Tag Archives: markets

Tony Blair Misunderstands

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Great Britain’s Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair has sensed danger from the Brits’ vote to leave the European Union.

Blair said in a Friday column in The Daily Telegraph that the future of the United Kingdom is at stake as the country faces negotiations on the terms of leaving the European Union.

Of course there’s danger—there always is when a change as large as this is embarked on.  But Great Britain didn’t get to be as great as it was and still is by being timid.  This move is a great opportunity for the nation, much more so than it is a risk, however real that risk is.

Blair also worried:

Britain is dangerously divided, with “profound dismay” felt by many of the 48 percent who wanted to remain in the EU.

He’s missing the other question, though: would Great Britain be any less divided had they voted to Remain?  Not a bit.

Look forward, not backward.

Another Government Overreach?

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Before the government can measure the size of the gig economy—or is it the sharing economy? The digital economy?—the sector needs to be defined.

No, it doesn’t.  It doesn’t even need to measure the size of the gig economy; government has shown it’s not going to do anything useful, or freedom-promoting, with that measurement.

And this misconception, by Commerce Department Acting Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Justin Antonipillai:

In order to have good policy making, you have to have good data[.]

Again, no.  Government doesn’t need to make any policy in this area.  Not at all.  Government just needs to butt out, and let American entrepreneurs make their own way.

Only our Liberals are unable to function without being told every little thing every step of the way.  Even Liberals can learn how, though.

This is News?

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US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday urged Britain and the European Union to manage their divorce responsibly for the sake of global markets and citizens….

Kerry said

The most important thing is that all of us, as leaders, work together to provide as much continuity, as much stability, as much certainty as possible[.]

Empty remarks by the motorboat skipper who sits in the Secretary of State’s chair.  After all, what else would he say—that the EU and Great Britain should go for each other’s throats, and the first slash wins?

On the other hand, after President Barack Obama threatened the Brits should they go against their Betters and vote to leave, maybe this is news.

Boeing, Iran, and Aircraft Sales

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Iran reportedly reached an agreement Sunday to buy 100 planes from Boeing, pending the final authorization from US Treasury officials.

These are passenger aircraft, ostensibly destined for Iranair and other Iranian airline companies.

There are a couple of questions about this deal, though.  One is where will the money (in the neighborhood of $17 billion) come from with which Iran will pay for these aircraft?  Who will lend Iran the money?

The second question has more dire possibilities.  Regardless of Boeing’s motives (and I do not doubt them), in the end, these are fundamentally transport aircraft.  What assurances can there be that Iran won’t turn them over to their military for transport of equipment and soldiers, whether to support Iranian military adventurism (Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, for instance) or to support Iranian terrorist clients (Hamas and Hezbollah, for instance)?

Laughingstock

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The Pentagon held a video-teleconference with Russian defense officials Saturday, two days after Russia bombed Pentagon and CIA-backed rebels not once, but twice on Thursday near Syria’s border with Iraq and Jordan.

And especially [emphasis added]

The second wave of strikes occurred after the US military called Russia on an emergency byline established following Russia’s deployment of dozens of fighter jets and attack helicopters to Syria in late 2015.

This is how seriously Russia takes President Barack Obama’s (d) administration.  This is the contempt Vladimir Putin has for this President and for Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her Reset that she wants to extend.  A Reset that is too expensive, indeed.

Elections have consequences.