Tag Archives: markets

Tactically Sound?

Posted on by
Reply

Perhaps, but perhaps strategically disastrous.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the queen to prorogue the current parliament, and the queen agreed, in order to block it from blocking him from taking Great Britain out of the European Union on schedule 31 October without a deal in the likely event that the EU continues its intransigence in negotiating.  Prorogation is the formal end of an existing session of Parliament, and normally it’s done just prior to the beginning of the next session, to clear the decks for that session.

The current prorogation would run until 14 October, at which point the Queen’s Speech, which would reconvene Parliament, would lay out her (the PM’s) agenda for the new session. Existing bills, including those currently planned to interfere with Brexit, cease to exist with the prorogation; although, they could be reintroduced—to take their turn in the queue in those two remaining weeks.

There are a couple of reasons why Johnson’s move might be tactically sound.  Parliamentary sessions normally last for one year; however, the current Parliament has sat [sic] since June 2017, more than two years.  It’s time for this feckless band to get out of the way, go home, and contemplate their navels.

That brings up the second reason: prorogation would prevent this Parliament from blocking Johnson’s effort to bring the nation out of the EU with no further delay and associated economic uncertainty—and that uncertainty’s follow-on deleterious effects on the British weal.

The longer question that arises is whether prorogation is a strategically sound move.  It’s very likely that prorogation will result in an on-time departure from the EU, with or without a deal governing the terms of the exit.  However, it’s entirely possible that the associated hue and cry will lead to new elections (possibly triggered by a successful no-confidence vote in November) and a new, non-Tory government installed.

That government is very likely to go, hat twisting in hand, to Brussels and beg for reentry into the EU.  What then?

What would be the result on British sovereignty; British economic and political welfare; indeed, British self-respect in such an eventuality?

Even if that new government doesn’t go begging (or even if it does), what else could happen? The alternative to a Johnson-led Tory, sort-of conservative, government is a Corbyn-led Labour government.  That means the prosperity of a limited (relatively, within the constraints of present British concepts) government that Margaret Thatcher made so much progress toward and that Johnson would seek to preserve and extend would be entirely undone by the destructively socialist government that Corbyn would install.

What then of British economic and political welfare; of British self-respect?

Still, Johnson’s move is worth the risk, for the sake of British sovereignty.

Pro-EU

Posted on by
Reply

Too many Brits in Parliament plainly favor the European Union over their own nation.  That’s what opposition MPs seem to do, as they look to block a no-deal departure from the EU by Great Britain, even expressing a willingness to bring down the government to achieve that end.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants a (new) deal, for all that he’s willing to take Great Britain out of the EU on schedule if Brussels continues to refuse to negotiate at all, much less in good faith. The MPs’ obstruction serves only to undercut such leverage as Johnson might have in these post-May efforts.

The most that can happen from their obstruction is the preservation of May’s Northern Ireland border agreement that gives open and unfettered entry into Great Britain. This destroys British sovereignty by eliminating its control over its own border—which was a major motivation for the Leave vote.

Since those MPs know this full well—after all, they’re highly intelligent and at the top of their respective parties—their motive can only be their favoring the EU and subordinating their own nation and its sovereignty to that continental entity.

Brazilian Forest Fires

Posted on by
Reply

Deutsche Welle‘s Loveday Wright wondered about the Amazon forest fires in northern Brazil:  Can international pressure help put them out?

Not when the Brazilian government, for good or ill, exposes them to fire by allowing clear-cutting in favor of agriculture.

But more importantly, not when climatistas openly lie about the extent and level of destruction of the fires.

Several of the most widely shared images aren’t actually from this month’s fires.
Some are old photographs of the Amazon, and some aren’t even from the area at all.

For instance:

Although [a fire image] shows a fire in the Amazon, it’s actually a stock photo taken in the 1980s by a photographer from National Geographic….

And

An image of a burned rabbit has been shared over 1000 times, but is actually from fires in Malibu, California.
One of those who shared it also posted a picture of a monkey crying over her sick baby, which is actually from Jalabur in India in 2018, by Avinash Lodhi.

And not when national politicians celebrating trading on their celebrity openly repeat the lies.

French president Emmanuel Macron and Leonardo DiCaprio were among those to share a photograph showing a wall of flame rising up from a swathe of rainforest.
Although it shows a fire in the Amazon, it’s actually a stock photo taken in the 1980s by a photographer from National Geographic….

While there are legitimate images of the real fires in the Brazilian Amazon, the lies and manufactured hysteria about climate! climate! climate! eliminate all credibility about global warming, and they hinder legitimate efforts to deal with the legitimate fires and other local ecological problems and their actual causes.

Red Flag Laws, Again

Posted on by
Reply

Now The Wall Street Journal is beating the drum for red flag laws that would authorize seizure of weapons from anyone, and anyone associated with that one, that Government, or a Government-appointed/approved body deems a threat.

Consider one of the three cute anecdotes the WSJ cited via its drumbeat.

Police were tipped off by school officials that a 14-year-old boy had praised mass shootings. He used campus computers to search firearms and terms like “white power.” Taken to a psychiatrist, the student said he was joking.
The boy’s father owned a rifle and a pistol. A short-term red-flag order was obtained, and the two firearms were relinquished. After a hearing a one-year order was issued. [In all three anecdotes cited, the outcome was a “one-year order.”]

The WSJ right wondered whether

the father whose guns were handed over suggest[ed] that he was unable or unwilling to secure them from his 14-year-old son?

Then the Editors dismissed this trivial concern.  I ask, though, what happened to the father’s Second Amendment rights? I answer with dismay: they seem to have been trampled without a fare-thee-well. His firearms were taken for no better reason than that someone associated with him was deemed maybe a threat sometime in the future. The boy’s claim that he was joking seems to have been dismissed just as out of hand.

There are larger problems, though, than just a few carefully selected anecdotes.  What about false positives? Where will the wrongly accused—whether mistakenly or maliciously—go to get his reputation back?

What about false negatives? Now the true threat is both warned and angrified—and in the same household, perhaps, as the one who accused him.

With true due process, how can the system act quickly enough to forestall an imminent threat?

The WSJ‘s Editors closed their piece with—perhaps—a glimmer of understanding:

…red-flag laws are no panacea for mass shootings. But…if reasonably drafted, they appear to be a step forward: gun control for the dangerous and unstable.

But then they demonstrate their fatal misunderstanding.  Red flag laws cannot be reasonably drafted, not only for the reasons above but for the WSJ‘s rationalization of that step forward: the laws focus on the tools a dangerous and unstable person might use and not on the dangerous and unstable person.

No system is perfect, certainly, but no system should be put in place that threatens the liberty and fundamental rights of all of us because a tiny per centage of us are bent on mayhem, especially when that system is so badly flawed as the one proposed here.

The energy being pumped into this euphemism for an assault on our 2nd Amendment should be focused instead on finding ways to deal specifically with those tiny few dangerous and unstable persons.

Value

Posted on by
Reply

Wretchard (@wretchardthecat) asked an interesting question on Twitter Wednesday, and the implications from the question are being carefully ignored by the Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates who want to forgive all—or most—student debt.

Forgiving student debt sends the signal that educational investment is worthless because it cannot return the rate of the money borrowed to finance it. That may actually be true but then what is the value of the credential?

Read the whole thread, it’s pithy and concise, as are the comments ensuing.

A related question has implications that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates who want to make college/university education “free:” if nothing is paid for the education—if it has no cost (to the user)—what is the value of that education or of the credential that proclaims it? Value not in the eye of the holder, but in the eye of any employer?