Hong Kong — sanctions-buster, grade inflation – Latest News
Conservative: Hong Kong — Sanctions-Buster
“The U.S. can’t stop the illegal flow of oil solely by chasing tankers at sea,” warns The Wall Street Journal’s Jillian Kay Melchior; it should additionally “target part of the financial and corporate infrastructure” — a lot of it in Hong Kong — that allows commerce in sanctioned items. Sanctions regimes “resemble a quarantine” that halts the passage of items and companies, however Hong Kong company law permits domiciled companies to “have no business operations” and “exist as shell companies,” facilitating the disguise of possession underneath layers of fronts. By weaponizing Hong Kong’s business-friendly heritage into “lawless capitalism,” Beijing has turned the once-free metropolis into “a hub for illicit business” that may “undermine U.S. interests.”
Eye on schooling: Grade Inflation Tricks Parents
“Actual proficiency rates among eighth graders” in studying and math are actually under one-third, and the “problem has gotten worse over the past 15 years or so as grade inflation has increased,” thunder Ariel Kalil & Derek Rury at The New York Times. Meanwhile, “standardized testing . . . is being undermined,” as “several states have recently lowered” the bar for proficiency. So mother and father can “be paying close attention” to their youngsters’s efficiency with out realizing how little they’re studying, and so seeing “no reason to act — even when test scores are low.” Reversing “grade inflation is the most direct fix for helping parents understand how their children are doing in school,” however mother and father ought to “ask their children’s teachers directly whether they are performing at grade level.”
Libertarian: Wealth Tax Puts Everyone at Risk
“Californians will face two competing tax measures this November,” cautions Reason’s Veronique de Rugy. One is the Billionaire Tax Act, which (opposite to its advocates’ claims) will imply “a $25 billion loss for California” as soon as the “taxes that will no longer be collected from departing billionaires” are factored in. To substitute these revenues, “the state will look for the next available pool of assets”— “nonbillionaires” and “their retirement savings.” Hence the pressing need for the opposite measure, the “Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act,” which might ban “new levies on retirement accounts, personal savings, and individually owned assets” in addition to “retroactive taxation.”
Crime beat: How Baltimore Stopped Murders
Baltimore’s traditionally high homicide charges “started plummeting” in late 2022, notes Charles Fain Lehman at The Free Press; “after three years of steady decline,” it’s now seeing “the fewest murders” since 1965. This “was supposed to be impossible,” and the fault of the “drug war” or “systemic racism,” however a give attention to “deterring the small fraction of offenders in Baltimore who commit the large majority of violent crimes,” aided by “a new tough-on-crime prosecutor,” Ivan Bates, has proved the nightmare was “just the result of its past leaders’ failure to take violence seriously enough.” Known criminals get a “clear message” that “Baltimore is watching them — and will come after them.” Deterrence “can’t work if the threat of incarceration isn’t credible,” which is why “a good prosecutor is the linchpin to a successful deterrent strategy.”
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From the correct: Holding the Feds to Account
President Trump “walked away from potentially billions” in legal damages so the federal authorities would as an alternative “set up a process to compensate Americans” abused by Biden-era lawfare, cheers Tom Fitton at The Hill. His critics oppose this fund not as a result of it’s “corrupt, but because it exposes misconduct inside government that was long downplayed or ignored.” Indeed, for years, “Americans watched federal agencies turn their power against citizens on the wrong side” of the political aisle. “Trump has made clear that this pattern must end,” and people “who were harmed” ought to have an “avenue for redress.” Governments that abuse their own residents “must be answerable to them,” and “the anti-weaponization fund is one piece of that effort.” And since Trump “gave up compensation” to make sure that, “he should be praised, not attacked.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
