Yearly Archives: 2017

The distractors are complaining about the distractions they have caused

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This story is almost beyond parody coming from the media, The Wall Street Journal in this case: Donald Trump: as Washington churns, world gets more dangerous. Listen to this loon:

When folks here in Washington end a summer filled with White House hijinks and an epic but inconclusive healthcare debate, they will look up and discover something unsettling: The world has become a more dangerous place while everybody has been distracted.

That’s most obviously true in North Korea, where its rogue weapons program has leapt so far forward that the nation now has a missile with the range to reach much of the US Pyongyang’s capabilities are advancing so quickly that the Defense Intelligence Agency has had to ratchet forward, to as early as next year, its estimate of when it will have an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

And etc. So let’s go to the comments at The Oz, from the top rated on down a bit with nothing left out.

The world is a more dangerous place than it was eight years ago primarily because of Obama, not Trump. Obama was a weak and indecisive leader who allowed all of America’s enemies to grow stronger.

You forgot to mention SSM in Australia, Gerald

But hey, we are getting (unaffordable) light rail in Canberra, (unaffordable) green energy in SA, (unaffordable) public service growth and increased debt in Qld and federally 99.9% of the population wont get a say on SSM. But hey, lets blame it all in Trump. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute!!! Better add Abbott in there too.

“The world has become a more dangerous place while everybody has been distracted.” Who is “everybody”? The media badly needs an education away from their “Latte buddies”.

I’m not really sure what this journalist is concerned about, doesn’t he realise same sex marriage will be passed “sooner then we think?” Our politicians understand the importance of freeing us from cultural restraints, so never mind about North Korea/china/Russia/Iran. None of them are progressive enough to have ssm.

The most urgent problem is to resolve disputes with Russia. With the US and Russia on the same side, all the other problems can be solved. With the US and Russia throwing mud at each other, all the other problems will just keep accumulating until something goes bang. Russia under the Putin government is far from perfect but anyone who expects perfect partners needs to stay away from international politics.

The main danger is not in Washington but in New York in the fantasy mind of Gerald Seib at the Wall Street Journal who wrote this tosh.

The interesting thing is how little Trump pays attention to these flea bites and tries to get on with the main game.

FME3

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This is from the Elgar mailout for Free Market Economics, Third Edition, An Introduction for the General Reader, just released.

Free Market Economics, Third Edition

An Introduction for the General Reader

Steven Kates, Associate Professor of Economics, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

If you are genuinely interested in what is wrong with modern economics, this is where you can find out. If you would like to understand the flaws in Keynesian macro, this is the book you must read. If you are interested in marginal analysis properly explained, you again need to read this book. Based on the classical principles of John Stuart Mill, it is what is missing today; a text based on explaining how an economy works from a supply-side perspective.

In this thoroughly updated third edition of Free Market Economics, Steven Kates assesses economic principles based on classical economic theory. Rejecting mainstream Keynesian and neoclassical approaches even though they are thoroughly covered in the text, Kates instead looks at economics from the perspective of an entrepreneur making decisions in a world where the future is unknown, innovation is a continuous process and the future is being created before it can be understood.

Key Features include:

• analysis derived from the theories of pre-Keynesian classical economists, as this is the only source available today that explains the classical pre-Keynesian theory of the business cycle

• a focus on the entrepreneur as the driving force in economic activity rather than on anonymous ‘forces’ as found in most economic theory today

• introduces a powerful though simplified model to explain the difference between modern theory of recession and classical theory of the business cycle

• great emphasis is placed on the consequences of decision making under uncertainty

• offers an introductory understanding, accessible to the non-specialist reader.

The aim of this book is to redirect the attention of economists and policy makers towards the economic theories that prevailed in earlier times. Their problems were little different from ours but their way of understanding the operation of an economy and dealing with those problems was completely different.

Free Market Economics, Third Edition will help students and general readers understand classical economic theory, written by someone who believes that this now-discarded approach to economic thought was superior to what is found in most of our textbooks today.

Critical Acclaim

Contents

Donald Trump is the President and that is a very good thing

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“Even his acolytes [?!] such as Steve Kates must be wondering what’s next from Donald J. Trump.

The quote is from LIQ whose 2000+ years mouldering in the grave have left him sorely out of touch with the modern world. He may even have missed the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which we, or our near descendants, may experience for ourselves about our own civilisation. This is not incidental to why DJT is president: Terrorist cell planned gas attack: police.

A family of suspected Islamist ­extremists allegedly plotted to bring down an Australian commercial jet by gassing the passengers, in what authorities believe was a major terrorist attack plan orchestrated by Islamic State milit­ants from within Syria.

Yet when I turned to The Oz online just now, these were the first two stories: Same-sex marriage vote: Tim Wilson hints at parliamentary vote and Anthony Scaramucci misses his son’s birth. Will the attempt to bring down an Australian plane mid-flight really become a one-day wonder? Meanwhile, this is given priority:

Anthony Scaramucci chose to accompany President Trump to an event in West Virginia last week rather than attend the birth of his child. The new White House communications director sent his estranged second wife a text after she gave birth to their son in New York. “Congratulations, I’ll pray for our child,” he wrote, but did not visit for four days, the New York Post reports. That behaviour may explain the collapse of Mr Scaramucci’s marriage as he begins his new life in the West Wing.

Deidre Scaramucci, 38, filed for divorce a few weeks before the 53-year-old former financier’s arrival in Washington despite being eight months pregnant.

You know, she may not even have wanted him at the birth. But if you are the kind of loon who thinks we should not be thankful that Trump is president because his Communications Director prioritises his work in the White House over attending the birth of his child then you should drop political commentary. Meanwhile over at Drudge:

 

 

And in the upper corner.

 

Personally, I would infinitely rather have PDT than PHC. I have no idea how to solve any of this, but I do believe that there is no one I’d rather have thinking these issues through than Donald Trump.

Who is Imran Awan and why is there not wall-to-wall coverage of his arrest?

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I mention this only because it is the kind of thing that you will be able to find only on blogs and will be largely unreported in the media: Imran Awan Scandal Shows Just How Much Dirt Dems Wanted to Hide By Focusing on Trump-Russia. The United States is being sold down the river by its political elites with PDT about the only obstacle in their way. From the story:

The Awan brothers worked for more than 30 House and Senate Democrats, as well as former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who only fired Imran Awan on Tuesday after his arrest. News of the investigation broke in February, but Schultz kept Awan on staff for five months before firing him. Schultz even threatened Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa about the investigation in May.

The family had repeated long-term financial struggles, despite extraordinarily high salaries for congressional IT aides. Jamal, who public records suggest is only 22 years old, was paid nearly $160,000 annually, three times the average House IT staff salary. Abid was paid $161,000 and Amran $165,000. Even so, the family has a history of massive debts and bankruptcy. . . .

Other House IT aides wondered whether the Awans were blackmailing the Democrats who waited so long to fire them. “I don’t know what they have, but they have something on someone. It’s been months at this point” with no arrests, Pat Sowers, a 12-year House IT aide told The Daily Caller.

“There’s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they’d take me out in handcuffs that same day, and I’d never work again,” said a manager at a tech-services company that works with Democratic House offices. He also reported offering his company’s services to Democrat offices for one-fourth the price of Awan and his brothers, but the Democrats declined.

As for the media, this is one of the comments at Instapundit where I picked this story up:

I was a bit taken back when I saw the New York Times last night reported on the Awan brothers and DWS. You could not make up a headline like this for the article: “Trump Fuels Intrigue Surrounding a Former I.T. Worker’s Arrest”. Somehow President Trump gets worked into the headline. I did read the article – total whitewash – plus it’s several minutes of my life I will never get back.

And so it goes.

Climate isn’t weather or is it the other way round?

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These are two successive stories on Lucianne.

Snowballs in July? St. Petersburg covered with piles of ‘snow’ (Photos, Video)
RT News [Russia], by Staff Original Article
Posted By: PageTurner- 7/23/2017 11:04:29 AM Post Reply
Fancy throwing snowballs in summer or going barefoot and T-shirt-clad during a ‘snowfall’ in July? This weekend in St. Petersburg, Russia would have been perfect after a heavy hailstorm hit the city. On Saturday, streets in St. Petersburg were covered with piles of snow and the roads resembled winter rivers. City residents took to social media to share the unusual summer scenery. Just last month, Moscow also fell victim to the whims of nature when snow fell upon the Russian capital just as summer was beginning.

Hottest day ever in Shanghai as heat wave bakes China
Agence France-Presse, by Staff Original Article
Posted By: PageTurner- 7/23/2017 11:00:40 AM Post Reply
Shanghai sweltered under a new record high of 40.9 degrees Centigrade (105 F) on Friday, authorities said as they issued a weather “red alert” over a stubborn heat wave that has plagued much of the country. Hospitals in the city have reported increased numbers of patients suffering from heat-related illnesses, according to state media, and the Shanghai zoo said it was putting large blocks of ice into some animal enclosures to help them beat the heat, while providing frozen apples to its pandas. China´s most populous city has baked under soaring summer temperatures for more than two weeks and Friday afternoon reached . . .

What I would do is make both heating and air conditioning as cheap as possible, but that’s just me.

Trump the Great Debate live blog

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At Freedomfest in LV again and today we have a debate on Donald Trump, pro and con, with DJT now PDT. [The original has now been edited six hours later when I finally got back to the room.] The contestants in the debate are:

PRO
Wayne Allan Root [WAR]
Juan Pablo Andrade [JBA]
Deneen Borelli [DB]

ANTI
Nick Gillespie [NG]
Roberto Salinas [RS]
Jeffery Tucker [JT]

When Trump was here in 2015 he drew a standing ovation. In 2016, the room was with Trump by around 90%. Huge room and a full house. So we shall see.

WAR: My grandfather was a Russian. Diff between Hillary and Trump immense so let me list some of the big reasons to be grateful. (1) Welfare dependent are not welcome. (2) Welfare costs being cut down. (3) Supreme Court conservative for the next 40 years. (4) Cutting regulations. (5) Understands how socialism kills economies. (6) Voter ID laws. Ilegal voting is massive. (7) Must lower taxes and kill Obamacare. RINO Repubs standing in the way. (8) Debt is being cut. (9) I love that he is driving Liberals insane.

NG: Not actually anti-Trump. Wishes to discuss Trump Derangement Syndrome on both sides. Syria – bombed Syria to make him acceptable. There are good things that are coming out of Trump but it is mostly inadvertently – like pulling out of the Paris Accords. Trump is an embarrassment to America. Trump is big government.

JT: Trump is good on some policies, such as tax cuts. Must do this. But what has he done to help his tax policies? Absolutely nothing. Spends most of the time on twitter. Been a disaster for his own policies.

JPA: He is attacking the media and CNN because the MSM will not show the county what he wishes to do.

NG: Why can’t Repubs pass anything?

WAR: Cannot blame Trump for Congress. Must get RINOs out of Congress.

RS: Wants walls. If there are to be walls they should also be doors in the walls as Reagan said.

WAR: Illegal immigrants are down and must be opposed.

DB: What about migrants who did it the right way?

NG: Immigrants add to the economy. Anyone who wants to come here and work should be allowed to enter. Poor Mexicans cannot enter USA legally.

WAR: You are a Democrat liberal.

JT: Immigration opposition is based on a belief in racial superiority.

WAR: Open immigration in a nation with a welfare state will bankrupt the economy.

NG: Defence spending costs more than immigration. Defence spending leads to war. Should cut to a minimum.

Moderator: What do you think about Russia as an issue?

Entire panel agrees it’s a distraction. Media is the difference since that is all they focus on.

JT: Hillary is also a distraction. Please stop bringing her up.

WAR: Mexico sends illegals to vote in American elections. Should illegals be allowed to vote? Democrats and media can say there has been no voter fraud because they turn a blind eye.

JPA: Lots of evidence. Provides some evidence from his own personal experience.

WAR: Voter ID needed and ballots only in English.

JT: Trump is the prime defender of health mandates. Trump’s approach has delayed repeal.

NG: Trump is an incompetent manager. Has not even nominated people for many positions. Trump is not uniquely awful but is awful. This is the fifth George Bush (the first) presidency.

DB: Congress has broken its promise.

WAR: DJT wished to drain the swamp. He has the entire establishment against him.

NG: What is pro-liberty about Jeff Sessions.

Moderator: Asks about the “Military Industrial Complex”?

NG: Tell the region to deal with NK. Nothing to do with the United States. NK is not a threat to the US.

FINAL WORD

RS: The danger is closing the border and angry white males.

VOTE: Measured by applause.

Pro-Trump: 80%

Anti-Trump: 20%

Wrap Up

Largely sloganising but no doubt about the sentiment in the room. The anti-side allowed perfection to be the enemy of the good. The pro-side knows what a disaster a different outcome would have been. There really is no resonating anti-Trump argument. A pleasure to finally be among so many Trump people all at once.

Trump and our cultural wars

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Travelling among the educated elites on this excursion into North America has been a depressing experience. I know that policy has been my line of work for the past thirty-plus years, but even so, you would think that for most people there would be a natural wish to see the world managed in a way so that the outcomes they preferred would be the kinds of things they would like political leaders to do. Instead, I find almost everywhere a bizarre sentimentality in which some infantile wish for a nicer world is what shapes the policies they support. The herd-like disdain for Donald Trump in a world where niceness is brushed aside by savagery at every turn is astounding. Donald Trump is all that stands between the continuation of our culture and its utter devastation at the hands of anti-Western invaders. Almost no one I have met up with gets it. Evan Sayet gets it.

Sayet has written an article on Donald Trump with the title, He Fights, and the war he is fighting is a Culture War that will require every ounce of our will and ingenuity to win. Here’s Sayet’s point in which he speaks for me although for few others among the educated classes:

Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming. Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking, son-of-a-bitch. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum, then Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich. . . .

It’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics.

Here’s his conclusion:

So, to my friends on the Left – and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do. These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president – I get it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights.

There is no doubt in my mind that Trump wants to achieve the same ends I want to see achieved. He is also the only political leader the West has produced that truly sees the problem and will fight this out using every tactic he can find. He also has such personal disdain for his ideological enemies that their criticisms have no effect on what he does. He has defined out Cultural War aims and is working out the necessary tactics to achieve these ends. He may lose, but you know what, he might actually win.

Even in DC there are Trump supporters

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Sebastian Gorka is his name and he has been doing the rounds defending PDT because it does seem no one else is doing it, not even PDT. Trump himself probably thinks his critics are complete buffoons and cannot imagine they get any traction. My own view is any port in a storm for the left who rally around the most ridiculous ideas since there really is nothing else for them to say. This is Ace of Spade defending Gorka against Jake Tapper who had unbelievably argued in re Ben Rhodes v Gorka that “I’m sure he would put his graduate degree up against yours any day of the week.” This is Ace:

We must assume that Gorka put down Ben Rhodes as not having any advanced training in any political field, or for being a would-be novelist (or a very good post-modern novelist who used American Foreign Policy as his medium) which are… true.

For a comparison of Gorka v Rhodes, go to the link. Ben Rhodes remains my ultra favourite example of the disgusting level of deceit and anti-Western malevolence of the Obama White House, and a further reminder of what we have been spared with the US having elected Donald Trump. But what I especially like about Gorka is his wish to get out and attack the media and the left. Meanwhile the headline at the top of this morning’s Washington Post is “Lobbyist attended Trump Jr. meeting” although Trump in Paris is there as well – a full colour picture too.

And I am happy to say that the last two days have been entirely in the company of some among the 6% in DC who did not vote for Hillary.

Washington diary

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Since I have arrived in North America almost every first conversation with everyone we met was some form of declaration of their disdain of President Trump. None of them knew my own beliefs or what I have been writing. It just seems to be the present-day version of talking about the weather. The most strange was my first ever meeting with my eight-year old cousin who showed me her aquarium with her Siamese fighting fish, strewn with plastic chairs and a desk, with the fish called “Donald Trump in his Office”. She had no particular political views but her parents did, and so has everyone else.

Here in Washington I have been at a series of right-side meetings which have been quite fascinating, and I have listened to Republican legislators on a number of occasions, but not one has said so much as a positive word about PDT. Meanwhile there is no story but Donald Trump Jr having met for a quarter of an hour with a Russian lawyer. Meanwhile the president has himself been in France where he apparently did or said something to the French President’s wife that has led to further frenzy. If anything else happened, I haven’t seen what it is.

But I did come across a black man in a coffee shop with a Trump-Pence sticker on his laptop. So I asked him if he was dinkum so he showed me his Trump cufflinks! So we shook hands and I moved on.

Will also note that the Washington Post sells for $2 and the Washington Times – if you can find one – for only $1.

Anyway, cannot delay. Off to GMU today – the RMIT of the north.

ONE MORE THING: Should also mention the gift shop in the National Gallery on the Mall. They had postcards of Obama but none of PDT so I asked them why. And the answer was that the Donald Trump post cards had all sold out. Everything is possible, but somethings are more possible than others.

The world’s least remote family

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The picture above comes with the story that follows: The world’s most remote family live hundreds of miles from civilisation.

The level of ignorance reaches a pitch of inanity I have seldom come across before. This family lives entirely embedded within our civilisation and whether they or those who read about them understand or not, they are representatives of our civilisation and could be members of no other. I have little sympathy with the grievance industry here in Canada or elsewhere who seem to think that were it not for the handful of Europeans who showed up in Canada at the start of the seventeenth century, they could still be happily paddling their birchbark canoes through their pine forest canopies in splendid isolation from the technological developments that have overtaken the entire world during the past 400 years.