The importance of "Middle Land"

A Ravening Justice

By Mark Steyn

To get the obvious out of the way: I loathe John Edwards. I loathe him as a slick ambulance-chasing trial lawyer, as a preening poseur of a presidential candidate, as a multi-bazillionaire "advocate" for "the poor," as a third-rate sob sister peddling faux-Dickensian guff about entirely mythical "coatless girls" lying in their beds shivering at night because their father was laid off at the mill. I loathe everything about him except his angled nape, which I must concede, having been pressed up against it in a campaign crush in New Hampshire, is a thing of beauty, and well worth every penny of whatever Rachel Mellon paid for it.

Double trouble

Bipartisanship Is Behind Government's Worst Programs

By GEORGE F. WILL

Bipartisanship, the supposed scarcity of which so distresses the high-minded, actually is disastrously prevalent.

Since 2001, it has produced No Child Left Behind, a counterproductive federal intrusion in primary and secondary education; the McCain-Feingold speech rationing law (the Bipartisan) Campaign Reform Act); an unfunded prescription drug entitlement; troublemaking by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; government-directed capitalism from the Export-Import Bank; crony capitalism from energy subsidies; unseemly agriculture and transportation bills; bailouts of an unreformed Postal Service; housing subsidies; subsidies for state and local governments; and many other bipartisan deeds.

“Fascism, n. A supreme belief in the superiority of action over thought.”

It is very easy to call for grand, magical, all-resolving action when one is in opposition

By Tim Price

“Working at my desk today was somewhat surreal. Global risk markets were closing out a dreadful week. Newswires were full of disconcerting articles – J.P. Morgan, Greece, Spain, Italy, China, etc. Meanwhile, CNBC was in the midst of blanket coverage of the Facebook initial public offering. Mark Zuckerberg rang the bell to open NASDAQ trading, while helicopters provided live video of the employee gathering at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. Insiders are now worth billions, the “average” employee millions. Even U2’s Bono pocketed $1.2bn (with a “B”). I noted above how I see J.P. Morgan’s predicament as a microcosm of global financial woes. Well, it is difficult for me today not to see Facebook as emblematic of the incredible transfer of wealth associated with Credit Bubbles. It’s almost as if this historic Bubble has been waiting to end with just such an exclamation point.”                 

                         — From “The Jig is Up‟, by Doug Noland.

Birds of a Different Feather

The Austrians And The Swan

By Mark Spitznagel

What is a black swan event, or tail event, in the stock market?

✓ It depends on who’s asking.

✓ To those familiar with Austrian capital theory, the impending U.S. stock market plunge (of even well over 40%)—like pretty much all that came before in the past century—will certainly not be a Black Swan, nor even a tail event.

✓ Nonetheless, the black swan notion is paramount—in perception: Market participants’ failure to expect a perfectly expected event—that is, they price in only Anglo swans despite the Viennese bird lurking conspicuously in the weeds—much like what is happening today, brings tremendous opportunity.

I. On Induction: If it looks like a swan, swims like a swan, …

By now, everyone knows what a tail is. The concept has become rather ubiquitous, even to many for whom tails were considered inconsequential just over a few years ago. But do we really know one when we see one?

The Yankee Comandante

A story of love, revolution, and betrayal

William Alexander Morgan being applauded by Fidel Castro, in Havana in 1959. Morgan said that he had joined the Cuban Revolution because “the most important thing for free men to do is to protect the freedom of others.”

by David Grann

For a moment, he was obscured by the Havana night. It was as if he were invisible, as he had been before coming to Cuba, in the midst of revolution. Then a burst of floodlights illuminated him: William Alexander Morgan, the great Yankee comandante. He was standing, with his back against a bullet-pocked wall, in an empty moat surrounding La Cabaña—an eighteenth-century stone fortress, on a cliff overlooking Havana Harbor, that had been converted into a prison. Flecks of blood were drying on the patch of ground where Morgan’s friend had been shot, moments earlier. Morgan, who was thirty-two, blinked into the lights. He faced a firing squad.

Flirting with fascism

Why Europe can’t shake its weakness for Nazism

by Peter Goodspeed

Like vermin in a time of pestilence, neo-Nazi groups appear to be enjoying a resurgence in a Europe plagued by increasing financial chaos and uncertainty. As Europe celebrated the 67th anniversary of V.E. Day and the defeat of Hitler’s Nazis this week, it also reeled in disbelief as an angry Greek electorate gave 7% of their votes to the neo-Nazi, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn party.

One Nation (under Germany)

European Union will become, finally, a federal state

By Ben Laurance 

Where does it all end? What will be the outcome of the financial storm battering Europe and its single currency? Can the euro be saved? And if so, what will be the long­term consequences?

The financial historian Niall Ferguson, visiting London from his self­imposed exile in America to promote the paperback version of his most recent book, is typically confident that he has the answers to these difficult questions — and they are not what you might expect from this tireless proponent of free markets.

A Greek Exit Could Make the Euro Area Stronger

The Long Goodbye

By Jacob Kirkegaard

A Greek exit from the euro area would inflict heavy damage in Greece and throughout Europe. It could also be one of the best things that ever happened to the currency union.

Greece’s repeat parliamentary election next month will serve as a referendum on whether the country should end its 12- year membership in the common currency. An affirmative answer would trigger a cardiac arrest of the Greek economy, as the banking system collapsed and foreign suppliers refused payment in drachmas. The financial system of the euro area, by far Greece’s biggest international creditor, would suffer hundreds of billions of euros in losses.

Forgive Us Our Debts?

The war between lenders and borrowers

by Irwin M. Stelzer
Debtors of the world, unite—you have nothing to lose but your IOUs!

That seems to be what the Greeks are discovering—that they have less to lose by default, with all of its consequences, than by trying to be Germans.

One of the most surprising aspects of the financial crises being played out around the world is the failure of policymakers to concede perhaps the most important underlying fact: This is a war by creditors, in control of the institutions of power, to saddle debtors with the cost of the errors in which both borrowers and lenders are complicit. It is in its way very much like some past debtor-creditor brawls: farmers vs. mortgage lenders, hard money financiers vs. those who wanted to avoid crucifying mankind on a cross of gold, Latin American dictators vs. foreign bankers.

Europe's borrow-and-spend train rolls on

What austerity?

There has been a lot of talk about the EU countries tightening their belts. The data indicate profligacy instead of prudence

By NEIL REYNOLDS

In a 2011 review of government spending in the countries known as Euro27, the European statistical agency tracked public expenditures from 2006, before the Crash, through 2010. Among other conclusions, Eurostat determined that austerity - whatever it was - had yet to reduce government spending. Only by the merest of margins, the agency said, could it document any real, absolute reduction in spending. Indeed, Euro27 governments spent €6.2-trillion ($8-trillion) in 2010: 50.8 per cent of Europe's GDP. Four years earlier, they had spent only 45.6 per cent. By this measure, European austerity has increased public spending by 12 per cent in four years.

How Sweden and Switzerland handle debt, taxes and spending

Heading for Taxmaggedon

by Keith Chrostowski

It’s just never-ending, this standoff in America over taxes, spending and deficits.

For three decades, we’ve stood firm on our particular ideological ramparts, seeing any solution that tilts even slightly toward the opposing philosophy as total surrender.

But other countries have picked their budgetary deadlocks. And they didn’t go all in on austerity or continue bottomless spending that pushed their countries off the debt cliff.

In sensible Switzerland, 85 percent of voters in 2001 approved a “debt brake.” It requires that spending by the central government grow no faster than trendline revenue.

Recession and Recovery

Six Fundamental Errors of the Current Orthodoxy

by Robert Higgs

As the recession has deepened and the financial debacle has passed from one flare-up to another during the past seven or eight months, commentary on the economy’s troubles has swelled tremendously. Pundits have pontificated; journalists and editors have reported and opined; talk-radio jocks have huffed and puffed; public officials have spewed out even more double-talk than usual; awkward academic experts, caught in the camera’s glare like deer in the headlights, have blinked and stumbled through their brief stints as talking heads on TV. We’ve been deluged by an enormous outpouring of diagnosis, prognosis, and prescription, at least ninety-five percent of which has been appallingly bad.

How smokers’ rights are being vapourised

The anti-smoking lobby has now targeted electronic cigarettes in order to crack down even on the ‘notion’ of smoking

by Jason Walsh 

In the battle for smokers’ rights, it is fair to say that those who like to indulge in the ‘evil weed’ have been on the losing side so far. Few people want to stick up for smokers and those who do argue for free choice are frequently accused of harbouring a sinister commercial agenda.

It’s not hard to see why smoking may not exactly be popular. Many people find tobacco smoke fairly unpleasant and the health dangers of active smoking are certainly real. In the absence of a real commitment to freedom in society, no permanent compromises with smokers are possible, no matter how much they segregate themselves from the rest of society. As such, the strictures on smoking have long passed from simple public-health measures and into the territory of behavioural control via legislation. How else can anyone describe the crazed idea of  (previously known as the lingering smell of burnt tobacco)?

An energy policy for dimwits

The UK government’s new energy strategy is about muddling through, not powering society forward

by Rob Lyons 

Yesterday, the UK government published a draft Energy Bill. The bill’s measures would mean rising energy costs and greater encouragement for new nuclear power and renewables, but underpinning it all is the aim of making us use less not do more.

Things used to be so much simpler. The name of the game was to provide energy as cheaply as possible - and that meant fossil fuels, which were not only cheap but abundant, easy to use, flexible and reliable. In reality, not much has changed. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) report, World Energy Outlook 2011, in 2009 the world was powered by oil (33 per cent of total energy), coal (27 per cent), gas (21 per cent), biomass and waste (10 per cent) and nuclear (about six per cent) (1). Renewables - including not only wind and solar but hydro power, too - provided just three per cent. ‘Dirty’ fossil fuels thus provided 81 per cent of the world’s energy.

Sitting at the Edge of the World

Fighting against windmills

“Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”

                                -Anne Rice.

By Mark Grant

One way or another, left or right, the funder or the funded; Greece is going. The situation is just not sustainable and $1.3 trillion in debt is going to be refuted and refuted with consequences that one only hopes the European Union acknowledges and is prepared for past the drivel that they spew out in the Press like Mount Vesuvius throwing up the phlegm of the world on some ashen afternoon in Rome. Sovereign debt, bank debt, municipal debt, $90 billion in derivatives, corporate debt and other obligations of the government left out to dry as Germany reeks with the stench of boars head gone bad.  This is about to be the way of it.

Interpreting India to the West

“Sorrow and the release from sorry.” 

By IRVING BABBITT

Buddhism, as is well known, has practically disappeared from the land of its origin. The older and more authentic form of the doctrine known as the Hīnayāna, or Little Vehicle, is found to-day chiefly in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam; the less authentic form of the doctrine known as the Mahāyāna, or Great Vehicle, which is less a religion than a system of religions, is found chiefly in Tibet, China, and Japan. Dr. Coomaraswamy has undertaken to give an account of both forms of the doctrine as well as to sketch the development of Buddhist art through the ages. His volume may be found useful by those who wish to get a first rapid impression of a vast and difficult subject. But from this point of view it is only a compilation, and the author does not claim anything more for it. His book, he says, “is designed not as an addition to our already overburdened libraries of information, but as a definite contribution to the philosophy of life.” It is as such that I propose to consider it.

"Growth" = Spending Other Peoples Money

The EU Political Game of Growth Vs Austerity is Akin to Polishing the Brass on the Titanic

By Graham Summers

France and other, weaker EU members have begun pushing for “growth.” This in of itself reveals how clueless the political elite in the EU are (economic growth in Europe is synonymous with living beyond one’s means and/or living off of others… the very policies that have lead to the EU Crisis).

Indeed, this shift from focusing on austerity to growth is really just a switch from one side of a coin to the other… without actually addressing the fact that the coin itself has no value as a concept.

Let me explain.

Predictions are mostly about the past

Feedback, Unintended Consequences and Global Markets

by Charles Smith

We cannot know that unintended consequences will always be destructive. Neither models nor projections have accurate track records in predicting the future. 

It seems an appropriate time to re-examine why our ability to predict the future of complex systems is so poor. A significant number of well-informed, smart people believe the Euro Experiment is unraveling in a positive feedback (i.e. self-reinforcing) death spiral.

What Are the Purposes of a Foreign Policy?

Liberty and Peace

By ROBERT A. TAFT

No one can think intelligently on the many complicated problems of American foreign policy unless he decides first what he considers the real purpose and object of that policy. In the letters which I receive from all parts of the country I find a complete confusion in the minds of the people as to our purposes in the world — and therefore scores of reasons which often seem to me completely unsound or inadequate for supporting or opposing some act of the government. Confusion has been produced because there has been no consistent purpose in our foreign policy for a good many years past. In many cases the reason stated for some action — and blazoned forth on the radio to secure popular approval — has not been the real reason which animated the administration.

Why Merkel and Hollande Will Make it Work

Overselling the Rift

By JACOB ALBERT

The leadup to the fateful meeting this past Tuesday between Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel was billed as a make-or-break moment for the foundering European Union. The European commentariat worked overtime to heighten the drama. “Berlin officials had worked feverishly behind the scenes to create the best possible impression of harmony before the visit, and tried in vain to downplay its significance,” gasped the Guardian. “But it was clearly far more than that, with two politicians who had never met before coming together to see not only if they could get on, but if they could work together to solve one of the most intractable problems Europe has faced since the second world war.” It’s hard to overstate the challenges facing the EU at the moment. But the anxious tone accompanying the summit was certainly overdone. For anyone with eyes, the chances of Merkel and Hollande being able to find a common ground always seemed like a good bet.