Very few independent minds ever truly believed that “Diversity‚ Equity‚ and Inclusion” — DEI‚ for short — was good for anyone other than its direct beneficiaries. But that hasn’t stopped corporate America from insisting that it is. “Diversity targets” and “inclusion goals” are now the cost of doing business in many Fortune 500 C-suites‚ spurred on by equity consultants who charge corporate giants by the hour for lectures on their subconscious bigotry — a bigotry that‚ conveniently enough‚ can only ever be overcome by forking over more cash for more lectures from the consultants in question. READ MORE from Nate Hochman: DeSantis’ Latest Bill Exposes the Limits of Parents’ Rights The formal argument for this system is that DEI is good for business — a claim that‚ in turn‚ relies on a handful of heavily-cited studies purporting to demonstrate a link between diversity and corporate profits. The most influential in this genre is a series from the consulting heavyweight McKinsey‚ which has produced four studies extolling the virtues of DEI over the course of the past decade: “Diversity Matters” (2015)‚ “Delivering through Diversity” (2018)‚ “Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters” (2020)‚ and “Diversity Matters Even More: The Case for Holistic Impact” (2023). The core claim of these studies — that more DEI leads to better corporate performance — has served as the fertile ground for the blossoming of the entire DEI industry. The only problem is that it happens to not be true. A new paper published earlier this week in Econ Journal Watch — and unearthed by journalist Chris Brunet — tests McKinsey’s claims of “statistically significant positive relations between the industry-adjusted earnings … of global McKinsey-chosen sets of large public firms and the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.” The paper’s authors‚ Jeremiah Green and John R.M. Hand‚ found the thesis wanting: “[U]sing data for firms in the publicly observable S&;P 500‚” Green and Hand’s research showed no “statistically significant relations” between McKinsey’s “measures of executive racial/ethnic diversity” and “either industry-adjusted earnings before interest and taxes margin or industry-adjusted sales growth‚ gross margin‚ return on assets‚ return on equity‚ and total shareholder return.” This isn’t the first time that Green and Hand have published work calling McKinsey’s famous pro-DEI studies into question. A July 2021 Quartz piece‚ “Is McKinsey wrong about the financial benefits of diversity?‚” reports on their earlier research on the issue: If you’ve read an article about the importance of diversity in the workplace in the past few years‚ chances are you’ve come across the assertion that more diverse companies turn out higher profits. Key to the popularization of this idea are three McKinsey studies‚ released in 2015‚ 2018‚ and 2020‚ which showed that companies with greater racial‚ ethnic‚ and gender diversity in their leadership tended to perform better financially…. A new paper [from Green and Hand]‚ posted on the open-access research platform SSRN‚ offers one more reason to be cautious in making claims about the business case for diversity. The authors applied McKinsey’s approach to companies in the S&;P 500 index‚ and did not find a link between racial and ethnic diversity and financial performance. “McKinsey‚” Quartz reported at the time‚ “declined to comment on the study’s findings.” There is very little reason to expect that the firm will respond to the more recent study’s findings either. The debunking of McKinsey’s research has gone largely unnoticed in most of America’s major institutions‚ which have continued to highlight and cite the “Diversity Matters” series as justification for their ever-expanding DEI programs and bureaucracies. An X thread from America 2100 chronicles the sheer number of powerful institutions that have uncritically embraced McKinsey’s claims — and‚ as a result‚ DEI — in recent years: the New York Times‚ Washington Post‚ Wall Street Journal‚ Harvard Business Review‚ U.S. Navy‚ Raytheon‚ Intel‚ J.P. Morgan‚ Ford‚ and Apple‚ to name just a few. A “classic‚” the old joke goes‚ is “a book that everyone talks about but no one reads.” One might say something similar about the “empirical proof” of diversity’s innate virtues. The diversity dogma has become an unquestioned premise among America’s corporate elite; its truth is assumed as something akin to a first principle. In a CNBC interview last year‚ a member of Ford’s board of directors complained that “the biggest obstacle to diversity is lack of true buy-in — as I call it‚ ‘true believers.’” Those “believers‚” she explained‚ “are the decision makers in companies who are truly convinced of the proven business case that diversity in their workforce … leads to more profitability.” Green and Hand’s numerous studies suggest that the “proven business case” for DEI might be less proven than McKinsey would have us believe. But in truth‚ we never really needed academic studies to tell us this. Basic common sense would have led to the same conclusion: “Diversity‚” taken at face value‚ is neither a good nor a bad; it is merely a multitude of different things. Whether diversity is good‚ bad‚ or neutral depends upon the specific nature of the things in question and the context in which they appear. A shipwrecked crew stranded on a remote island might benefit from having a diversity of different skills — hunting‚ building‚ food preparation‚ and so on. A diversity of deadly injuries or exotic diseases would have quite the opposite effect. Of course‚ “multiculturalism” is the specific kind of diversity championed by DEI — not a diversity of ailments or illnesses‚ but of peoples and cultures. But that‚ too‚ is subject to the same basic question: Diversity of what people‚ and inclusion of which cultures? The question doesn’t appear to have even occurred to McKinsey and its counterparts. “Diversity‚” McKinsey’s DEI primer declares‚ “brings multiple perspectives to the table during times when enhanced problem-solving skills and vision are needed.” More differences lead to more perspectives‚ and more perspectives lead to better business. In that case‚ corporate recruiters needn’t limit themselves to a few gender-nonconforming Harvard graduates. If it’s diverse perspectives they’re after‚ they should hire the Tanzanian witch doctors who kill albinos to concoct potions out of their body parts. They should hire the Afghans who have been practicing bacha bazi — literally‚ “boy play” — for over a millennia. They should hire the African warlords who pump their child soldiers full of tranquilizers‚ amphetamines‚ and cocaine mixed with gunpowder. They should hire the Amazon tribesmen that kill and eat farmers for religious rituals‚ the Sudanese and Egyptians who practice female genital mutilation‚ and every other culture and people and tradition in the world. Then‚ and only then‚ will they have an authentic diversity of lived experiences‚ befitting of a progressive‚ 21st-century workplace. But they won’t‚ of course‚ because that was never what this “diversity and inclusion” business was really about. For all the jargon-laden explainers‚ neither McKinsey nor their acolytes in corporate America really believe that diversity‚ in and of itself‚ is of any particular value at all. What they believe is that our institutions are too white‚ too straight‚ and too male‚ and that the only appropriate solution is to make them less so — even if they have to fudge a couple numbers here and there on the way. The post The True Meaning of ’Diversity’ in Business appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Last week‚ the Canadian actress Ellen Page‚ who now goes by the name “Elliot” and claims to be a man‚ delivered a speech at the Juno Awards — Canada’s equivalent to the Grammys — in which she argued that “the rights of LGBTQ2+ people” are under attack. These “rights‚” she asserted‚ are being “revoked‚ restricted and eliminated throughout the world.” Her speech drew headlines and corresponded with the release of the first clip from her new film‚ Close to You‚ in which Page plays a “transgender man” for the first time. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey: Exorcisms‚ Floating Objects‚ and Trances: New Evidence Shows Ruby Franke’s Religious Extremism Motivated Child Abuse Page has long been a famous actress‚ but her announcement of her transgenderism in December 2020 has turbocharged her fame and given her reason to be a leading activist on LGBTQ issues. This week‚ she was the headlining name on a statement signed by many Canadian celebrities to speak out against “Anti-Trans Legislation in Canada”; the statement expressed horror at provinces’ requirements that children obtain parental consent for a transgender identity. Page’s transgender identity also was the reason that Pageboy‚ her memoir‚ immediately topped the New York Times’ bestseller list upon its release last year. Given Page’s increasing impact on the transgender movement‚ I picked up Pageboy to get an understanding of how she sees the ideology that she so adamantly subscribes to. What I found is an extremely credulous person in desperate need of help. She has suffered from anorexia and depression‚ was repeatedly sexually assaulted‚ and feels disgusted with her body. In the book‚ she embraces left-wing ideology with such enthusiasm that you could image even the most diehard leftists telling her that they never meant anyone to take it that far. In one chapter‚ in which she describes living at an environmental “learning center‚” she informs her readers‚ with a deep seriousness‚ that we only have a short number of years left before the world will cease to exist due to the “climate crisis.” At another time‚ she claims that Hollywood does not lead the way when it comes to LGBTQ issues but follows far behind. Page adopts this same credulousness for leftist ideology in regard to the sexual revolution. She has fully bought into the idea that the purpose of life is to seek sexual pleasure with various people‚ as the bulk of her memoir is a scattered listing of her sexual escapades in an incoherent timeline. In describing all of these relationships‚ she is desperate to prove that she has sexual desires. Interspersed in these dragging descriptions of her sexual relationships — many of which have no dimension to them apart from lust‚ a fact that she acknowledges — are attempts to retroactively project her newfound transgender identity onto her past. Early on‚ Page describes her joy at being mistaken for a boy at 9 years old when she was playing soccer on a co-ed team. Later‚ she describes feeling uncomfortable with her film character wearing a skirt. If there is any cohesive narrative in her book‚ it is this attempt to explain her transition and to prove that she was always “transgender.” Given that she identified as a girl or woman throughout the vast majority of her life and was extremely feminine‚ her retroactive insertion of a transgender identity is less than believable. It instead seems that‚ once tired of the sexual liberation served up to her by Hollywood‚ she then‚ always credulous‚ turned to its next movement: transgenderism. Her fitting of transgenderism onto her life finds its manifestation mostly in claims that she wished to be rid of her female body throughout her life. All throughout this insertion of a transgender identity‚ whether it is in regard to growing up in Nova Scotia in the 1990s or coming out as a lesbian in 2014‚ she describes a person who very much has the personality of a girl or woman. And never does she talk about wanting to have conventionally masculine characteristics; instead‚ she shows a distaste for men‚ such as when she complains about having to work in “a cast full of cis men” while filming Inception. Later‚ she explains away acting as a woman for the entirety of her “marriage‚” which lasted from 2018 until she came out as “transgender‚” by calling it “an emotional disguise” and saying that she had “numbed” herself to the “truth.” When Page starts thinking about taking on a transgender identity‚ it seems to be an effort to erase her feminine identity rather than an effort to take on a masculine identity. When she begins filming The Umbrella Academy‚ for example‚ she informs the showrunners that she wants to wear a tight-fitting sports bra in all scenes. When acting in the show‚ she tries to tone down the femininity of the original comic book character. She also describes a feeling of alienation from her body. She calls her body a “flesh vessel” and describes it as having a personality apart from herself. Then‚ when she decides to “transition” after her “marriage” falls apart (but before divorce proceedings begin)‚ she immediately begins a mad‚ desperate dash to cut off her breasts as quickly as possible. In fact‚ she describes contacting a surgeon for a double mastectomy as the first real step to adopting her transgender identity. Her surgery comes within months after her first consultation. She explains that her “flesh vessel” is “always smarter” than her and had known‚ even before her‚ that she is really a man. This is not a coherent ideology. This is deep confusion by a vulnerable woman. ***** Last weekend‚ the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles published an interview with two liberal college students. One is a man who identifies as a transgender woman; the other is a woman who identifies as nonbinary. Both insisted to Knowles that transgender activists understand that biological sex exists and that people are either biologically male or biologically female. “We know that sex is unambiguous‚” said the student who identifies as transgender. “I don’t think that we’re denying that.” To this‚ the student who identifies as nonbinary responded‚ “There’s this odd idea among conservatives that transgender people don’t understand that biological sex exists.” But for many transgender activists‚ such an explanation is deeply offensive. For example‚ a gender-affirming therapist that fellow Daily Wire host Matt Walsh spoke to in his film What Is a Woman? told him that she was “assigned female” at birth but that she is a “not a woman.” She explained: “We know now that sex and gender are so much more than just this binary. Some women have penises‚ right. Some men have vaginas.” As for Page‚ she falls into the latter camp that claims “a transgender man is a man.” She repeatedly says in her activism that people who deny that she is a man deny her “right to exist.” When these mantras are repeated alongside the theory of transgenderism‚ they can convince many. But when told alongside the reality of a person’s life‚ they start to fall apart. Nothing about Page projects masculinity or manhood — not even her scratchy‚ slightly deepened voice that is still clearly that of a woman. Instead‚ her transgender identity exists in self-hatred and self-alienation‚ especially in regard to her feminine traits and characteristics. It is a misogyny directed at herself. The ideological transgenderism Page subscribes to does not speak of a reason for why a particular person is “transgender”; it claims a person was simply born that way. But the reality of Page’s life story shows that there indeed was a long series of terrible events and mistakes that culminated in her rejecting the reality that she is a woman. Transgenderism was not inherent. She chose it. The post I Read Ellen ‘Elliot’ Page’s <;i>;Pageboy<;/i>;‚ and It Shows Just How Half-Baked Transgenderism Is appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Arming East Asia: Deterring China in the Early Cold War By Eric Setzekorn (Naval Institute Press‚ 348 pages‚ $30) The more you reflect on history‚ the better Dwight Eisenhower as a president looks. Liberal historians and political scientists‚ enthralled with Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy‚ portrayed Ike‚ who served in between those two Democrats‚ as a passive GOP president who relied on John Foster Dulles to conduct foreign policy and Sherman Adams to handle domestic policy. It was only in the late 1970s and early 1980s that scholars‚ most notably R. Gordon Hoxie (who worked with Eisenhower at Columbia University) and Fred Greenstein‚ began to reevaluate Eisenhower unencumbered by liberal ideology and partisan politics. Since then‚ even liberal scholars have mostly ranked Eisenhower in the top 10 of U.S. presidents. Now comes Eric Setzekorn‚ a historian at the Army’s Center for Military History‚ with a new and timely book about Eisenhower’s policy toward the Far East. READ MORE from Francis Sempa: Hong Kong Affords a Glimpse of the Future for Taiwan In Arming East Asia: Deterring China in the Early Cold War‚ Setzekorn shows how Eisenhower transformed Truman’s bankrupt East Asian policy into a formidable politico-military deterrent of Communist China’s expansionist ambitions in the region‚ which the successor Kennedy and Johnson administrations squandered on the battlefields of Vietnam. Eisenhower’s strategy was a forerunner of the Nixon Doctrine of the late 1960s to early 1970s (Nixon was Eisenhower’s vice-president and likely learned from Eisenhower’s success). Ike provided military and economic assistance to key allies in the region — South Korea‚ Taiwan‚ Thailand‚ South Vietnam‚ and Japan — to create what Setzekorn describes as “a robust‚ defensive force that greatly benefited American foreign policy in the region by serving as a credible deterrent without requiring large numbers of expensive and vulnerable U.S. combat troops.” It somehow mostly escapes historians and political scientists that Harry Truman’s successful European policies (the Marshall Plan‚ NATO) were more than offset by his disastrous Asian policies. And the greatest disaster in Asia — and the one we are still dealing with — was the “loss” of China to Mao Zedong’s communist forces. Setzekorn is unsparing in his criticism of what he calls the Truman administrations’ “willful neglect” of East Asia both in terms of politico-military assistance and bureaucratic structure. Setzekorn notes that after the failure of the Marshall mission to negotiate peace talks between the Nationalists and Communists‚ “Truman did not ask Congress for any aid to China.” Congress thought otherwise and voted to provide significant aid‚ but only a pittance of the proposed military aid reached the Nationalists before it was suspended near the end of 1948. Setzekorn characterizes this as the Truman administration’s “geostrategic disinterest in East Asia‚” which Secretary of State Dean Acheson later tried to cover-up by issuing the infamous China White Paper that laid all of the blame for the loss of China on Chiang-Kai-shek and Nationalist corruption. Truman partisans and liberal historians ever since have decried the notion that Truman “lost China‚” characterizing the phrase as part of gthe era’s “McCarthyism‚” but‚ to paraphrase Truman himself‚ “the buck stopped” with him. And though Setzekorn fails to mention it‚ Sen. McCarthy was not wrong about communist influence in the FDR-Truman administrations. The Truman State Department‚ for example‚ was littered with East Asian advisers who sympathized with Mao’s supposed “agrarian reformers.” One only has to read The Amerasia Spy Case or James Burnham’s compelling article about the ties between the notorious Institute for Pacific Relations and certain Truman State Department employees in The Freeman to understand their impact on the loss of China. Setzekorn‚ however‚ sees the main fault of Truman’s East Asia policy in a “pattern … of organizational dysfunction and lack of coherent goals” that “hindered American national-security strategy and the development of military relationships with allies.” It was only the outbreak of the Korean War — which came after Truman administration spokesmen told the world that Korea was not a part of America’s defense perimeter in Asia — that significant military assistance flowed to parts of East Asia. Eisenhower came to the presidency with some knowledge of East Asia and the western Pacific‚ having served as an aid to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines in the mid-1930s. And Eisenhower understood what it took to build an army. Equally important‚ writes Setzekorn‚ Eisenhower shifted “American national-security interests away from Europe to focus on Asia.” Ike appointed Adm. Arthur Radford‚ former commander of the Pacific Fleet‚ as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Unlike Truman‚ he organized the National Security Council (NSC) to coordinate policy‚ bifurcating the NSC into planning and operations. He created what Setzekorn calls a “whole of government” approach to East Asian affairs‚ especially in terms of military assistance to key allies. The goal of Ike’s East Asia policy was to develop “the political‚ economic and military strength of non-Communist Asian countries‚” and it didn’t matter to Eisenhower whether those countries were democracies or autocracies. Funding for our Asian allies rose considerably‚ while cuts were made to our allies in Europe. Significantly‚ a portion of the funding for East Asian allies funded military academies to train officers. Setzekorn devotes a chapter each to the Eisenhower administration’s mostly successful efforts to strengthen and professionalize the armed forces of South Korea‚ South Vietnam‚ Taiwan‚ Thailand‚ and Japan. And in all of these countries‚ except Japan‚ there was only what Setzekorn calls a “light footprint” of American boots on the ground. We supplied the equipment and training‚ but the regional allies supplied the troops on the ground. And in Eisenhower’s time‚ this local deterrent force was reinforced by our extended nuclear deterrent‚ which proved itself during the two Taiwan Strait crises in the 1950s. Regrettably‚ Setzekorn writes‚ the Kennedy and Johnson administrations “lost the strategic initiative and became bogged down in a proxy war on the Chinese periphery.” Eisenhower’s East Asia policy kept the peace at an acceptable cost and successfully deterred China’s rulers in Beijing. The Eisenhower Doctrine in East Asia followed a “strategy of developing allied military capability in Japan‚ Taiwan‚ Thailand‚ South Vietnam‚ and South Korea‚” and this effectively “created a defensive network to deter PRC aggression and protect American interests without endangering American lives.” Setzekorn believes that a similar policy approach today is our best chance of once again successfully deterring an equally ambitious but much better armed PRC. The post The Case for the Eisenhower Doctrine for East Asia appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The JAMA Network shows that between 1999 and 2017‚ Nicotine usage amongst high-school-aged youths decreased rapidly‚ as our knowledge of the long-term impacts of smoking grew‚ and fewer and fewer young people […]

by Jim Rickards‚ Daily Reckoning: A lot of people seem to have forgotten about the war in Ukraine. That’s a mistake. Russia is slowly but steadily defeating Ukraine‚ which is becoming increasingly obvious to everyone except the most anti-Russian diehards. That’s leading to desperation in elite Western circles determined to stop Russia one way or […]

Evidence continues to mount that not everyone who rolled their sleeve up for a Covid mRNA jab had the same product injected in their arm. According to the findings of a major new study‚ people [...] The post ‘Hot Batches’: Study Finds Covid mRNA Vaccines Killing Far More People in Red States appeared first on The People's Voice.

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Truly selfless. The post Construction CEOs Demand Cheap Illegal Labor in Name of Dead Baltimore Workers appeared first on Frontpage Mag.

In the first quarter of 2024‚ GM sold 16‚425 EVs. In the first quarter of 2025‚ GM will need to sell 250‚000. The post All the People Who Care About the Planet Already Bought Electric Cars appeared first on Frontpage Mag.