Trump Mocks Macron Again Over French Fuel Tax Protests
FILE PHOTO – French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Donald Trump prepare for a family photo during the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina November 30, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
December 5, 2018
PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has taken another swipe on Twitter at his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron prompted by Macron’s woes over violent protests against fuel taxes.
“I am glad that my friend @EmmanuelMacron and the protestors in Paris have agreed with the conclusion I reached two years ago,” Trump tweeted late on Tuesday.
“The Paris Agreement is fatally flawed because it raises the price of energy for responsible countries while whitewashing some of the worst polluters,” said Trump, referring to a global deal on the environment drafted in Paris in late 2015.
Earlier this week, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe decided to suspend planned increases to fuel taxes for at least six months in response to weeks of sometimes violent protests, marking the first major U-turn by Macron’s administration in 18 months in office.
Galbraith thought Mao’s China was just great
This is from 1972, John Kenneth Galbraith in The New York Times: Galbraith has seen China’s future‐and it works.
There can now be no serious doubt that China is devising a highly effective economic system. Development is from a very low level of per capita production, and that product is still low. With the Communist Revolution, every where in China called the Liberation, decades of national and civil war, endemic pillage and public anarchy came to a end. This, whatever the partic ular economic design, would have led to economic gains. Peace and civilian order are notably pro ductive. But there is massive evidence of great continued movement—new housing, new industrial plants, new building at old plants, the impressive figures on the increase in local industrial and agri cultural production and employment, the supply of basic staples in markets and shops, the people thronging through to buy them and the estimates of relative or percentage increases in production of agricultural and some industrial products.
It is hard to see such idiocy. Almost half a century later the Chinese still live in deep and grinding poverty, although less poverty than then. Their elites continue to thrive. Having had two economists tell me exactly the same as Galbraith just last night, I can only conclude that delusion is as vast and deep as ever.
What do we want? Trump. When do we want him? Now
The left and the complacent do not see that for us the only way forward into a future that will be connected to our own past is via the policies of a Donald Trump. Freedom, prosperity and the preservation of Western Civilisation, never mind ridding ourselves of the left-madness of “climate change”, are embodied in what PDT now represents. It’s catching on. If even the crowds in the street of France are chanting “We want Trump!” you can see where the sentiment outside elite opinion is now found. The whole story is found here: French Citizens SHOCK Leftists with Chant “We want Trump!”
There are lessons here for us
PARIS WORST RIOTS SINCE 60S
TAX REVOLT VIOLENT
That was Drudge; this is Instapundit.
MORE ON THE FRENCH RIOTS: “There are parallels between what is happening in France and almost every other developed country, including Canada, as comfortable urban elites seek to impose their climate change agenda on a broader population just struggling to pay its bills and earn an honest buck. No amount of hand-wringing over the fate of the planet, be it by the IPCC or by the likes of Ms. Binoche, is going to resonate with people who do not feel the elites have their interests at heart.”
Especially when they don’t. Also, an elite whose main theme is how morally superior it is to its countrymen is in a poor position to call for sacrifice.
How would it be if Labor abandoned the Paris Accords and then stopped the boats? Shorten would be Prime Minister for life. At least the Libs should try this out since they are already half way there on stopping the boats while everything else is a sure loser.
Einstein when it came to economics was no Einstein
This was written by Albert Einstein, yes that Albert Einstein, in 1949: Why Socialism?. He begins:
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
One reason being to discover that however high someone’s IQ, when it comes to economics there is no guarantee they won’t be a complete idiot. You should read it all, but here is the core proposition:
I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.
The “today” of “as it exists today” was 1949. This was at the height of the Cold War when Stalin’s Russia – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – threatened the peace and prosperity of the entire planet, the year of the Communist Revolution in China. And if you read the article through, it states every cliché known to every soapbox revolutionary since the start of time. Even geniuses can be morons.
Law of Markets Literary Awards Christmas Present Suggestions
It is a sad fact that neither of my books made it into the finals of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards this year. Given who the Prime Minister was at the time, and the subject matter of the books, I was not entirely surprised, but nevertheless disappointed. Still, it is not too late for you to turn these publications into just the right sort of Christmas gift for just the right sort of friends and relations.
The book that explains the election of Donald Trump as president is The Art of the Impossible. It was the complete collection of my assembled blog posts that began in July 2015 and through to the day of the American election in 2016.
Rightly, wrongly, I think there is no book like it to explain why and how PDT became president. And because it was written day-by-day through the election campaign by someone who actually wanted PDT to become president, it tells a story in a way that can never again be told, with all the tension and the deep uncertainty that came with following the events as they happened and where the alternative was Hillary Clinton.
Also not short-listed in the Children’s Literature section by the former PM was my Economics for Infants illustrated by the enormously talented Liam Capello.
This one at least won’t make you any enemies if you give it to their children, but whether it ever gets to their children once their parents have read it through is another story. One of the few pro-capitalist, free market children’s book anywhere. And if you read it, you will see why it could never make it past the adjudicators at the PMLAs. For children eight or older, but there is no upper age limit for which the book might not be instructive.
Wherever Marxism goes economic collapse, terror and famine follow
Why isn’t the party stacked with climate change deniers?
I have dwelt on the 45-40 party room tally when Malcolm was finally booted and have often wondered whether the score was actually: Skeptics 45 – Idiots and Buffoons 40.
In the light of all this, what am I to make of the following [cited and discussed at QoL]?
Cabinet Minister Kelly O’Dwyer has told colleagues the Liberals are widely regarded as “homophobic, anti-women, climate-change deniers” during a crisis meeting of federal Victorian MPs.
As far as the first two of the three go, I am in complete agreement with this:
Assistant Treasurer Stuart Robert, a Queensland Liberal MP, said he had seen no evidence the Liberal Party was homophobic, anti-women or stacked with climate-change deniers.
As for the third, Ms O’Dwyer and Mr Robert have precisely identified the problem. Why isn’t the party stacked with climate change deniers, that is, why isn’t it stacked with people with enough common sense to recognise idiocy when it is right before their eyes?
With this in mind, I want to see the list of the 40 who voted to keep Malcolm. Anyone know where it is?
Frank Zappa was a capitalist running dog, bless him
Who would have expected this?
In a 1991 interview, Zappa reported that he was a registered Democrat but added “that might not last long—I’m going to shred that”.[104] Describing his political views, Zappa categorized himself as a “practical conservative“.[nb 13]He favored limited government and low taxes; he also stated that he approved of national defense, social security, and other federal programs, but only if recipients of such programs are willing and able to pay for them.[1]:315–16, 323–24; 329–30 He favored capitalism, entrepreneurship, and independent business, stating that musicians could make more from owning their own businesses than from collecting royalties.[105] He opposedcommunism, stating, “A system that doesn’t allow ownership … has—to put it mildly—a fatal design flaw.”[1]:315–16, 323–24, 329–30 He had always encouraged his fans to register to vote on album covers, and throughout 1988 he had registration booths at his concerts.[13]:348 He even considered running for president of the United States as an independent.[13]:365[106] …
In early 1990, Zappa visited Czechoslovakia at the request of President Václav Havel. Havel designated him as Czechoslovakia’s “Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism”.[113] Havel was a lifelong fan of Zappa, who had great influence in the avant-garde and underground scene in Central Europe in the 1970s and 1980s (a Czech rock group that was imprisoned in 1976 took its name from Zappa’s 1968 song “Plastic People“).[114] Under pressure from Secretary of State James Baker, Zappa’s posting was withdrawn.[115] Havel made Zappa an unofficial cultural attaché instead.[13]:357–61 Zappa planned to develop an international consulting enterprise to facilitate trade between the former Eastern Bloc and Western businesses.[78]
And of course, Brown Shoes Don’t Make It which I saw them perform live!
The single most terrifying story you will ever see
If you think my title is over the top, watch the video. From the ABC of all things! The portrayal here is truly terrifying and should be circulated as widely as possible.
Last night, in a cab home from a late night venue, our driver was Chinese so I asked him about his background and how he was able to migrate to Australia. Turns out he is unemployable inside his own profession but with a degree in science. So I asked him about “social credit” and he went on about Mao and communism to the point where he reached my own levels of antipathy and disgust. All of which he had learned from his parents who, he said, he trusted since they were the ones who brought him his food, while he completely distrusted the lies he was fed in School and by the government of China. We sat in front of the house for ten minutes talking after we got home, and with the meter off. Actually tipped him and from my own money as well. Really, if this doesn’t scare people into some kind of sober reality, I don’t know what would.
China is marrying Big Brother to Big Data. Every citizen will be watched and their behaviour scored in the most ambitious and sophisticated system of social control in history. Matthew Carney reports.
And if you are not terrified by this you have no idea when to be frightened. Orwell was fiction. What they are doing in China is an actual present-day reality that any country can adopt since the technology and the methodology both already exist and will only keep getting better as time goes by.
And there’s more here: China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system — here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you.
Not to mention this:
Law of Markets 