The slow death of National Review Conservatism

Good-bye to All That

By AUSTIN W. BRAMWELL 

Until recently, it has been almost impossible for me to speak candidly about the conservative movement, for it was my strange fate to serve as director and later trustee of the movement’s flagship journal, National Review. Earlier this year, at William F. Buckley’s request, I resigned both positions. I can therefore now declare what perhaps has oft been thought but never, at least not often enough, expressed. Notwithstanding conservatives’ belief that they, in contrast to their partisan opponents, have thought deeply about the challenges facing the United States, it is they who have become unserious.

China is also experiencing capital flight

How do we measure debt?

by Michael Petti

The recent events in Spain and Italy reinforce the argument that several countries will be forced to leave the euro and restructure their debt.  The most worrying, but expected, fact is the amount of capital fleeing the afflicted countries.  I cite an article in Spiegel that claims that in the past year an amount equal to nearly 30% of Spain’s GDP had left the country.  Flight capital is both a major result of declining credibility and a major cause of further declining credibility, and because it is so intensively reinforcing it is a major warning signal.
This matters for China for at least two reasons. First, a worsening Europe will make it harder than ever for China to rebalance growth away from investment, and second, China itself is experiencing capital flight.

The Price of Inequality

Everything has a price, but the price of everything is very hard to recognize, let alone to predict

By Anthony de Jasay

In his new book The Price of Inequality (2012)1, Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz nearly completes his metamorphosis from left-leaning but serious scholar to severe prosecutor. The readers owes him thanks, for the book carries the germs of interesting conclusions, though they are the very opposite to which Professor Stiglitz seeks to lead him.

The author who, according to the New York Times, holds the "commanding position" in the storm troop of unorthodox economists, has earned his Nobel Prize for his work on asymmetric information in exchanges between a well-informed seller and a poorly informed buyer on terms that are on some definition, inefficient, false and can subjectively be condemned as unjust. In his new book, Professor Stiglitz remains faithful to the asymmetric information that has earned him fame as an observer. He now makes massive use of it, but no longer as an observer. Now he is the seller, bowling the buyer over with an avalanche of arguments supported by eloquent statistics. The statistics are selective and serve the purposes of the selector. If the reader buys the argument, he does so mainly because he is less informed than the author about the existence of masses of alternative statistics that tell a different story but are kept out of the book.

The Keynesian Era Is Coming to a Close

Dancing on the Grave of Keynesianism

by Gary North

The collapse of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 was the best news of my lifetime. The monster died. It was not just that the USSR went down. The entire mythology of revolutionary violence as the method of social regeneration, promoted since the French Revolution, went down with it. As I wrote in my 1968 book, Marxism was a religion of revolution. And Marxism died institutionally in the last month of 1991.

Yet we cannot show conclusively that "the West" defeated the Soviet Union. What defeated the Soviet Union was socialist economic planning. The Soviet Union was based on socialism, and socialist economic calculation is irrational. Ludwig von Mises in 1920 described why in his article, "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth." He showed in theory exactly what is wrong with all socialist planning. He made it clear why socialism could never compete with the free market. It has no capital goods markets, and therefore economic planners cannot allocate capital according to capital's most important and most desired needs among by the public.

History may not repeat itself but it does rhyme

On This Day 70 Years Ago: Fighting Inflation And Hitler

Afghanistan - USA 1-0

Progress in Resolving U.S.-Afghan Dispute Over Detainees

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and DOUGLAS SCHORZMAN
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Obama and the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, had what an American official called a “serious and positive” discussion on Wednesday night that the Afghans confirmed had made progress toward resolving an increasingly acrimonious dispute over detaining terrorism suspects, which had their two governments and their militaries at loggerheads for weeks.
In a video teleconference, Mr. Karzai and Mr. Obama had a wide-ranging conversation touching almost every hot-button issue that has complicated the plans of the United States to draw down its forces here, senior American and Afghan officials said. Most important, they began to resolve the two countries’ differences on rules for indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trial, known as administrative detention, officials from the two countries said. American military commanders insist on assurances that terrorism suspects they detain in the field will not be summarily released.

One person’s hate speech or threat to national security is another person’s dissent

Sacrificing free speech to the heckler’s veto

The defacement of anti-Muslim ads on the New York subway was not an act of free speech - it was an act of censorship of offensive views.

by Wendy Kaminer 

‘New Yorkers Resist Islamophobic Ads.’ So said a caption on ThinkProgress, a liberal blog produced by the Center for American Progress, in a report about the defacement of ‘racist’ anti-Muslim ads on the New York subway.
The ads, placed by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, declare: ‘In any war between the civilised man and the savage, support the civilised man. Support Israel, Defeat Jihad.’ They have been attacked and defaced, including by the American-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy. The post on ThinkProgress, written by Ben Armbruster, didn’t explicitly endorse vandalism as a response to offensive political messages, but the caption, which was later changed, made its implicit approval clear: describing vandalism as ‘resistance’ ennobles it.

Former Satellites take on Europe

The Success Of Eastern Europe

by Richard Rahn

Year by year, the current nine countries of Eastern and Central Europe that were controlled by the Soviets -- Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia -- become relatively more prosperous in comparison to the richer nations of Western Europe. As a result of the European debt crisis, this trend is likely to accelerate.

It has been more than two decades since these countries acquired their freedom. All have become multiparty, largely free-market democracies. What seems normal now was far from a foregone conclusion at the time of the dissolution of the old Soviet Union. In fact, most bets would have wagered that not all these nations would have made it. 

I was one of the economists who advised the reformers in Hungary and Estonia -- then later Russia and Ukraine -- and served as co-chairman of the transition team in Bulgaria. To say that at the time we were not all confident that the democratic and economic reforms would be successful would be an understatement.

There Is No Choice

If Wishes Were Fishes

By MIKE SHEDLOCK

We have previously pointed out that there is actually no choice at all for the US electorate at the upcoming presidential election. This is because in terms of the policies they support, it is nigh impossible to differentiate between the two candidates. We were not just making an unsupported assertion – we offered proof, by showing a video in which they speak for themselves. If one cannot rely on their own words to represent what they stand for, what should one rely on?

Of course it has often been France Piles €20 Billion in Tax Hikes on Businesses and Wealthy

It's now official. The top tax rate in France is now 75% for those who make over a million euros. Moreover, there is a new band of 45% for those who make over 150,000 euros. Don't forget the existing VAT on all purchases.

Europe is imploding and instead of fixing onerous work rules, France Hits Rich and Business to Slash Deficit.

Is China's Communist Party Doomed?

The task for China's new rulers is truly daunting

By Minxin Pei

Last Friday's announcement in Beijing that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will convene its 18th congress on November 8 has brought much relief to those concerned that political scandals and power struggle at the very top of the Chinese government have derailed the once-in-a-decade leadership transition.  Finally, the party's top leaders seemed to have agreed on what to do with the disgraced former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai(likely off to jail) and on whom to promote to the Politburo and its more powerful standing committee.

For all the obvious reasons, China's ruling elites will do their best in the next few months to project an image of unity and self-confidence, and to convince the rest of the world that the next generation of leaders is capable of maintaining the party's political monopoly.

A Very Incomplete List of My Favorite Novelists

Minor Pleasures

by Taki

I stopped reading novels long ago. When those arch-phonies writing magic realism became household words, I dropped out quicker than you can say, “Raymond Chandler.” Now that’s what I call a novel—the stuff Chandler churned out about old El Lay, everyone gulping booze and puffing away like steam engines, and only exercising between the sheets. Crime writers have always had an inferiority complex about their work, but they sure beat some of the clowns posing as novelists nowadays. Chandler was a master of style, a serious writer who applied his classical English education to the task of creating rich slang. His similes were extravagant and P. G. Wodehousian: “[H]e looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.” Chandler turned detective stories into art, labeling Los Angeles the city “with the personality of a paper cup.”

Chandler taught himself to write by churning out pastiches of Hemingway, the other writer I read when very young, a man who along with Fitzgerald formed my life. After reading The Sun Also Rises, I had to go to Pamplona and run with the bulls, chase hard-drinking women who were like Lady Brett Ashley, and get into drunken fights in Paris nightclubs. Fitzgerald was even worse for me. All Jay Gatsby did was party, as did Dick Diver and Tommy Barban in Tender Is the Night. All three had character, were inwardly sensitive and decent, and all three threw their lives away for women.

The fallacy of nominal GDP targeting

The road to economic hell is paved with easy money

by DETLEV SCHLICHTER

In a truly remarkable piece for the Financial Times yesterday, Wolfgang Münchau took another swipe at the Euro-sceptic and ECB-critical community in Germany, which he accuses of inflation-paranoia and of simply not getting ‘modern central banking’. Well, I know of many qualified commentators – many non-German – who swallow a tad harder when reflecting on the new reality of unlimited and open-ended QE in the US and unlimited bond buying by the ECB. As the central bank bureaucrats declare that they will not stop printing base money until the economy grows faster and the unemployment rate drops, damn it, some of us may be excused for wondering what the long-term and unintended consequences of this might be. But, according to Münchau, we are entirely mistaken as we have evidently been “fed misinformation about the functioning of a modern economy.”

Unlimited QE is, according to Münchau, the result of new theories of how central banking works. You see, with open-ended QE the Fed “has become much more determined in guiding future expectations,” which is supposedly what the economy needs: bureaucrats who centrally and administratively guide expectations. Strangely, though, this does not sound all that modern to me.

Anti-fascists are killing free speech

Activists who call on the state to imprison 'fascists' for speech crimes should look up irony in the dictionary

by Patrick Hayes 

‘This court decision should be celebrated by all anti-racists and anti-fascists… to ensure that the only place fascism has in this century is in history textbooks.’

Are Britain’s anti-fascist groups so blinkered, so convinced that the state is on their side and that they are the bearers of the Truth, that they can make statements celebrating the curbing of someone’s free speech without even the slightest twinge of irony? That statement was made by the North Staffordshire Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, in response to the news that Michael Coleman, a former far-right British National Party councillor in Stoke-on-Trent, had been given an eight-month suspended prison sentence and 240 hours of community service for the crime of posting his thoughts on his blog.

It is true that Coleman’s thoughts were unpleasant and that not many people will share them. Writing on his blog in the aftermath of last year’s rioting in English cities, Coleman claimed that ‘London darkies have reacted with violence’. ‘The darkies have exposed their true nature in siding with criminality’, he said, before elaborating at length on his belief that the ‘darker races’ are very different to the paler races.

His nauseating comments were spotted by a Labour councillor, Joy Garner, who is currently standing for election as Staffordshire police and crime commissioner. She dobbed him in to the police. ‘I make no apology for having been the individual who initially raised this with the police’, she boasted on her website. She said the problem with Coleman’s blog posts is that the ‘overwhelming majority’ will have found them offensive. ‘I will always defend the right to freedom of speech, but as with all rights, with it comes responsibility. It can no way be accepted as responsible to use language characterising an entire race as being more predisposed to crime than others.’

Germany told to 'come clean’ over Greece

"Zero Risk" vs "End of Greece"

German Chancellor Angela Merkel must “come clean at long last” and admit that Greece will need help for another seven or eight years, the German opposition leader said over the weekend.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

“The Greeks must stand by their commitment, but we must give them time. We cannot tighten the screws any further,” said Peer Steinbruck, the Social Democrat candidate for chancellor. He said the political and economic fall-out from Greek ejection from the euro would be devastating and must be avoided.

The plea came amid reports that Berlin is so worried that a Greek crisis would spin out of control that it is ready to back the next €31bn payment to Athens under its EU-IMF Troika rescue, despite failure to comply with the terms. Wirtschaftswoche, a German news magazine, said Greece’s parliament merely needs to vote on a list of detailed reforms.

It cited warnings from a top EU official that “domino-effect” dangers are too great to allow the ejection of Greece from EMU. Authorities across the world – including the Bank of England – fear a surge of capital flight from Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Italy if the sanctity of monetary union is violated.

Diplomats say concerns go beyond financial damage. Both EU and US officials are worried that the fragile security system of the Western Mediterannean could start to unravel if Greece is alienated and withdraws from Nato under populist leaders in the future.

A Sea of Hope

Dad, you were right

The structural foundations of the eurozone project were indeed flawed and the current crisis is forcing leaders to correct them

By Gillian Tett

Sixteen years ago, my father  took me out for dinner at the Bar Jacques restaurant in Val d’Isère, a French ski resort. Back then, in 1996, I was working as a (relatively new) economics correspondent for the Financial Times, covering the preparations for the euro. And as I analysed the technicalities of that euro-tale, I was becoming consumed with a sense of historical drama – and excitement about the project.

My father, however, took a radically different view: as he listened to me describe how the euro would transform Europe, he repeatedly and grumpily shook his head. “It won’t work,” he muttered, pointing out the problem of running monetary policy without fiscal union. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

I vehemently disagreed. So much so, that as the red wine flowed and the fondue bubbled, we had an explosive, blazing row which lasted even as we later tramped out into the snow, and has gone into family lore. But now, with the benefit of hindsight – and a little more maturity – it is time for me to utter the words I never thought I’d say: “Dad, you were right, and I was wrong!” Never mind all those dreamers who assumed the challenges in the eurozone project would somehow evaporate; or those naive young journalists (like me) who were dazzled by the hype. What is crystal clear today is that the structural foundations of the eurozone project, back when we argued that night in Bar Jacques, were indeed flawed.

How to Make Almost Anything

The Digital Fabrication Revolution

By Neil Gershenfeld

A new digital revolution is coming, this time in fabrication. It draws on the same insights that led to the earlier digitizations of communication and computation, but now what is being programmed is the physical world rather than the virtual one. Digital fabrication will allow individuals to design and produce tangible objects on demand, wherever and whenever they need them. Widespread access to these technologies will challenge traditional models of business, aid, and education.

The roots of the revolution date back to 1952, when researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) wired an early digital computer to a milling machine, creating the first numerically controlled machine tool. By using a computer program instead of a machinist to turn the screws that moved the metal stock, the researchers were able to produce aircraft components with shapes that were more complex than could be made by hand. From that first revolving end mill, all sorts of cutting tools have been mounted on computer-controlled platforms, including jets of water carrying abrasives that can cut through hard materials, lasers that can quickly carve fine features, and slender electrically charged wires that can make long thin cuts. 

Today, numerically controlled machines touch almost every commercial product, whether directly (producing everything from laptop cases to jet engines) or indirectly (producing the tools that mold and stamp mass-produced goods). And yet all these modern descendants of the first numerically controlled machine tool share its original limitation: they can cut, but they cannot reach internal structures. This means, for example, that the axle of a wheel must be manufactured separately from the bearing it passes through.

The Rulers And The Ruled

Most people have accepted government as their masters

by Bill Buckler

The truth that without property rights, no other rights are possible has been known for millennia. In the formalised study of politics, it is more than 300 years old, having been articulated with great care by John Locke in the late 17th century. The modern study of economics is well over 200 years old. Adam Smith’s Wealth Of Nations was published in 1776 - the same year as Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration Of Independence. The great work which finally integrated money with politics and economics celebrates its centennial this year. Ludwig von Mises published his Theory Of Money And Credit in 1912 - the year before the US inaugurated an income tax and a central bank. Ten years after that in 1922, von Mises published Socialism - a book which established beyond refutation the fundamental truth that any form of central planning and/or government control of the means of production cannot work because it makes economic calculation impossible. Picture if you will the state of ANY other branch of human endeavour if ALL the knowledge about it gained over the past three centuries had been summarily dismissed.

Will France face facts?

Hollande's campaign promises give way to reality

By Tim Bardon

French President Francois Hollande swept into power in May by offering a catnip agenda to France's struggling rank-and-file: Higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, more government-subsidized jobs, more protection for pensions and entitlements and more protectionism would lead France back to prosperity.

So far, so bad.

Hollande's approval ratings have fallen fast — from 54 percent in August to 43 percent today. France's economy is getting more stagnant. Unemployment is at 10.3 percent and rising.

Talk about a short honeymoon.

Hollande is begging France for patience. "I ask to be judged on results, and that is something that requires time," he said.

But his nation is under increasing pressure to come to grips with economic reality.

The Siren Song of "Beautiful Deleveraging"

"Beautiful deleveraging" is the policy goal, but what we might get is "ugly inflation"

By CHARLES HUGH SMITH

In a world of rising sovereign debts and an overleveraged, over-indebted private sector, history suggests there are only three possible ways out: gradual deleveraging, defaulting on the debt, or printing enough money to inflate away the debt.

Ray Dalio recently described the characteristics of a “beautiful deleveraging” in which equal doses of austerity, write-downs, and inflation gradually lighten the load of impaired debt.  This might be called the Goldilocks Deleveraging, as the key feature of this “beautiful” solution is that each component is “not too hot, not too cold” – inflation is modest, write-downs of bad debt are gradual, and austerity is not too severe.  Given enough time, the leverage and debt are worked off without requiring any structural change to the Status Quo.

Understandably, the Status Quo has embraced this solution for the appealing reason it doesn’t change the power structure at all.  Everyone currently in charge remains in charge, and everyone who owns outsized wealth continues owning outsized wealth. Rather than falling onto the politically powerful “too big to fail” banking sector, the pain of deleveraging is spread over the entire economy.  There is no such thing as painless deleveraging, so the “solution” is to distribute the pain over hundreds of millions of people. That’s what makes it “beautiful” to the Status Quo: It doesn’t cost them either their power or their wealth.

The Status Quo in Japan has pursued this strategy for 20 years, and the Status Quo in Europe and the U.S. have pursued it for the past four years, ever since the global financial system imploded in 2008.

Spain may have a chance

Spain’s New Budget Focus on Spending Cuts

by PaterTenebrarum
For once, at least something positive has emerged from a new 'austerity' budget in the euro area. As Reuters reports, Spain's government has focused on cutting expenditure rather than raising taxes this time.

This is exactly how it should be done – it must be acknowledged that the economic pie isn't as big as it was once thought to be, due to the massive capital malinvestments of the boom. The attempt to leave the size of the government untouched while shrinking everything else and wringing more tax revenue from the contracting private economy is condemned to failure from the outset. The government's size must shrink in proportion, in fact the opportunity should be taken to shrink its size considerably further than that.

The method so far preferred by many euro area governments in their attempts to achieve the budget milestones of the 'fiscal pact' was to raise as many taxes as possible. We have discussed this in the past when criticizing Italy's Mario Monti and France's Francois Hollande with their focus on tax hikes, while they concurrently eschew or postpone genuine economic reform.