Why the EU Won't Negotiate a Reasonable Brexit Deal

The EU won't negotiate a reasonable Brexit deal with the UK because it does not want a reasonable Brexit deal with the UK.

The EU wants no Brexit deal at all.

Rather, the EU wants the fall of Britain's Brexit-bound Johnson Government and its replacement by a Lib-Lab-Green-Marxist-Whatever Remain Government for the greater provision of cushy Euro-bureaucratic jobs and other payoffs to Europhiliac politicians and bureaucrats.

Trouble for the EU is that blocking a reasonable Brexit deal validates Boris Johnson's claim to represent the Britain's national interest in a conflict with the knavish tricks of the imperialistic European Union.

It's a case of heads the UK wins, tails the EU loses.

Eight Reasons the EU Will Suffer Far More Than UK in Brexit

By Mike Shedlock

The EU would be wise to make a deal with the UK. It will get clobbered in the event of no deal.

Mishtalk, August 8, 2019:  Conventional wisdom says the UK will get hit harder than the EU in the event of a no deal Brexit. Conventional wisdom is wrong.

Here are eight reasons the EU will suffer more in both the short and long term.

1: Corporate Taxes

The UK can and likely will slash corporate tax rates. A lower corporate tax rate will mitigate much of the profit damage suffered by UK corporations in the event of no deal.

Note that one of the EU's biggest complaints against Ireland now is the "unfair" corporate tax structure of Ireland.

2: Currency Fluctuations

A falling currency is good for exporters and bad for importers. The British Pound has been falling in anticipation of Brexit.

​

3: Balance of Trade

In the event of no deal, WTO tariffs kick unless the EU offers to work out a trade deal. Under WTO rules, the EU could do that and rules allow a lengthy 10 years to get it done. The EU should agree to do that, but with animosity rising, it probably won't.

In a rising tariff setup, exporters will suffer far more than importers. Germany has an enormous trade surplus with the UK.

Image from Order of Rank of Germany's Trading Partners.

Angela Merkel is very concerned about German exports as well she should be.

Throw in the increasing chance of Trump putting tariffs on German cars and the EU will get crucified. A very severe German recession is in the cards and the EU faces a double whammy of Brexit plus Trump.

Note that a falling currency will mitigate some of the Tariff damage on UK exporters while compounding the problems for the EU.

4: Fishing Rights

In Brexit, the UK halts all EU fishing rights. EU fishermen will get clobbered.

5: Trade Deals

The UK will be able to make its own trade deals and set tariffs how it pleases.

6: Rules and Regulations

The UK will finally be free of inane EU rules and regulations on basically everything but especially agriculture.

7: Brexit Fees and Pay to Play Fee

Some dispute this, but the UK can halt the Brexit breakup fee. Boris Johnson has threatened to do that. Regardless, the UK will stop paying into the EU coffers even it does pay the breakup bill. The EU has budgeted for UK payments. When the UK stops paying, the EU will have to raise taxes to cover the difference.

8: Long Term Consequences

Both the EU and UK will suffer in the event of no deal but the long-term consequences strongly favor of the UK.

Dayton Shooting: Attack of the Zombie Gunman?

Vox Day reports:

The government is obviously hiding the true story in Dayton in order to prevent panic. The shooter rose from the grave in order to take his revenge! Item: Connor Betts named as gunman in body armor who shot dead 9 and injured 26 in Ohio. Item: Dayton gunman Connor Betts' sister and her boyfriend 'shot dead' in massacre. Megan Betts was killed by her brother Connor who slaughtered eight others before being shot by police. Item: an obituary published in The Hartford Courant on Feb. 23, 2014: Connor D. Betts 1992 - 2014 Connor D. Betts, 22, of Suffield passed away suddenly Wednesday, February 19, 2014. Connor was born in Hartford on February 12, 1992, son of Kathleen O'Leary Betts, and was loved by all who knew him. Growing up in Suffield he graduated from Suffield High School in 2010 and then attended Lincoln Tech for Diesel Technology and received his certification in 2012.... Connor was always willing to lend a hand and had the great ability to fix anything. He was known for his heart of gold and will be missed dearly by all. He was a 6'3" teddy bear known as "Baby" by his "Mama." Along with his mother Connor is survived by his four siblings, Colleen Rodriguez and her husband Alfredo; Megan Betts; Brian Betts; and Kathryn Betts all in Suffield. In other words, it's zombies. That, or the guys writing the scripts are complete hacks who comb through the obituaries to name their characters.

Makes you think dunnit. That's assuming you can think, something of which writers of shooting scripts must think you are incapable.

Related: 

Howard James Kunstler: This Is Exactly What You Get In A Culture Where Anything Goes & Nothing Matters"

Britain's New PM: Talking With Parkinson in 2008

The Fake Piety of the Mega Rich and Famous Gospellers of Global Warming

By Rex Murphy

National Post, August 2, 2019: Today’s text is from the Gospel of Matthew, KJV:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

Every issue has its hypocrites, those who preach the cause but act its opposite.

But there is no issue on this orbiting Earth, nor has there even been, that has the burden and depth, the volume and intensity of the rawest hypocrisy — that burns on the flames of hypocrisy itself — as that of global warming.

The hypocrisy of politicians is as a bead of sand, a pimple in the shadow of Everest compared to the hollow, fake piety of the mega rich and famous gospellers of global warming.

Those howling loudest at people to use public transport — “for the planet’s sake” — should not, per exemplum, own $400-million yachts, travel themselves by private jet, have a dozen vast mansions in a dozen countries, and hold suppers that cost $100,000 in ancient Greek temples. But they do. Check out the Google Summer Camp.

This week the richest of the rich, the famousest of the famous, the most pretentious of the pretentious, convened a three-day summit in a high-luxury resort on the island of Sicily to — discuss? bemoan? illustrate? — the crisis of climate inflammation wrought by fiendish fossil fuels. It was sponsored by the two founders of Google (personal worth, 2017, US$81 billion).

The chosen ones gathered to save us all from a humid world was a rare mix, including Woody Harrelson, Diane von Furstenberg, David Geffen, Chris Martin, Leonardo DiCaprio (discoverer of the Chinook), Sacha Baron Cohen, Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry, Prince Harry and a clutch of egotist billionaires and trendoids too numerous to list.

How do I save thee (Earth). Let me count the ways?

How did this coven of illuminati get to Sicily? Did they walk and row? Come by Greyhound? Hitchhike? Nein. Official count of the private jets wafting into Palermo air for the “great consult” stands at 114. This for a maximum 300 people attending — three persons per jet.

Not all came from the carbon-rich sky. Some came by personal super-yacht.

Eric Smidt, CEO of something called Harbor Freight Tools, came on a 69-metre luxury barge Intrepid (US$150 million); a New Zealand tycoon cleaved the Mediterranean on Andromeda ($US165 million); and David Geffen floated in on Rising Sun ($US400 million).

These are not self-propelling bathtub toys.

Read more

Global Warming: No Need to Panic Yet?

US Temperature anomaly 2004 to 2019. Source: U.S. Natioanal Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration, National Temperature Index.

The temperature anomaly is the difference between the temperature at a particular time relative to the long-term mean temperature. So currently, and for the last fifteen years, the average temperature recorded across the continental United States has shown essentially zero deviation from the long-term mean temperature. Which is not to say, however, that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is a good thing. On the contrary, as comments linked below indicate, it is potentially a very bad thing.

Related: 
Zero Hedge: Creator Of Global-Warming's Infamous "Hockey Stick" Chart Loses 'Climate-Science' Lawsuit
CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part I: Carbon Dioxide Is Not a Greenhouse Gas
CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part II: Ecosystem Disruption
CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part III: Induced Stupidity and the Decline of the West
CanSpeccy: Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration, Part IV: Reversing the Trend

Why Minimum Wage Laws Increase Unemployment

If the discipline of economics has one certain principle it is the law of supply and demand. Briefly, the law states:

The quantity of a good supplied (i.e., the amount owners or producers offer for sale) rises as the market price rises, and falls as the price falls. Conversely, the quantity of a good that the market demands falls as the price rises and rises as the price falls.

Meaning that laws that raises the minimum wage reduce the quantity of labor demanded. Or more simply, minimum wage laws create unemployment among those at the bottom of the heap, i.e.., those workers for whom demand is least, and for whom demand, beyond a certain price, is non-existent.

This obvious fact naturally does nothing to modify the demands of the comfortably off opinionators, Ron Unz, for example, and legislative idiots in the US Congress.

Spelled out in greater detail, here's the case against minimum wage laws.

Yes, abolishing the minimum wage would create many miserably badly paid jobs. But to be employed even at a miserably low wage is better than to be unemployed, on the workforce trash heap. Moreover, working at a low wage provides opportunity to acquire skills that qualify workers for better paid work.

Those who want to help the working poor, should advocate for a reverse income tax, or some other form of taxpayer funded wage subsidy. But don't think legislators can interfere with the market mechanism without creating consequences that hurt people and damage the economy.

Related:

CanSpeccy: Globalist Economics No. 37: Raising the Minimum Wage, or How to Make Water Flow Uphill

Why Thereason May Failed

Guido Fawkes reports:

They’ve only been out of government a week and already Philip Hammond and Gavin Barwell have been spied ramping up the plotting against the new Prime Minister. The pair were spotted out with their wives at the Wolseley last night. Guido’s mole in the room says there was extensive discussion both about thwarting Boris and revoking Article 50. Hammond has even been alienating committed Remainers with his ultra-hardline approach in recent weeks, purging anti-No Deal Tory WhatsApp groups of Remainers who dared to publicly back Boris. The fact that Theresa May’s most senior Cabinet Minister and Chief of Staff are busy scheming against Boris and Brexit just a week after leaving office speaks volumes about why May failed to deliver…

Fawkes has photos of the Thereason Party plotters plotting here.

The Death of Great American Companies, No. 79: Boeing

By Maximus Fabius

Jim McNerney was Boeing’s president and CEO from 2005 to 2015 and Chairman from 2005 to 2016. He is corporate royalty: Yale, Harvard MBA, time at McKinsey and GE, CEO of MMM – then Boeing. Today’s Boeing is his creation, which he was paid over $100 million to build.

Michael Kinsey’s definition of a gaffe “is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.” There are few better examples than this during Boeing’s quarterly earnings conference on 24 July 2014. This was the year after problems with 787 cost Boeing tens of billions – caused by McNerney’s aggressive outsourcing of jobs away from Seattle’s skilled unionized workers.

Bloomberg News: “Jim, you have a birthday coming up next month. …Will you be at your desk, and has the Board approved you staying on past age 65?”

Jim McNerney: “Yes, the heart will still be beating. The employees will still be cowering (laughing). I’ll be working hard; there’s no end in sight. We’re continuing to build the succession plan …But there’s no discussion of it yet. So you’ll still be asking questions of me.”

This is the mind of a modern American CEO. He was not kidding. Boeing’s executives worked hard to demoralize its workers (the most recent round earlier in 2014). McNerney exulted in his success.

In this Boeing stands with other corporate leaders such as those of Amazon, Nike, and Walmart in forging a new corporate-worker relationship: plutocrat and peon. It’s natural that their great success creates contempt for their employees. They have weakened or broken their unions. They converted much of their workforce into contingent, low wage, no benefit proles.

These executives are capitalists in the sense of living off America’s accumulated social capital. They are leeches. The greatness of America is shown by the length of time it has taken them to ruin formerly great companies such as GE and IBM, reducing them to shells of their former selves.

Unless we change America’s corporate structures, more companies will decay. It is built on law and custom, and under our control – if we have the will and wit to act.

This decay is part of the slow collapse of America’s institutions described in A new, dark picture of America’s future. These problems seem unrelated and overwhelming, but they have a common cause in our apathy. We have let slip the reins of America.

“A society does not ever die ‘from natural causes’, but always dies from suicide or murder – and nearly always from the former ….”
Arnold Joseph Toynbee: A Study of History.

Racist Hungarians Think Their Country Is For Hungarians

Zero Hedge, reports:

Faced with a declining birth rate and an unwilling to fill population shortfalls with immigrants like some of its European neighbors, Hungary has rolled out a seven-point "Family Protection Action Plan" which showers boatloads of cash, loan assistance and tax breaks to couples who agree to crank out lots of Hungarian children. Read more

But there's no risk any such ideas catching on here in Canada.

So long as the liberal duo of Trudeau and Scheer are firmly in control, anyone mentioning that reproductively challenged* Canadians are replacing themselves with people from elsewhere will be relentlessly castigated as a racist, fascist, Nazi, anti-Semite to be despised by all and sundry as a no-good hateful person.

No, Canadians are firm in their commitment to the idea that men and women are essentially indistinguishable and that a woman's purpose in life is to do a man's job and show that she can do it better than a man, which it must be admitted is often not difficult, and if any man thinks having babies and raising children is important they can damn well impregnate themselves and raise babies without female intervention.

———
* In 1984, Canada's fertility rate fell below the replacement rate of 2.12 children per woman for the first time ever, thanks to the Trudeau Government's non-enforcement of anti-abortion laws, its legislation of no-fault divorce and the liberal climate of the times.

Since 1984 Canada's fertility rate has continued to decline, and is now 25% below the replacement rate. Canada's population continues to grow through immigration, which Trudeau the younger intends to accelerate to a yearly rate of almost one percent of the existing population. Canada, is thus, like all Western nations, with the exception of Hungary, in the process of replacing its population with people from elsewhere: mainly people of an alien race, religion and culture. Combined with a commitment to multiculturalism, this is a policy of European racial and cultural self-genocide.

It's Obvious Who Will Replace Trump After The Controlled Demolition Of The Economy

By Brandon Smith

AltMarket.com, July25, 2019: In the months leading up to the 2016 election I had been predicting a Trump win based on a particular theory which I believe still holds true today – namely the theory that the global banking elites in power were allowing so-called “populist” movements in the US and Europe to gain political traction near the very end of the decade long “Everything Bubble”. Once populist groups were entrenched and feeling overconfident, the cabal would then tighten liquidity into existing economic weakness and crash the system on their heads. Populists would get the blame for an economic disaster that the central banks had engineered many years in advance.

Once enough suffering had been dealt to the populace, globalists and extreme leftists would arrive on the scene to offer anti-populism as a solution; meaning the centralization and socialization of everything on a scale never before witnessed except perhaps in the darkest days of the Bolshevik Revolution.

This theory allowed me to predict the success of the Brexit vote in the UK, Trump's entry into the White House, the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes and balance sheet cuts into economic weakness, and now it is looking more and more like my March prediction of a “No Deal” Brexit will turn out to be correct with Boris Johnson rising to the position of Prime Minister. So, I continue to stand by it.

Read more

Were the Skripal Poisonings a British Intelligence Service Hoax?

In an interview conducted in the Kremlin on June 19, this year, Vladimir Putin answered questions from American film director, Oliver Stone. The discussion turned to the case of Sergei Skripal, the pardoned Russian traitor, resident in Salisbury, England where he and his daughter, Yulia, were reported by British authorities to have been poisoned by Russian security service operatives who painted the deadly nerve agent Novichok on the knob of the front door of Sergei Skripal's house.

Concerning that incident, Stone's conversation with Putin included the following:

Stone: What has happened to Skripal? Where is he? Vladimir Putin: I have no idea. He is a spy, after all. He is always in hiding. Oliver Stone: Who poisoned him? They say English secret services did not want Sergei Skripal to come back to Russia? Vladimir Putin: To be honest, I do not quite believe this. Oliver Stone: Makes sense. You do not agree with me? Vladimir Putin: If they had wanted to poison him, they would have done so. Oliver Stone: Who did then? Vladimir Putin: After all, this is not a hard thing to do in today’s world. In fact, a fraction of a milligram would have been enough to do the job. And if they had him in their hands, there was nothing complicated about it. No, this does not make sense. Maybe they just wanted to provoke a scandal.

Putin is certainly not acknowledging Russian responsibility for the Skripal poisonings, yet he said the Brits weren't responsible either. So the Russia position seems to be that the poisonings were a hoax to smear Russia, and that no one was actually poisoned with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok.

But if that were the case, why? Why would the British Government engage in such charade? Presumably as part of the UK–US deep state project to to create an obstacle to a US/Russian rapprochement. 

But if so, surely there would have been a pretext. And if there were a pretext, it must have been the visit to Salisbury of the alleged Russian security service operatives, Petrov and Boshirov, immediately prior to the poisoning of the Skripals with the deadly, "developed-in-Russia," nerve agent that proved curiously undeadly, at least in the case of the Skripals. 

According to British authorities, Petrov and Boshirov were in Salisbury to paint Novichok on the knob of Sergei Skripal's front door. But what if they were there for some entirely different clandestine purpose? Then a faked poisoning might have been judged by the UK as a good means of retaliation, since it could be blamed on Russia, by virtue of the presence of the Russian agents. 

But there was also the case of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, reported by British authorities to have been poisoned with Novichok contained in a perfume bottle that they found in a rubbish bin in Salisbury. 

Apparently Dawn Sturgess died as a consequence of applying the contents of the bottle, which she took to be perfume, which if true is inconsistent with the idea that the Novichok poisonings were simply a piece of theatre intended to sway public opinion. But then perhaps it was precisely to create such an apparent inconsistency that Dawn Sturgess had to "die." 

Is thatDawn Sturgess carrying a red 

bag and accompanied by and Pablo

Miller, Sergei Skripal's MI6 handler? 

Image source.

As far as we know, Dawn Sturgess did die, and if the circumstances of here death are as reported by British authorities, her death was certainly tragic.

But if the incident was part of a propaganda exercise, then Ms. Sturgess may still be alive and living at public expense under another name?

But if Dawn Sturgess is still alive, then she must have been one of the actors in a British operation to discredit Russia, a possibility suggested by the surveillance camera image of a women who might well have been Dawn Stugess accompanied by a man who might well have been Pablo Miller, Segei Skripals MI6 handler.

The CCTV image, taken at around the time of the alleged poisonings, is from a camera in the lane connecting Zizzi's restaurant in Salisbury, where the Skripals had just eaten, with the park where they are supposed to have been poisoned.

The woman in the photograph is carrying a red bag, which is interesting in view of the report of a witness at the scene of the poisoning who said, referring to Yulia Skripal:

She had a red bag at her feet.

So perhaps we need no longer mourn for Dawn Sturgess, who may yet be living comfortably at public expense, albeit under a different name.

The Demolition of Robert Mueller: LOL

Democrats Campaign Slogan for 2020: "Americans suck, vote for us"

Kurt Schlichter:

TownHall, July 22, 2019: The Democrats’ 2020 theme is that you are terrible and the party’s slogan will be “Americans suck, vote for us.” The precise candidate who will employ it is not important because they all embrace the notion that punishing the essential moral failure of you and me and every other Normal American is the key goal of the Donkey Party. That goes equally for the Handsey Old Prospector, the Socialist Squaw, Crusty the Commie, Spartacus Sharpton, Starchild, the Furry, Not Ms. Willie Brown, the Unfabulous Gay Guy, and the many Unfabulous Ungay Guys.

They all agree that you are terrible because you don’t know your place, which is behind a rock pushing it endlessly uphill for the benefit of people who hate you.

Remember Animal Farm from back when you were in school and they taught it as a chilling warning about socialism instead of as a how-to manual? Remember the horse who got worked nearly to death then got sent to the glue farm?

Guess what? You’re the horse.

Read more:

Related:
Wayne Root: The Definition of a Racist

Bigots of Silicon Valley, No. 79: FaceBook's Hatred of Christian Speech

FaceBook apparently regards quotation of the Christian saints as "hate speech," hence a notice from FaceBook to Dominic Bettinelli informing him that his posting of the following words of Saint Augustine, went against Facebook’s “Community Standards on hate speech:”

Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon. But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others. St. Augustine

FaceBook's Kuckerberg and associates are clearly "hopeless creatures" who paying little if any attention to their own sins have become obsessively "interested in the sins of others.... Unable to excuse themselves, [they] accuse others."

Hate this Zucks:

Rand Paul: Like a Future President, Trashes PC Lefty Liars

What do IQ Tests Test?

If you think IQ tests test intelligence, you might ask yourself: How do you know?

What is intelligence?

Give us your definition.

Or by intelligence do you just mean IQ, in which case your understanding of intelligence is tautological: intelligence is performance on an IQ test, which is measured by performance on an IQ test.

IQ and wealth at low scale (outside the tail).
Mostly Noise and no strikingly visible effect
above $40K, but huge noise. Psychologists
responding to this piece do not realize that
statistics is about not interpreting noise.
From Zagorsky (2007) via Nassim Taleb.

Fact is, the IQ testers never have defined intelligence. Instead, they came up with a set of puzzlers and declared your score on this test is the measure of your intelligence.

Trouble is, the IQ-ists have never attempted to show how IQ test results relate to what is understood by the term intelligence as manifest by, say, the creative work of a poet, a painter, a composer, an architect, or a scientist, or the more mundane endeavors of a politician, a policeman, a prostitute or a peddler of illicit drugs. Their strongest claim is that IQ tests predict "career success", except as anyone who looks into the matter will find, the correlation is trivial.

The best that IQ tests can do is provide an indication of academic aptitude, but even in that case they don't work well, not even as well as traditional academic exams, which is why Harvard and other such places use a SAT test with a mathematical component and a verbal component, the results of which are by no means closely correlated

Better still, obviously, would be to break things down further, e.g., SAT Physics, SAT Biology, SAT English, SAT music, etc. Except that would be giving up, since it would be an acknowledgement that the whole idea of intelligence as unitary feature of mind measurable on a single linear scale is nonsense.

Related:
Nassim Taleb: The psychologists' construct, general intelligence, is based on a statistical error.

Hillary-Supporting Expert: How Google Stole Between 2,4 and 10.6 Million Votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016

Trump Fuels a Tribal War in Nancy’s House

By Patrick Buchanan:

Trump is driving a wedge right through the Democratic Party, between its moderate and militant wings. With his attacks over the last 48 hours, Trump has signaled whom he prefers as his opponent in 2020. It is not Biden; it is “the Squad.”

President Donald Trump’s playground taunt Sunday that “the Squad” of four new radical liberal House Democrats, all women of color, should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came,” dominated Monday morning’s headlines.

Yet those headlines smothered the deeper story.

The Democrats are today using language to describe their own leaders that is similar to the language of the 1960s radicals who denounced Democratic segregationist governors like Ross Barnett and George Wallace.

Consider what the four women have been saying.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused Speaker Nancy Pelosi of attacking “newly elected women of color.” Was she calling Pelosi a “racist”?

“No!” protested AOC. But it sure sounded like it.

Read more

Related: 

Zero Hedge: Trump Slams AOC's 'Squad' As "The Four Horsewomen Of The Apocalypse"
Mark Dice: Exposing the dishonesty of the anti-democratic left

Where Are the Environmentalists When We Need Them

The Quake to Make Los Angeles a Radioactive Dead Zone Nothing significant has been done to improve safety at two coastal reactors upwind of ten million people that are surrounded by earthquake faults in a tsunami zone like the one where the four Fukushima reactors have already exploded ... Read more