Moscow casts wide net in Mediterranean

Interests are permanent and all else is ephemeral and negotiable

By M K Bhadrakumar 
There was a bygone era that ended a little over four years ago when it used to be said that the Kremlin used energy as a "geopolitical tool". The threat perception propagated by cold warriors in the United States principally aimed at cautioning Europe against its rising energy dependency on Russian supplies.
Moscow was credited with the capacity to influence Western European policies with a hidden agenda to sabotage the trans-Atlantic partnership. 
Meanwhile, unnoticed or unspoken, the geopolitics of energy has been transforming. The president in the White House, Barack Obama, has not wasted his breath over the Caspian energy content below rivalries. He has no special romance with Big Oil, unlike his predecessor in the Oval Office.
Ambassador Richard Morningstar, the United States special envoy on the Caspian, has quietly left the center stage and the "market" is slowly taking over. If Europe's energy business with Russia holds uncertain prospects today, it is more due to economic reasons than a messianic drive to diversify its sources of imports. 
The Bill Clinton era in the geopolitics of Caspian energy, which ran through the George W Bush presidency, imbued with a great sense of rivalry over Russia's status as an energy powerhouse, is giving way. That is one of the messages to be pulled out from the announcement on Tuesday in Moscow that a subsidiary of the Russian energy giant Gazprom has signed a 20-year deal with Levant LNG Marketing Corp. for Israel's Tamar offshore gas field in the Mediterranean. 
Russia looks east 
Without doubt, the Tamar deal rewrites the ABC of the geopolitics of energy security. But, first of all, what are the facts on the ground? 
Tamar is one of two large offshore gas fields in Israel off the coast of the port city of Haifa - the other one being Leviathan. The Tamar gas field reserves are estimated at around 270 billion cubic meters (while the potential of the Leviathan is estimated at around 450 bcm.) 
The Tamar floating LNG project (FLNG), which is expected to be commissioned in 2017, is one of the first of its kind anywhere in the world and would liquefy gas from Israel's Tamar and smaller Dalit fields at a floating liquefaction vessel at rate of 3 million tons per annum, which equated to 84 bcm of gas over the 20-year period of Gazprom's deal, roughly 30% of Tamar's estimated reserves. 
The deal envisages that Gazprom will provide financial support to develop the FLNG project by way of an equity investment or financing, which is expected to be significant. 

It's Only a Joke. Seriously.

Government-by-fake-disaster-movie

By mark steyn

A few weeks ago, Ann Coulter announced that she was bored of American politics and spending her days watching Turner Classic Movies. I confess that, when it comes to Beltway melodrama, I, too, am fighting vainly the old ennui, and minded to plump up the pillows and settle back with a bucket of bonbons and a beribboned Shih-tzu for an all-night Norma Shearer marathon. At least, unlike Washington, there's a chance you may catch something you haven't already seen a hundred times before. For example, I've a yen to see "Roberta" (RKO, 1935), in which Irene Dunne sings:

"Yesterdays

Yesterdays

Days I knew as happy sweet sequester'd days..."

I believe that was the last known use of this blameless and mellifluous word until it was conscripted by the political class for this month's dreary Mayan Apocalypse of the Month thrill ride. Say what you like about those Mayan guys, but they only schedule an apocalypse once every 5,126 years. Only Washington would try to pull it off every six weeks. If I understand correctly, by the time you read this, the planes will be dropping from the skies; the drip-feeds in every emergency room will be dry; every creature on the endangered species list will have broken free from our pristine federally manned national parks to be left for roadkill in the potholed asphalt of America's crumbling interstates; you'll turn on your bathroom faucet only to find the town reservoir choked with fecal coliform; the ebola virus will be rampant across Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire and other swing states, where it will nevertheless enjoy higher approval ratings than Marco Rubio and every other prospective GOP nominee. The sequester supposedly cuts $44 billion from the federal budget – or from the rate of growth of the federal budget. Whatever. $44 billion is about what the United States government borrows every nine days, so it's not a lot. But it's apparently responsible for everything that matters in American life.

That being so, maybe it would be easier to reinstate this critical $44 billion and cut the other $3.8 trillion, which is apparently responsible for nothing other than Harry Reid's beloved federally funded cowboy poetry festival and the cost of the dress uniforms for the military detachment accompanying the First Lady at her Oscars appearance. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, warned of "over 170 million jobs that could be lost" thanks to the sequester.

The biggest growth opportunity in the history of capitalism’

Consumption in emerging markets to swell to US$30-trillion by 2025

By Lisa Mahapatra

According to a new report from McKinsey & Company, the miracle growth story of the emerging markets is far from over.

By 2025, consumers in emerging markets will spend US$30-trillion annually, which will be “the biggest growth opportunity in the history of capitalism,” according to the report.

For centuries, the percentage of people in the world with discretionary income (consumers) was dramatically smaller than the percentage of people who had just about enough for necessities or less.

But since the industrial revolution, the percentage of consumers has been rising.  And some of the biggest growth will happen between now and 2025 thanks to the emerging markets.

This chart that shows how much the consumer class will grow in developed and emerging markets:

The New Fascism

Top U.S. Scientists Call for Draconian UN Social Engineering

by  Alex Newman

A controversial peer-reviewed paper set to be published next month, authored by a dozen prominent scientists and other experts, is coming under heavy criticism, primarily for calling on policymakers to adopt draconian measures to change social norms and values through coercion — essentially mass social engineering under the guise of environmentalism, whether the public wants it or not. The dubious plan outlined by the academics, however, is already being blasted by analysts as a scheme to erect an “eco-dictatorship under United Nations rule.”    

Indeed, a draft version of the paper, scheduled to be published in the March 2013 edition of the American Institute of Biological Sciences’ journal BioScience, openly calls for defying public opinion and restructuring society under the guidance of UN “teams.” Entitled “Social Norms and Global Environmental Challenges: The Complex Interaction of Behaviors, Values, and Policy,” the controversial document is uncharacteristically honest in outlining its wild recommendations to transform human civilization.  

“Substantial numbers of people will have to alter their existing behaviors to address this new class of global environmental problems,” claim the authors, who include Nobel Prize winners and even the infamous but largely discredited biologist and “population bomb” alarmist Paul Ehrlich (shown above). “Alternative approaches are needed when education and persuasion alone are insufficient.”

In simpler terms, the self-styled arbiters of proper environmental stewardship and human values are seeking to use the force of government — without the consent of the governed, if need be — to radically change people’s thoughts and behavior. If taxpayer-funded propaganda and brainwashing fail to convince enough of the public to submit, coercion in the form of new rules, regulations, fines, and other policies will be needed, the authors claim. 

“Policy instruments such as penalties, regulations, and incentives may therefore be required to achieve significant behavior modification,” the paper claims matter-of-factly. In a table included within the document, some potential examples of the envisioned “policy instruments” are outlined, starting from taxpayer-funded propaganda — “active norms management: advertising, information, appeals,” as the authors put it — and moving on through taxes, fines, subsidies, and other “financial interventions.”

Finally, at the bottom of the table: laws and regulations demanding obedience at the barrel of a government gun. “Effective policies, then, are ones that induce both short-term changes in behavior and longer-term changes in social norms,” the paper continues, offering some examples of successful and failed efforts to transform human behavior and values using the coercive force of government. “Government is uniquely obligated to locate the common good and formulate its policies accordingly.”

Much of the document is devoted to strategies on changing people’s behavior to suit the pseudo-environmentalist goals of its authors. While it acknowledges that coercion can sometime backfire — noting that forces within the non-coercive sector would also have to participate in the effort if it is to succeed — the brute force of the state is viewed as a key tool in achieving the radical social changes envisioned.

“Governments can alter people’s behaviors by changing the conditions (often called choice architecture) influencing those behaviors,” the paper explains, again citing an array of examples and studies about how to alter the way people think and behave, oftentimes subtly. “Governments can also change the architecture governing behaviors by making them more visible.” 

The price is too high

The Luddites Among Us

by Gary North 

Certain economic ideas that are both logically wrong and unsupported by historical facts, and which have been known to be wrong for 250 years, are still widely held. This annoys economists.

There is something that seems inherent in men’s approach to thinking about their own wealth that persuades them that what they have seen, over and over, in nation after nation, either did not happen, or, if it clearly did happen, will not continue.

One of these ideas is that sales taxes on imported goods increase the wealth of most people in society. This is the doctrine that tariffs and quotas imposed by the government somehow make people richer. This error was refuted definitively by one of the greatest philosophers of all time, David Hume, in 1752. About 25 years later, it was refuted in detail by Adam Smith, David Hume’s friend, in his classic book, The Wealth of Nations. Nevertheless, despite almost universal agreement among economists, and despite repeated political successes in lowering tariffs and quotas, which have led to increasing prosperity everywhere, there is still a hard core of anti-economics thinking that says that the federal government — but never state and local governments — needs to increase sales taxes on imported goods, or else we will all be made poor.

I have written many times about this over the last 45 years, and I intend to write a lot more, but I have no illusion that the anti-economists among us will never figure out that national sales taxes on imports do not make us richer. Some people simply do not have the intellectual capability of following a line of economic reasoning. This includes people who believe that sales taxes on imported goods make most people wealthier.

THE LUDDITE MENTALITY

There is another error, comparable to the error of the pro-sales tax non-economists, which is also widely held. This is the belief that machinery makes workers poorer. It is usually described as the Luddite philosophy. A man named Ned Ludd (or Lud) supposedly broke knitting machines in a fit of rage in 1779. In 1811, an article on Ludd was published in a newspaper. When people then began destroying machinery, they were called Luddites.

Three Stooges and a Clown

Italy on Financial Brink as “Former” Communist Tries to Lead

by  William F. Jasper

While much of world attention has focused, understandably, on Pope Benedict XVI’s February 11 resignation announcement, another resignation and election in Italy are at the center of global financial concerns. When Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti (shown) resigned in December 2012, he set in motion the process for general elections, which took place February 24-25. The results of the election have been indecisive, to say the least, with no party gaining a majority in the parliament, and no candidate for prime minister commanding a clear mandate. Pier Luigi Bersani, the ex-Communist Party leader who now heads the Democratic Party, scored a narrow victory in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament, but was unable to come up with a majority in the upper house, the Senate. Bersani is now scrambling to fashion a workable coalition with opponents. Unless and until he does that, Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy and the world’s eighth largest economy, is faced with a “hung parliament,” without a prime minister and without a government. 

Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist known as "Dr. Doom," said the election results “make Italy ungovernable. It is political, economic and financial chaos.” He is not alone in that assessment; many predict that Bersani will be unable to pull together a workable coalition and that Italian voters will have to go back to the polls again within six months.Bersani’s Democratic Party/Italy Common Good leftist coalition took 29.5 percent of the national vote. The People of Freedom coalition led by billionaire media mogul and three-time prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, claimed 29.1 percent of the vote. The wild card that upset all expectations is the populist, anti-establishment Five Star Movement, a recent phenomenon launched by comedian Beppe Grillo, who struck a chord with millions of Italian voters by attacking and exposing the corruption in both the Berlusconi and Monti governments. Grillo’s Five Star Movement took 25.5 percent of the vote. Mario Monti’s outgoing Civic Choice coalition won the support of only 10.5 percent of voters.

Grillo has said his party would not back a confidence vote on a new government formed by any of the mainstream parties. He has called for new elections, which he may expect would bring even more voters to his banner. Having already exceeded the expectations of most analysts, and with disgust among Italian voters for the corruption and scandals of the current parties, it’s likely that Grillo’s vote tallies would swell in a rematch. 

Kremlin’s Hand in Italy’s Politics

What has gone virtually unmentioned in coverage and analysis of the Italian elections is the win-win-win situation for Putin with the Bersani/Berlusconi/Monti lineup; the only unknown in this respect is Grillo. 

Pier Luigi Bersani’s past history as a Communist Party leader has been passed off by media pundits as nothing to be concerned about, which is a strange nonchalance considering the extensive information concerning critical infiltration of the Italian government by the Soviet KGB/Russian FSB over many decades, as exposed by the Mitrokhin Commission, KGB/FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko, and others. The Kremlin strategists targeted Italy as a top priority not only because of its economic prominence and its key roles in the EU and NATO, but also, of course, because it is home to the Vatican and the Holy See. As the headquarters of the worldwide, billion-plus-member Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican has long been a top target of KGB intrigue (see here, here, and here). 

Sinking deeper into the abyss of fear, division and red ink

Obama’s False Alarms

by Andrew P. Napolitano

In an effort to remove the hot-potato issue of excessive government spending from the 2012 presidential campaign, and calling the bluff of congressional Republicans who always seem to favor domestic spending cuts but increased military spending, President Obama suggested the concept of "sequester" in late 2011.

His idea was to reduce the rate of increased spending by 2 percent across the board – on domestic and military spending. To his surprise, the Republicans went along with this. They did so either because they lacked the political fortitude and the political will to designate specifically the unconstitutional and pork barrel federal spending projects to be cut, or because they thought that with the debt of the federal government then approaching $15 trillion (it is now $16.6 trillion and growing), any reductions in spending money the government doesn’t have are preferred to no reductions. So, instead of enacting a budget, and instead of recognizing that much of its spending is simply not authorized by the Constitution, Congress enacted the so-called sequester legislation, and the president signed it into law.

The reductions the sequesters require are reductions in the rate of increased spending from those originally planned by Obama and authorized by Congress. Since the federal government has not had a budget in four years, even though federal law requires it to have one every year, these are planned expenditures, not budgetary items, on which the president wants to spend more money. Congress does not feel bound to obey the laws it has written; hence it has disregarded the legal requirement of a budget. Without a budget, the president has great leeway as to how to allocate funds within each department of the executive branch of the federal government.

Nevertheless, even if these sequesters do kick in, the feds will spend more in 2013 than they spent in 2012. That’s because the sequesters are not cuts to spending; rather, they are reductions in planned increases in spending. The reductions amount to about two cents for every planned dollar of increased spending for every federal department.

The question remains: What part of each federal department (Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture, etc.) will suffer these reduced increases? Here is where this sequester experiment gets dicey.

The president – who once championed the idea of sequesters and even threatened to veto any congressional effort to dismantle them – now has decided he can’t live without that additional 2 percent to spend. So, he has gone about the country trying to scare the daylights out of people: Prisoners will be released from federal prisons, soldiers won’t have enough bullets in their weapons, we will need to endure five-hour waiting lines at the airports, Social Security checks will be late, and similar nonsense.

If the fears Obama predicts do come to pass, we will have only him to blame. Remember, the sequesters only cut planned increases in spending. Suppose the president planned to hire 100 more soldiers for the Army and agents for the TSA and air traffic controllers for the FAA. Is the president required to hire only 98 of them? Well, under the law, he has a choice. He can hire all 100 and cut back elsewhere, or he can make do on 98 percent of what he has determined are the government’s additional needs. But he cannot just intentionally release prisoners or weaken the military or inflict maddening delays on the flying public in order to make his fearful warnings come to pass.

His job is to uphold the Constitution, to make the executive branch of the federal government work. The president has taken an oath to "faithfully execute" his office. The words of the oath are prescribed in the Constitution. The word "faithfully" requires him to enforce the laws whether or not he agrees with them. It also requires him to enforce the laws in such a manner that they make sense – so that the federal government basically performs the services we have grown to expect of it.

I know, we have grown to expect more of the federal government than the Founders dreamed, and far more than we can possibly pay for, and infinitely more than the Constitution authorizes. But that’s the good thing about these sequesters: They will force the president to prioritize.

If he prioritizes so that we stay free and safe, so that the government does what we basically have paid it to do, he’ll be doing his job and saving us a tiny bit of cash. But if the president enforces the laws so that they hurt rather than work well just so he can say "I told you so" rather than "I’ll work with you," then he will be inviting his own political misery or even his own impeachment. And we will have sunk deeper into the abyss of fear, division and red ink that already engulfs us

Shepherds and Sheep

Cass Sunstein needs to reread John Stuart Mill

By Thomas Sowell 

John Stuart Mill’s classic essay “On Liberty” gives reasons why some people should not be taking over other people’s decisions about their own lives. But Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard has given reasons to the contrary. He cites research showing “that people make a lot of mistakes, and that those mistakes can prove extremely damaging.”

Professor Sunstein is undoubtedly correct that “people make a lot of mistakes.” Most of us can look back over our own lives and see many mistakes, including some that were very damaging.

What Cass Sunstein does not tell us is what sort of creatures, other than people, are going to override our mistaken decisions for us. That is the key flaw in the theory and agenda of the left.

Implicit in the wide range of efforts on the left to get government to take over more of our decisions for us is the assumption that there is some superior class of people who are either wiser or nobler than the rest of us.

Yes, we all make mistakes. But do governments not make bigger and more catastrophic mistakes?

Think about the First World War, from which nations on both sides ended up worse off than before, after an unprecedented carnage that killed substantial fractions of whole younger generations and left millions starving amid the rubble of war.

Think about the Holocaust, and about other government slaughters of even more millions of innocent men, women and children under Communist governments in the Soviet Union and China.

Even in the United States, government policies in the 1930s led to crops being plowed under, thousands of little pigs being slaughtered and buried, and milk being poured down sewers, at a time when many Americans were suffering from hunger and diseases caused by malnutrition.

The Great Depression of the 1930s, in which millions of people were plunged into poverty in even the most prosperous nations, was needlessly prolonged by government policies now recognized in retrospect as foolish and irresponsible.

The Egyptian Army Is Making a Comeback

Egypt heading fast towards Civil War

By Zvi Mazel

Never has Egypt been so close to civil war and today it seems that only the army can prevent the worst from happening.

The Muslim Brothers and the opposition are both doing their utmost to bring the army to their side, with little success so far: Field Marshal Abd el-Fattah El-Sisi, the defense minister, never loses an opportunity to state that the army is taking no part in the political struggle and devotes its energy to protecting the country - while adding that it will not let it plunge into chaos. The opposition, in contrast, feels that only the army can bring back order - the way they want. During last Friday's demonstrations people called on the army to "Get out of the barracks and make President Mohamed Morsi resign and call for new presidential elections."

That state of affairs leaves the Brotherhood and Morsi with mixed feelings. In the course of the past few weeks they have became painfully aware of the fact that the army will not protect the regime should it lose its legitimacy and try to resort to force to stay in power. Last week the rumor that Morsi intended to fire the defense minister spread like wildfire, prompting an "unnamed military source" to warn that it would be "political suicide" for the president since the army - soldiers and officers alike - are angry with the regime. One of the president's representatives hastened to placate army commanders and the army in turn distanced itself from the "unnamed source."

Three days later Morsi declared that he had full confidence in the army and "the deepest appreciation" for the defense minister; the declaration was duly published in the media next to a photo of El- Sisi sitting opposite Morsi in the president's office. The rumor may have been a trial balloon launched by the Brothers who wanted to gauge what kind of reaction could be expected to such a radical move. However the incident can also be seen as part of a wider series of clashes between the army and the Brotherhood.

Morsi first became aware of the problem last November during the violent demonstrations led by the opposition to protest the new Islamic constitution and the presidential declaration granting the president legislative power and full immunity for his decisions.

The army issued a call for dialogue between "both sides" while stressing "the legitimacy of the people."

Can the President Kill with Drones in the USA?

Rand Paul’s Third Letter to the CIA

by Michael Krieger

This letter is a few days old, but is very important for every American to be aware of. Essentially, Rand Paul is threatening to filibuster Barack Obama’s nominee for the CIA, John Brennan, due to his refusal to answer a simple question:

Do you believe that the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial?

This should not be a complicated question to answer, yet it seems Obama, Brennan and pretty much every other little power consumed bureaucrat is incapable of doing so.  Below is Rand Paul’s letter reprinted in full (my emphasis added).

February 20, 2013

John O. BrennanAssistant to the President for Homeland Security and CounterterrorismThe White House1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NWWashington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. Brennan,In consideration of your nomination to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), I have repeatedly requested that you provide answers to several questions clarifying your role in the approval of lethal force against terrorism suspects, particularly those who are U.S. citizens. Your past actions in this regard, as well as your view of the limitations to which you are subject, are of critical importance in assessing your qualifications to lead the CIA. If it is not clear that you will honor the limits placed upon the Executive Branch by the Constitution, then the Senate should not confirm you to lead the CIA.

During your confirmation process in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), committee members have quite appropriately made requests similar to questions I raised in my previous letter to you-that you expound on your views on the limits of executive power in using lethal force against U.S. citizens, especially when operating on U.S. soil. In fact, the Chairman of the SSCI, Sen. Feinstein, specifically asked you in post-hearing questions for the record whether the Administration could carry out drone strikes inside the United States. In your response, you emphasized that the Administration “has not carried out” such strikes and “has no intention of doing so.” I do not find this response sufficient.

The question that I and many others have asked is not whether the Administration has or intends to carry out drone strikes inside the United States, but whether it believes it has the authority to do so. This is an important distinction that should not be ignored.

Just last week, President Obama also avoided this question when posed to him directly. Instead of addressing the question of whether the Administration could kill a U.S. citizen on American soil, he used a similar line that “there has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil.” The evasive replies to this valid question from the Administration have only confused the issue further without getting us any closer to an actual answer.For that reason, I once again request you answer the following question: Do you believe that the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial?I believe the only acceptable answer to this is no.

Until you directly and clearly answer, I plan to use every procedural option at my disposal to delay your confirmation and bring added scrutiny to this issue and the Administration’s policies on the use of lethal force. The American people are rightfully concerned, and they deserve a frank and open discussion on these policies.

Sincerely,Rand Paul, M.D.United States Senator

Europe’s Battle over Symbols

Multiculturalism has created separate societies within the same territory

by Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt

Last summer, the director of Norway’s Trondheim Museum of Art, Pontus Kyander, decided that the museum should no longer fly the Norwegian flag. He argued that a nation’s flag is no longer a collective symbol that unites all citizens. On the contrary, it was divisive—rallying only ethnic Norwegians and Christians, while excluding the country’s newer inhabitants, who often profess a different faith. Kyander suggested that other symbols must be found, which could unite people across religions, ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities.

What if Kyander is right that no common cultural glue exists, not only in Norway, but also in other European countries—and they eventually break up into separate nations, no longer defined by territory, but by religious and moral values? In such split societies, the original populations would live with their customs and norms, separated from others—usually Muslim immigrants—who inhabit a world of their own. What symbol could incarnate the values that keep such distinct communities together? And what kind of community, if any, is left in a multiculturalist society that no longer shares culture, religion, nationality, or language?

The battle over symbols in Europe has intensified in recent years. Ethnically distinct groups increasingly make demands that they be able to practice their own customs and receive special dispensations for particular religious practices. Muslim organizations in Norway have gone so far as to demand special police uniforms for female officers; special opening hours for public swimming pools dedicated exclusively to Muslim women; special hours in fitness centers; special bathing curtains for Muslim boys to protect them from being exposed to other children; special diets in schools; special prayer rooms in airports; and interpretation facilities in all public institutions for those who don’t speak the nation’s official language. These demands are on the agenda in many European countries. Building on this self-inflicted separation from majority society, Muslims seek, through family arrangements, the introduction of spouses from their home countries. In this way, they establish a de facto separate nation within the new homeland. The effort leads to massive social problems, including unemployment and segregation in schools and other institutions—and it has prompted official pushback.

To much fanfare, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy prohibited the wearing of burqas in France in 2010. A ban on the use of religious symbols in schools and other public institutions was already introduced in 2004 under President Chirac. A year earlier, after a referendum, Switzerland introduced a prohibition against the construction of minarets. Many liberal Swiss citizens voted for the prohibition as a protest against what they saw as the Muslim minority’s illiberal practices. They sought to force a debate about taboo subjects—specifically, about what religious beliefs should receive special privileges in their democracy. But more generally, fearful of being called “Islamophobic,” European media shy away from discussing these issues, especially the bigotry of some Muslim norms—violent animosity against homosexuals, for instance, or the prohibition for Muslim youth to outmarry from their community.

Whether or not he realizes it, Pontus Kyander is opening up a new discussion about multiculturalism—the most radical attempt ever made to let people live in separate worlds within the same political territory. When an outside cultural group, like Muslims, seeks official sanction for its segregation from the mainstream, the clumsy counterreaction often advocates repression of Islamic cultural symbols. Pontus Kyander’s flag ban represents a strike against the counterstrikes. Political correctness makes honest discussion impossible, and thus both sides resort to censorship. One side bans minarets, the other prohibits the national flag, while neither dares address the real problem: whether Islamic dogmatism is compatible with human rights and democracy. And so Europe’s battle over symbols continues.

From War to Welfare

How taxes and entitlements begin with militarism

By IVAN ELAND

Conservatives should be leery of jumping into wars not only because American power may become overextended—especially in a time of fiscal crisis—but because war makes government expand rapidly at home, even in areas outside of national security. Although conservatives routinely criticize Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal for ushering in the era of big government, the deeper origins of the American welfare state lie in the warfare state.

During wars—especially big conflicts that require mobilization of the entire society to fight them—interest groups see the government doing things it didn’t do, or wasn’t allowed to do, previously. After the conflict, newly empowered bureaucrats and constituency groups benefiting from wartime expansion lobby to keep at least some of the new measures in place. The creation of the Food Administration during World War I, for example, ultimately led to the expectation in the farm sector that government regulation could prop up farmers’ incomes.

Even more fundamental, however, is the impact that war has on a government’s ability to finance its expansion at home. The potential for tax revenues determines how big government can grow and the number and size of programs that can be supported. (Even deficit financing is based on confidence in the government’s ability to raise funds through taxes.) And war is the force that has most often led to new and greater sources of nourishment for Leviathan. According W. Elliot Brownlee, author of Federal Taxation in America: A Short History, “moments of sweeping change in tax regimes have come invariably during the nation’s great emergencies—the constitutional crisis of the 1780s, the three major wars [the Civil War, World War I, and World War II], and the Great Depression.”

A case in point is the income tax, one of the most intrusive and economically irrational taxes a government can impose. One commissioner of Internal Revenue went so far as to say in 1871 that the income tax was “the one of all others most obnoxious to the genius of our people, being inquisitorial in its nature, and dragging into public view an exposition of the most private pecuniary affairs of the citizen.” Unlike sales or excise taxes, which inhibit consumption, the income tax penalizes economically productive work and the just rewards for it—thereby dragging down prosperity.

The federal income tax originated during the emergency of the Civil War, the nation’s first modern conflict. During that episode, spending by the federal government increased from less than 2 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP) to an average 15 percent of GNP. The Republican leadership admired how the British Liberals had used income taxes to finance the Crimean War instead of imposing higher taxes on property, and so the U.S. adopted the same device. By end of the Civil War, the wealthiest 10 percent of all Union households were paying income tax, which accounted for about 21 percent of federal tax revenues—with excise taxes comprising 50 percent and tariffs accounting for 29 percent.

The Civil War-era income tax was abolished in 1872, and the federal government returned to financing itself through its traditional antebellum means: excise taxes on particular goods and tariffs on imports (that is, two consumption taxes) and sales of public land. Yet the wartime policy had set a precedent, and after foreign trade (and thus tariff revenues) fell during the depression of the 1890s, the income tax was resurrected. Grover Cleveland, an otherwise very conservative president, accepted the income tax in exchange for lower tariff rates.

Drive Fast - Die Young

50 Signs That The U.S. Health Care System Is About To Collapse

by Michael Snyder

The U.S. health care system is a giant money making scam that is designed to drain as much money as possible out of all of us before we die.  In the United States today, the health care industry is completely dominated by government bureaucrats, health insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations.  The pharmaceutical corporations spend billions of dollars to convince all of us to become dependent on their legal drugs, the health insurance companies make billions of dollars by providing as little health care as possible, and they both spend millions of dollars to make sure that our politicians in Washington D.C. keep the gravy train rolling.  Meanwhile, large numbers of doctors are going broke and patients are not getting the care that they need.

At this point, our health care system is a complete and total disaster.  Health care costs continue to go up rapidly, the level of care that we are receiving continues to go down, and every move that our politicians make just seems to make all of our health care problems even worse.  In America today, a single trip to the emergency room can easily cost you $100,000, and if you happen to get cancer you could end up with medical bills in excess of a million dollars.  Even if you do have health insurance, there are usually limits on your coverage, and the truth is that just a single major illness is often enough to push most American families into bankruptcy.

At the same time, hospital administrators, pharmaceutical corporations and health insurance company executives are absolutely swimming in huge mountains of cash.  Unfortunately, this gigantic money making scam has become so large that it threatens to collapse both the U.S. health care system and the entire U.S. economy.

The following are 50 signs that the U.S. health care system is a massive money making scam that is about to collapse...

#1 Medical bills have become so ridiculously large that virtually nobody can afford them.  Just check out the following short excerpt from a recent Time Magazine article.  One man in California that had been diagnosed with cancer ran up nearly a million dollars in hospital bills before he died...

By the time Steven D. died at his home in Northern California the following November, he had lived for an additional 11 months. And Alice had collected bills totaling $902,452. The family’s first bill — for $348,000 — which arrived when Steven got home from the Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Calif., was full of all the usual chargemaster profit grabs: $18 each for 88 diabetes-test strips that Amazon sells in boxes of 50 for $27.85; $24 each for 19 niacin pills that are sold in drugstores for about a nickel apiece. There were also four boxes of sterile gauze pads for $77 each. None of that was considered part of what was provided in return for Seton’s facility charge for the intensive-care unit for two days at $13,225 a day, 12 days in the critical unit at $7,315 a day and one day in a standard room (all of which totaled $120,116 over 15 days). There was also $20,886 for CT scans and $24,251 for lab work.

#2 This year the American people will spend approximately 2.8 trillion dollars on health care, and it is being projected that Americans will spend 4.5 trillion dollars on health care in 2019.

#3 The United States spends more on health care than Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia combined.

#4 If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet.

#5 Back in 1960, an average of $147 was spent per person on health care in the United States. By 2009, that number had skyrocketed to $8,086.

#6 Why does it cost so much to stay in a hospital today?  It just does not make sense.  Just check out these numbers...

In 1942, Christ Hospital, NJ charged $7 per day for a maternity room. Today it’s $1,360.

#7 Approximately 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are related to medical bills.

#8 One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#9 The U.S. health care industry has spent more than 5 billion dollars on lobbying our politicians in Washington D.C. since 1998.

#10 According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. is  currently experiencing a shortage of at least 13,000 doctors.  Unfortunately, that shortage is expected to grow to 130,000 doctors over the next 10 years.

#11 The state of Florida is already dealing with a very serious shortage of doctors...

Brace yourself for longer lines at the doctor's office.

Whether you're employed and insured, elderly and on Medicare, or poor and covered by Medicaid, the Florida Medical Association says there's a growing shortage of doctors — especially specialists — available to provide you with medical care.

And if the Florida Legislature goes along with Gov. Rick Scott's recommendation to offer Medicaid coverage to an additional 1 million Floridians — part of the Affordable Care Act that takes effect next January — the FMA says that shortage will only get worse.

#12 At this point, approximately 40 percent of all doctors in the United States are 55 years of age or older.

Putting the human rights industry on trial

An explosive clash over a new bill has exposed how hostile ‘human rights’ are to freedom

by Nick Cater 

It is time we re-examined the legacy of the late Thumpa Sheil, the rabbit farmer and senator whose unfashionable views on Apartheid, fearlessly expressed, made him the the shortest-serving minister in Australia. Two days of notoriety in 1977 overshadowed Glenister Fermoy Sheil’s other contributions to civic debate, which is a pity, because Thumpa was nobody’s bunny. Over the course of his 13 years in Australia’s federal parliament, he was a net contributor of common sense.

His finest hour came when Gough Whitlam’s Labor government tabled the Racial Discrimination Bill in 1975. Even as the conservative opposition was preparing to bring down the government by vetoing the budget, it was too nervous to back its instincts and block Australia’s first human-rights legislation.

It was left to Thumpa, and a handful of other crazy-brave senators, to raise questions about the bill’s questionable constitutional validity and its threat to free expression. Only Thumpa and his backbench chums were prepared to defend the reputation of the Australian people, impugned by the tabling of legislation designed to cleanse society of ingrained racism.

‘The passage of this bill would take some fundamental rights away from us, such as the right of free speech, free discussion and publication’, Thumpa told parliament during the bill’s second reading speech. ‘Far from eliminating racial discrimination by making it illegal, the bill will highlight the problems between the races and create an official race-relations industry with a staff of dedicated anti-racists earning their living by making the most of every complaint in much the same way as does the Race Relations Board in the United Kingdom.’

‘This bill’, Thumpa continued, ‘will create yet another large and expensive federal government department. It will be headed by a race-relations commissioner with the status of a High Court judge and with powers similar to those used in the Spanish Inquisition.’