Forty years in the desert is long enough

Posted on November 20, 2019 by lawofmarkets

Pompeo overturns four decades of American policy on Israel.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reversed four decades of American policy and further undermined Palestinians’ effort to gain statehood.

Pompeo has repudiated the 1978 State Department legal opinion that held that civilian settlements in the occupied or disputed territories were “inconsistent with international law”.

Israeli leaders welcomed the decision, while Palestinians and other nations warned that it undercut any chance of a broader peace deal.

This has been going on since 1978 and they think this will inhibit reaching a peace agreement. Diplomacy is the theatre of the absurd.

Is Victoria going bankrupt?

Posted on November 20, 2019 by lawofmarkets

I’d heard vaguely about selling off bits of Vic Roads but not about the rest. From ‘Disaster’: Union boss slams private sector involvement in VicRoads.

“The Andrews Labor government has already sold off the Land Titles and Registry Office and it appears VicRoads’ most sensitive functions are next in line,” Ms Darmanin said.

That is incredible! Labor Governments do not privatise. They do not “work in co-operation with the private sector to provide better services.” But what they often do, when they have run out of other peoples’ money, is look inside every hollow log to find spare cash when every other source of revenue has already been spent and committed.

Comes with this today: Extra $14.5bn spent on Labor states’ bureaucracy splurge.

Victoria and Queensland have supercharged their public sector workforces, hiring more than 100,000 new staff over the past five years at a cost to taxpayers of an extra $14.5bn a year in wages and salaries.

Staff numbers in the two biggest Labor states have swollen about five times faster than in NSW, according to analysis by the NSW Treasury, which found NSW had experienced the slowest growth nationwide in both headcount and dollar cost.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, whose government has faced criticism over the adequacy of its workforce during the recent bushfires, said his state was focused on frontline staff and not “bloated backroom bureaucracy”.

Incredible difference in attitude between NSW and the Labor states. When and if Labor finally gets tossed out in Victoria, they will leave a disaster behind that no one will be able to fix. Socialists only know how to plunder. They know nothing about what it takes to create wealth and prosperity.

But what bothers me even more is how bizarre economic theory has become that no one working in Treasury can any longer even see what the problem is.

Beware or be next

Posted on November 19, 2019 by lawofmarkets

Thumbnail

It’s communism one needs to worry about. But as communism is evolving, it is rule by an elite who steal everything and allow the rest to scramble for a living by being employed in the enterprises that the elites already own or control.

One system; many nations, including our own. The picture is from the comments here.

Ever wonder why real wages are falling?

Posted on November 19, 2019 by lawofmarkets

METRO TUNNEL COSTS COULD BLOWOUT TO $3B
A messy fight is looming over who will pay the huge extra costs of the Metro Tunnel, with the Andrew Government reportedly warned the total blowout of..

The Metro Tunnel is Victoria’s very own NBN, although there are quite a few others like it but not quite as draining although very bad as well. There was the desal plant, and the billion spent on the Miki Card, getting rid of level crossings in the city, others too, but this one is big big time. Infrastructure spending at its absolute stupidest. The above story is a snippet from the H-S this morning.

There are economic idiots everywhere, but the biggest ones are the ones who think government infrastructure projects like this are good for the economy. Even the Premier is beginning to see what a black hole this is. Construction everywhere you turn in the City, whole city blocks turned into construction sites, billions of dollars being spent, and not a dollar’s worth of actual value-adding output anywhere to be seen. We are looking here at immense costs, for which there will NEVER be a single cent of profit ever earned.

Keynesian economics was once only about getting an economy out of a recession. Now it’s about massive and permanent deficits coupled with massive and permanent forms of public waste. Now they have overrun their original costs to $3 billion, but there is more than just the tunnel that comes with all of this. Victoria is bankrupt in the same way that economic theory is bankrupt. I was just up in Sydney and they are about to finally start running their idiotic streetcars down George Street. That, too, will never turn a dollar of profit, which means it will never ever repay its costs in the benefits it provides. Pure waste but presented as a public benefit. My biggest query is always why isn’t this obvious?

Modern economic theory is a disaster for anyone whose government believes any and all of it. Public spending has its role, but is a drain on an economy’s productivity. Oddly because of the Keynesian nature of the National Accounts, all of this will show up as growth in GDP even though it is nothing of the kind. And there will be many people employed, except not employed on projects that will add to the economy’s net level of real production. They are not value adding. They may create a dollar’s worth of value, but for each dollar of value created it will cost much much more than a dollar. Why does this make sense to anyone?

Ye have broken faith with those who died

Posted on November 16, 2019 by lawofmarkets

Poppy Day used to be a big deal in Canada, even in downtown Toronto where I used to live. It’s because a Canadian wrote “In Flanders Fields” during World War I which is a poem every Canadian once knew. Its first words are:

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
between the crosses row on row
that mark our place.”

This is why poppies are sold and worn on Remembrance Day everywhere. Don Cherry is something like Richie Benaud in Canada, although I don’t think he ever played hockey, or not at the top level. But he was to hockey commentary what Richie Benaud was in cricket. Here is the story that goes back to November 11, but this is the best telling I have heard.

As anyone interesting in hockey or politics already knows, Don Cherry of Coach’s Corner fame was fired on Monday, Remembrance Day, for saying on the air that immigrants should wear their poppies and have some respect for the fallen soldiers just like the rest of us. He had the effrontery to actually say “you people” so all the friggin’ SJWs went nuts and now Don is fired.

Full disclosure, most of what I know about Don Cherry is he likes loud suits. I don’t watch Hockey Night in Canada. I hate hockey, I hate television, so I never was a fan of Don Cherry for the most part, except the suits. They were flashy.

I looked him up, he’s been wearing his loud suits and doing Hockey Night in Canada since 1980. 39 years of television. That’s longer than the Ed Sullivan Show. Its about the same length of time Ed Sullivan was a broadcaster. But Don didn’t die in the saddle like Ed, he had his horse shot out from under him by SJWs.

SJWs like these women here. CTV television, The Social. Watch the clip… if you can. Its racist in the full dictionary sense of the word, also stupid and disgusting.

#fireJessAllen is trending on Twitter, and with good reason. Jessie Rae Allen came right out and said white boys who play hockey are bullies and morons. Her exact words are in the video clip, but I’ll reproduce them in case it gets memory-holed:

“I don’t worship at the altar of hockey. I never have,” Allen said, “and maybe it’s because of where I grew up and going to a couple of different universities. There’s a certain type of person in my mind, in my experience, who does.”
Allen continued saying, “And they all tended to be white boys who weren’t, let’s say, very nice. They were not generally thoughtful. They were often bullies.”
“Their parents were able to afford to put them, you know, spend $5,000 a year on minor hockey.” Allen suggests that the money would be better suited to travelling and learning about the world.
She concluded her statements saying that Don Cherry is a “representative” of the type of person that Allen is talking about. Allen acknowledged that Cherry has “done some good things” but added

“Whether he’s charming or not, but he’s still a bigot and a misogynist.”

Generally I don’t believe in people getting fired for talking, not even talking on television. Free country, you are free to run your mouth. Be all the jackass you can be, I don’t care.

But this is not “generally”.

They fired Don Cherry after 39 years for saying the truth: Downtown Toronto, nobody wears a poppy. Mississauga, Brampton, nobody wears a poppy. And they should. Because people died for them to be free. Acknowledging that sacrifice is part of being a Canadian. That’s what he said, and they fired him.

Jesse Allen said white boys are bullies, idiots and bigots. Don Cherry is white, a bigot and a misogynist, and it was GREAT that they fired him.

Comparing Mr. Cherry to Ms. Allen, she’s a whole new level of bigoted. Hockey players and people who watch hockey are uncultured White hicks who hate immigrants, women and the outside world.

So if they fired Don Cherry, they BETTER fire Jesse Allan.

You Lefties wanted new rules? No problem. Now you can live in fear of your job just like Conservatives do.

Update! : https://www.blazingcatfur.ca/2019/11/15/ctv-jessica-allen-apologize-for-hockey-remarks-after-don-cherrys-firing/

Seen first at Blazing Cat Fur (hi Arney!) we have The Apology from Jess Allen and CTV. From the Blob & Snail:

CTV says it is apologizing to anyone who was offended by comments made by a correspondent on its show The Social following the firing of hockey commentator Don Cherry.

As apologies go, its very legal boilerplate. Bottom line, -real- racism gets a pass, Jess Allen keeps her job, Don Cherry still very fired.

So no surprises here. Business as usual, shut up and get back to work you useless proles.

Upperdate: Full CTV statement:

“CTV’s The Social is based on opinion and debate about current issues, and we often hear from viewers who don’t agree with some of the perspectives on the show.

However, Jessica Allen’s comments about hockey have generated an extraordinary response. We’ve been touched by the stories we’ve heard from Canadians everywhere, including families from Humboldt, about what the game means to them. That matters to us.

We would like to apologize to everyone who was offended by the remarks, and let you know your feedback sparked much debate and introspection at The Social and CTV. We won’t restrict our hosts from offering their opinions on an opinion show, but we’ll always listen to viewers when they offer theirs.”

‘
You know, the full Q&A schtick. So let me put it this way:
if they can re-elect Justin Trudeau they are as stupid a nation as the world now can find.

Here’s the question

Posted on November 16, 2019 by lawofmarkets

From Instapundit.

JOEL KOTKIN: Will Australia Become A Vassal State of China? “China presents the most profound challenge to liberal values since the end of the Cold War, a development that has caught our consistently lame political establishment by surprise. The leaders of both parties, and much of the corporate America, never saw it coming.”

40Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

.
Well, what’s the answer? Might just add that that the article says nothing specifically about Australia.

Here was the best comment at Instapundit.

So long as the American people keep voting for four dollars of government for every three dollars they are willing to be taxed, and China has the economic strength to fund large proportions of that debt, the United States, fundamentally, cannot oppose her.

Or to put it this way:

Selling coal
along with our soul,
Is the government’s role
on the whole.

Does this mean it’s now OK to hate someone because of their religious beliefs?

Posted on November 15, 2019 by lawofmarkets

Rouhani warns Muslim countries against ‘friendship’ with Israel.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned Muslim countries against working with Israel, in a speech aired Thursday by Iran’s IRINN TV news broadcaster.

“It is a strategic mistake in the Islamic world when some see Israel as their friend. It is very unfortunate that some Islamic countries, that are supposed to be steadfast against their enemies for the benefit of the world of Islam and the benefit of their own people, have extended a hand in friendship to Israel,” Rouhani said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute watchdog group.

What makes them enemies? Why shouldn’t they be friends? Needs explanation.

Shameless and corrupt

Posted on November 14, 2019 by lawofmarkets

An election is the final judgement of voters. There is plenty of chicanery in an American election, but almost all of it is on behalf of Democrats. Now these same Democrats want to add a another tier to the process: the right to try to remove a President from office if the President is not also a Democrat while the Democrats have a majority in the House. Here is some more from Drudge which is now anti-Trump and as corrupt as the rest of the media. This is a Democrat perspective, the same kind of vermin who think socialism is the answer.

Trump Nears Defining Hour as Impeachment Goes Public... Faces limits of his power... Schiff on Hook to Make Case... Offenses Include 'Bribery'... Dem lead lawyer known for prosecuting mobsters, swindlers... Republican senator: All comes down to motive... President Considered Firing Intel Inspector General... In private speech, Bolton says policy decisions guided by personal interest... Napolitano emerges as top critic... FACEBOOK Sued for Censoring Posts Naming Whistleblower... Death Threats Increase... State Dept faces biggest crisis since McCarthy hysteria... Aides counseling Trump not to fire Mulvaney... Senate trial to last 6 WEEKS? Therapy dogs headed to Capitol Hill... Cable news showdown...

And to look at things from the other side, this is Victor Davis Hanson on 10 reasons why this impeachment ‘inquiry’ is really a coup. I’ll give you the last one but you should read the other nine as well.

10) Precedent. The indiscriminate efforts to remove Trump over the past three years, when coupled with the latest impeachment gambit, have now set a precedent in which the out party can use impeachment as a tool to embarrass, threaten or seek to remove a sitting president and reverse an election. We are witnessing constitutional government dissipating before our eyes.

Eight years of Obama was all right, but eight seconds of Trump was not. Biden and Clinton corruption as obvious as the moon on a cloudless night while after three years of hunting high and low there has been nothing found that could even begin to tarnish Trump and suggest his intent from start to finish was anything other than to provide honest government, prosperity and even-handed justice. But forecasts on these things are hard to make since you never really know what any of those Republicans really think.

Economic policy for idiots

Posted on November 13, 2019 by lawofmarkets

Here’s a misleading headline: Interest rate cuts causing pain for no substantial gain. The reality is that interest rate cuts have done substantial harm to the economy, but at least people are beginning to see just how harmful these cuts have been.

The letter challenges the central bank’s strategy as it struggles to meet its inflation target and follows a groundswell of disquiet with the direction of monetary policy — including from former treasurer Peter Costello, former RBA governor Ian Macfarlane and a trio of Liberal backbenchers.

The cuts have also sparked alarm for reigniting house prices in Sydney and Melbourne without boosting economic growth, or household or business confidence.

Mr Costello — Nine chairman — said record low interest rates and tax cuts had failed to stimulate consumer spending, which had hit advertising spending.

It’s this modern macroeconomic junk science that never ever gets anything right. I will again mention my Free Market Economics, Third Edition An Introduction for the General Reader where in its final two chapters sets out the flaws in Keynesian monetary policy as clear as you might like. Keynesian economics has evolved into the modern form of socialism, giving blanket approval to public spending, massive deficits and incompetent monetary policy. Think how incredible it is that the approaches taken to fix the Global Financial Crisis have never worked in a single instance in any country in the world. For an abbreviated version of all of this see The Dangerous Persistence of Keynesian Economics which begins with these two quotes:

Just as the causes of this downturn cannot be charted through a Keynesian demand deficiency model, neither can the solution. The world’s economies are not suffering from a lack of demand and the right policy response is not a demand stimulus. Increased public sector spending will only add to the market confusions that already exist.

What is potentially catastrophic would be to try to spend our way to recovery. The recession that will follow will be deep, prolonged and potentially take years to overcome.
—Steven Kates, Quadrant, March 2009

Why have the IMF, the OECD, the ILO, the treasuries of every advanced economy, the Treasury in Australia, the business economists around the world, why have they got it so wrong and yet you in your ivory tower at RMIT have got it so right?
—Question to Steven Kates from Senator Doug Cameron, Senate Economic References Committee, September 21, 2009

Great question. For the answer see my text. I might also mention that I have just sent off to the publisher my “Classical Economics for the Modern Economy” but that won’t be around till next year. But these central bankers and Treasury economists do only harm every time they touch the economy. And just for the record, infrastructure spending, beyond a minimum – and we are well beyond that minimum – will only make things worse.

Wasn’t he the clown on Howdy Doody?

Posted on November 12, 2019 by lawofmarkets

Re Whistleblowers: Eric Ciaramella or Voldemort? I suppose we can mention his name in Australia.

Very early on in the whistleblower saga, I asked, plaintively, who the “whistleblower” knew. There’s been lots of action on the topic since then, and it looks increasingly like the answer is “everyone.”

I’ve been trying to keep up with all the traffic on this, and frankly, it makes my head hurt. But not too long after my article, Paul Sperry at Real Clear Investigations reported extensive evidence that the person I was calling “whistleblower one” (WB1) was a man named Eric Ciaramella, who:

Is a registered Democrat, held over from Obama

Worked with Biden on Ukraine

Worked for John Brennan when he was DCIA

Worked for the National Security Council

… until he was fired for leaking

… who then turned to Rep Adam Schiff for “guidance” before filing the original “whistleblower” brief

Cooperated with Alexandra Chalupa, who was lobbying for a Ukraine aid and who Sara A. Carter reports was part of the group coordinating with the then-prime minister of Ukraine to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign over Trump’s.

My suspicion is that the Whistleblower is such a comprehensive nobody that letting his name come out deflates the entire impeachment process. Like finally finding out what a nobody the Deep Throat of the Watergate Investigation was. Once you knew, and understood his petty motives, it really was a scandal that it had ever been a scandal.

As for Clarabell the Clown, entirely from my youth and very very North American. From the Howdy Doody show.

A bit more on Howdy Doody which I had not known before with something of an Australian connection.

Chief Thunderthud (portrayed by Bill Le Cornec): Head of the Ooragnak (kangaroo spelled backward) tribe of American Indians. Edward Kean originated Thunderthud’s greeting “Kowabonga!”—a nonsense word that eventually became part of the California surfer culture lexicon.

The whole thing is so politically incorrect I’m amazed it can still be found on the net.

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Monthly Archives: November 2019