It's blogging lite today, I'm afraid - off to Wellington to look at earthquake damage.
Will try to post a few photos later ...
Wednesday, 23 November 2016
Tuesday, 22 November 2016
America is far from free trade. And getting further from it.
Free trade? America neither has it, explains Scott Lincicome in this guest post, nor suffers because of it.
“Trump has heaped scorn upon those Republicans who have worshiped at the alter of unfettered free trade.”
~ MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, May 22, 2016
“You know, I wouldn’t say that this free trade obsession is something that can’t get looked at in regard to making things more fair.”
~ incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, November 14, 2016
One of the most pervasive themes of the last year is the notion that America’s populist uprising, and the success of President-elect Donald Trump, has in large part been a direct response to the United States’ obsession with “unfettered” free trade. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Scarborough, quoted above, has been a big cheerleader of this argument, which has been treated on his show and elsewhere in the media as obvious truth. And now we see one of the few official members of the future Trump administration, Reince Priebus, repeating the notion, signalling to the country that America’s “great free-trade moment” might be ending. Clearly, the idea is prevalent and persuasive.
First, although the United States maintains a relatively low average import tariff of around 3 percent, it also applies high tariffs on a wide array of “politically-sensitive” (read: highly lobbied) products: i.e., 131.8% on peanuts; 35% on tuna; 20% on various dairy products; 25% on light trucks; 16% on wool sweaters, just to name a few. (Agriculture is particularly bad in this regard.) It also maintains a long list of restrictive quotas on products like sugar, cheese, canned tuna, brooms, cotton, and baby formula. And although the U.S. has 14 freer-trade agreements with 20 different countries and is a longstanding member of the World Trade Organization, many of these same “sensitive” products have been exempted from the agreements’ trade liberalisation commitments. Free trade for thee, but not for me.
Second, while America’s tariffs and other “formal” trade barriers have indeed been declining for decades, they are only a small part of the overall story. U.S. non-tariff barriers – export subsidies, discriminatory regulations, “buy local” rules, “fair trade” duties, etc. – have exploded in recent years. In fact, according to a recent analysis by Credit Suisse, when you add up all forms of trade barriers imposed between 1990 and 2013, the biggest protectionist in the world isn’t China or Mexico but none other than… the United States:
A look at U.S. “trade defence” measures (in other words, protectionist impositions like anti-dumping, countervailing duty and “safeguards” measures) is revealing in this regard. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the United States as of October 31 imposes 373 special protective duties on a wide range of products, more than 90 of which came in the last three years alone (i.e., since the chart above on U.S. protectionism was produced):
[So much for any idea that Trump’s policy is evidence-based – or that import protection guarantees prosperity – Ed.]
Other sectors supposedly crushed by the scourge of “libertarian trade policy,” such as chemicals and agricultural products, also disproportionately benefit from trade remedies protection.
If this is “free trade,” then I shudder to think of what’s coming next.
For the steel industry, at least, things are looking up: they have a true champion, former Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco, in charge of picking the next U.S. Trade Representative – a move that, you’ll be shocked to learn, has been cheered by Leo Gerard, the president of the U.S. steelworkers union. Finally, these poor, unprotected saps will get the fair shake in the global economy that they, and President-elect Trump, think they deserve.
Unfortunately, consumers everywhere, including the millions of American workers employed in steel-consuming industries, will be stuck with the bill.
Scott Lincicome is an international trade attorney with extensive experience in trade litigation before the United States Department of Commerce, the US International Trade Commission (ITC), the US Court of International Trade, the European Commission and the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body.
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Quote of the Day
"...books are a way to make your life larger."
~ Lynn Neary, from her article
‘One Way To Bridge The Political Divide: Read The Book That's Not For You’..
[Hat tip Econlib]
Can you rely on the govt in a quake?
It’s said that it’s in times of disaster that governments come immediately to the fore, with reliable news, information, warnings …
But do they?
The timeline of Kaikoura's 7.8 quake and the blundering government response gives grounds for disbelieving that comforting mantra.
The nation was spared the devastation of five years ago when 185 people were killed in the Christchurch earthquake. But some consider it was more by luck this time than by good planning.
Here's what happened, minute by minute, after the quake hit early Monday, with details on how officials intend to improve…
Officials pledging improvement do not include Gauleiter Brownlee, who has spent the time since the earthquake defending himself by tarring others.
He has much to defend – which is hard when you don’t listen.
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Who is Milo Yiannopolous?
Who is Milo Yiannopolous? And why does he matter?
If you don’t know who Milo Yiannopolous is, maybe because you don’t hang out in those fetid swamps, then don’t worry. You don’t need to.
Milo Yiannopolous is simply a highly able alt-right troll; Monica Beth has his whole guerrilla-marketing schtick nailed:
These Milo Yiannapoulos article titles are hilarious. (Sample: "Send women back to the kitchen and take away their education and birth control.")
I haven’t read them, but the collective prog freakout over them is exactly what is intended. People can't help themselves. They can't avoid in-group virtue signalling about how terrified they are that someone published an article suggesting we go back to 1950s cultural trends. Even people on the right are sharing and commenting like, "Wait, no.... we didn't realise we were voting for this." LOL.
Milo is a giant troll laughing himself to sleep every night. It works and will continue to work because the left has over-reached in a major, major way.
This may be part of a more insidious agenda than just trolling SJWs, but I actually kinda love all of this right now. So entertaining! (I refuse to link to or read these articles, though.)
Wise decision.
According to articles he has written, he is explicitly defending racism by saying, "Here's what the racist community wants." I think his agenda is actually to stoke civil unrest.
He's a smart dude. He defends bad stuff intellectually in his writing, and he knows it will cause a rise in white nationalism. Then he goes out and tells people otherwise in the stadium, that it's not what it's about, it's about defending decent people from SJWs. Have you read the stuff he's written? Fairly insidious, actually. All of it will stoke conflict between SJWs, BLM types, and others. I think the goal is to get a Trump presidency to crack down and escalate stuff..
He’s a brilliant troll who may or may not have an agenda – but his trolling certainly does aid and abet folk who do.
Don’t you. (Don’t feed the trolls.)
He’s a
Africa is getting richer, thanks to capitalism
Like everyone else, Africans want wealth – but haven’t always valued the culture and institutions that produce it. That is changing, says Marian Tupy in this guest post; small steps to be sure, but Africa is beginning to embrace the values of reason, individualism and capitalism just as parts of the west are discarding them.
Sub-Saharan Africa consists of 46 countries and covers an area of 9.4 million square miles. One out of seven people on earth live in Africa, and the continent’s share of the world’s population is bound to increase because Africa’s fertility rate remains higher than elsewhere.
If current trends continue, there will be more people in Nigeria than in the United States by 2050. What happens in Africa, therefore, is important not only to the people who live on the continent but also to the rest of us.
The Hopeful Continent
Increasing wealth has led to improvements in all key indicators of human wellbeing. In 1999, 58 percent of Africans lived on less than $1.90 per day. By 2011, 44 percent of Africans lived on that income — all while the African population rose from 650 million to 1 billion. If the current trends continue, Africa’s absolute poverty rate will fall to 24 percent by 2030.
Life expectancy rose from 54 years in 2000 to 62 years in 2015. Infant mortality declined from 80 deaths per 1,000 live births to 49 deaths over the same time period. When it comes to HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, their occurrence, detection, treatment, and survival rates have all improved. Food supply exceeds 2,500 calories per person per day (the USDA recommends consumption of 2,000 calories), and famines have disappeared outside of warzones. Primary, secondary, and tertiary school enrolments have never been higher.
The Wealth of African Nations
Some of Africa’s growth was driven by high commodity prices, but much of it, a McKinsey study found in 2010, was driven by economic reforms. To appreciate how significant these were, it is important to recall that, for much of their post-colonial history, African governments have imposed central control over their economies. Commonplace policies included inflationary monetary policies; price, wage, and exchange rate controls; marketing boards that kept the prices of agricultural products artificially low and impoverished African farmers; and state-owned enterprises and monopolies.
Africa has made similar strides in terms of microeconomic policy. As the World Bank’s Doing Business report indicates, Africa’s regulatory environment has much improved. Starting a business, for example, has become easier, with Africa’s score rising from 45 out of 100 in 2004 to 72 in 2015. Dealing with construction permits, resolving insolvencies, enforcing contracts, registering property, getting credit, access to electricity, and the ease of paying taxes have all much improved.
Governments Are Still Corrupt, Dictatorial, and Arbitrary
Unfortunately, there hasn’t yet been substantial improvement in the quality of Africa’s institutions. According to the Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2016 report, there were only six free countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa. While many countries adopted more “democratic” constitutions that include term limits, and other legislative and institutional checks on the executive branch, African rulers have found a way around those provisions in order to maintain and abuse power.
The Challenge and the Opportunity
That said, as experience in other regions shows, institutional development tends to lag behind economic reforms. In the medium to long run, growth of the African middle class might yet result in a political awakening and greater assertiveness of the African populace — and eventually the ‘democratisation’ of the continent.
The new millennium has been good to Africa, but the continent is still far from being prosperous, let alone democratic. In order for Africa’s economy to go on expanding, Africans will need to continue with their reforms — never forgetting that the world economy keeps on changing and global competition keeps on increasing. That is Africa’s challenge, as well as its opportunity.
Marian L. Tupy is the editor of HumanProgress.org and a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. His article first appeared at FEE, CapX and HumanProgress.org.
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Rose Pauson House, by Frank Lloyd Wright
One of my personal favourites designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is the delightful little desert house he designed for Rose Pauson that was sadly destroyed by fire not long after its creation.
It does make a beautiful ruin, but a tech whiz at the Hooked on the Past blog has reproduced it virtually with the aid of AutoCAD and a bit of trickery. What you see here is not reality, but his rendering:
Wonderful!
Head here to see it all, including the story of the virtual creation.
[Pics by Hooked on the Past, Wright Chat]
UPDATE: A comment at the Save Wright site describes my own response:
Is it only the "lost" status of this house that attracts me ? I don't think so. A wood and masonry vessel, romantic and strange, angular and alive, with a timeless approach and a unique means of ingress. . .it speaks to me. The separation of functions, the interior pathways, the elevation of dining above the living level, the uncanny canted lapped board construction. . .
It’s an evocative little number. Subsequent comments at the site try to understand why.
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Monday, 21 November 2016
Quiz: ‘Atlas Shrugged’ or real life?
It’s said that Ayn Rand’s villains are unrealistic, far-fetched, pure fantasy – that few if any bad guys would walk, talk or act like she writes them.
Really?
Test it out for yourself in this short quiz:
Who Said It: Atlas Shrugged Villain or Real-life Public Figure?
And then buy the book.
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Britain’s most highly-paid welfare beneficiary wants her house done up by the taxpayer
Britain’s most high-living welfare beneficiary is having her house done up – all at taxpayers’ expense, mind you! – and some of her subjects are revolted:
Yesterday it was announced that the royal residence [Buckingham Palace] is to undergo a major 10-year refurbishment.
The hefty bill will come from a 66% increase in the Sovereign Grant – the funding for the monarchy’s official duties – for the 10-year period, with the total works estimated to cost £369 million.
But thousands of people think the royals should foot the bill for Her Maj’s luxury pad.
A petition suggesting The Crown and its estates should pay for the renovations has received just shy of 15,000 backers at time of publishing. [Currently up to 114,000 of the required 200,000]
Mark Johnson, who set up the petition, said … “The Royals expect us to dig deeper to refurbish Buckingham Palace. The Crown’s wealth is inestimable. This is, in a word, outrageous.’ …
It is … forecast that the work … will reduce the palace’s carbon footprint by 40% in the future.
[Hat tip Alice Jackson]
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Trump’s tax and trade policies could hurt Australia, NZ and the world
“Trump’s tax and trade policies could hurt Australia and the world,” say Australian columnist Henry Ergas. Could hurt Australia and the world and, by necessity, us in New Zealand.
You see, if you remember, “at the heart of Trump’s programme are sweeping cuts in personal and corporate taxes….” However,
Those declines in revenues aren’t matched by expenditure cuts: on the contrary, many outlays are set to rise. In defence, Trump has supported a 350-ship navy, which, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, would add $US120 billion to projected outlays, along with expansions in the army, the air force and the marines that would cost nearly as much…
So an already stratospheric deficit made astronomic, just as interest rates themselves are beginning to climb.
The effects are predictable: as US interest rates rise relative to those elsewhere and foreign savings flow into the US to finance the budget deficit, the US dollar will strengthen, much as the Australian dollar did in the wake of former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s stimulus spending… The dollar’s further rise will only accelerate the deterioration [of American manufacturing], with a sizeable part of the fall in the current account balance likely to come from increased imports of manufactured goods.
This is hardly the first time that has happened. Rather, experience has repeatedly shown the devastating effects of large, unfunded, tax cuts on US competitiveness.
Never were those effects clearer than in the early 1980s, when the combination of a tight monetary policy associated with Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and an expansionary fiscal policy associated with president Ronald Reagan increased long-term interest rates, attracting capital inflows that drove the currency to a 40-year peak.
Equally, the tax cuts initiated by president George W. Bush were ultimately funded by foreign purchases of US government bonds, propping up the dollar and worsening American manufacturing’s decline.
As Jeff Shafer, a former undersecretary of the US Treasury for international affairs, has argued, those exchange rate effects — which are symptoms of poor domestic policy settings — have swamped other factors in distorting the American economy, shrinking the traded goods sector and shifting resources into services (and in the lead-up to the financial crisis, housing).
And as Trump’s deficit increases, the effects on the Rust-Belt voters he claims to be looking after will become progressively worse, their pain steadily greater. What then?
As that pain makes itself felt, it will be harder and harder for Trump to back away from the anti-trade rhetoric that dominated his campaign, with China — whose currency is weakening because of capital flight — squarely in the protectionists’ sights. Reagan was a committed free trader who worked hard to contain cries for protection when the trade balance soured; Trump is not.
The risks that poses for Australia [and New Zealand] are obvious. Already now, the world is hardly in great shape. With the inauguration just 60 days away, expect it to get uglier.
[Hat tip Catallaxy Files]
Mini-ramble
So these were the most popular stories posted in last Friday’s Ramble:
- CERN boffins see strange ... oh, wait, that's just New Zealand moving 2m north – THE REGISTER (UK)
- 15 Astonishing GIFs Showing How Things Really Work – A PLUS
- UK, USA… NZ? Why the Greens’ surrender to the dark side of immigration should scare us all – THE SPINOFF
- How Surgeons Stay Focused for Hours – WALL STREET JOURNAL
- What Happens After Eating Local, Sustainable, Organic Kale Juice? – QUACKWATCH
- The largest oil deposit ever found in America was just discovered in Texas – YAHOO
- Leave us alone, Gauleiter Brownlee – THOUGHTS FROM 40o SOUTH
- Brian Tamaki – Saint or Sinner? – BRIAN EDWARDS MEDIA
- Could the earthquakes reduce Kiwirail distortions? – STEPHEN FRANKS
- New Theory of Gravity Could Explain Missing Matter - No Need for Dark Matter (TWIS) – WAKELET
Opinions on music posted not given.
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Trump is “a phony, a fraud” says potential Secretary of State
This is what the person under “active consideration” for the job of US Secretary of State thought back in March of the fellow whose bidding he would do come January.
I can't say I disagree with him.
[Hat tip The Greek Analyst]
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Friday, 18 November 2016
Friday Arvo Ramble, 18.11.16
“Geonet have been busy measuring how much the ground moved in this week’s earthquakes.”
Measuring the ground movement – YOUR NZ
“I hear folk who think it’s simple; who wonder why even in a “moderate” quake Wellington’s buildings seem to be falling apart. The thing is that designing to respond properly to every earthquake means designing to respond to every possible earthquake – and there’s no way of knowing what earthquake you are going to get when even The Moderate One comes.”
Earthquake engineering is harder than you think – NOT PC
No, people, the Supermoon didn’t do it.
Earthquake myths debunked – STUFF
“So Gerry Brownlee is not happy that the new mayor of Wellington, Justin Lester, did not declare a 'red zone' in the Wellington CBD after this week's earthquakes… Brownlee's dictatorial management of the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake has more effectively destroyed that city than any damage done by the earthquake.”
Leave us alone, Gauleiter Brownlee – THOUGHTS FROM 40o SOUTH
“New Zealand's Human Rights Commission says that property rights need to be protected in the Bill of Rights. I couldn't agree more enthusiastically. Their report is about what the government did to people in Christchurch's Red Zone.”
Property Rights are Human Rights – Eric Crampton, OFFSETTING BEHAVIOUR
“The Kaikoura railway destruction has an economic silver lining. There is now a possibility of less future waste on irrational and distorting transport subsidies.”
Could the earthquakes reduce Kiwirail distortions? – STEPHEN FRANKS
Bernard Darnton: “Large Hadron Collider detects a massive particle - the South Island.”
CERN boffins see strange ... oh, wait, that's just New Zealand moving 2m north – THE REGISTER
“Of the several thousand people I have interviewed in my broadcasting career, including forgers, prostitutes and train robbers, there is no-one I have held in greater contempt than Brian Tamaki.”
Brian Tamaki – Saint or Sinner? – BRIAN EDWARDS MEDIA
God deeply frustrated Auckland’s gay people live nowhere near a fault line – THE CIVILIAN
Core business or waste of ratepayers’ hard-earned?
Calm down. The new Auckland slogan search was fine – Simon Wilson, SPINOFF
“The government passed the Vulnerable Children Act in 2014.The new legislation required every person who works with children to be police vetted … This is already causing problems hiring EEC teachers…”
Laws that run out of control – LINDSAY MITCHELL
Have the Greens opened a Pandora's Box on immigration?
UK, USA... NZ? Why the Greens' surrender to the dark side should scare us all – Thomas Couhglan, SPINOFF
“’Maori Party Co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell said Labour's Maori MPs know in their heart of hearts, because they have family members actively involved in charter schools, that the schools are achieving results upwards of 10, 20, and 30 percent of the national average, particularly those in Te Tai Tokerau.’”
The reality about charter schools – LINDSAY MITCHELL
“The issue of assisted dying isn't going away - even if certain people in Government wish it would.”
Ministers 'undemocratic' on euthanasia – STUFF
“A civilisation won't flourish in a sea of lies and
excuses for them - no matter who's making them.”
~ Phil Oliver
“There is no innate truth to the liberal elite echo chamber in which we live. It’s just a bunch of smart people saying the same thing. Some of the things are true. But a lot them just aren’t…
”There is no rule that you have to agree w/ what you read. If you can’t figure out why a person would think that 'universal healthcare' is a bad idea without attributing malicious intent to them, then you have some work to do. If you have never heard a compelling argument for why Keynesian Economics is similar in validity to rain dances, then buy a book about the Austrian school of Economics. While you may not change your mind, hopefully you’ll realize that these issues are more complicated than 'people who think those things are dumb and evil.'”
A Closeted SF Conservative – MEDIUM.COM
At least, I think it was.
'Post-truth' named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries – GUARDIAN
Why We’re Post-Fact – Peter Pomerantsev, GRANTA
Policing ‘Fake News’ Is Our Own Responsibility, Not Facebook’s – REASON
Betsy Speicher: “Once upon a time, the press reported the news. Then, when they didn't like what was happening, they ignored and refused to report the news. Now, when what they want doesn't happen, they FAKE the news.”
BUSTED: CNN Interviewed ‘Protester’ — No, Wait, It Was Cameraman – TRUTH REVOLT
Careful now.
Donald Trump appoints Lord Voldemort as Chief of Staff – NEWSTHUMP
Bullshit News – NOT PC
"The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It
poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the
people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the
laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent
that they cannot be understood: if they be repealed or revised before
they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes, that no man
who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow."
~ James Madison
“Donald Trump is a wild card. We don't know whether he was play-acting when he carried on like a juvenile lout or when he played the role of a mature adult. But he and the country could both benefit from some serious introspection on his part.”
What Now? – Thomas Sowell, TOWN HALL
“Not a rhetorical question - it's an established fact.”
Is Donald Trump already walking away from campaign promises? - CNN
“Capitalism to him is simply an engine of production that makes states and religion stronger. Producers put in yoke to drag forward the cart of (western) religion and (western) state power.
"This is what this senior strategist calls 'enlightened capitalism'.”
Who is Steve Bannon? – NOT PC
"There are two ways of letting political correctness control your mind. One is to reject viewpoints not because they are false but because they’re politically incorrect. The other is to embrace viewpoints, not because they’re true, but because they’re politically incorrect. We libertarians are seldom guilty of the first mistake. But we are often guilty of the second. Those who commit the second mistake are as much slaves of political correctness as those who commit the first."
To PC or Not to PC – Sharon Presley, LIBERTARIANISM.ORG
“American teachers union releases ‘anti-racist’ anti-Trump ‘lesson plan.’’ Tom Woods translates it from liberalism into English.
We Are Going to Teach Your Kids What to Think, and Intimidate the Dissenters – TOM WOODS
GOP and Trump put deficit on back burner – POLITICO
And they don’t mean ‘reducing the deficit’ either.
White nationalists see advocate in Steve Bannon who will hold Trump to his campaign promises – CNN
“When Whites are forced to think about race all the time by a culture that is obsessed with it, they're also forced to act and vote like a minority. Liberals and Democrats need to think harder about whether they really want to create a culture divided along lines of race and gender.”
How the Left's Racial Politics Backfired – Martin Cothran, FEE
“If Trump really wants to strike a blow against the Washington establishment, he'll pardon Edward Snowden.”
An "Anti-Establishment" Trump Would Pardon Edward Snowden - Brittany Hunter, MISES.ORG
“The left's reaction to Trump's election shows that voluntary charity can replace government funding.”
Progressives Show Why Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Need Government Funding – Tho Bishop, MISES.ORG
Sir David Attenborough sent death threats after saying ‘we could shoot’ Donald Trump – METRO (UK)
"Another leftist has won the White House. Yes, President-elect Donald Trump is a leftist. He advocates policies that violate individual rights. That’s what it means to be a leftist."
America’s Next Leftist President: Donald Trump - Craig Biddle, OBEJCTIVE STANDARD
“"Rather, I want to argue that Trump has much more in common with the demagogues of the earlier, lesser depression of the late nineteenth century...”
Populism as a Backlash against Globalisation - Historical Perspectives – Niall Ferguson, CIRSD
"Pence, like many advocates for creationism, is uninformed and uneducated as to what the term 'theory' means in a scientific context. For the record, the scientific definition of 'theory' is quite different from the everyday use of the word."
Mike Pence Wants Creationism Taught In Public Schools – PATHEOS
Horror or hyperbole?
One small step for dictatorship – Onkar Ghate, VOICES FOR REASON
“All this talk of how Donald Trump is a fascist … but what actually IS a fascist? ‘The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open’.”
What IS a Fascist? (Ayn Rand) – Michael Hurd, LIVING RESOURCES CENTER
All democracies are Marching Like The Fascists – Anoop Verma, FOR THE NEW INTELLECTUAL
First, they came for the Muslims …
Reported Trump Immigration Advisor And Potential AG Is Drafting Plan For Muslim Registry – HUFFINGTON POST
“’Our nation’s Framers got a lot right,’ wrote Dana Nelson, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt chair of English and American studies at Vanderbilt University. ‘But they got something major wrong: they assumed that the three branches of our government would remain co-equal, maintaining the Constitution’s delicate balance.’”
Now Might Be a Great Time to Work on Reigning in the Executive – Cathy Reisenwitz, FEE
“For every complex problem there is an
answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
~ H. L. Mencken
“Had our prognosticators looked up from their graphs and charts and taken into account the philosophical principles that have been known for over two millennia, they might have been a little more accurate in their predictions.”
Aristotle Called the 2016 Election – Martin Cothran, FEE
Snoopers' Charter 2.0: IP Bill passed by Parliament and will become law within weeks – THE INQUIRER
Well, that will confounds the popular narrative.
Thatcherite Group Says U.K. Should Keep Free Movement of People – BLOOMBERG
“No, the chart produced by globalisation critics does not vindicate Trump's rhetoric about free trade harming the white working class.”
Dead Wrong™ with Johan Norberg - The Elephant Graph [video] – YOU TUBE
Private property. Free speech.
Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads - BBC NEWS
“Not only does government spend too much, but new data suggests that that spending is designed to cause maximum economic damage by discouraging the productive use and allocation of labour and capital.”
How Government Spending Kills Economic Growth - Dan Mitchell, FEE
“For the election, many people worked passionately to promote the
lesser evil. How many will work now to promote something positive.
Like honest money. Or a free market in education. Or anything else?
And how many will go back to sleep … ”
~ Keith Weiner
“What to do now that Donald Trump is going to be president? Skip the five stages of grief and go straight to the five stages of NeverTrump.”
NeverTrump Is Over. So What Does It Do Next? – Robert Tracinski, THE FEDERALIST
“A lot of people are eager to ‘do something’ to advance a culture of reason and a politics of individual rights, but they aren't sure how to start. I thought it would be helpful, as a starting point, to list the possibilities…”
Calling activists .... – ARI ARMSTRONG
“What Can One Do?” [Video] – VOICES FOR REASON
“The future of the party after Donald Trump’s victory…”
Libertarians Regroup – Yaron Brook, OPINION JOURNAL, WSJ
“Given the fact that books such as Rand’s The Fountainhead, We the Living, The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal are in wide circulation in Greece, not to mention Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government (authored by Brook and ARI’s Don Watkins), awareness and understanding among this audience was much greater. The focus turned to how citizens of Greece, a country in turmoil, are beginning to rethink the prevailing values.”
A First Look into ARI’s Recent Successes in Europe – VOICES FOR REASON
“The Federal Reserve System officially began operation on this date in 1914. It went on to play a key role in producing the Great Depression, a dozen recessions, and a dollar now worth a nickel of the dollar's value in 1914.”
Toward Radical Monetary Reform – Lawrence Reed, FEE
Gimme That Old Time Religion! – James Valliant, NOT PC
“Immigration controls were just one aspect of the transition from economic freedom to socialist protectionism. It was the rise of the democratic welfare states, with all their controls and permits, that created immigration controls in the first place.”
Immigration Controls Are Socialist – Jake Desyllas, FEE
“It would be nice to think that folk will turn off as he becomes more obviously unhinged. It would be nice to *think* that ...”
Stefan Molyneux Cites and Repeats Conspiracy Theories About Jews from a David Duke Acolyte – STU-TOPIA
Adam Mossoff: “The innovation economy driven by secure & effective property rights in technology & written works…”
Meanwhile, in India.
The Nightmare of Going to The Bank – ANOOP VERMA.COM
The Bizarre Consequences of Messing With The Financial System – ANOOP VERMA.COM
Dubai has everything. It also has this. In this century.
British woman 'gang raped' in Dubai faces jail for premarital sex – INDEPENDENT (UK)
But I do hope this is true.
An Italian town has installed a 24/7 free red wine fountain – LOST AT E MINOR
“If this technology lives up to the claims of the scientists who discovered it, the implications are huge.”
Scientists make 'holy grail' breakthrough in DNA editing that could cure incurable diseases – INDEPENDENT (UK)
“This new theory, seeming to agree with observations, claims Einstein was not quite right and that dark matter might not exist. At large scales, it seems, gravity just doesn't behave the way Einstein's theory predicts.”
New Theory of Gravity Could Explain Missing Matter - No Need for Dark Matter (TWIS) – WAKELET
Anybody still remember “peak oil”?
The largest oil deposit ever found in America was just discovered in Texas – YAHOO
“While the twitterverse is chirping with concern over Donald Trump’s handling of the global warming science, we offer a few realities that should be key parts of any transitional team’s synthesis.”
Some Climate Realities for the Incoming Administration to Consider – Patrick Michaels & Chip Knappenberger, CATO
“In the early 1990s I was visiting the White House Science Advisor, Sir Prof. Dr. Robert Watson, who was pontificating on how we had successfully regulated Freon to solve the ozone depletion problem, and now the next goal was to regulate carbon dioxide, which at that time was believed to be the sole cause of global warming.
“I was a little amazed at this cart-before-the-horse approach. It really seemed to me that the policy goal was being set in stone, and now the newly-formed United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had the rather shady task of generating the science that would support the policy.
“Now, 25 years later, public concern over global warming (aka climate change) is at an all-time low remains at the bottom of the list of environmental concerns.
“Why is that?”
Global Warming: Policy Hoax versus Dodgy Science – ROY SPENCER PhD
“Machines buy us the time to think about making
better machines. It’s a virtuous circle.”
~ Alex Epstein
So that’s how a lock works!
15 Astonishing GIFs Showing How Things Really Work – A PLUS
So how do they do it? And what can we learn.
How Surgeons Stay Focused for Hours – WALL STREET JOURNAL
Now we’re talking!
You can now buy a gin advent advent calendar for Christmas – HER.IE
“You, the real expert, are overridden by the pretend experts in government who increasingly dictate the terms of your employment, the food choices you have, and the medical decisions you can make.”
Government Experts Can't Give You A Happy Life – Don Boudreaux, FEE
So it wasn’t the war wot dunnit.
After The Maltese Falcon: how film noir took flight – GUARDIAN
“Western civilisation then is underpinned not by our so-called ‘Judeo-Christian heritage’ which is mostly only barbarous, but by our Greek – more especially our Aristotelian. The greatest story of history is the 2300-year death-struggle between religion and Aristotelian reason… ‘The death struggle of reason versus anti-reason continues.’”
“So, How Come You Keep Bashing Religion?” – NOT PC
A Critique of Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason – Andrew Bernstein, OBJECTIVE STANDARD
What have the Romans ever done for us?
Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity – REASON V FAITH
“Contrary to conservatives, Ayn Rand supported the right to abortion; contrary to liberals, she opposed environmentalism; and contrary to libertarians (and others), she upheld a firm, assertive foreign policy. What unites these seemingly disparate positions? And what explains the moral fire with which she expressed her views on these issues?”
The Sacred Self: Ayn Rand On Abortion, Foreign Policy and Environmentalism [Video] – Keith Lockitch, VOICES FOR REASON
“It's all very simple. The initiation of force is always wrong. Once humankind gets this, [gets why it is wrong], we will soar to our almost unimaginable potential.”
The Nature of Government by Ayn Rand – FEE
And finally …
Hear Leonard Cohen’s Final Interview: Recorded by David Remnick of The New Yorker, while …
Long, for some, but perhaps just what this week (this year?) calls for …
… and this?
And yes, very much this:
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Some climate realities for the incoming Trump Administration to consider
Guest post by Patrick Michaels & Chip Knappenberger
While the twitterverse is chirping with concern over Donald Trump’s handling of the global warming science, we offer a few realities that should be key parts of any transitional team’s synthesis.
1. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that by itself will result in a slight warming of the lower atmosphere and surface temperatures, as well as a cooling of the stratosphere.
a. All of these have been observed.
2. Additional warming is provided by a complicated feedback with water vapour. If it were large and positive, so would be future warming.
a. The observed warming is far below values consistent with a high temperature sensitivity. Therefore future warming will run considerably below any high-sensitivity estimate.
b. The disparity between observed and forecast warming continues to grow.
3. Any attempts to mitigate significant future warming with the current suite of politically acceptable technologies are doomed to failure. The Paris Agreement, according the EPA’s own models, only prevents 0.1 to 0.2⁰C of warming by 2100.
a. The Paris Agreement is meaningless, unenforceable, and compels developed nations to tender funds to the developing world. That makes it a treaty that should be submitted to the Senate for ratification, where it will be soundly rejected.
4. Having the government mandate politically correct and inefficient technologies such as solar energy and wind inevitably squanders resources that would better be used for investments in a much more efficient future. Unfortunately, this is what President Obama’s Clean Power Plan does.
a. Voiding the Clean Power Plan will therefore ultimately lead more quickly to competitive, more efficient technologies.
5. Affluent societies have the resources for private investment in novel and efficient technologies, and inevitably are more protective of their environment than are poor ones.
a. Environmental protection is a priority in a vibrant economy. Promoting economic development is the key to a cleaner planet.
6. There is no evidence that government funding of most science is better than a more diversified base of private support. The current dependency of the academy on this funding is creating perverse incentives that are demonstrably harming science.
a. All government-funded science outside of the clandestine realm must be perfectly transparent with data, research methods and results available to any party.
We’ve recently taken a look to see how these comport with the views of Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who was recently named to head the transitional team for the new administration’s EPA. We think he agrees with this us on this synthesis—something no one ever in any previous administration has done!
Patrick Michaels is the director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute. Michaels is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was programme chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society..
Chip Knappenberger is the assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, with over 25 years of experience in climate research and public outreach, including 10 years with the Virginia State Climatology Office and 15 years as the research coordinator for New Hope Environmental Services.
This post first appeared at the CATO at Liberty blog
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Thursday, 17 November 2016
Who is Steve Bannon?
Everyone trying to read Trump’s tea leaves wants to know who will be purveying his tea, so to speak. One of the few announcements so far is his “chief strategist and senior counsellor” Steve Bannon, who was until recently Trump’s campaign strategist.
It was Bannon who took over fringe conservative news site Breitbart after its owner and namesake died, transforming it into a lurid site full of fetid conspiracy that (says conservative writer Ben Shapiro) “has become the alt-right go-to website… pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist meme-makers.”. (Sample headlines: 'Hoist it high and proud: The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage'; ‘'Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy'; ‘Trump 10% vindicated: CBS reports ‘swarm’ on rooftops celebrating 9/11’’; ‘Huma Abedin ‘Most Likely a Saudi Spy’ With ‘Deep, Inarguable Connections’ to ‘Global Terrorist Entity’; and ‘Fact Check: Were Obama and Hillary founders of ISIS? You bet.’
There’s more. This is only a taste. As someone said, if you heard some lurid, fact-free alt-right bullshit fantasy over the U.S. election campaign, chances are good it began at Breitbart.
So, this is a fellow who makes Ian Wishart look like a serous fact-checker. Neither an alt-righter nor a conspiracy theorist himself – nor yet the white nationalist that the likes of CNN claim him to be -- like his new boss however he’s clearly happy however to dangle carrots in all those directions for ends that are clearly his own.
Whatever wayward direction he takes may be revealed in one of the few lucid commentaries he’s issued in recent years, praising in a speech at the Vatican, of all places, what he calls “the 'enlightened capitalism' of the Judeo-Christian West” which appears to be simply an update of the old, stale anti-communist conservatism that has “come partly offtrack in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union.” The world was certainly delivered from the twentieth-century’s totalitarian Dark Age, he says, in a
great war [that was] really the Judeo-Christian West versus atheists, right? The underlying principle is an enlightened form of capitalism, that capitalism really gave us the wherewithal. It kind of organised and built the materials needed to support, whether it’s the Soviet Union, England, the United States, and eventually to take back continental Europe and to beat back a barbaric empire in the Far East.
“Beat back” not for the cause of reason, individualism and capitalism, but for faith and force and Judeo-Christianity. For that is the flag he is flying. Yet we have been “in a crisis” since this victory, he says, “a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism.”
And we’re at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs, but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that’s starting, that will completely eradicate everything that we’ve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.
Now, what I mean by that specifically: I think that you’re seeing three kinds of converging tendencies: One is a form of capitalism that is taken away from the underlying spiritual and moral foundations of Christianity and, really, Judeo-Christian belief.
He says that what capitalism looks like to him is explicitly not the capitalism promoted by Ayn Rand – which he feels “is almost…disturbing.” And no wonder it disturbs him because, as he makes clear enough, capitalism to him is emphatically not Rand’s “social system based on the recognition of individual rights” (her words); to him it is simply an engine of production that makes states and religion stronger. Producers put in yoke to drag forward the cart of (western) religion and (western) state power.
This is what this senior strategist calls “enlightened capitalism.”
To his partial credit, he does exclude cronyism from his vision, (“a brutal form of capitalism [sic] that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people”) for which we may at least be thankful. The suspicion here however must be that he not so much opposed to the cronyism, but to the siphoning away of the state’s power for other non-statist/religious ends.
What he delivers in his very careful speech then is a picture of a world he favours, in which “strong countries and strong nationalist movements” should not just be tolerated but encouraged. Add to this strong religion – because “secularism,” he says, “has sapped the strength of the Judeo-Christian West to defend its ideal, right?”
Where to begin!
Nowhere in this picture is there a place for Rand’s reason and individualism. Nor for the global trade that previous generations understood was a real generator of peace and goodwill. Instead, and against all the lessons of history up to now, he argues that this recipe makes not for war, but for “strong neighbours” – that this build-up of autarchic blocs “is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States, and I think it’s what can see us forward.”
This is the man from whom – at his faux news site – many Trump supporters already take their daily reading, and who will shortly be Donald Trump’s most senior strategist.
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So why are they protesting a US ship?
If you’re wondering about the point of the protests in Auckland at the presence of a US nuclear warship, and an accompanying “defence industry expo,” then you are not alone. “Pablo” at Kiwipolitico is sympathetic to their cause, but just as bemused: “What is the point of the protests?” he wonders.
There seems to be several different elements in the protests. There are pacifists who are against the presence of warships of any sort as well as those who profit from the misery of war. There are those who are against the so-called “death merchants” but who do not necessarily object to naval forces (perhaps seeing them as a necessary evil). There are those who are anti-nuclear. There are those who are anti-imperialist. There are those who support indigenous sovereignty. There are those who are anti-American. There is some overlap between these factions but the core appears to be focused on two things: the defence industry Forum and the presence of the USS Sampson as symbolic of conjoined war-mongering evils.
He points out that the overwhelming number of expo participants are not Bob Dylans “masters of war,” but “logistics and support providers who often also have civilian branches to their businesses … At worst, one might consider them “enablers” rather than direct purveyors of instruments of death. Be that as it may, it is easy understand why pacifists are opposed to the Forum.”
Yet as David Farrar notes at Kiwiblog: “I find it interesting that peace protesters invariably have violent protests.”
The protesting against the US warship is less complex. There are “other nuclear powers represented at the celebration,” including “China and India (and France and UK in lesser capacity), as well as a host of regional navies including Australia, Indonesia, Japan and several Pacific Island states. Ships from Singapore, South Korea and Canada will also participate.”
Yet as he points out, the anti-nuclear protestors
seem to have given a pass to the Chinese and Indians [and others] while focusing on the US boat. The same is true of the anti-imperialist crowd, who also are concentrating their attentions of the USS Sampson but seem unconcerned about the neo-imperialist ventures of other countries represented… So that basically means that much of the protesters are anti-American more than anything else.
Any reason to be anti-American, and these folk will grab it. And yet they do have every selfish reason not to be:
That stance has been made a bit harder to justify now that the USS Sampson has been diverted to do earthquake relief duties in Kaikoura. After all, it is hard not to look silly when the focus of your protests is on a ship that is involved in humanitarian relief operations on your home soil and yet you ignore the authoritarian and often repressive histories of other countries represented in the visiting fleet. This is particularly true if the crowds at the naval expo, watching the fleet review and waiting to board the ships on open house day are larger than the number of demonstrators. Clearly they are not getting the message the protestors want to impart on them.
So could it be possible then, helped perhaps by the very visible support being tendered by a US ship, that thirty years after ANZUS was ripped up and nuclear ships banned from entering New Zealand waters, that New Zealanders in general are finally becoming more adult about the American defence umbrella that helps protect us down here in the Pacific (because Galt knows our own navy and air force are barely capable)?
The irony, however, is that as we finally become more adult about that whole relationship, the President-elect has been talking about withdrawing from it.
Nice timing.
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Wednesday, 16 November 2016
Bullshit News [updated]
You may have heard that Google is refusing advertising on what it calls “fake news sites.”
The shifts comes as Google, Facebook and Twitter Inc face a backlash over the role they played in the U.S. presidential election by allowing the spread of false and often malicious information that might have swayed voters toward Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Great news. Though just as many voters would have been swayed towards his opponent by broadcasts from the likes of the Clinton News Network (CNN) and the New York Times, which has all-but admitted it publishes advocacy instead of news and, according to one former senior staffer, makes up its news-slant a whole year in advance.
Given the behaviour of the mainstream media in this election season, one has to question whether many of these folks can be seriously considered journalists any longer. Gone was even the pretence of unbiased, fair and accurate reporting. MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, the Associated Press and others all pushed a positive slant in their coverage of Hillary Clinton. There was scant coverage of her email problems, Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, and her seemingly endless prevarication.
As Wikileaks revealed in the slow rollout of John Podesta emails, there was even collusion with the Clinton campaign and several media outlets such as Politico and CNN. These were ethical breeches of the first degree. The people involved should be barred from the business, but none were fired or even disciplined for their transgressions.
Add this together with both candidates’ multiple lies this election season, oft-backed up by reporters willing to lie for them (Hannity here being a prime example, but hardly alone in that) lies that would have outstripped the ability of any honest fact-checker to sort out (rather than issuing Pinocchios, it would have been far easier simply to signal the few times when candidates told the truth), and you have all the ingredients for everyone being grievously misinformed by both mainstream media (who long ago straying from the ethic of “Just the facts, ma’am”) and minor mavens posting anonymously from Macedonia.
So what can one do in this era of post-truth politics? Decent intellectual hygiene demand that one handle all news from whatever source with tongs. That we remember those sources who who at least state their bias and simply select their facts, rather than manufacture them – and read widely among these sources to find all the facts, if you can (like news of the buses that have apparently transported many of this week’s spontaneous anti-Trump protestors). That we remember those for whom facts are too often too slippery; and avoid altogether those whose modus operandi is putting out outright sludge. That we check sites like Snopes if something does appear too good to be true (but remember all such sites have their own political bias).
I doubt I’ll agree with everyone on Google’s ban list, but this at least appears a good start – for some time here I’ve been avoiding posting their memes myself. I suggest you do too:
Add to that MSM sources like RT and CNN, and you have a very good start (and a guide to what will not be linked here, even in your comments.
PS: Just to respond to an obvious question: No, this is not censorship – and anyone who claims it is knows nothing about what censorship is:
“Censorship” is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one’s own antagonists.
Nor to sanction the peddling of falsehood as fact.
UPDATE: Useful thoughts on the proposal from a Facebook friend:
Big internet companies trying to do your fact-checking for you creeps me out but I think there are ways that it could be done without getting Orwellian.
In terms of "fake news" (a phrase I hate almost as much as "crony capitalism"), here's what I recommend the big internet companies such as Facebook do:
If an algorithm determines that a post is fake, put some kind of word or icon next to the link to indicate that. Clicking that icon then provides you with information for *why* the algorithm determined it was likely fake (such as links to or excerpts from snopes, FactCheck, Wikipedia etc). Given that [IBM’s] Watson can answer Jeopardy questions and provide the reasons why it gave the answer it does, I assume this kind of thing must be possible.
Facebook users can then determine for themselves whether they agree with the assessment of the algorithm. If they decide that the algorithm usually gets it right, then that build trust. If they decide they don't agree with it, then they are no worse off than they were before.
This feature could even be opt-in. Users could be encouraged to "try our new fact-checking algorithm."
Perhaps you could even have your own custom weighting of which sources you consider most reliable. So, users could say "I trust FactCheck.org 0.9 but snopes only 0.4" or something. That would probably require a lot more computation because then everyone's getting custom results, but might not be so bad if most people use the default settings.
I suppose this doesn't really solve the "trending topics" problem, but I think it would be a good step in the right direction.
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