passes the bar exam is about 133. (Medical school is much more selective.)

The patent bar is even harder to pass with a low IQ because to be a lawyer admitted to the bar and be a patent lawyer at the same time, you need an engineering BA (there are exceptions but similarly rigorous ones). 

National Merit Scholarships

About 2300 National Merit Scholarships were awarded in the year 2010. It turns out that just 10 elite universities accounted for well over half of these awardees. 

Number of NMS in entering class / size of entering class.

Caltech 42 / 200

Harvard 266 / 1600

Yale 234 / 1300

Princeton 196 / 1300

Stanford 110 / 1600

MIT 110 / 1000

Brown 91 / 1500

Duke 105 / 1600

Penn 125 / 2000

Berkeley 91 / 6000

Total 1270

A Notional Distributed Navy Group

Motivation

I've complained that surface combatants in the world's navies are too vulnerable - to submarines with anti-ship missiles and torpedos, to other ships with anti-ship missiles and torpedos, to aircraft with bombs and anti-ship missiles, to land based anti-ship missiles, and to sea mines.

Surface combatants also put lots of people in harm's way. It is like going to a battle in a land war in an RV. Also, current warships have at least twice as many crew as would be necessary in a more modern, more automated ship.

A Notional Navy Group To Replace A Destroyer

What might an alternative, at a cost comparable to that of a current technology Arleigh Burke-class destroyer of about $2 billion each, which provides 96 vertical launch system (VLS) missiles, and some secondary armaments, defense systems, and sensors?

* Suppose that you had 12 catamaran style missile boats with about 200 tons each (or less), with 8 VLS class sized missiles each, that could be reloaded at sea, and accommodations for a very small crew of four for just 24 hours, similar to China's Houbei class 220  ton (140 foot long) Type 22 missile boat. 

It would be powered by batteries with 24 hours of power. With the energy density of solid-state batteries that would require to battery units of about 20 tons each (the total battery size is in the ballpark of the amount of fuel needed for a comparable sized Skjold-class missile boat which requires 35-40 tons of fuel with a range of about 800 nautical miles, which is about 32 hours of operation, and 270 tons of displacement, benchmarking to the Ellen E-Ferry, also here). Collectively, they would have the same VLS class missile capacity as a destroyer. They would be minimally manned, rather than fully unmanned (which would be technologically feasible), in order to undermine the effectiveness of methods like electronic jamming that can undermine remotely operated drones, to avoid the hard to quantify risks of having military armaments controlled purely by an artificial intelligence system, and to have someone alert and ready to immediately summon assistance in the event of an attempted boarding or if something else goes wrong. These boats would have some minimal additional weapons and/or active defense systems designed to thwart income missiles and drones including electric jamming systems and a 5 megawatt laser and a mounted heavy machine gun. These would have a crew of four. It would also have a small, electric drone that would be primarily for reconnaissance but would have an equivalent of a 6.8 mm round rifle. These would have the ability to go considerably faster than traditional naval surface combatants (about 80 km/hr v. about 55 km/hr for a modern Arleigh Burke destroyer), although they wouldn't need to be terribly fast. They could operate in shallow littoral waters. Lasers would reduce the supply chain relative to canon round or shells or missiles.

* These missile boats would be escorted by two catamaran style escort corvettes of under 750 tons each with hydrofoils, with no VLS class missiles or torpedos or large naval artillery guns, that would have anti-aircraft missiles suitable for jet fighters and bombers at higher altitudes, a small boarding speed boat, and armaments including at least one 5 megawatt laser and electronic jamming, javelin missile sized missiles, stinger missiles, one or more 25mm-40mm canons, and remotely operated 12.7mm machine guns, designed to take on missiles, airborne drones,  small surface boats (e.g. pirates and boarding boats and armed speed boats), unmanned surface drones like the adapted jet ski drones used in the Black Sea by Ukraine. These would be vaguely similar to Swedish Visby-class corvettes or the U.S. Navy Pegasus-class patrol boats (see also here).

AVisby-class corvette

A Pegasus-class patrol boat

These would also have accommodations for only a minimal crew for just 24 hours. It would be powered by batteries with 24 hours of power. These might have a crew of twelve. It would also have a medium sized electric drone that would be primarily for reconnaissance but would have an equivalent of a 12.7 mm round rifle. One escort corvette in the group would have a sea adapted AH-64 helicopter gunship, and the other would have a more typical naval military helicopter (e.g. a Sea Hawk SH-60) suited to carrying a boarding party or search and rescue, and would have its own somewhat less powerful armaments and could provide limited anti-submarine warfare capabilities. These corvettes would have the ability to go considerably faster than traditional naval surface combatants (about 110 km/hr v. about 55 km/hr for a modern Arleigh Burke-class destroyer), which it would use to chase small craft, to rush to the aid of a missile boat in peril, or to evade torpedos and shells. They could operate in shallow littoral waters. Lasers would reduce the supply chain relative to canon round or shells or missiles.

* Crews on the missile boats and escort corvettes would be replaced every twelve hours, and these surface combatants would have half of its batteries switched out, if electric, every twelve hours at the same time, from a small manned 60 ton tender submarine with a crew of two (similar to the U.S. Navy's Dry Combat Submersible), itself powered by batteries. The tender submarine would surface below the ship between the catamarans so that it would not be visible from above or from the sides shielded by the catamaran hulls. There might be four tender submarines.

* Additional ammunition and parts and supplies for the missile boats and escort corvettes would be stored on a 200 ton supply submarine (which is bigger than the eighty tons of the U.S. Navy's Orca drone), powered by batteries. Most of the time, this would operate as an unmanned drone in the vicinity of the watercraft that it supports. But when resupply was actually needed, a tender submarine would bring a small crew of two to four sailors to it and that crew would surface the supply submarine in the same place as the tender submarine appears and would load the ammunition or supplies onto the boat or corvette (e.g. additional VLS missiles, which each weigh about 1.5 tons, or repair parts, or attack helicopter missiles or attack helicopter fuel). The group might have two supply submarines.

* There would be about four fully unmanned 15 ton sensor drone surface boats (similar in size to World War I sixty foot long coastal torpedo motor boats), powered by batteries, armed only with sensors, although it would all be networked. Segregating radar systems on these unmanned surface vessels from the missile boats and escort corvettes would make the armed vessels less vulnerable to missiles that target radar sources.

A prototype medium unmanned surface vessel from the U.S. Navy looks like this:

* The aerial reconnaissance drones armed with small arms, and the sensor drones would be recharged by the missile boats and escort corvettes to which they were assigned from those manned surface vessel's batteries.

* There would be a single large nuclear submarine mothership of several thousand tons that would house the crews for the missile boats and escort corvettes and tender submarines and supply submarines when they are not on duty on their vessels in addition to its own crew, that would operate in deep waters, at perhaps a typical 100 meters of depth, at some distance (often as much as twenty kilometers) from the surface parts of the group. It would not have any torpedos or missiles of its own, and would have only the bare minimum of on board sensors and communications equipment, in an effort to minimize detection. It would provide long term living quarters for about 200 sailors and one squad of fifteen Marines. The mothership would have a desalinization plant and would carry long term food supplies for the crew. If this navy group ran short on ammunition or other supplies, empty supply submarines could be send home in drone mode, while a new full uncrewed supply submarine could be sent to replace it, without the whole group having to return to a naval base. 

It would house about 50% more personnel than a U.S. 6,900 ton Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine, but would have a lot of space freed up due to its lack of missiles and torpedos and related sensor systems (and a somewhat smaller engine), and it wouldn't have to be able to go quite as deep as a nuclear attack submarine (which is 200-300 meters) allowing for a thinner hull. So. it might actually be smaller than a Los Angeles class submarine, perhaps on the order of 5,100 tons with a dedicated crew of thirty-six sailors (oil tankers and container ships often have crews of twenty-four sailors or less) excluding the Marine squad. The crew space is a pretty modest share of a submarine's total displacement as this diagram of a Los Angeles class attack submarine indicates:

* The submarine tenders and supply submarines would dock to the mothership which would have an induction charging station for them to recharge as needed.

* The submarine tenders would take used batteries from the missile boats and escort corvettes to the mothership to exterior induction charging station brackets to recharge for up to ten hours if necessary from the mothership's nuclear power plant supplied grid, and then would be returned and traded out for the now used batteries at the missile boats and escort corvettes.

* The total tonnage of the ships in the naval group would be about 9,700, which is the same as the displacement of a single destroyer. The total crew would be about two-thirds the size of a destroyer's crew (by comparison the Zumwalt-class destroyers have about half the crew of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer despite the fact that the Zumwalt-class destroyers have more than 50% more displacement).

Analysis

A single Arleigh Burke-class destroyer can be destroyed, or at least disabled and removed from action, with a single torpedo or anti-ship missile or sea mine, and puts almost 350 people in harm's way on the front lines of any naval battle. Since it is diesel powered, it need to be resupplied frequently from fixed naval bases or minimally armed tanker ships. It can't even reload VLS missiles at sea. And, it is a huge, slow, non-stealthy target.

In contrast, this navy group would spread that risk over fourteen manned surface combatants and four unmanned ones. The physical area over which the vessels in this naval group including the four sensor vessels, and the group's fourteen reconnaissance drones and two manned helicopters were located, would potentially provide situational awareness of threats and targets than sensors all squeezed onto the footprint of a single vessel. It would take a dozen and a half anti-ship missiles or torpedos to fully sink the entire group instead of one. And, if a vessel was lost, four to twelve sailors (or a few more if a tender submarine or supply submarine was docked with a missile boat or escort corvette at the time, rather than more than three hundred sailor's lives, would be lost.

The surface ships would also be smaller, faster targets, although with the accuracy of modern torpedos and anti-ship missiles that might not matter much.

Submarines are much harder to locate and destroy than surface combatants, and its takes multiple, highly specialized near peer resources that potential adversaries like North Korea and Iran lack, to do so effectively. So, the four tender submarines, two supply submarines, and mothership in the group would have greatly reduced vulnerability relative to the a destroyer. And, even if a few of the tender submarines or supply submarines were destroyed, the naval group could continue to function with only modest impairment. The mothership, by having no major sensors and not using weapons to draw attention to it, by operating at greater depths without ever surfacing, and by being miles away from the surface vessels in the fleet, would be at the lowest risk (although that risk is never zero).

If the mothership were damaged, the submarine tenders and supply ships (which would dump and abandon their cargo) could evacuate many, if not all, sailors on board (more than a third but less than half of whom would be aboard missile boats and escort corvettes and the ten support submarines already). The mothership could also have escape pods in lieu of life boats for sailors would could not be evacuate with its ten supporting submarines.

The group supported by the mothership to go for long periods of time without being resupplied, and could be resupplied covertly by drone submarines when it did need to be resupplied. But since only the mothership would have a nuclear power plant, the risk that this nuclear asset would fall into enemy hands would be reduced. An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer carries about 409 tons of diesel fuel when its full, which allows it to travel about 8,100 km at 37 km/hr (about 219 hours).

Despite the fact that a large portion of the naval group would be underwater, the fourteen armed surface warships would still be effective to "show the flag" which is a maneuver which politicians frequently desire. 

Courts v. Politics

There are two main kinds of input we receive from the general public in the U.S.

One is through elections. Access to information about the candidates is mostly superficial, the responsibility of the voter, completely unregulated for truth, involves candidates self-selected for a desire for power, and involves voters who choose to participate on a basis in a way that over represents the least moderate people in the population.

One is through juries. Access to information about the decisions to be made is in depth, the responsibility of people trying to persuade the voter, tightly regulated, involves parties who didn't plan on being in this situation when the event giving rise to the case began, and involves jurors who were required to participate and were chosen to be the most moderate people in the jury pool.

There is a fair case to be made that juries make better decisions than voters do.

Abuse In Orphanages

New Zealand's government is hardly the most corrupt or ill-intentioned in the nation. But there, as is the case almost everywhere, going back to at least as far as the Old Testament, orphans get a raw deal and are frequently abused. 

More than 30% of people in care in New Zealand from 1950 through 2019 were abused and many more were neglected. I suspect that as horrible as this is, that it is worse in many other countries (probably including the U.S.).

The mix of problems in New Zealand is multi-faceted. 

Most children in care were Maori (i.e. indigenous Polynesian), even though New Zealand is currently only about 18% Maori, usually in cases where they were removed from their families, putatively, for abuse or neglect. It is a fair guess that Maori children were also on the receiving end of a disproportionately share of the abuse suffered by children within the system. This has echoes of the notorious residential schools in Canada and the U.S., long ago, in addition to the other issues with abuse in orphanages without ethnic bias and issues of the treatment of indigenous people thrown in.

The culpability of New Zealand’s Catholic, Methodist and Anglican churches is also predictable and has been mirrored in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., as well as many other places. Partially related is the religious affiliation of Maori people, of whom there are about 1,075,000 in the world (mostly in New Zealand, but with about 1/6th in Australia and about 21,000 elsewhere):

Given the total population, 0.1% corresponds to about 500 to 1500 people, and 0.2% corresponds to about 1500 to 2500 people.

Of course, while this is dismal, surely a large share of children in care in New Zealand genuinely were victims of abuse and neglect before the government stepped in and removed them from their families.

New Zealand deserves credit, at least, for a thorough investigation, for apologizing, and for resolving to take action. It is also worth noting that New Zealand apparently has a "no-fault accident compensation system" that makes sense as basically a more seamless version of a system where everyone has casualty insurance (it is discussed at the end of this post).

More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been abused by state and religious organizations in New Zealand that had been entrusted with their care, according to the final report from a landmark independent inquiry released on Wednesday.

The abuse included sexual assault, electric shocks, chemical restraints, medical experimentation, sterilization, starvation and beatings, said the report from the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Abuse in Care. Many of the victims were children who had been removed from their families and placed in state, religious or foster care.

“For some people this meant years or even decades of frequent abuse and neglect,” the report said. “For some it was a lifetime; for others it led to an unmarked grave.” . . .

The inquiry, established in 2018 by the New Zealand government, involved interviewing nearly 2,500 survivors as it examined orphanages, foster care systems, mental health facilities and other forms of care that were charged with supporting 655,000 people from 1950 through 2019. The inquiry’s leaders described it as the widest-ranging examination of its kind in the world.

The report noted that most children in care were Indigenous Maori, even though the group makes up a minority of the country’s overall population of five million people, and said that “Maori were often targeted because of their ethnicity.”

Beyond the 200,000 people estimated to have been abused, the report said countless others had suffered neglect. . . .

The inquiry found that even when abuses by government and religious leaders were discovered, the leaders “were rarely held to account for their actions or inactions, which emboldened them to perpetrate further abuse.”

Among the inquiry’s 138 recommendations were calls for public apologies from the pope, the archbishop of Canterbury, and New Zealand’s police commissioner and its top civil servant. It also urged the government to overhaul the country’s no-fault accident compensation program to provide tailored support for survivors of abuse.

The report prompted New Zealand’s Catholic, Methodist and Anglican churches to promise change. “We will ensure that action follows our review of the inquiry’s findings,” Steve Lowe, president of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, said in a statement. “We owe it to survivors,” the Anglican Church said in another statement.

The report follows decades of complaints from survivors. “Survivors repeatedly called for justice but were unheard, disbelieved, and ignored,” according to the report. “Significant resources have been used to deny survivors their voice and to defend the indefensible. This must stop.”

From the New York Times (July 24, 2024).

The core forward looking recommendations of the report are here and focus on creation of a single national regulatory system for both secular and religious care systems.

National No Fault Accident Compensation

According to an article in a medical journal that is very opposed to the tort system of medical malpractice:

In 1974 New Zealand introduced a publicly-funded accident compensation scheme with the goals of minimising the incidence and impact of injury. 

The scheme provides assistance with the cost of treatment and rehabilitation for all personal injuries, regardless of fault, and in exchange bans suing for compensatory damages. Medical injury has always been covered under the scheme. Consequently, in New Zealand there is no culture of suing doctors for damages and doctors pay comparatively low medical indemnity fees of around £790 per annum. Doctors are held to account under separate processes including the Medical Council of New Zealand’s competence and fitness to practise processes, an independent patient complaints system, and a separate disciplinary process. 

The patient complaints system was introduced in 1994 on recommendation of a 1988 government report that found wanting the prior accountability processes in an environment where patients were unable to sue. In New Zealand, patient complaints are not a demand for financial recompense but a demand that an individual be held to account for perceived wrongdoing. A patient may lodge both a claim for treatment injury compensation and, regardless of injury, a complaint against a practitioner.

Although medical injury has always been covered under the scheme, the compensation of medical injury has not always been without fault for doctors. Prior to 2005, patients could obtain compensation by proving medical error. Because all findings of error were reported to the Medical Council, compensation could bring disciplinary repercussions for doctors. Fear of punishment and/or reputational damage discouraged some doctors (and some patients) from participating in the compensation claims process, unfairly restricting access to compensation for injured patients. This situation was rectified in 2005 under the ‘no-fault’ legislative reforms. The reforms extended eligibility to all injuries caused by treatment and replaced the prior reporting duties with a new duty to report ‘risk of harm to the public’ to the ‘authorities responsible for patient safety’. These changes freed doctors to participate in the compensation claims process with little fear, and improved information flows within the system.

The program explains itself here:

Our no-fault scheme covers everyone, including visitors, who are injured in an accident in Aotearoa New Zealand. It can include events that result in mass casualties, and covers children, beneficiaries, and students. You’re covered if you’re working, unemployed, or retired.

There are some limits to the support we can provide. These limits are set by Parliament, which makes laws about what we can and can’t support.

If you're injured in an accident, make sure you go and see your doctor or health provider first. They can make a claim for you. Claims can be made up to 12 months after your injury. We may still consider claims made after this time if there’s a good reason for the claim not being made sooner. 

What is no-fault cover?

No-fault cover means it doesn't matter what you were doing when you were injured or who was at fault. We'll cover you, as long as the injury falls within our legislation.

The cover we provide helps pay for costs to support your recovery and get you back on your feet. It includes payment towards medical bills, treatment, help at home and work and help with your income. 

Physical injuries we cover

A physical injury is when there is actual damage to your body. This includes: 

• sprains or strains - such as the ankle, back, knee or shoulder sprains
• wounds - cut, broken or bruised skin
• burns
• fractures
• dislocations
• dental injuries
• hearing loss
• concussion and loss of consciousness
• maternal birth injuries which occurred on or after 12:00am on 1 October 2022.

We cover most physical injuries if they're caused by: 

• an accident
• sexual violence

We can cover injuries or conditions that happen over time and are caused by the type of work you do. This is known as gradual process conditions. We have to establish if your work tasks or workplace environment are causing your condition.

We can also cover injuries that are long-term, permanent or that happened at birth. 

Injuries caused by treatment

Sometimes getting treatment can cause an injury. We can cover a treatment injury if: 

• the treatment directly caused your injury
• a registered health professional was treating you
• it's not a normal side-effect of your treatment.

We can also cover injuries caused by treatment for an injury we've already covered. 

Conditions that come on gradually from work

We can cover injuries or conditions that happen over time and are caused by the type of work you do. This could be things like: 

• tendonitis from overusing muscles or heavy lifting
• deafness caused by noise at work
• infections or diseases from exposure to certain environments. 

Serious injuries and disabilities

We can cover injuries that cause long-term effects and disabilities including spinal and traumatic brain injuries (TBI), such as concussion.

Find out how we're working to reduce the number, severity, and impact of TBIs:

Reducing traumatic brain injuries 

Mental injuries we cover

If we accept your claim for a physical injury, we can also cover mental injuries resulting from that injury. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder after a physical assault.

If your physical injury is caused by medical treatment we may also be able to cover a resulting mental injury, even if the physical injury isn’t covered.

We also cover mental injuries if you've experienced, seen or heard a traumatic event at work such as working in a retail shop when a robbery takes place. This is even if you haven't been physically injured. 

Sexual abuse

We provide support for anyone in Aotearoa New Zealand, including visitors to the country, who has experienced sexual abuse and assault. We may also be able to help if you're an Aotearoa New Zealand resident and have experienced sexual abuse while travelling overseas. It doesn't matter if the event happened recently or a long time ago.

If you've experienced sexual abuse, use the Find Support website to see the organisations that have therapists who can support you. This support is fully funded and you can start whenever you're ready. There are also services available for your family.

If you're having trouble getting in touch with the right therapist, contact us. We'll help you to make an appointment. 

Dental injury

We can pay for dental injuries caused by: 

• an accident
• sporting injury
• as a result of medical or dental treatment.

We don’t pay for: 

• damage to your teeth or dentures due to normal wear and tear, eg chewing or biting
• damage to your teeth due to decay or gum disease
• damage to your dentures while you were not wearing them
• treatment that was done by someone that’s not a registered dentist, eg a dental technician.

Your dentist will help you to make a claim if you have an injury we cover.

Injuries causing death

We give financial help if someone dies as a result of: 

• an accident
• a work-related disease or infection
• a treatment injury we're covering
• a self-inflicted injury (in some circumstances). 

Maternal birth injuries

If you have experienced an injury while giving birth on or after 1 October 2022, we may be able to help with your recovery. We have guidance on what's normal and what's not.

This is essentially "no-fault" automobile insurance and worker's compensation on steroids and has a lot to be said for it in some form. The tort system does a poor job of compensating people with smaller injuries, and people who have suffered from bad outcomes and accidents when fault is less clear cut. The tort system is also slow, uncertain, and involved immense transaction costs.

Twelve Common Misconceptions About The Law

1. All laws are crimes. 

The law regulates lots of conduct that is not punishable by incarceration or a punitive criminal fine. Lots of laws, instead, make one person responsible for paying damages to another person if their rights of violated. For example, broken promises are almost never crimes. Other laws, like property and inheritance laws, define people's rights in the absence of misconduct. 

2. Statements from interested parties aren't proof. 

Sworn testimony from anyone, even someone with an interest in a case, is proof. Many cases in the U.S. are decided based upon sworn testimony from a single witness without any corroboration. 

3. The law is deterministic. 

Many people believe that the law establishes one right answer that is, in theory at least, knowable if you know all the facts. But, in reality, in many areas of the law, there are "standards" that provide broad, non-fact specific guidance on how to resolve legal disputes that have to be applied on a case-by-case basis. For example, it is not possible to know in advance how a claim to recover damages for "negligence" will be decided, or which spouse will get what property, in advance, in close cases, even if you know all the facts. The law is more like quantum mechanics, where the true state of a system isn't knowable until it is observed and is uncertain, than it is like classical physics. 

4. Judges are umpires. 

Judges have considerable discretion in decision-making. Often, there are multiple outcomes which a judge could legally determine which would be upheld on appeal. There is considerable room for a judge's worldview, norms, biases, and preferences to influence a judge's decision. This is also true, to a lesser extent, for juries. 

5. Words always mean the same thing. 

In the law, the meaning of words, including legal terms of art, is context specific. A word can mean one thing in one statute, a different thing in another statute, and a third thing when used in a particular way in a particular contract. Even in contracts, the same words don't always mean the same thing in every contract. 

6. The law is universal. 

The law is different in different places. The law in Ohio or France is not necessary the same as the law in Michigan or England. Even in a single place, the law is constantly changing as appellate courts make new legal precedents, legislators pass new laws, and government officials adopt new regulations.

7. All laws are statutes.

In the U.S., we have what is called a "common law" legal system, which means that many areas of law are governed by court decisions in areas where they have no statutory guidance. Many laws are also subject to regulations and other binding executive branch legal determinations.

8. The correct law to apply to an event is clear. 

Particularly in contexts like interactions on the Internet, there are multiple plausible place's laws that could apply to a case. You often can't know in advance which place's law will apply and the law that applies to a situation could be different for different issues in the same case. Sometimes the laws of multiple law makers apply simultaneously, for example, when you must obey both federal law and state law at the same time. There is also often not just one court or tribunal where a legal issue can be tried. 

9. Evidence presented at a trial can be corrected or supplemented later. 

In U.S. law, once all evidence and arguments are presented at a trial, this is, to a draconian extent that can only rarely be corrected, all that you can say about a case. Once a trial is over, you can't go back and provide more evidence, or correct errors in the testimony that was presented. In many kinds of cases, you must finally determine which evidence you will or will not use at trial well in advance of the trial itself and can't even supplement it at trial because you realize that some other evidence would have been helpful to present. Likewise, usually, you can't raise new legal argument on an appeal that you failed to make at trial. 

10. An appeal can correct any error made at trial. 

In U.S. law, trial court decisions are mainly subject to appeal only if the court decides a legal issue that was presented to it at trial incorrectly in a way that influenced the outcome of the case. Mistakes made by a trial court about the facts can be corrected on appeal only if they are extreme and the facts that were actually presented at trial were almost completely contrary to how the court ruled. 

11. Every wrong has a meaningful legal remedy.

Many things which are a morally wrong, or even violate a clearly stated law, can't be remedied legally. Sometimes a statute of limitations bars relief. Sometimes no one has enough of a personalized interest that is harmed by the law to bring a lawsuit to enforce it. Some laws simply state a legal principle without having any penalty attached (like adultery in Colorado for decades before it was finally removed from the law books). Other times only partial compensation or relief is possible, or legal remedies exist but they are so costly to utilize that any benefit you might receive is outweighed by the cost of enforcing your rights.

12. Talking to people isn't billable legal work. 

A huge share of the work done by lawyers is talking to their clients, talking to other lawyers and staff in their own law firms, talking to other lawyers, and talking to other people related to the case. A phone call with a client is almost always billable legal work. So is an office conference with another lawyer or staff person in the law firm. Billable legal work is not only final transactional documents produced, documents filed in court, or appearances in court. The behind the scenes analysis and discussion of your legal issues by a lawyer is frequently the most valuable part of the services that a lawyer provides. In a related point, lawyers don't, and aren't expected to, know all of the relevant law from memory. Legal research is routinely part of the work provided by a lawyer.

The M1 Thumper

Recent images have surfaced online, showcasing the M1 “Thumper” prototype, a unique variant of the legendary M1 Abrams tank equipped with a 140mm main gun and an autoloader. Developed in the late 1980s, the “Thumper” was designed to significantly enhance the firepower and penetration capabilities of the existing M1 Abrams, which typically features a 120mm gun.

The M1 “Thumper” stands out with its enlarged turret designed to accommodate the formidable 140mm gun. This development aimed to provide the tank with superior firepower, making it more effective against heavily armored adversaries. The prototype underwent a series of rigorous testing and evaluations to assess its performance and viability on the battlefield.

Despite the promising advancements in firepower, the “Thumper” project was ultimately shelved. The decision to not proceed with production was influenced by several factors, primarily the high cost associated with developing and deploying a new tank variant with a larger gun. Furthermore, advancements in ammunition technology for the 120mm gun used by the standard M1 Abrams helped maintain its battlefield effectiveness, reducing the immediate need for an upgrade to a 140mm gun.

In comparison, a similar project was undertaken by Germany for the Leopard 2 tank. This involved the integration of a 140mm gun autoloader system, where the main gun was positioned on the left side of the turret, with ammunition stored in the turret bustle. However, like the “Thumper,” this project was also discontinued at the end of the Cold War and never reached the battlefield.

From here. Wikipedia also discusses it:

M1 Thumper (also known as ATAC Demonstration System) was a single M1A1 fitted with a heavily modified turret to trial the experimental XM291 ATAC (sometimes referred to as LW120) smoothbore gun, a more powerful replacement for the M256 capable of firing either single-piece 120 mm or two-piece 140 mm ammunition with only a barrel change. The 140 mm rounds were too large (boasting twice the chamber volume of a M829 APFSDS and twice the muzzle energy) and heavy to be moved around by a human loader, mandating the installation of a XM91 mechanical cassette autoloader. The Thumper underwent testing in 1988 and in the 1990s at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where it demonstrated accuracy equal to an M1A1's but with significantly higher armor penetration capability.

This concept was a bad idea 35 years ago and would be an even worse idea today, informed by the experience of tank warfare since then.

For example, in the 1991 Gulf War, M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, with two TOW anti-tank missiles and a much smaller 25mm chain gun destroyed more enemy tanks than the M1 Abrams main battle tank and only about 25% of enemy tanks were destroyed with other tanks. More than 3,000 Iraqi tanks were destroyed or captured in that short and one-sided war.

Similarly, in Ukraine, very few tanks have been destroyed by other tanks (less than 5% of destroyed tanks) and tanks have otherwise proved to be a low demand resource. See here and here. 

Tank casualty rates in Ukraine, one of the largest conventional wars between near peers in post-WWII history, have been extreme. Initially, Ukraine started without about 900 operational tanks (see also here) and Russia started with about 2,600 operational tanks devotes to the mission (see also here), although both sides have reactivated mothballed tanks and Ukraine has received tanks provided to it by its allies.

Oryx, a third-party non-profit (which admittedly undercounts losses by considering only photographically documented losses) has identified 866 tanks lost by Ukraine (96% of its original active tank fleet) and 3242 tanks lost by Russia (125% of its original tank fleet for the mission and 90% including at least another 1,000 tanks that it brought of out reserves and storage), since February of 2022 when the current phase of the Ukraine war began. Tanks losses by both sides have included the most modern state of the art tanks available to each side, including at least 10 out of 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks provided to it in August or September of 2023 and the most advanced T-90 tanks in Russia's arsenal. Russia pulled its small number of T-14 Armata tanks from the conflict after a brief deployment limited to secure positions (see also here).

The M1 Abrams tank has problems. An insufficiently large tank shell is not one of them (Russia uses slightly larger 125mm shells but has had more problems with the combined systems due to barrel repair issues or poor choices about where their ammunition is stored). And, the greater weight and/or lower number of shells that could be carried at once, would have made the other problems with the M1 Abrams (such as its excessive size and weight which makes it hard to deploy many of them quickly or to deploy in tight mountain passes or urban areas), which have become apparent now, even worse.

One Economic Study's Take On The 2017 Tax Bill's Impact

Economic studies of the macroeconomic impact of tax cuts are more art than science and shouldn't be considered solidly reliable. But that doesn't mean that they should be ignored either.

Lower tax rates on business income does not have a significant dynamic effect on the economy. They just take money away from the government and give it, ultimately, to the owners of those businesses.

Changing incentives to better incentives can have a big impact (although incentives that change the timing of deductions for corporate expenditures for capital investments may only change the timing of corporate expenditures for capital investments, particularly if they are set to expire at a certain time).

We assess the business provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the biggest corporate tax cut in US history. We draw five lessons. 

First, corporate tax revenue fell by 40 percent due to the lower rate and more generous expensing. 

Second, firms with larger declines in their effective tax wedge increased investment relatively more. In aggregate, we suggest a loose consensus from the literature that total tangible corporate investment increased by 11 percent. 

Third, the business tax provisions increased economic growth and wages by less than advertised by the Act’s proponents, with long-run GDP higher by less than 1% and labor income by less than $1,000 per employee. 

Fourth, provisions that increase foreign investment by US-based multinationals also boost their domestic operations. 

Fifth, some of the expired and expiring provisions, such as accelerated depreciation, generate more investment per dollar of tax revenue than others.

Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Owen M. Zidar & Eric Zwick, "Lessons from the Biggest Business Tax Cut in US History",  NBER Working Paper 32672 (July 2024).

As noted here, in contrast, the tax cuts to pass-through firms underperformed. The lost corporate tax revenue was a decline from a baseline of corporate tax revenue of 2.9% of GDP in 2017 (i.e. they reduced federal tax collections by 1.16% of GDP per year, so far, for six years with more to come). There has been a long-run increase in GDP of 0.9% — which is a substantial sum in an economy of more than $27 trillion. But who really knows how it would have changed in the absence of the 2017 tax bill to any meaningful level of precision.

The 2024 Presidential Election As Of Mid-July

Four Years Ago

Four years ago today, these were the 2020 election predictions:

• Inside Elections: Biden 319 Trump 187 Tossup 32
• Cook Political Report: Biden 279 Trump 187 Tossup 72
• Sabato's Crystal Ball/U of Virginia: Biden 268 Trump 204 Tossup 66
• The Economist: Biden 334 Trump 164 Tossup 40
• Electoral Map Based on Polls: Biden 301 Trump 102 Tossup 135
• PredictIt Market: Biden 334 Trump 204 Tossup 0
• Niskanen Center: Biden 289 Trump 163 Tossup 86
• CNN: Biden 232 Trump 205 Tossup 101
• Politico: Biden 268 Trump 203 Tossup 67
• NPR: Biden 238 Trump 186 Tossup 114
• Princeton Election Consortium: Biden 403 Trump 135 Tossup 0
• U.S. News & World Report: Biden 278 Trump 186 Tossup 74
• JHK Forecasts: Biden 334 Trump 163 Tossup 41

In short, it was absolutely clear that Biden was leading Trump. Nine out of thirteen pundits said that Biden had it tied up, two said that Trump could only win with every single toss up race of a great many going his way, and two said that Biden was leading but that there were a great many toss up races.

Ultimately, the result was Biden 306, Trump 232.

This Year

The current Five Thirty Eight election forecast is that 501 times out of 1000 Trump wins, 496 times out of a 1000 Biden wins, and 3 times out of a 1000 there is no electoral college winner (which probably means a Trump win in an contingent election in Congress). Their median forecast outcome is Trump 270, Biden 268. 

The Hill thinks Trump has a 56% chance of winning the Presidency with a 280 to 258 electoral vote prediction.

FiveThirtyEight polling puts only five states as toss ups: Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. All of them backed Biden by thin margins in 2020. (The Hill also rates Arizona as a toss up.)

Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida lean Trump but could flip. North Carolina and Florida backed Trump in 2020, but Arizona backed Biden by the narrowest of margins.

Minnesota an Virginia lean Biden and supported him in 2020 but could flip although they aren't that close.

The polling in the closest states is as follows:

Mostly, this race is about whether Biden can hold onto support in rust belt areas of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and whether blue trending Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia will continue to support him.

It doesn't help Biden that the electoral college is still biased against him and that Trump could win with as much as a 4 percentage point deficit in the popular vote. In contrast, there is basically no way that Biden can win the election while losing the popular vote.

In the marginal scenario for a Biden win, he leads the popular vote by more than two percentage points. This is roughly a 13% chance that Biden will win the popular vote but lose the electoral college vote.

What's Going On

Of course, there is a lot going on right now. 

Trump just survived an assassination attempt, named J.D. Vance (U.S. Senator from Ohio) as his running mate, had a Trump appointed judge toss out his classified documents criminal case on that ground (contradicted by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case that is controlling law) that the Special Prosecutor's appointment was unconstitutional, has had the U.S. Supreme Court toss out a Colorado Supreme Court holding that he was ineligible to hold public office under the insurrection clause on legally dubious grounds, has had the U.S. Supreme Court accord him unprecedented immunity from criminal prosecutions, and is in the midst of being named the nominee at the GOP national convention. 

All this despite the fact that he a convicted felon, that he has two more criminal cases pending against him (neither of which will go to trial before the election), was found civilly liable for rape, was found civilly liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud, has had many of his supporters convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021 effort to overturn the election and other schemes to undermine the 2020 election result, and has many lawyers that supported his schemes to under the 2020 election result sanctioned or disbarred as a result. This despite the fact that he speeches are frequently incoherent word salad, that he is widely known to be a pathological liar, despite the fact that he and his family engaged in massive self-benefiting corruption when he was last in office, and despite the fact that he grossly mishandled COVID when he was last in office causing hundreds of thousands of people to die unnecessarily, took steps that resulted in a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and defeat shortly after he left office, he was impeached (but not convicted by the Senate) twice, and had the weakest economic performance in office of any President since Herbert Hoover. This is despite the fact that judges he appointed have made highly unpopular decisions including ending Roe v. Wade that have plunged the U.S. Supreme Court to the lowest legitimacy rating in public polling in modern history. This is despite the fact that his record of immorality and bad character in his personal life is widely known.

Lower key, Trump is seeing a modest uptick in support among black and Hispanic voters, despite being one of the most racist Presidential candidates in modern times.

Biden meanwhile did horribly in the first Presidential debate to the point where many leading Democrats are calling for him to drop of the Presidential race before the Democratic National Convention and Biden is seriously considering the possibility himself. Biden got COVID-19 this week as well. Trump is 78, Biden is 81, and both men show serious signs of the deterioration of old age, but it only seems to matter politically for Biden whose mental well being and functioning is much better than Trump's. And, Biden's son Hunter, was convicted of a federal firearms felony for using a firearm while having a drug problem.

This is despite the fact that the economy under Biden has been one of the strongest of all time (despite one brief spike of high inflation that was swiftly ended and rising interest rates that make housing unaffordable for young people), despite the fact that crime is at record lows, despite the fact that the nation is not directly a part to any major wars, despite the fact that Biden has taken decisive action to prevent Ukraine from falling to a Russian invasion and has thwarted Yemeni attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and despite the fact that none of Biden's close advisors have been immersed in corruption or crimes. Unemployment hasn't been lower than 4% for more months than it has been in the Biden administration for more than fifty years, and the strong labor market has strengthened private sector unionization and substantial increases in state and local minimum wages.

Biden is underperforming what the "fundamentals" suggest he should be at this point in the campaign by almost five percentage points due to his horrible campaigning skills:

Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is polling at 4%-11% in many Presidential election polls and could influence the election outcome despite the fact that he has no realistic chance of winning a single electoral vote, his brain was partially eaten by worm, he has admitted to raping a woman in a case for which he was prosecuted, and his policy positions are generally of the crackpot variety.

Biden was never a very good campaigner and has been dismal at promoting his agenda or developing a connection with the general public while in office, and has never been popular with the progressive wing of the Democratic party despite making all sorts of positive policy changes (like trying to reschedule marijuana) possible in a nation with divided control in Congress. The left wing in the Democratic party has been particularly critical of his support of Israel (even though it has been mixed at most) for its overkill retaliatory actions in Gaza in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel and its holding of hundred of Israeli hostages after that.

Biden has struggled with the thinnest of possible majorities in the U.S. Senate with a couple of Democratic Senators who have only intermittently supported him (one of whom left the Democratic party even though she still caucuses with them) denying him even a majority on some key issues, and a thin Republican majority in the House (which has been hopelessly internally divided and fought repeatedly over who should be their speaker). He has been thwarted by a radical 6-3 conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court and very conservative federal court judges in some lower courts. So Biden has had very little ability to pass legislation and the courts have undermined his ability to take non-legislative action.

Biden has no charisma and has lukewarm support in the Democratic party despite Democrats clearly seeing Trump as worst case scenario that threatens the very future of democratic government in the United States. Trump supporters, for reasons that remain mysterious to me, meanwhile, remain stalwart and die hard in backing him.

The election is not lost yet. Biden only needs about a one or two percentage point shift in popular opinion in his favor to win the race, and he has three and a half months to make that happen.

Lots of people who poll for Kennedy will break for one of the major political party candidates in the end. Biden may drop out, mostly like in favor of his Vice President Kamala Harris (who is herself not terribly popular but is young and a more effective campaigner even if she has been low profile as a Vice President). Trump could take a hit if he receives a harsh sentence on his criminal convictions (which would at a minimum create yet another constitutional crisis and would probably deny him a right to vote for himself in the next election as a convicted felon). The strength of the economy could come to be more widely appreciated and the deep flaws of Trump could sink in as it all becomes very real.

Still, the situation looks very bleak in this 2024 do over compared to 2020 contrary to all objective rational indicators that say that this shouldn't be happening.