The canary in Merkel’s coalmine

Angela Merkel's Bismarckian Euro Diplomacy

By Matthew Melchiorre

German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to be channeling her 19th century predecessor, Otto von Bismarck, in a striking way; engineering a diplomatic balancing act wrought with internal contradictions. Even as she seeks to placate anxious Southern European governments with bailouts, she steadfastly rejects the idea of common European debt known as Eurobonds. Her delicate strategy, like Bismarck’s, seems destined to suffer a tragic fate. Moody’s downgrade last week of Germany’s credit rating outlook signals that time is running out.

Bismarck devised an elaborate system of overlapping treaties and pacts to support Germany’s rise to power while he isolated Germany’s principal rival: France. Similarly, Merkel is committed to preserving German power through support of greater European integration, yet she is equally committed to avoiding measures that would place a permanent burden upon Germany’s economy through common European debt.

Eurobonds are a scheme worth fighting against. Their implementation would signal German support of profligate Eurozone governments in perpetuity. Proponents of a common debt argue that there would be new stringent rules, such as sovereign risk-based borrowing limits enforced by the threat of expulsion, preventing countries from running excessive deficits. But this is fantasy.

Europe has already tried making rules to keep debt under control, and failed. The European Union created the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in 1997 to keep annual deficits under 3 percent of GDP and debt-to-GDP below 60 percent. The agreement even called for sanctions against rule breakers. Yet when France and Germany became the first violators in the early 2000s, EU officials simply changed the rules.

It's A Matter Of Trust

Bubble, Bubble, Toil & Trouble

“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.” – Lord Acton

by Jim Quinn

Who do you trust? Do you trust the President? Do you trust Congress? Do you trust the Treasury Secretary? Do you trust the Federal Reserve? Do you trust the Supreme Court? Do you trust the Military Industrial Complex? Do you trust Wall Street bankers? Do you trust the SEC? Do you trust any government agency or regulator? Do you trust the corporate mainstream media? Do you trust Washington think tanks? Do you trust Madison Avenue PR maggots? Do you trust PACs? Do you trust lobbyists? Do you trust government unions? Do you trust the National Association of Realtors? Do you trust mega-corporation CEOs? Do you trust economists? Do you trust billionaires? Do you trust some anonymous blogger? You can’t even trust your parish priest or college football coach anymore. A civilized society cannot function without trust. The downward spiral of trust enveloping the world is destroying our global economy and will lead to collapse, chaos and bloodshed. The major blame for this crisis sits squarely on the shoulders of crony capitalists that rule our country, but the willful ignorance and lack of civic accountability from the general population has contributed to this impending calamity. Those in control won’t reveal the truth and the populace don’t want to know the truth – a match made in heaven – or hell.

“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.” – Aldous Huxley

The fact that 86% of American adults have never heard of Jamie Dimon should suffice as proof regarding the all-encompassing level of ignorance in this country. As the world staggers under the unbearable weight of debt built up over decades, to fund a fantasyland dream of McMansions, luxury automobiles, iGadgets, 3D HDTVs, exotic vacations, bling, government provided pensions, free healthcare that makes us sicker, welfare for the needy and the greedy, free education that makes us dumber, and endless wars of choice, the realization that this debt financed Ponzi scheme was nothing but a handful of pixie dust sprinkled by corrupt politicians and criminal bankers across the globe is beginning to set in. A law abiding society that is supposed to be based on principles of free market capitalism must function in a lawful manner, with the participants being able to trust the parties they do business with. When trust in politicians, regulators, corporate leaders and bankers dissipates, anarchy, lawlessness, unscrupulous greed, looting, pillaging and eventually crisis and panic engulf the system.

Our myopic egocentric view of the world keeps most from seeing the truth. Our entire financial system has been corrupted and captured by a small cabal of rich, powerful, and prominent men. It is as it always has been. History is filled with previous episodes of debt fueled manias, initiated by bankers and politicians that led to booms, fraud, panic, and ultimately crashes. The vast swath of Americans has no interest in history, financial matters or anything that requires critical thinking skills. They are focused on the latest tweet from Kim Kardashian about her impending nuptials to Kanye West, the latest rumors about the next American Idol judge or the Twilight cheating scandal.

Economist and historian Charles P. Kindleberger in his brilliant treatise Manias, Panics, and Crashes details the sordid history of unwitting delusional peasants being swindled by bankers and politicians throughout the ages. Human beings have proven time after time they do not act rationally, obliterating the economic teachings of our most prestigious business schools about rational expectations theory and efficient markets. The only thing efficient about our markets is the speed at which the sheep are butchered by the Wall Street slaughterhouse. If humanity was rational there would be no booms, no busts and no opportunity for the Corzines, Madoffs, and Dimons of the world to swindle the trusting multitudes. The collapse of a boom always reveals the frauds and swindlers. As the tide subsides, you find out who was swimming naked.

“The propensity to swindle grows parallel with the propensity to speculate during a boom… the implosion of an asset price bubble always leads to the discovery of frauds and swindles”– Charles P. Kindleberger, economic historian

"Vengeance Will Be Bitter"

The German Press Responds To Draghi

And, as expected, it's not happy. The punchline:

The central bank is to become subordinate to finance ministers in crisis-stricken countries. In Draghi's homeland Italy, such a situation was the norm for decades -- and the result was chronic inflation. Now, he is accepting a repeat of history. On the short term, it will create relief in the debt crisis. On the long term, vengeance will be bitter." 

As a reminder from March: Mario Draghi Is Becoming Germany's Most Hated Man

More from Spiegel:

Germany has long been wary of ECB bond purchases and opposition has only grown since the Frankfurt-based central bank largely ceased buying sovereign bonds last year. Jens Weidmann, head of Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, has been particularly vociferous in his criticism of bond purchases, saying they rewarded debt-ridden countries without demanding reforms in return. Draghi even mentioned Weidmann's opposition to the program in his Thursday press conference.

Still, the widespread resistance in Germany to ECB action, and to many other euro-crisis proposals that could increase German taxpayer liability, has painted Merkel into a corner. With the opposition in Berlin showing a decreased willingness to rubber stamp her euro-crisis measures and a growing rebellion within the ranks of her own government, her ability to respond to the worsening crisis may become increasingly limited.

German media commentators take a closer look at the ECB's approach to the crisis on Friday.

Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The greatest challenge for ECB head Mario Draghi is to make it clear to the people of southern Europe that he will only help if they continue to make radical reforms to their economy. On Thursday he chose a clever dual strategy. He spoke of the possibility of bond purchases and other measures, but only if the governments in question fulfill certain conditions. In other words: there is no free money."

"It is not a problem that investors have reacted with disappointment due to their hopes for something more concrete. It is even helpful. Draghi's insistence on conditions shows that he is aware of the risks to taxpayers. It is also helpful that, in Jens Weidmann, he has a man in the ECB's Governing Council who is seen as a representative of the people in donor countries."

"The ECB Governing Council enjoys even less democratic legitimization than the European Council, which is why the ECB really should only offer temporary help. But it must offer help nonetheless as long as the euro zone is unfinished. If the government and the Fed in the US debated for months … following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008, the global financial system would have collapsed."

Escalation of the Extortion Racket

Now It’s ‘The Dissolution Of Europe’ Not Just The Eurozone

By Wolf Richter   

It has been an onslaught. Eurozone heads of state, top politicians, unelected kingpins, and bureaucratic honchos threatened everyone in sight with the demise of the euro, or promised to do “everything” or “whatever it takes” to save it even if it violated treaties or the very foundation of European democracy. In between the lines, bit by bit, the mammoth costs of continuing the endless bailouts or of breaking everything to pieces finally oozed to the surface.

Sunday it was Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, whose country, after years of living beyond its means, is suffocating under a mountain of debt. He needs the European Central Bank to print a trainload of euros and massively buy up Italian sovereign bonds to force their yields down and keep Italy financially viable—which is precisely what the treaties that govern the ECB don’t allow it to do, though the ECB had done it before, despite all-out opposition from Germany, including the resignation of ECB Council Member and Bundesbank President Axel Weber and ECB Chief Economist Jürgen Stark. After buying €211 billion in sovereign bonds, the ECB stopped in March. And since then, all heck has re-broken loose.

So Monti went on attack. The Eurozone bailout chaos and Germany’s resistance to ECB printing operations have created tensions that show “the traits of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” he told the Spiegel, a threat designed for German consumption—the latest in a series of escalating threats issued by politicians of debt sinner countries. And like his predecessors, he took it a step further than anyone before him.

Further even than Alexis Tsipras, the firebrand leader of Greece’s left-wing SYRIZA party, who’d threatened during the chaotic election, “If Greece doesn’t get its next loan installment, the Eurozone will collapse the following day.” But now comes Monti—and it’s no longer just the demise of the 17-member Eurozone but the dissolution of Europe. Europe as a whole. If the ECB doesn’t print whatever it takes to bail out Italy, “the foundations of the project Europe are destroyed,” he said.

As Liberty Fades, Contemplate The Wisdom Of The Olive Tree

Freedom like an olive tree takes many years to bear good fruit

By Bill Frezza

It’s easy to despair watching the flame of liberty flicker and die. To accept the sad fact that our Founders’ vision of limited government could not be sustained despite the constitutional straitjacket they so carefully designed. To lament the failure of the greatest experiment ever undertaken to secure the fruits of individual liberty under rule of law directed by the consent of the governed. To cry as democracy is slowly crushed under burdens of its own making, drowning in a tidal wave of spiraling debt, unfunded liabilities, and currency debauchery washing from the Old World to the New. To watch as redistributive entitlements ostensibly intended to alleviate the burdens of inequality, misfortune, sloth, age, and illness slowly strangle the goose that laid the golden eggs. To understand that Western Civilization’s finest days have passed.

And then, you contemplate the olive tree. One hundred years, they say, is how long it takes the olive tree to bear good fruit. Unimaginably hearty, these long-lived providers of versatile and wholesome sustenance are readily transplantable. Take an old and gnarly trunk shorn of its limbs and branches, bundle it off to someplace new, give it water and peace, and it blossoms again.

But only if the soil and climate suit. Olive trees won’t grow in some places.

Freedom is like an olive tree. It, too, takes many years to bear good fruit. But once it does it can provide versatile and wholesome sustenance for generations. Born with an implacable will, freedom transplants itself nestled in the bosom of every seeker of new soil and climate that suits. Such seekers may wander for years, but once freedom finds a place to root, it grows to welcome all. Take an old and gnarly people, bundle them off to someplace free, give them rule of law and peace, and they blossom again.

But like the olive tree, freedom won’t grow in some places.

There's No Mystery To Slow Economic Growth

Progressives Are The Problem

Saul Alinski

By Peter Ferrara,

The Big Picture Lesson of the 20^th century was that capitalism works and socialism and communism don’t.  The rest of the world learned that lesson far better because they and their close neighbors suffered far more with the socialist and communist progeny of Saul Alinsky’s first radical. But America should know better because it has enjoyed most the workers paradise of capitalism.

Yet those who call themselves Progressive, a polite, Americanized word for Marxist, refuse to accept that obvious conclusion.  That is why our politics have become so nasty.  The Progressives know they can’t win a debate based on reason.  So they turn to name calling, demonization, ostracism, anything to distract from and avoid a reasoned debate.  Hence the widespread use of the term “dumbass” by pot smoking hippie Progressives in commenting on the reasoning of careful scholars that they disagree with, or the ubiquitous allegations that anyone who disagrees with them is lying, or bought off.

This reflects the despotic nature of the Progressive personality and philosophy.  Progressives most fundamentally are certain that they are so much smarter than the rest of us, and that they are so much more moral than the rest of us.  Because of that they are certain that they have the right to rule over the rest of us.  It’s a very anti-social attitude that the rest of us should not be expected to have to live with.

That is why they are not interested in reason.  They are interested in power, for themselves, over the rest of us.  In their view, they have the unquestionable right to rule, and the rest of us have the unquestionable duty to obey.  The last time America was authoritatively subject to that attitude was under the reign of King George III.  And, of course, you know what happened then (unless you are in public school).

That is why the Progressives are so fundamentally in rebellion against the U.S. Constitution.  That governing framework was designed to preserve the rights and liberties of the people, and to restrain the powers of government and of self-appointed, supposedly benevolent despots.  But if you are so sure you are so much smarter and more moral than everyone else, then the Constitution is an outdated, 18^th century barrier to your imposition of your notion of the perfect society on everyone else.  That is why for over 100 years now, so-called Progressivism has been an open conspiracy against the Constitution, and so at its root treason.

What Democracy?

Representative democracy has been replaced by the rule of the unaccountable

by James Miller

A sacred cow is usually defined as that which is regarded as far too valuable or prestigious to even think about altering.  Any proposition that comes close to complete abolition is met with astounding ridicule.  In the realm of legalized harlotry (politics), careers are made out of defending sacred cows no matter how expensive, socially corroding, or intentionally dishonest they are.  Compulsory public education is one of the first to come to mind.  The various vote buying schemes that masquerade as a welfare safety net are another.  Whenever the political class or its apologists in the media find themselves in a bind trying to validate the government’s latest plot to fill its coffers or grind already-undermined liberties further into the curb, they often resort to evoking the greatest sacred cow of all: democracy.

Starting from the earliest years of basic comprehension, children in the Western world are propagandized into believing that without democracy, society would descend into unlivable chaos.  Schools, both public and private, perpetuate the fantasy to millions of forced attendees every year.  They are told that the government which has a hand in practically anything they encounter was formed with only the best intentions.  In America especially, the representative democracy constructed out of the collective genius of the country’s founding fathers is lauded as a gift to humanity.  And though its influence is waning in recent years, the Constitution served as a model for developing nation-states around the globe.  Back in 1987, Time magazine estimated that of the 170 countries that existed at the time, “more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.”

The Constitution is presented as the miraculous creation of divine individuals when, in fact, it was nothing of the sort.  Like any attempt to centralize state power, the Constitution was formed out of the economic desires of its framers.  Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Henry Adams weren’t even present at the Philadelphia Convention as it was drafted.  Many Americans at the time were suspicious at what ended up being a coup to toss out the decentralized Articles of Confederation in return for an institution powerful enough to be co-opted for the purposes of rent seeking.  As Albert Jay Nock noted:

“The Constitution had been laid down under unacceptable auspices; its history had been that of a coup d’état.”

Forgive me IPCC, for I have sinned…

The rapturous welcome given to a recanted ‘climate sceptic’ exposes the backwardness of green thinking

by Rob Lyons 

‘Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: humans are almost entirely the cause.’

So said Professor Richard A Muller in an op-ed for the New York Times on Sunday. Muller’s apparent Damascene conversion is the result of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project he founded with his daughter Elizabeth. In the NYT article, he claims that the BEST project shows ‘the average temperature of the Earth’s land has risen by two-and-a-half degrees Fahrenheit [about 1.5 degrees Celsius] over the past 250 years, including an increase of one-and-a-half degrees [about 0.8 degrees Celsius] over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.’

There has been much rejoicing among eco-commentators. Leo Hickman in the Guardian declared: ‘So, that’s it then. The climate wars are over. Climate sceptics have accepted the main tenets of climate science – that the world is warming and that humans are largely to blame – and we can all now get on to debating the real issue at hand: what, if anything, do we do about it?’ However, Hickman had to add ‘If only’. Apparently, while Muller is the right kind of sceptic, some pesky critics just won’t accept the ‘facts’. ‘The power of his findings lay in the journey he has undertaken to arrive at his conclusions’, suggests Hickman, but clearly some people don’t get it.

It sounds like a powerful argument: someone who has publicly taken a position for a few years, before putting up his hands and effectively saying: ‘You know what? I was wrong, and my fellow travellers were wrong, and we should just fall into line with the mainstream view.’ The conversion analogy is a good one. Here, instead of the unbeliever falling at the preacher’s feet and accepting Jesus into their lives, no longer able to resist the power of the Lord, we have the sceptic allowing the IPCC to drive out the devil of climate-change denial from within his soul.

Except, like many a modern faith healer’s performance, there’s something dodgy about this widespread interpretation. For starters, Muller was hardly what you would call a climate-change sceptic. By and large, he has been very accepting of the IPCC’s view of the problem of climate change. His claim to being a sceptic seems to relate to his acceptance that the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph, which was the centrepiece of the IPCC’s 2001 report and suggested that current temperatures are unprecedented, was simply the product of some sloppy science.

Enlightened liberals vs chicken-chewing morons

The Chick-fil-A controversy reveals just how intolerant supporters of same-sex marriage are becoming

by Sean Collins 

Supporters of same-sex marriage have opened up a new front in America’s Culture Wars in recent weeks – by targeting a chicken-sandwich restaurant. The call to boycott Chick-fil-A over comments made by its CEO reveal how the debate about same-sex marriage is moving in an increasingly illiberal direction.

Chick-fil-A, an Atlanta-based fast-food restaurant chain with 1,600 restaurants in 40 US states, makes chicken sandwiches that many rave about. When asked if it was true that he did not support gay marriage, CEO Dan Cathy said he was ‘guilty as charged’. He added: ‘We are very much supportive of the family – the Biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives.’

In a recent radio interview, Cathy also said: ‘I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, “We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage”.’ Critics note that Chick-fil-A, owned by the Cathy family, donates millions to Christian and pro-traditional family charities, including Focus on the Family, which they consider to be anti-gay.

In response to Cathy’s comments, mayors in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco proclaimed that Chick-fil-A was not welcome in their cities. Specifically, they asked their city councils to deny Chick-fil-A the permits they need to open. ‘Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values’, said Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago and former chief of staff for President Obama. Joe Moreno, an alderman in a ‘hipster’ ward in Chicago, vowed to block the restaurant, calling Cathy’s comments ‘bigoted and homophobic’. Christine Quinn, leader of New York’s city council, said Cathy’s remarks were ‘repugnant and un-American’; she urged New York University to evict Chick-fil-A from its campus.

The reaction by these public officials shows the authoritarian instinct behind many of those who support same-sex marriage – and how such illiberal views are not limited to hardcore activists but rather extend right to the top of the political world. In defending his stance on Chick-fil-A, Boston mayor Thomas Menino said, ‘We’re an open city, we’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion.’ But apparently, in the name of ‘inclusion’, it is perfectly acceptable to be intolerant of those who back traditional marriage.

As it happens, many liberal pundits recognised that the mayors had overstepped their authority. Editorials in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times came out against the mayors. Even the super-nanny mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, expressed opposition to his counterparts (although he won’t let Chick-fil-A customers in his city have a large-size soda with their chicken sandwiches).

The best way to avoid violence is to reinstate the rule of law

Will We Have to Wait for a 21st Century Peasants’ Revolt Before Seeing Any Real Change?

by George Washington 

While everyone from Tony Blair to Nouriel Roubini is debating whether or not bankers should be hung, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg provide some fascinating historical context.

The journal's Jason Zweig reports:

Financial criminals throughout history have been beaten, tortured and even put to death, with little evidence that severe punishments have consistently deterred people from misconduct that could make them rich.

The history of drastic punishment for financial crimes may be nearly as old as wealth itself.

The Code of Hammurabi, more than 3,700 years ago, stipulated that any Mesopotamian who violated the terms of a financial contract – including the futures contracts that were commonly used in commodities trading in Babylon – “shall be put to death as a thief.” The severe penalty doesn’t seem to have eradicated such cheating, however.

In medieval Catalonia, a banker who went bust wasn’t merely humiliated by town criers who declaimed his failure in public squares throughout the land; he had to live on nothing but bread and water until he paid off his depositors in full. If, after a year, he was unable to repay, he would be executed – as in the case of banker Francesch Castello, who was beheaded in 1360. Bankers who lied about their books could also be subject to the death penalty.

In Florence during the Renaissance, the Arte del Cambio – the guild of mercantile money-changers who facilitated the city’s international trade – made the cheating of clients punishable by torture. Rule 70 of the guild’s statutes stipulated that any member caught in unethical conduct could be disciplined on the rack “or other corrective instruments” at the headquarters of the guild.

But financial crimes weren’t merely punished; they were stigmatized. Dante’s Inferno is populated largely with financial sinners, each category with its own distinctive punishment: misers who roll giant weights pointlessly back and forth with their chests, thieves festooned with snakes and lizards, usurers draped with purses they can’t reach, even forecasters whose heads are wrenched around backward to symbolize their inability to see what is in front of them.

Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'

Privacy is rarely lost in one fell swoop

By Daniel J. Solove

When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they're not worried. "I've got nothing to hide," they declare. "Only if you're doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don't deserve to keep it private."

The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. The data-security expert Bruce Schneier calls it the "most common retort against privacy advocates." The legal scholar Geoffrey Stone refers to it as an "all-too-common refrain." In its most compelling form, it is an argument that the privacy interest is generally minimal, thus making the contest with security concerns a foreordained victory for security.

The nothing-to-hide argument is everywhere. In Britain, for example, the government has installed millions of public-surveillance cameras in cities and towns, which are watched by officials via closed-circuit television. In a campaign slogan for the program, the government declares: "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." Variations of nothing-to-hide arguments frequently appear in blogs, letters to the editor, television news interviews, and other forums. One blogger in the United States, in reference to profiling people for national-security purposes, declares: "I don't mind people wanting to find out things about me, I've got nothing to hide! Which is why I support [the government's] efforts to find terrorists by monitoring our phone calls!"

The argument is not of recent vintage. One of the characters in Henry James's 1888 novel, The Reverberator, muses: 

"If these people had done bad things they ought to be ashamed of themselves and he couldn't pity them, and if they hadn't done them there was no need of making such a rumpus about other people knowing."

I encountered the nothing-to-hide argument so frequently in news interviews, discussions, and the like that I decided to probe the issue. I asked the readers of my blog, Concurring Opinions, whether there are good responses to the nothing-to-hide argument. I received a torrent of comments:

My response is "So do you have curtains?" or "Can I see your credit-card bills for the last year?"

North Korea Lite

Thoughts on the Olympics’ opening ceremony

by Theodore Dalrymple

My mother saw Hitler in the stadium during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was the only fragment of memory of her childhood in Nazi Germany that she ever spoke of and, perhaps illogically, it did not predispose me favorably to the Olympic spectacle.

The opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics reminded me of an observation of the Marquis de Custine, the young aristocrat whose father and grandfather were guillotined during the French Revolution. De Custine went to Russia in 1839 in search of the virtues of hereditary autocracy and returned a convinced democrat. Tyrannies, he said, demand immense sacrifices of their people to produce trifles.

It does not follow, of course, that if tyrannies produce trifles, trifles—and the opening ceremony was undoubtedly one—are necessarily the product of tyrannies. But the ceremony, postmodern as it might have been in form—assuming, as it did, that the contemporary mind is like that of a child, in constant need of swiftly changing amusement—was not free of ideological content, even if that content was comparatively restrained and benign compared with that of, say, Leni Riefenstahl’sTriumph of the Will. It was more akin to North Korea lite.

Of course it was impressive, as anything staged on a sufficiently large scale and well-organized is impressive. The fear of almost all Britons, amounting virtually to an expectation, that the games would at once descend into chaos was not fulfilled. On the contrary, the choreography was impeccable, and thousands participated without mishap, with the precision of a military parade. There were even moments of genuine wit, which distinguished the ceremony from the North Korean equivalent.

Nevertheless, the inclusion of happily dancing nursing staff from the National Health Service was precisely the kind of stunt that an ideological state would pull. Who would have guessed that only a few days before in the NHS, here presented as among the greatest of all British achievements, some doctors had gone on strike, not to improve conditions for their patients but to preserve their own generous pensions—of the kind that those unfortunate enough to work in the private sector can only dream about? Western Europeans must either have puzzled over or laughed at this: Britain is universally acknowledged in Europe to have the worst health care on the continent—health care that European residents flee except in extremis. And here were people dancing to celebrate it!

Still, the ceremony itself must be counted a great success in the eyes of the British public because it was not an outright disaster. Yet no thinking person to whom I’ve spoken (admittedly not a representative population sample) expresses anything other than deep unease about the whole Olympic enterprise. The army was engaged not only to provide security after a private company failed to perform as promised, but also to fill empty seats in the stadium and thus prevent the humiliation of showing too many empty spaces. Seats were initially allocated in true corporatist fashion, much of the public being excluded (including relatives of participants) in favor of companies and organizations. When these failed to take up their allocations, it was too late. A specter now haunts the London Olympics: that of public indifference, bought at the cost of billions that future generations will struggle to repay.

No More Quick Fixes

The economy needs rules, not discretionary policies.

By Guy Sorman

Economists, politicians, and pundits looking for answers to the economic crisis fall into two broad categories. Keynesians and statists argue for more aggressive interventions from governments and central banks. Distrusting the free market’s self-regulating processes, they promote public spending to create jobs and low interest rates to rekindle private investment and consumer spending. Thinkers of the classical-liberal persuasion, by contrast, argue that no quick fix can bring the economy out of its doldrums; only when the rules of capitalism appear stable and predictable again will markets revive. Put another way: Keynesians and statists believe in flexible, “discretionary” economic policies; classical liberals believe in set rules.

Economic history proves the superiority of the second approach, but democracy often makes the first more attractive to politicians. After all, in a crisis, people expect their leaders to do something; refraining from action and sticking to abstract principles play poorly to public opinion. As previous recessions demonstrate, however, public pressure for action usually leads to bad decisions that prolong or intensify a crisis. The situation is analogous to what happens on the soccer field when a goalie faces a penalty kick. Statistics show that the goalie should stay in the center of the net to increase his chances of blocking the shot. Yet in most cases, he jumps to the left or right just before his opponent kicks. Why? Because the crowd urges him to act, even though doing so reduces his likelihood of success.

Central Banks Can’t Save the World

A much bigger reality

By Mohamed El-Erian 

The three central bank meetings this week -- the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve -- made very good cases for additional stimulus measures, though they failed to specify what these would be.

Equities and certain bonds that had surged on the basis of last week’s verbal assurances by central bankers and political leaders sold off. There was no panic given central bankers’ promises to do more in the future should additional action be needed. This is what the standard narrative has been.

But it misses important context, and there is more at play here. The unfortunate reality is that, unlike during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, central banks can’t be the saviors this time around for a struggling global economy. Other government entities, with better-suited policy tools, need to step up to the plate.

Why did central bankers disappoint so many this week? I suspect that they wish to keep pressure on other policy makers who demonstrate none of the necessary urgency. The bankers also realize that their policy tools are increasingly less effective. To quote Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, central banks “cannot replace governments.” There’s something else: Central bankers more than anyone are being careful to keep dry whatever ammunition they still have.

Banking Flexibility

This week’s events also highlight how central banks’ operational flexibility is much less than what is commonly assumed. Here, the ECB is particularly important given the enormous risk that Europe’s crisis poses for the global economy, including the U.S.

Last week in London, Draghi left no doubt as to his commitment to do “whatever it takes” to safeguard the euro. He also introduced a shrewd sequence to bring sovereign spreads and yields within the mandate of the ECB and try to contain borrowing costs for struggling peripheral economies. He did this by suggesting that the “exceptionally high risk premia” are undermining countries like Italy and Spain, and that concerns about the robustness of the euro as a currency are contributing to the fragmentation of the financial system and clogging the monetary policy transmission mechanism -- and that, clearly, this needed to be addressed.

Yet Draghi felt compelled Thursday to make additional ECB measures conditional on countries being allowed to access Europe-wide rescue facilities that aren’t under the purview of the central bank. He questioned how his London speech was interpreted, suggesting that markets misread what he meant. He also had to deal with talk of divisions inside the ECB’s governing council.

All this speaks to the much bigger reality, which is of great relevance for individuals, companies, investors and governments around the world. Yes, central banks may be part of the solution, but increasingly they will play a smaller and smaller role. The tools they have available are losing their firepower. The burden is now on other policy makers and the political leadership. Only they have the tools that can address the fundamental problem of too little growth, too much debt in the wrong places, and too little private capital being channeled to investment and other productive activities.

To solve Europe’s crisis and the world’s intensifying economic malaise -- just witness the downturn in manufacturing - - policy makers and their political bosses need to address issues of competitiveness, fiscal reform, and the retooling and retraining of the labor force. The longer the delay, the more likely these problems will get embedded in the structure of the economies.

Of course, none of this will happen until political leaders abandon their tactical, incremental and partial approaches for issues that require strategic, coordinated and comprehensive responses. Unfortunately, in today’s polarized world, the prospects of this are far from reassuring.

'Government Health Care: The Musical' an infectious hit

The British delusion that the NHS is "the envy of the world" is indestructible

By MARK STEYN

I scrammed out of London a few days before the Olympics began, but after getting an earful on what the locals make of it. On the whole, the residents of that great city would rather the honor of hosting the world's most disruptive sporting event had gone to some joint that needs the publicity more – Alma Ata, or Ouagadougou, or Oakland. In 21st century London, traffic moves at fewer miles per hour than it did before the internal combustion engine was invented without the added complication of fleets of Third World thug bureaucrats and the permanent floating crap game of transnationalist freeloaders being dumped on its medieval street plan. Nevertheless, having drawn the short straw of hosting the Games, Londoners felt it a point of honor that the city be able to demonstrate the ability to ferry minor globalist hangers-on from their favorite whorehouse in Mayfair to the Olympic Village in the unfashionable East End in time for the quarter-finals of the flatwater taekwondo.

The psychology of the traffic cop enters into the opening ceremony, too. One becomes inordinately fearful that the giant Middle Earth trash compactor will not arise on cue, or the dry ice machine will fail to blow smoke up Voldemort's skirt, or one of the massed ranks of top-hatted mutton-whiskered extras recreating the Industrial Revolution in hip-hop will miss a stomp. And you're so grateful to have dodged these calamities that it never occurs to you to wonder whether taking 40 minutes to do the Industrial Revolution in interpretive dance was a good idea in the first place. Britons seem unusually touchy on the subject, touchier than they've been since the week of the Princess of Wales' death, when the prudent pedestrian on the streets of Kensington avoided catching the eye of the natives, lest they club one to a pulp for being insufficiently maudlin and lachrymose. A Conservative Member of Parliament who made the mistake of tweeting his thoughts without running them by the party's focus groups was disowned by his colleagues and forced into groveling public recantation. It seems his now-disowned tweet that the whole thing was a load of codswallop was an unfortunate typing error and that what he'd actually meant to say was that the highlight of the evening, "Government Health Care: The Musical," was far too riveting to be confined to a mere two-and-a-half hours

The Infantile Disorder

American Liberalism

“The approach of a great storm was sensed everywhere. All classes were in a state of ferment and preparation. Abroad, the press of the political exiles discussed the theoretical aspects of all the fundamental problems of the revolution. Representatives of the three main classes, of the three principal political trends -- the liberal-bourgeois, the petty-bourgeois-democratic (concealed behind "social-democratic" and "social-revolutionary" labels), and the proletarian-revolutionary -- anticipated and prepared the impending open class struggle by waging a most bitter struggle on issues of programme and tactics. All the issues on which the masses waged an armed struggle in 1905-07 and 1917-20 can (and should) be studied, in their embryonic form, in the press of the period. Among these three main trends there were, of course, a host of intermediate, transitional or half-hearted forms. It would be more correct to say that those political and ideological trends which were genuinely of a class nature crystallised in the struggle of press organs, parties, factions and groups; the classes were forging the requisite political and ideological weapons for the impending battles.” The years of preparation for revolution (1903-05) Left-Wing Communism: an InfantileDisorderV.I. Lenin, April-May, 1920

by rcwhalen

Grand Lake Stream, ME:  Had good fishing yesterday even as temperatures rose steadily as the group converged on Leens Lodge for evening activities.  Dinner last night featured a brief presentation by ME Governor Paul LePage and also a discussion of Weimar Germany by Madeline Schnapp of Trim Tabs.  The two discussions were good complements for the larger evening discussion.  But sad to say for Persian Economists, there were no Power Point presentations.

Governor LePage started his discussion with a very frank appraisal of the state’s fiscal situation, namely that the Democrats spent and stole the state broke.  Voters in ME recently gave control over the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature to the Republican Party.   Suffice to say that the main theme of Governor LePage’s comments to the audience at Leens Lodge, which included a number of advisers who own the state’s debt, is that the State of Maine is going to pay its bills and keep its promises.

One interesting part of the Governor’s remarks involved how ME is clearing up the many years of arrears of Medicare payments to hospitals around the state.  He noted thatthe Democrats in the legislature wanted to “negotiate” a settlement for the arrears of 50 cents on the dollar with the state’s hospitals, which would doom many of them to failure.  The consistent objective of American liberals is to destroy the free enterprise system and make the US a monolithic socialist state a la France.  That battle is underway in ME right now.  

Contrary to the Fabian scenario, Governor LePage has insisted on paying the hospitals in full.  “Then we can spend money on other things,” he told the audience.  But more to the point, LePage’s promise to pay the hospitals will thwart Democratic designs to decimate private health care institutions and drive more and more Mainiacs into the arms of the state.  But don’t look for Governor Le Page or anyone in the northern part of ME to go along quietly.