Rates up

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That rates would go up at the first opportunity after the election was as certain as anything in economic policy can ever be. It was just as certain as knowing that with a Democrat President, that they would not be raised until after the election was over. I thought it would be more, but the Fed has now stated that there will be three further increases in 2017 rather than two, so there must have been quite some debate. And there is no certainty they will each be a quarter of a percent either.

Not much more to say other than that this will work well for the United States, and given that rate reductions are now off the table, may work well for us, if we can follow along. Low rates will kill you. You are invited to read my article from the October Quadrant: That’s the Way the Money Goes. I will mention, however, that the title, the summary at the front and the lead-in para – the bits in black – were not written by me and do not quite say what I think. Here is how it should begin:

Low interest rates have been the mantra of economic policy for quite some time, even more so since the various public-sector stimulus packages that followed the GFC have been accompanied nowhere by anything like the kinds of recovery policy-makers had sought. . . .

There was a time, however, when it was universally recognised that monetary policies of this kind would only make matters worse, but that was a very long time ago. Perhaps we should go back and see what economists used to say about such things before we go even farther in this direction, whose continuation will make it ever more difficult to extract ourselves from the abyss of our own creation we now find ourselves in.

All part of economic resurrection. It may cost more to get your hands on money going forward, but it is also more likely that the higher cost of borrowing will help channel our savings into more productive projects.

Trying it on

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The left in general, but the American Democrats in particular, are doing about as good a job at discrediting their brand as I could hope. This Russian hacking business is an example of such insanity that you really do have to wonder why they have any credibility at all. The point is not that the Russians hacked into the voting machines and manipulated the results. Voting machines are stand-alone and cannot be influenced from the outside (we can talk about their programming some other time). The way in which the election was supposedly affected by the Russians is that they fed all of the WikiLeaks material from the Democrat National Committee to Julian Assange who then made this material public. And the outrage is that the Russians supposedly also had similar material from the Republican National Committee which they did not leak. Therefore, according to some unknown and unnamed source inside the CIA, the Russians are the reason for Donald Trump having won. So if I say to you that anyone who believes this sort of thing is crazy, you will see what I mean. Here, for example, is Paul Krugman in an article titled, The tainted election: How Donald Trump won is horrifying.

The CIA, according to The Washington Post, has now determined that hackers working for the Russian government worked to tilt the 2016 election to Donald Trump. This has actually been obvious for months, but the agency was reluctant to state that conclusion before the election out of fear that it would be seen as taking a political role.

Meanwhile, the FBI went public 10 days before the election, dominating headlines and TV coverage across the country with a letter strongly implying that it might be about to find damning new evidence against Hillary Clinton — when it turned out, literally, to have found nothing at all.

Did the combination of Russian and FBI intervention swing the election? Yes. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect. Is there any reasonable doubt that Putin/Comey made the difference?

You really have to read it all to see just how demented the argument is. That Hillary was everything you would not want to see become president, that she would have continued Obama policies as far into the future as she could, that there is a renewed optimism in the US following Trump’s win is perfectly clear, only emphasises how bizarre all of this is. The aim is somehow to discredit the election result, to perhaps influence enough “electors” to abandon Trump at the electoral college, and even, as some have asked, to run the election again. Here is Krugman again, spelling out the strategy:

We ought to be able to look both forward and back, to criticise both the way Trump gained power and the way he uses it. Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep my anger simmering – letting it boil over won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed to cool. This election was an outrage, and we should never forget it.

There is no doubting it. These people are not just bad losers. They are totalitarians at heart who support the democratic processes only up to the point it actually delivers them the results they want. They are a danger to us all, and to themselves. The only reason the US does not turn into Venezuela is that they represent only about 47% of the voting population. They are saved from financial oblivion by the Republicans whom they hate. Here’s Newt Gingrich.

All the panic on the left about Russia is a ruse. The same media which was freaking out about ‘fake news’ last week is now engaging in just that. They’re promoting the idea that Russia influenced the election to create doubt about Trump’s victory and de-legitimize him. It’s a completely dishonest political move.

It’s a try-on by the left and their allies in the media. This one didn’t quite get the traction, but you may be sure they will be back with something else as soon as they can find something else to beat up. Meanwhile, this is a drumbeat that will continue for the next four years, and hopefully for the next eight.

Is this what is known as burying the lede?

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An extremely interesting story even if a bit sensational: Shock claims massive ancient civilisation lies frozen beneath mile of Antarctic ice – and could even be Atlantis. So the story:

The theory, called crustal displacement, alleges that movements in the Earth’s crust meant that large parts of Antarctica were ice-free 12,000 years ago and people could have lived there.

Allegedly, a society could have existed ‘prehistory’, coming to an end with the last Ice Age which froze over the continent.

And this could have been Atlantis, a mythical city founded by people who were half god and half human which was first mentioned by Greek philosopher Plato in 360BC.

Speculation over the location of the legendary long-lost city is rife, with others believing it to have been near the Greek island of Santorini.

Antarctica’s secret city was apparently ‘”confirmed” by an ancient map called the Piri Reis map, compiled in 1513 from military intelligence.

And the buried lede:

The fascinating discovery comes just weeks after scientists revealed the Earth could be heading for another mini ice age caused by the Sun “going blank”.

So much for the science is settled.

3000

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This is my 3000th post. Begun just for fun and to communicate with friends and family, there is now a surprisingly large number of people who wander in. It hasn’t changed what I do since this is still just for me to keep track of what’s what and to remember what’s been going on that has interested me.

But I will mention this, since it is now more likely to happen then not, specially since the contracts have been signed. My collected blog posts on the American election – which comes to 135,000 words – is going to be published in January. My provisional title is, A Blog History of the American Election: 2016. So far as I know, this will be near enough the first time a collection of blog posts has been turned into a published narrative. I have now read these over in order four times and they really do bring back each of the moments, since each moment was the most recent moment of the election process – and that is even assuming that the process has even yet come to an end. It therefore has the quality of suspense since until the voting was over, no one could say how it would end. What makes this one work so well is that I was at one of the very first Trump rallies in July 2015, heard him speak and watched the election first hoping that that he was worth backing, and then when I decided he was, that he would win.

I actually think that blogs will become the first draft of history. The media have so completely sold out to the left that it is impossible to get anything like an objective sense from them. I, of course, am also a partisan, but have no pretensions that I can and could affect the result so I just react to events without attempting to shape them. That is all the more the case since I have been watching the election from Australia so am remote from even the most limited ability to affect the outcome. The media’s aim is to get you to vote a certain way, and the only way they want to you vote is for the left. They are now a pernicious force that Donald Trump has gone some limited way towards containing, but their poison has hardly diminished. I will certainly let you know where you can get a copy when the book is published.

Meantime, this still remains a way to communicate with family. Hi Joshi.

The night of the living dead

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Where does this go? Is it just more of the process that GWB was selected and not elected, or do they really mean to turn over the election result. The latest:

PODESTA QUESTIONS ELECTION LEGITIMACY…
White House moves to undermine victory…
Media try to delegitimize…
CNN HOST: Trump win a ‘national emergency’…
CONFUSION: Earnest says CHINA did hacking…
CIA pushes ‘conspiracy theory’…

CHILL JILL: Judge rejects Pennsylvania recount…
Completed Wisconsin recount WIDENS Trump margin…

It’s the first one that is the most sinister. The actual title at the link is, Clinton campaign backs call for intelligence briefing before Electoral College vote.

Hillary Clinton’s top political adviser John Podesta said the campaign is supporting an effort by members of the Electoral College to request an intelligence briefing on foreign intervention in the presidential election.

“The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our national security,” Podesta said in a statement Monday. “Electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed.”

“Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump,” he said. “Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”

Podesta’s statement is the first public statement from the Clinton campaign raising questions about the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s victory.

The claims are groundless and the election is over, unless the electoral college decides to go rogue. To understand just how groundless any of this is, there is this: Former UK Ambassador Blasts “CIA’s Blatant Lies”, Shows “A Little Simple Logic Destroys Their Claims”.

Socialism is a cult religion

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capitalism-is-religion

Capitalism is an economic system. Under capitalism, most of the means of production are owned by people who must make their living by selling the things they produce at prices that cover their costs. You can see capitalism in operation anywhere living standards have been rising.

Socialism is a form of parasitism. It bleeds productivity with its hunger for revenge against the successful and envy of what others have achieved that they cannot achieve themselves.

A socialist would rather be poor than that others should be rich. If socialists are to become rich themselves, they will never do it by producing something and creating value, but by finding their way into a position of political power that allows them to syphon off the wealth created by others.

John Stuart Mill: On the Treatment of Barbarous Nations

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Dated 1874, a year after his death, but it does sound exactly like something he would say:

To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error, and one which no statesman can fall into, however it may be with those, who from a safe and unresponsable position, criticize statesmen.

Among the many reasons why the same rules cannot be applicable to situations so different, the two following are among the most important. In the first place, the rules of ordinary international morality imply reciprocity. But barbarians will not reciprocate. They cannot be depended on for observing any rules. Their minds are not capable of so great an effort, nor their will sufficiently under the influence of distant motives. In the next place, nations which are still barbarous have not got beyond the period during which it is likely to be for their benefit that they should be conquered and held in subjection by foreigners. Independence and nationality, so essential to the due growth and development of a people further advanced in improvement, are generally impediments to theirs. The sacred duties which civilized nations owe to the independence and nationality of each other are not binding towards those to whom nationality and independence are either a certain evil, or, at best, a questionable good. The Romans were not the most clean-handed of conquerors; yet would it have been better for Gaul and Spain, Numidia and Dacia, never to have formed part of the Roman Empire?

To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject. A violation of great principles of morality it may easily be, but barbarians have no rights as a nation, except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one. The only moral laws for the relation between a civilized and a barbarous government are the universal rules of morality between man and man.

It is becoming impossible to trust any official source of information in the West and not just the media

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A follow-up from The Russians are Coming!. This is titled, Former UK Ambassador Blasts “CIA’s Blatant Lies”, Shows “A Little Simple Logic Destroys Their Claims”. The writer is Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was the Rector of the University of Dundee. Who can you trust, but certainly he seems more credible than any of the official sources who imply everything but provide evidence for nothing.

I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of “We know who it was, it was the Russians” are beneath contempt.

As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.

The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.

I had a call from a Guardian journalist this afternoon. The astonishing result was that for three hours, an article was accessible through the Guardian front page which actually included the truth among the CIA hype:

The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.

Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”

“I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.

“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.

“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”

But only three hours. While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. Presumably this totally nutty theory, that Putin is somehow now controlling the FBI, is meant to answer my obvious objection that, if the CIA know who it is, why haven’t they arrested somebody. That bit of course would be the job of the FBI, who those desperate to annul the election now wish us to believe are the KGB.

It is terrible that the prime conduit for this paranoid nonsense is a once great newspaper, the Washington Post, which far from investigating executive power, now is a sounding board for totally evidence free anonymous source briefing of utter bullshit from the executive.

In the UK, one single article sums up the total abnegation of all journalistic standards. The truly execrable Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian writes “Few credible sources doubt that Russia was behind the hacking of internal Democratic party emails, whose release by Julian Assange was timed to cause maximum pain to Hillary Clinton and pleasure for Trump.” Does he produce any evidence at all for this assertion? No, none whatsoever. What does a journalist mean by a “credible source”? Well, any journalist worth their salt in considering the credibility of a source will first consider access. Do they credibly have access to the information they claim to have?

Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.

Contrast this to the “credible sources” Freedland relies on. What access do they have to the whistleblower? Zero. They have not the faintest idea who the whistleblower is. Otherwise they would have arrested them. What reputation do they have for truthfulness? It’s the Clinton gang and the US government, for goodness sake.

In fact, the sources any serious journalist would view as “credible” give the opposite answer to the one Freedland wants. But in what passes for Freedland’s mind, “credible” is 100% synonymous with “establishment”. When he says “credible sources” he means “establishment sources”. That is the truth of the “fake news” meme. You are not to read anything unless it is officially approved by the elite and their disgusting, crawling whores of stenographers like Freedland.

The worst thing about all this is that it is aimed at promoting further conflict with Russia. This puts everyone in danger for the sake of more profits for the arms and security industries – including of course bigger budgets for the CIA. As thankfully the four year agony of Aleppo comes swiftly to a close today, the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This game kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.

We really do live in frightening times. Who can you trust? And it is madness to find that WikiLeaks are more authoritative than the actual authorities. Because even if you and I have a counter-source of information, 99% of the people we deal with do not, and don’t want it either.

The link was provided by OldOzzie with thanks.

The Russians are coming!

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In fact, according to the latest forms of Democrat hysteria, they have already been. I’m not even sure I know what the Russians have been accused of doing. Here’s a version of the story that mirrors my own scepticism: Trump on Russia meddling in US election: ‘I don’t believe it’.

US intelligence has previously linked Russia to leaks of damaging email from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign but saw it as a broad bid to undermine confidence in the US political process.

On Friday, however, the Washington Post reported that the CIA has since concluded that the aim of the cyber intrusions was to help Trump win the election.

The New York Times quoted a senior administration officials as saying there was “high confidence” that the Russians hacked both the Democratic and Republican National Committees, but leaked only documents damaging to Clinton through WikiLeaks.

There is no doubting that WikiLeaks made a difference, and it would be interesting if it turned out that the Russians thought of Hillary as the less reliable partner. There is, of course, Obama with his ‘the 1980s Are Calling, They Want Their Foreign Policy Back’ which he said after Romney had stated that Russia was the largest geopolitical threat during the debates in 2012. But more amusing was when Donald Trump Called on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton’s Missing Emails. This is from The NYT on July 27.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Since they have no sense of humour on the left, and specially no appreciation of irony, I will point out that it was meant as a joke. As the story concludes:

Mr. Trump’s apparent willingness to avoid condemning Mr. Putin’s government is a remarkable departure from United States policy and Republican Party orthodoxy, and has fueled the questions about Russian meddling in the campaign. Mr. Trump has denied that, saying at the news conference that he has never met Mr. Putin, and has no investments in Russia.

“I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now,” he said, “so that we can go and knock out ISIS together.”

I would like to have Russia friendly as well. We are no longer in the middle of the cold war, and there is this business about ISIS.

Say’s Law, monetary growth and the absence of inflation

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At about 11:15 he actually brings Say’s Law into it, and this comes almost a minute after he bags Keynesian economics (around 10:25). The problem remains how difficult it is to keep track of the real side of the economy at the same time as you are trying to keep track of the money side. There are the real goods and services which are limited and finite and the amount of purchasing power that can be expanded forever.

The question that really does require a proper answer is why has there been no major increase in the growth in consumer prices even though there have apparently been massive increases in the amount of money.

It’s partly the way money has been kept from flowing into the economy generally, it is partly because we can produce standard goods and services more cheaply, it is partly because inflation has affected various products that do not enter into the CPI such as share prices, it is partly because the economy is do dead and it is partly because labour cost growth is so low.

[Spotted by Turtle of WA in the Catallaxy comments thread.]