US Democracy: Iowa Republican Party Too Incompetent or Currupt to Count the Caucus Vote

(CNN) -- Rick Santorum finished the Iowa Republican caucuses 34 votes ahead of Mitt Romney, but results from several precincts are missing and the full actual results may never be known, according to a final certified tally released Thursday by the Iowa GOP.

American democracy is now a joke on multiple levels. Not only are the candidates bought, but election outcomes can be manipulated in multiple ways through the absence of simple, straight-forward, open and observed vote counting methods.

And the US Government is committed to the spread of democracy. LOL.

Ron Paul, a Weak Candidate But the Only One Representing the Ideas of Ron Paul

For a seventy-six-year-old, Ron Paul does OK.

He has remarkable stamina, he speaks to the point, he is unwavering in his adherence to the US Constitution, his defense of individual liberty, and his opposition to preemptive wars for empire.

And he is a man of courage. By reminding Americans of their rights under the Constitution, and by drawing their attention to the emergence of domestic tyranny and the cost of criminal wars of aggression, Ron Paul challenges America's bi-partisan ruling class in a way that invites an assassin's bullet.

Against all that, Ron Paul wears a remarkably ill-fitting suit, speaks less well than many a high-school principal, and lacks the chief elements of charisma other than courage, consistency and dignity under attack. What is more, his ideas about money seem distinctly out of date.

The Eurozone and the Curate's Egg: Both Good in Parts

Punch cartoon by George du Maurier (November, 1985).
Bishop: "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones";
Curate: "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of
it are excellent!"

The fundamentals of the Euro zone "are on average sound" Herman von Rompuy

The joke about the curate's egg (see image) never struck me as particularly funny, but it is bizarre, and in a macabre way funny, to hear the same logic advanced by the President of Europe to assure the World of the soundness of the European economy and financial system.

The complexity of Europe's financial difficulties as discussed in fascinating detail by John Ward, to whom I am indebted for the above quote by Von Rompuy, is far beyond my comprehension, but to reduce matters to a thumbnail sketch, the problem seems to be as follows.

The Greek’s (and sundry others able to get away with it) are lazy bums who won’t work (LBW3), or if they work they pretend not to, so as to avoid paying tax. Then they demand a huge pension or a government job punching tickets on the Athens subway at an annual salary of $96,000 a year.

Contains Milk, Egg and Fish

In search of a decent sherry, we invested recently in an Australian product of the Emu brand, which is pleasant flavored and moderately dry. Curious to know more about this very reasonably priced wine, I was astounded on examining the label to read as follows: "contains milk, egg and fish."

How can that possibly be?

For very good reason, according to this short article by Richard Gowel: it is to "fine" the wine; fining being the process of removing harsh tasting phenolics, or unwanted color from wine made with the final squeeze of the grape. There you are then!

Or to be more specific, the milk protein casein is a fining agent that precipitates phenolics, as does albumen, a protein from egg whites. But of all, the best fining agent, apparently, is isinglass, a protein obtained from the swim bladder of certain fishes.

From this we can infer that Emu sherry is made from a juice so rough that it requires the combined fining power of all three agents, derivatives of milk, egg and fish, to make it drinkable. But drinkable it certainly is, with a distinctive and likable flavor.

Mitt Romney's Top Campaign Contributors

Goldman Sachs: $367,200
Credit Suisse: $203,750
Morgan Stanley: $188,800

Source: Zero Hedge via WRH.

The New World Order and the Drive for an Independent Scotland

Will Scotland be free or just a manageable
chunk to be fed into the Euro-blender? (Image source)

Aangirfan has a thought-provoking piece on the consequences of independence for Scotland, which suggests that separation would make the Scotch significantly better off than the English.

What such calculations ignore is that if regions are free to split from larger political units to maximize resource revenue per capita, then why won't the Highlands and Islands split from Scotland and take the bulk of the oil revenue with them?

By tradition, the Highlanders never liked those lowland bastards and will be happy to let them freeze in the dark.

Then why would London, which subsidizes most of the UK, not split too? The bankers may be crooks but they generate a lot of income, and as a city state, London would have more cred than almost any other metropolis.

After that, maybe the SouthWest could separate, establishing themselves as a homeland for the Celts: no immigrants, thank you.

The net result of this kind of anti-nationalist politics will be the disintegration of geopolitically significant nation states into trivialities at the mercy of the world's great powers, most notably, in the case of the remnants of a UK breakup, the undemocratic EU and US/NATO.

When US/NATO tells the Scotch or the Welsh or the Cornish what weapons systems are to be located on their territory, or how many troops they are to supply for the next war of imperial aggression, how much independence do these people think they'll have?

A saner route for those who want greater autonomy, would be to work for regional devolution within a federal state. The Blair scheme for Scotch and Welsh Parliaments while England remains governed in all matters above the municipal by the Parliament in Westminster, an institution often dominated by Scotch or Welsh politicians, was either a work of monumental incompetence, or a devious scheme to destroy the United Kingdom: the latter surely being the case, since Blair is nothing if not a creature of the New World Order, which requires the destruction of the nation state.

A rational scheme for devolution in the UK would divide the country into a dozen provinces including Scotland, North and South, Wales, North and South, England, East and West, top, middle and bottom, plus London and Northern Ireland. Most powers would be devolved to the regions with the exception of control over the central bank, foreign policy and defense. Logically, the newly devolved nation would provide the Republic of Ireland with a standing invitation to join, as one or two additional provinces for a total of probably 14 self-governing regions within a Confederation of the British Isles.

But now the Scotch have latched onto the idea of getting rich at the expense of the English and gratifying what that son of the Manse John Buchan called their "narrow nationalism," it is doubtful if the tide undermining the Union can be stemmed.

But beside finding themselves a very small fish in the EU, US/NATO world, the Scotch may find that after independence the broad high road to London, or what Sam Johnson called the only fine prospect in Scotland, is beset with many hurdles, particularly if the breakup of Britain provokes an English nationalist backlash. For the four million Scots who have already taken the high road South, that might prove troublesome indeed: visas, passports at the border, the Scotch Groat not accepted as currency in England, passenger manifests required for all flights over England originating or ending in Scotland, English control of Naval bases Clyde and Faslane, US control of anti-missile radar installations, and much, much more.

Here, Peter Hitchens explains how Scottish nationalism will transform Britain into a collection of manageable chunks to be fed into the Euro-blender and destroyed for ever.

Notice how any part of the UK can have a referendum on reducing the powers of London (and Northern Ireland can vote to leave the Union altogether, any time it wants to).

But nobody can have a vote of any kind on reducing the powers of  Brussels, let alone on leaving the EU.

The truth is obvious, but nobody observes it.

Brussels rejoices to see Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland becoming ever more separate from England.

It would like to see England itself Balkanised into ‘regions’ – and the new multicultural republic of London under President Boris is a major step towards that.

THE UNSOLVED RIDDLE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

Stephen Leacock, best known in Canada as a humorist, was a learned man, an author of scholarly works, and a professor of political economy at McGill University. His discussion in this short work of the economic relationship between man and society remains as relevant today as when first published almost 100 years ago. e-Book and other versions of this work are available at Project Gutenberg. A Kindle e-book is available from Amazon at not charge.

By Stephen Leacock B.A., Ph.D., Litt.D., F.R.S.C.

Professor of Political Economy at McGill University, Montreal

Copyright, 1920, John Lane Company

I.—The Troubled Outlook of the Present Hour

THESE are troubled times. As the echoes of the war die away the sound of a new conflict rises on our ears. All the world is filled with industrial unrest. Strike follows upon strike. A world that has known five years of fighting has lost its taste for the honest drudgery of work. Cincinnatus will not back to his plow, or, at the best, stands sullenly between his plow-handles arguing for a higher wage.

The wheels of industry are threatening to stop. The laborer will not work because the pay is too low and the hours are too long. The producer cannot employ him because the wage is too high, and the hours are too short. If the high wage is paid and the short hours are granted, then the price of the thing made,[10] so it seems, rises higher still. Even the high wages will not buy it. The process apparently moves in a circle with no cessation to it. The increased wages seem only to aggravate the increasing prices. Wages and prices, rising together, call perpetually for more money, or at least more tokens and symbols, more paper credit in the form of checks and deposits, with a value that is no longer based on the rock-bottom of redemption into hard coin, but that floats upon the mere atmosphere of expectation.

But the sheer quantity of the inflated currency and false money forces prices higher still. The familiar landmarks of wages, salaries and prices are being obliterated. The "scrap of paper" with which the war began stays with us as its legacy. It lies upon the industrial landscape like snow, covering up, as best it may, the bare poverty of a world desolated by war.

Under such circumstances national finance seems turned into a delirium. Billions are voted where once a few poor millions were[11] thought extravagant. The war debts of the Allied Nations, not yet fully computed, will run from twenty-five to forty billion dollars apiece. But the debts of the governments appear on the other side of the ledger as the assets of the citizens. What is the meaning of it? Is it wealth or is it poverty? The world seems filled with money and short of goods, while even in this very scarcity a new luxury has broken out. The capitalist rides in his ten thousand dollar motor car. The seven-dollar-a-day artisan plays merrily on his gramophone in the broad daylight of his afternoon that is saved, like all else, by being "borrowed" from the morning. He calls the capitalist a "profiteer." The capitalist retorts with calling him a "Bolshevik."

Ron Paul Does Not Exist

By CanSpeccy

According to the NY Times, speaking of the contest for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, Mr. Romney is:

... the only veteran of a previous presidential campaign.

"The only veteran of a previous presidential campaign?" asks Dan Amira in New York Magazine:

Wait a second, isn't there some squirrelly little guy running this year who also ran on a very unique and memorable platform in 2008? Jon ... Don ... Don Knotts? No, that can't be right.

The Times subsequently altered its story to acknowledge the existence of Ron Paul.

In the New Hampshire Republican primary, according to this CBS poll, eventual second-place winner Ron Paul simply wasn't in the race, so no point, really, for anyone who's for the US Constitution participating:



Over in Blighty, Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and seemingly a Pied Piper of the seriously deluded liberal-left, today joined the Ron-Paul-does-not-exist movement with this blog post, which I quote in full:

Americans pissing on murdered Afghans – a description of every Republican candidates’ debate and every Clinton and Obama speech.

The post has prompted vigorous debate among the usual followers, but so far no response has been offered as to why Murray implicitly denies the presence in both the current debates and those in 2008 of Ron Paul, a strict constitutionalist, who has consistently and explicitly condemned America's military engagement in Afghanistan and stated that as Commander in Chief he would immediately bring the troops home.

But Jon Stewart, discussing who would be the first mainstream media pundit to dismiss Ron Paul's New Hampshire second place finish, explodes the Ron-Paul-does-not-exist lie to the greatest effect (But watch this soon before U-Tube takes it down):



Ha! Viacom blocked that one. But this is good too.

And now the vid that Viacom does'nt want you to see has been re-uploaded to U-Tube:


But that's been flushed down Memory Hole like all the rest. U-Tube is well named.

America's Inevitable Doom

By Bill Bonner

The show goes on!

We are watching the destruction of an empire. All empires must go away sometime. They are natural things. And nature puts a time bomb in everything she creates.

The US empire is doomed. Just like all the others that went before it. It is doomed by nature herself – condemned by the gods to blow up and die.

None of this should be surprising to you, dear reader. We’ve seen this movie before. Hundreds of empires have come and gone. We know how this movie ends. More or less.

What we know for sure is that the US is going broke. There is hardly any other plausible outcome. We’ve gone over the numbers so often we don’t need to repeat them.

Yes, it is true that the feds could still save themselves….if they had the will. They could cut taxes to a flat 10%…and spend only what they raised in tax revenue… That would do the trick from an economic point of view.

But it’s too late for that – politically. Empires have lives of their own. They go forward…expanding…spending…stretching…until, boom, they go too far. Empires do not back up.

Some merely go bankrupt. Others are defeated in war. All end disastrously.

Only one candidate favors rescuing the nation’s finances and pulling the empire back from disaster. Ron Paul. He is considered such an unelectable kook that the newspapers barely mention him. And the papers are right. He is unelectable. Because he is opposed by the zombies.

World Without End: Why we can disregard the Mayan doomsday prophecy

By Colin Liddell

One of the legacies of the world financial crisis is that it showed how absolutely clueless pundits, politicians, and financial planners can be about the direction we are heading in. This also explains our growing fascination with the mysterious Maya and their reputation for fathoming the distant future by reading the stars and the courses of the planets.

With the great vacuum of ignorance that enshrouds the future, it is not surprising that this long dead civilization with an astronomical bent has been sucked into the role of providing gnostic hints of what is to come. It was either that or Madame Zaza’s tea leaves.

According to a lot of breathless twats on the Discovery Channel, the Mayans saw something very important lined up for 2012, namely the end of their Grand Cycle, scheduled to end on the 21st of December this year. Depending on who you speak to this will precipitate either the end of the Universe in a cataclysm of fire, a new age with everyone being very nice to each other, or the election of Ron Paul as President of the United States.

But before we get carried away with the impending sense of momentous cosmic change, shouldn’t we pause to ask the all-important question, “Who the heck were the Maya?” just in case they turn out to be a bunch of jungle bums stoked up on fermented coconut juice rather than credible prognosticators of the end of humanity.

Like any semi-barbaric, non-European people, the Maya are nowadays talked about in the hushed reverential tones dictated by political correctness as one of the great civilizations, even though they lacked metal tools and wheels, and enjoyed a spot of human sacrifice.

Rather than evidence of their primitiveness, their lack of tools is often cited as proof of their civilizational superiority, as only a truly higher culture could have built pyramids with so little in the way of technology. In such encomiums little is said about the possibility that the threat of human sacrifice probably served as an extremely important motivator for the toolless masses.

The Uses of Economics Revealed

A Survey of the Labor Market for New Ph.D. Hires in Economics reports that:

Among fresh economics PhD's hired in 2010-2011, 62.4 % found jobs in academic institutions.

LOL

Or as John Kenneth Galbraith remarked:

"Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists."

Humanitarian Bombing

Via YaYa Canada: Fuck Angelina Jolie

See also:
The Beautiful People Who Run the World

Emma West, immigration and the Liberal totalitarian state: Part 3

Robert Henderson

Emma West appeared at Croydon magistrates court on 3^rd January.  She  will stand trial  on  two racially aggravated public order offences, one with intent to cause fear. She will next appear in court  – Croydon Crown Court -  on 17 February 2012.

The  charge with “intent to cause fear” arises because a passenger, Ena-May Eubanks, claims Miss West  hit her left shoulder  with a closed fist.   This charge comes under section 31A  of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/37/section/31). It carries a potential sentence on  conviction on indictment of  “imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine, or to both”.

Anyone who has watched the video on YouTube will think the idea that she intended to cause fear when she was a white woman surrounded by hostile ethnic minorities laughable.    The CPS are clearly playing the pc game by hitting her with the most severe charges possible.  (The official line on what is a racially aggravated offence can be found at http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/fact_sheets/racially_aggravated_offences/).

Miss West has yet to plead,  but the fact that she  has opted for a  Crown Court trial (which will mean the case is heard before a jury) rather than a hearing in a magistrates court strongly suggests  she will plead not guilty ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/03/woman-accused-tram-race-rant).   This is because she  risks a heavier sentence in the Crown Court and it would make little sense to opt for  the case to be heard in the Crown Court if she does  not intend to plead not guilty.  There is of course the danger that she may be intimidated into pleading guilty by the promise of a lighter sentence.

Her bail conditions are  that “she does not travel on a tram within Croydon and Sutton, lives and sleeps  at her home address and does not comment on the case.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16394046).

Bearing  in mind that Miss West was remanded in custody against her will for “her own safety”, it does seem rather rum that the same court is insisting she stays in her own house when her address was read out in open court.

The ban on travel on the local tram system could  be pretty penal. She has two small children and the tram system may be the only means she has of taking them with her when she has to leave her house.

Her  blanket gagging so she cannot comment on the case is remarkable.   Engaging in any of the following can  breach the sub judice rules and constitute  contempt of court:

1. obtaining or publishing details of jury deliberations;
2. filming or recording within court buildings;
3. making payments to witnesses;
4. publishing information obtained from confidential court documents;
5. reporting on the defendant’s previous convictions;
6. mounting an organized campaign to influence proceedings;
7. reporting on court proceedings in breach of a court order or reporting restriction;
8. breaching an injunction obtained against another party;
9. anticipating the course of a trial or predicting the outcome; or
10. revealing the identity of child defendants, witnesses or victims or victims of sexual offences. (http://www.out-law.com/page-9742)

Only   4, 6, 7, 8 would seem to have any application in the context of banning her from commenting on the case.  Number 9 might  seem to have relevance,  but by pleading one way or the other the outcome of a case is anticipated. It would be absurd if it applied to a defendant.

Nos  4,6, 7,8 could have been dealt with by banning those specific acts, although it is unlikely she would be in a position to do these things. For example, it is wildly improbable  she could mount an organised campaign to influence proceedings.   It is also true that cases can be discussed while a case is active in the context of a discussion of public affairs, for example, it would be acceptable to discuss Miss West’s case as part of an examination of how the justice system treats black on white offences compared with white on black offences.

What does her  general gagging  tell us?  Simple. The liberal elite are truly terrified that the politically correct house of cards they have built will be blown over if any of the vast resentment and anger at mass immigration and its consequences  within the native British population is allowed into the public fold.

Christophobia”—The Prejudice That Barely Has A Name

By James Fulford

January 8, 2012 at 12:56 am: As I write, in the New Hampshire GOP candidates’ Debate, Gingrich and Perry are attacking governmental assaults on Christianity to great applause.

The problem here is that there’s no vocabulary for discussing this issue.

The word “Christophobia” (meaning hatred, fear, and contempt for Christians and Christianity) was discussed by our Tom Piatak recently in his The War On Christmas After Ten Years.

But it’s a word that barely exists in the public consciousness—unlike racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, or even Islamophobia.

Nevertheless, the thing itself obviously exists.

Members of the US Congress Just Signed Their Own Arrest Warrants

By Naomi Wolf

I never thought I would have to write this: but—incredibly—Congress has now passed the National Defense Appropriations Act, with Amendment 1031, which allows for the military detention of American citizens. The amendment is so loosely worded that any American citizen could be held without due process. The language of this bill can be read to assure Americans that they can challenge their detention — but most people do not realize what this means: at Guantanamo and in other military prisons, one’s lawyer’s calls are monitored, witnesses for one’s defense are not allowed to testify, and one can be forced into nudity and isolation. Incredibly, ninety-three Senators voted to support this bill and now most of Congress: a roster of names that will live in infamy in the history of our nation, and never be expunged from the dark column of the history books.

They may have supported this bill because—although it’s hard to believe—they think the military will only arrest active members of Al Qaida; or maybe, less naively, they believe that ‘at most’, low-level dissenting figures, activists, or troublesome protesters might be subjected to military arrest. But they are forgetting something critical: history shows that those who signed this bill will soon be subject to arrest themselves.

Our leaders appear to be supporting this bill thinking that they will always be what they are now, in the fading light of a once-great democracy — those civilian leaders who safely and securely sit in freedom and DIRECT the military. In inhabiting this bubble, which their own actions are about to destroy, they are cocooned by an arrogance of power, placing their own security in jeopardy by their own hands, and ignoring history and its inevitable laws. The moment this bill becomes law, though Congress is accustomed, in a weak democracy, to being the ones who direct and control the military, the power roles will reverse: Congress will no longer be directing and in charge of the military: rather, the military will be directing and in charge of individual Congressional leaders, as well as in charge of everyone else — as any Parliamentarian in any society who handed this power over to the military can attest.

Why the National Defense Authorization Act Now?

By Marti Hiken and Luke Hiken

Barack Obama just signed into law one of the most repressive and right-wing pieces of legislation ever passed in the history of the country: the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It allows the military, a.k.a. the Pentagon, to determine who is a “terrorist” and to detain that person in prison, indefinitely, without trial, under its jurisdiction. It makes no difference whether the person is a U.S. citizen or a foreign “enemy combatant.”

The NDAA takes the civilian judicial system out of the equation regarding who is a “combatant” or “terrorist” and substitutes military command over every person inside or outside of the United States. By defining the entire U.S. as a battlefield, all the Pentagon needs to do, in order to exercise this power, is get the approval of the sitting president.

Historically in the U.S., questions of criminality were determined by civilian tribunals. The country has now yielded the principle of arrest, detainment, punishment, and imprisonment to executive privilege. This catapults American jurisprudence back into the reign of George the Third.

David Cameron THE LEGAL Terrorist By Taxi Driver

Political Incorrectness Warning:
Not Suitable for Bankers, Zionists, NeoCons, or Other Wankers

As the fraudulence of liberal democracy, a form of government spread chiefly by the likes of alleged Nazi Jew, George Soros and the various foundations and color revolutions that he supports, the phone bugger, Rupert Murdoch and his stable of pornographic, religious and supposedly serious news publications and broadcast outlets, and by US/NATO carpet bombing of countries rich in oil and gas or with territory suitable for oil and gas pipelines and oil export terminals, there seems little that the citizen can do other than make rude noises to detract from the dignity of the thieves, frauds and psychopaths who stand atop the manure pile.

Harmless though such childish behavior no doubt is, an end to it will surely soon be made, either by legal prohibition or by the simple expedient of designating those foolish simpletons carried away by the fun of it as "enemy combatants" to be detained indefinitely without rights or trial.

So, let us enjoy making rude noises while we can:


Video link via http://govermentterrorism.blogspot.com/

The Euro: A Weapon of Economic Mass Disruption

By CanSpeccy

As if the peoples of Europe weren't already sufficiently screwed, seventeen European states joined the Euro currency union in 1999.

This was a disaster in waiting dreamt up by, among others, Edward Heath (U.K. Prime Minister, 1970–74), who could also claim responsibility for establishing the politically correct view on mass immigration to Britain by kicking Sir Cyril Osborne out of the Conservative Party caucus for stating that Britain was a white country for white people and by firing Enoch Powell from the cabinet for warning about the peril of civil strife if mass immigration continued.

Heath who, in 1971, took Britain into the European Economic Community under the false claim that it was a free trade association not a proto-political union, advocated a common European currency because, in trading with Europeans, he asserted, it would save the trivial inconvenience of changing one's money.

Fortunately, for Britain, Heath's Conservative successors rejected membership in the Eurozone, and Tony Blair feared to arouse the anger of the electorate by reversing their decision.

The countries entering the Eurozone did so without provision for fiscal union or any other basis for adapting their widely differing economies to dynamic shifts in relative performance.

As a consequence, the Eurozone constitutes a potent mechanism for economic destabilization. Here's why. All nations engage in foreign trade, not merely to obtain commodities or industrial products that they lack, but to enjoy a diversity of goods and services beyond the basic necessities that they are unable to produce economically for themselves.

Thus, America, for example, which produces perfectly acceptable California wine, imports wine that is rarely superior to the Californian product from France and Spain, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, Chile and Peru among many other countries. Likewise, Canada, with more trees than any nation save Russia and Brazil, nevertheless imports American Christmas trees and wooden power poles.

To purchase from abroad one must first buy a foreign currency. The price of one currency in terms of another is largely a matter of supply and demand, which means that a country that becomes increasing competitive in international trade will see its currency appreciate in value against other currencies, thereby checking exports and encouraging imports. Conversely, a country that loses competitiveness will see its currency fall in value relative to that of others, thereby checking imports and boosting exports.

Although there are complications as, for example, when a country hoards foreign currency, or engages in the export or import of substantial quantities of investment capital, the effect of such actions are ironed out in due course.

However, if countries join together in a currency union, there is no mechanism to adjust imports and exports on a country-by-country basis so that exports and imports of each country roughly balance. On the contrary, the use of a common currency creates an instability leading to runaway economic distortion resulting in the disintegration and collapse of the least competitive economies and the accelerated expansion of the most competitive economies.

For example, when the international competitiveness of one country in the currency union declines, it tends to lower the exchange value of the common currency, which in turn stimulates the exports of the strongest members of the union, while reducing its imports.

Conversely, the success of the most competitive countries in raising exports and limiting imports tends to raise the exchange value of the common currency, which in turn depresses the already poor export performance of the least internationally competitive members of the union, while increasing their imports.

This means that a currency union guarantees an exchange rate that is too low for the most competitive member states and too high for the least competitive member states, and this unavoidable mispricing of the currency  leads to runaway economic growth and falling unemployment for the the most competitive members of the union at the cost of declining output and rising unemployment for the least competitive members of the union.

This is precisely what is happening within the Eurozone now. Germany and several other North European states are growing fast as the southern Eurozone states, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain see their economies contract, their government revenues shrink and their public debt explode.

The problem could be solved through the creation of a fiscal union which would permit tax revenue to be siphoned from the strong economies to cover welfare costs or to increase investment in the weak economies. This is what happens within most national jurisdictions, but it is a fairly stupid solution, and in the context of the Eurozone, it is naturally uncongenial to the Germans and other prospering members of the union who believe that inhabitants of the less prosperous states need to work harder and earn less.

Another solution would be for the unemployed in Greece or Spain to migrate to Germany or Netherlands where employment opportunities are more abundant. But due to language barriers (not every European is multilingual, and few indeed speak Hungarian, Slovenian, Slovak, Bulgarian or Romanian) and generous unemployment pay and cultural factors, ready internal labor mobility is not a feature of the Eurozone, as the current unemployment statistics bear out. In Spain, unemployment now stands at 22.9%, whereas in Germany unemployment is at a "record low" of 6.8%.

A further possibility would be the adoption of a process whereby wage rates are adjusted country by country at regular intervals to reflect changes in national unemployment rates. Thus, where unemployment is high, all wages and benefits would be adjusted downward in accordance with an appropriate formula. Conversely, where unemployment is low, wages would be adjusted upward in accordance with the same formula. The result would be to balance competitiveness and employment rates in all countries.

And the formula could be extended within nations to even out regional differences in employment. Thus those in regions of high unemployment would have the option of accepting work at below national average wages or moving to a more prosperous region.

Although this is a perfectly viable scheme for which I readily accept public acknowledgment, it is presumably beyond the intellectual grasp of most bureaucrats and politicians and is unlikely, therefore, to receive acceptance in less than a hundred years.

In the meantime, one can expect continued buggering around that makes the leadership of Europe look increasingly incompetent.

Perhaps the result will be the withdrawal from the Eurozone by those countries most adversely affected. Greece, apparently, is already threatening: give us 130 billion Euros or we split. This could be the prelude to a return to the happy days of independent, democratic, self-governing European nations, each with its own currency, but joined in a free trade association and a mutual defense and non-aggression pact.

Throw in a consultative committee of heads of state operating under the motto "Independence Forever", or just "Never Again", and it might work.

See also:
What's Wrong With Europe and What Needs to Be Done About It

What's Wrong With Europe and What Needs to Be Done About It

By CanSpeccy

Europe has three key problems, debt, unemployment and immigration, all of which derive from the 1994 GATT agreement, which opened the way for global wage arbitrage and unrestricted free trade.

Off-shoring of jobs drove up unemployment and welfare costs, while driving down tax revenues, thus creating public sector deficits.

Cheap imports of both goods and services kept inflation low even as interest rates were reduced to counter deflation. Cheap credit created a Ponzi economy in which credit drove asset prices, mainly houses, and asset prices drove credit demand.

As with all Ponzi schemes, the trajectory of growth in debt and asset prices reached its apogee and set off a vicious cycle of declining prices and debt default which destroyed bank capital, squeezed consumption and drove unemployment even higher.

Mass immigration is just another aspect of wage arbitrage: bringing the cheap labor in, rather than sending the work out.

As Cambridge University economics Professor Ha-Joon Chang explained (1):

If there were free migration, most workers in rich countries could be, and would be, replaced by workers from poor countries.

What that means is that immigration creates unemployment among the indigenous population.

Let me say that again: European governments deliberately pursue immigration policies that displace their own people from gainful employment by importing people from elsewhere who are more competitive than the least productive members of the indigenous workforce.

And let those "tolerant" middle-class liberals living in leafy white suburbs, who love diversity and call Emma West a racist remember, it could be their job next, for if it pays to rob the lowest paid of the opportunity to work, how much more profitable would it be to do the same to university professors, engineers, doctors, and most public sector employees.

Understanding this last point might go a long way toward pricking the bubble of political correctness that so distorts perception and prevents intelligent discussion of European immigration policies.

But how are European states handling the triple crisis of debt, unemployment and mass immigration?

With the usual combination of stupidity, short-sightedness and brutality that characterizes "liberal" democracies fronting for globalist corporate oligarchs.

With declining revenues and the need for bank bailouts to avoid economic chaos, government deficits have massively increased, taxes have been raised, welfare benefits cut, the unemployed left to r(i)ot, and mass immigration, both legal and illegal, facilitated to drive wages even lower.

The net result?

A reduction in GDP, living standards, and workforce skills and the progressive destruction of the racial and cultural identity of the European peoples.

What should the European states do instead?

There are only two ways to deal with debt.

One is to quit borrowing, spend less, work harder, create a surplus and repay the loan.

The other is to borrow from Peter to pay off Paul, while ripping off all your creditors with haircuts, payment in debased coin, or outright default.

Sloughing off the debt by money printing and negotiating haircuts is already in progress. It will leave Europe poorer, demoralized and internationally less competitive.

The route to repayment requires two things.

First, massive cuts in government spending to liberate resources to repay debts. Program cuts should focus on reducing the size of the public sector, bringing public sector wages back in line with private sector wages and eliminating benefits for the the middle and upper classes such as  grants for higher education, and subsidies for windmills that don't work just when you need the juice.

Second, getting the unemployed off the dole and into jobs where they contribute to the creation of wealth and acquire skills that enhance their productivity and hence market worth.

Th problem of unemployment cannot be solved as long as (a) welfare pays as well or better than the minimum wage, (b) the wage an employer must pay exceeds the value -- in a globalized market -- of the available labor, and (c) the state permits mass legal and illegal immigration of those who will displace the least competitive indigenous citizens from the workforce.

To make the unemployed worth employing at a living wage will require a wage subsidy scheme such as I've discussed elsewhere.

Briefly, employers would compete for subsidies through a public auction in which the higher the winning bids, the lower the subsidies.

Such a scheme, in the absence of mass immigration, would make virtually every able-bodied adult employable and would gives employers a level playing field upon which to compete internationally.

The cost of a wage subsidy scheme will be largely offset by the savings in welfare spending (including the indirect costs of unemployment such as elevated rates of crime, prison incarceration, and mental illness) that will result from bringing tens of millions of Europeans back into the workforce. It will also increase GDP, as off-shored work is brought home; improve the balance of payments through import substitution; increase corporate profits and hence government revenue; enhance workforce skills; create the surpluses necessary for the repayment of both private and public debt; and not of least importance, end the genocidal program of mass immigration to among the most crowded nations on Earth.

(1)Ha-Joon Chang. Things they don't tell you about capitalism. Bloomsbury Press. 2010.

See also:
The Euro: A Weapon of Economic Mass Disruption

Per ardua ad astra: Why not?

By CanSpeccy

Escher Dyson Sphere

A post over at Tallbloke's Talkshop argues that we need global governance to restrict hydrocarbon energy use if we are to avoid civilizational collapse when supplies of hydrocarbon fuels abruptly run out.

The idea makes a change from the "if we don't stop burning so much oil we'll all die an 'orrible death from global warming" argument for the Global Soviet Socialist Republic, but seems hardly more convincing.

Of interest, though, is the argument in an article to which the author links, which states:

No matter what the technology, a sustained 2.3% energy growth rate would require us to produce as much energy as the entire sun within 1400 years.

In other words, so we are to assume, our present course of ever increasing energy use is totally unsustainable.

But wait, is it really inconceivable that we could harness the sun's entire output of energy?

Not to the visionaries:

When we physicists look at outer space for alien life," says Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics at City of New York University, "we don't look for little green men, we look for Type I, Type II and Type III civilizations. A Type I civilization has harnessed it's planetary power ... A Type II civilization is stellar ... they get their energy directly from their mother star. Eventually, they exhaust the power of a star and they go galactic" (i.e., become Type III)

So could we evolve in a mere 1400 years to the point of going galactic, of evolving from a Type I to a mature Type II civilization?

Freeman Dyson

Absolutely. In theory, anyhow. A means proposed by the legendary mathematician, Freeman Dyson, would be to build a sphere surrounding the sun, which would intercept every emitted photon and converts its energy to human use.

A Dyson sphere (or shell as it appeared in the original paper) is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a "sphere" would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output. Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the long-term survival and escalating energy needs of a technological civilization, and proposed that searching for evidence of the existence of such structures might lead to the detection of advanced intelligent extraterrestrial life. (Maveric Universe Wiki)

So why not?

Let us abhore global governance, but instead "boldly go where no man has gone before": each small group in its own independent, self-governing, hollowed-out solar-powered asteroid.