The Shallow End Of The Pool

Joe Doakes emails about something I’m noticing in regard to the Paris “treaty”, political violence, economics, race, crime, human and civil rithts…

…well, just read it:

Liberals say Trump people are doing just what Clinton people did, but we’re not calling to lock him up, therefore, Republicans are shameful hypocrites.

William F. Buckley, Jr. once explained that the problem with Liberal analysis is shallowness.  One man pushes a little old lady into the path of a bus, a second man leaps in front of the bus to push her back to safety, but a Liberal says the men are identical: they’re both pushing around little old ladies.  Well, yes, at the most superficial level of analysis, that’s true; but a thinking person ought to be capable of looking deeper to see the moral difference in their actions.

Hillary ignored security warnings to set up a private email server which she used for official government business including classified information that ended up on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.  Members of the Trump administration have a private email system which they use solely for non-government communications such as Republican party fundraising.  Liberals now claim the situations are identical but the first system violated the law whereas the second system upholds the law which prohibits using government property for private political purposes.

Hillary set up the Clinton Foundation to provide aid to hurricane ravaged Haiti, and received $2 billion in donations from corporations and other nations seeking access to her.  She used 90% of the money for personal expenses.  Ivanka urged the World Bank to set up a Women’s Entrepreneur fund to help women achieve economic independence.  Saudi Arabia just donated $200 million, no doubt hoping it will get them access to her as a key figure in her father’s administration.  Liberals claim the two situations are identical but the first situation was merely Hillary’s personal slush fund whereas the second situation is managed and administered by the World Bank, not under Ivanka’s control and from which she receives no money (why would she, she’s already rich, she doesn’t need to steal from the poor).

It’s going to be a long four years.

Joe Doakes

Some days, it feels like it already has been.

35 thoughts on “The Shallow End Of The Pool

  1. The Ivanka example is why I’m O.K. Trump. The Left ***reflexively*** uses Critical Theory tactics and Alinsky tactics to seize power that can never, ever be gotten back. Then the economy gets worse. Then people “need” government more. Then everyone and everything runs out of money.

    Trump is a pretty good weapon against this stuff.

  2. Genius move on the part of Trump. It’s a sort of win-win. Win for those who see this as a big problem and win for Trump to throw some kibble to his base.

    Even after Trump pulls the US out, it will make very little difference. Renewables, alternative energy, fuel efficiency have a dynamic of their own now and competitive economics without subsidies. I do not expect coal to return, do not expect gas guzzlers to return. That era is over and not coming back. Even a huge correction in oil did not stop these trends one bit, that says it all.

    As Victor Hugo said: “you can’t stop an idea who’s time has come.” Neither can Trump.

  3. In a democracy, popular trust of the media is essential for politicians to implement significant social policies.
    Popular trust of the media (and government institutions, other than the military) has decreased remarkably since Johnson began his “Great Society” programs. It has gone up a bit, usually when unity against a foreign enemy was necessary, and it has gone down a bit when scandals dominated the news cycle. But overall Americans’ trust in social institutions has decreased remarkably since the baby boomers began to vote.
    Republicans don’t care and probably shouldn’t care. Republicans are less likely to promote significant national or local social policies that require a broad consensus, other than national defense. National defense tends to make its own popular support, anyhow.
    The Democrats need a popular consensus. They don’t seem to recognize that. They seem to believe that if cultural and political elites are on board, that’s all they need.
    In a republic they need more.
    Progressives have been telling a significant part of the voting public “This is the only conceivable future, and in this future you, and the people, and the things you love, are fucked. Vote for me.”
    In the 19th century Marxists knew that the surest path to revolution was to convince the masses that their lives were subject to economic and social forces that they could not control. That is the opposite of what people should feel in a democracy. This is the way progressives want you to feel.

  4. “…competitive economics without subsidies.”

    So we can ***stop subsidizing wind turbines*** and they will spread like wildfire because they are such a good value?

  5. and competitive economics without subsidies

    Fed beat me to it, but here is more proof that SFB lives up to his nickname. And lives by alternative facts and in alternate reality.

  6. “Renewables, alternative energy, fuel efficiency have a dynamic of their own now and competitive economics without subsidies.”
    Do you know about marginal returns, Emery?
    Marginal returns are the reason hydropower growth is flat in the US.
    The best marginal returns have already been made on renewables and increassed fuel efficiency, Emery. The power for electric cars has to come from somewhere. And, no, you can’t just put a solar panel on the car’s roof. You are never going to get more than about a kilowatt per square meter of solar energy, and current tech is well below that.
    The very best replacement for fossil fuels is nuclear. This is why the elites are against using it (they want to ration scarce goods, not supply abundant goods).

  7. Woolly: Didn’t Westinghouse recently file for bancruptcy?

    JPA: Are today’s jobs numbers “fake news” too? Is this is slowdown in hiring a short term issue, part of the normal business cycle, or due to a Trump Slump®? But not to worry, the surviving 25 coal miners will make the numbers great again in July.

  8. “…the surviving 25 coal miners will make the numbers great again in July.”

    This is how leftists think.

  9. You really are a pinko commie uninformed tool of the proletariat.

    Mining added 7,000 jobs in May. Employment in mining has risen by 47,000 since reaching a recent low point in October 2016, with most of the gain in support activities for mining.

    and the number of unemployed has decreased by 774,000

    You prove yet again(!) you are not capable of independent thinking and can only regurgitate talking points fed to you by your overlords. I have nothing but derision for you because you refuse to get help.

  10. Is that all you got after having irrefutable facts that bust your talking points thrown in your smug face? Total p0wnage. Again.

  11. Me thinks that in addition to Trump Derangement Syndrome, Emery also suffers from Dog Gone Stupidity.

  12. Emery on June 2, 2017 at 10:58 am said:
    Woolly: Didn’t Westinghouse recently file for bankruptcy?

    The reasons for the Chapter 11 filing are hugely complicated; escalating construction costs, tumbling natural gas prices, government caused issues, etc.

    “Trump winning looks like an Obama off month.”

    Trump winning will likely destroy globalist Obama’s “Legacy”. In the end O will be remembered for an “OFF” Presidency!

  13. There was no reason to use government force to accelerate getting off of coal when the GDP is at a permanent ***2%***.

    One billion destitute poor are going to burn fossils fuels like crazy no matter what.

  14. Westinghouse was the model for crony capitalism worldwide. If they are gone good riddance.

    Say,I am here at Hill hospital ER (don’t ask), and I overheard “you tutu no mo stay mah_kay” which my awesome pidgin skilz tell me means “your grandmother is no longer dead”. It’s a miracle!

  15. I don’t believe Westinghouse or Toshiba would build a new reactor at today’s natural gas prices. Shale is good for the country, bad for new nuclear development.

  16. More evidence of elite stupidity. The NY Times:

    Representatives of American cities, states and companies are preparing to submit a plan to the United Nations pledging to meet the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Paris climate accord, despite President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.

    The unnamed group — which, so far, includes 30 mayors, three governors, more than 80 university presidents and more than 100 businesses — is negotiating with the United Nations to have its submission accepted alongside contributions to the Paris climate deal by other nations.

    http://nyti.ms/2qGupFX

    Tiana Lowe at NRO says:
    As such, as any deal brokered by his still unnamed coalition would inevitably run into legal trouble. Although President Obama refused to treat it as such, the Paris accord is a classic example of a treaty, and Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution prohibits any state from entering into a treaty under any circumstances. Even if you construe the Paris accords as a mere “agreement,” Article 1, Section 10, prohibits states from entering into agreements or compacts with a foreign power without consent of congress.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/448236/states-threaten-unconstitutional-paris-climate-accords-entry-entry

    What Lowe does not say explicitly is that the reason states are not allowed to form treaties with foreign nations is because it tears at the fabric of the Union. California finds itself in both a political partnership with China and a political partnership with DC. When those two partnerships have conflicting goals, the interests of the Californians lie in honoring the partnership which achieves California’s goals — China today, DC tomorrow, maybe Mexico the day after that.
    The argument against allowing states and cities in the US to negotiate foreign treaties is very similar to Lincoln’s argument that the rule forbidding secession was supra-constitutional: if states could quit and rejoin the Union at their will, they would do whatever did them the most good. The Union would not be stable, and clearly the founders had not intended the Union to be an unstable conglomeration of sovereign states.

  17. “I don’t believe Westinghouse or Toshiba would build a new reactor at today’s natural gas prices. Shale is good for the country, bad for new nuclear development.”

    I read a great comment about this. “The Fed printed oil.” When oil went to $147 that was due to Fed policy. No one thought it could go below $100. So super low interest rate junk bonds funded fracking experimentation and expansion. So what do you call this? CENTRAL PLANNING. Now there is so much oil, the junk bonds are in danger and the Fed can’t create inflation. Some fracking is profitable at $20.

    Inflationism creates deflation. You can’t make it up.

    Housing boom? Were people really in control of their decisions or was it the “Ownership Society” and Greenspan goosing the economy?

    Face it, you are a lab rat in a Truman Show movie.

    FACT: “Ownership Society” was an invention of George W, Bush and ACORN was at the signing ceremony in the WH. You couldn’t thrive unless you bought your house a million years ago. So, we must central plan. We must loosen lending standards. it will be OK if we all hold hands and do it together. We must force the poor and the “stupid” to buy homes because the system is screwing them.

    Mises.org is right about everything.

  18. When central bankers force the interest rate around, they are just pushing people and everything around like a Soviet Simms game. It makes everything worse, and then people “need” “help” from the government. So they vote Democrat. It gives the Met Council justification to “solve” social problems. This will end badly.

  19. I like the challenge and tell the story of the coal miner’s son. The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son . If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination–or whatever–to leave their mine. They don’t have “it.”
    – Donald J. Trump in a 1990 interview with Playboy Magazine
    http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990

  20. Emery wants a studied, principled, truth teller that doesn’t extract graft or whatever from The System.

    This type of thinking jumped the shark when Karl Rove’s Medicare Part D was passed. $9 trillion instant unfunded liability.

  21. TFS:
    From the Bloomberg article, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-02/why-consumers-aren-t-spending

    Postwar babies are forced to save. In their earlier years, when most young households spent more on goods such as cars and appliances, they really went overboard. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the postwar babies born between 1946 and 1964 were in their mid-20s to mid-50s, the saving rate of those age groups was plummeting. So many now must save vigorously and are, pushing up the household saving rate.

    This is what Keynes called “forward-looking.” Forward-lookers are the bane of central planners because forward-looking is a rational response to a consumer’s economic future. Central planners insist that central economic planning is necessary because individual consumers make irrational choices, and also because individual consumers make rational choices. Whatever choice they make, it’s wrong.

  22. Mammuthus Primigenius:

    Exactly. I just love trying to figure out how this crap works and how the pieces fit together.

    It’s the goofiest damn thing. They ***have to*** generate inflation to prop up the system with the generation of debt that is being constantly debased. In reality it just causes more deflation in some areas and jacks up the consumer prices on people that aren’t already loaded or haven’t paid off their house. The distortion isn asset values lowers the GDP so then people want the government to do MORE which just makes it worse. It’s insanity.

    How in the hell is the Minneapolis city council going to increase prosperity with government forced compensation increases? Look at that and Tell me Trump is worse. He’s just a system of a bad system. People need to get real.

  23. Don’t even think about not reading this. https://twitter.com/michaellebowitz/status/870752164410519553

    Trump is not a productivity guy. No one at the Fed is. Basically no politician anywhere is. The Treasury secretary wants 50 year bonds. The motion is towards more inflationism. The GDP is never going up. How can it not get more crazy?

    That’s a great twitter account by the way.

  24. When the USSR fell, they passed NAFTA, and China opened up, the whole West had to switch back to a slightly deflationary economy, which is the only decent way for man to live. No asset inflation, all debt is ONLY productive or it is un-payable, no grow the debt no matter what that debt goes into.

    The Boskin Commission lowered the CPI because they couldn’t reform Social Security the honest way. Google it. So we get asset bubbles, a broke citizenry, social problems, and debt and unfunded liabilities that are going to shaft ***someone***.

  25. When the CPI is understated, the GDP is overstated. That is just a fact.

    Now think about that.

    How many percentage points are we talking about, two? Three? Four? Even if it’s just one, how bad is that?

    Plus the whole concept that there is ONLY ONE inflation measurement is bogus. Every household gets hit differently. It’s just a Ruling Class tool of control. #WeAreLabRats

  26. What people don’t get is. the Fed, the financial system, and government policy drives voting patterns LEFT—rent seeking, dependency—this is just rational behavior of people “getting theirs.” The Overton Window. Then, this creates permanent damage to the economy and permanent Leftist power in the bureaucracy, think tanks etc. Now the central banks have to goose the economy and monetize government debt and the f…ups of the financial system. The whole thing feeds back on it’s self until something really bad happens. There are ways to protect yourself, but they aren’t easy to do or figure out.

  27. Two thirds of all American citizens are not liquid for $2,000 in under thirty days or something like that.

    Is this a national character problem or something else? I vote for the latter.

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