Brookes News Update

US economy: production and jobs: The Austrian explanation for the so-called business cycle easily explains the patter of employment in the finals stages of the boom
Economic growth, interventionism and the state: One only has to look at the rapid developments in the computer industry in particular and electronics in general to see that the notion of under-investment in technology is completely at variance with the facts
Can non-banks create money?: It is monetary injections by the central bank that destabilise the economy and not the response of people to these injections, which are manifested by the speeding up of the creation of credit
Castro's terrorist network: Since he turned Cuba into a socialist dictatorship Castro has nurtured international terrorism. Curiously enough our intrepid media has made a point of ignoring Castro's roles in training and funding terrorist thugs. Well, that's par for the course when the dictator is a socialist
Leftwing Congressional Democrats condemn US reinforcements for Iraq - veterans respond: Why are some congressional Democrats plotting to stab US troops in the back? Is it because their 'loyalty' is to a party and not their country?
Resurging Islam and the revival of slavery: Islam has a stranglehold on its slaves and will neither let them go, nor do the Muslims seem to have the insight or the will to leave it in large numbers. But hope, as slim as it is, keeps me sounding the alarm before the fire of Islam engulfs us all
The American economy and taxes: the Democrats don't get it and neither does Larry Kudlow and the GOP: Republicans haven't even peeped about a tax cut in years. They are desperately trying to keep the Democrats from letting Bush's tax cuts expire; a fact that the in-house media omitt from their Democrat propaganda

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ELSEWHERE

Congratulations to the UAW and complacent managers: "Ford Motor Co warned today that its troubles were far from over after it reported a staggering $US12.7 billion loss in 2006, the worst in its 103-year history. The struggling US automaker conceded that it would probably lose the No.2 spot in its home market to Japanese rival Toyota this year as it drastically shrinks its production and sees its market share drop to 14 or 15 per cent from 16 per cent in 2006. Much of that loss would come from decreased reliance on fleet sales (primarily to rental car companies) which were significantly less profitable than the retail market, Ford chief executive Alan Mulally said. Sales were also expected to continue to fall as overall demand declined in 2007 and that was expected to put further pressure on automotive pricing, he said. Huge charges associated with Ford's plan to shut 16 plants in North America and eliminate up to 44,000 jobs accounted for much of its 2006 losses"

Some decent feelings in India: "Two men accused of killing at least 21 children in the New Delhi House of Horrors case have been severely beaten during a court appearance, with one of them knocked unconscious by lawyers and members of the public gallery. Accused millionaire businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, 55, who is known as "Goldy", was last night receiving medical treatment after losing consciouness during the beating in a court at Ghaziabad, near the Indian capital. According to the Press Trust of India, Pandher and his co-accused, his servant Surendra Kohli, were set upon by outraged lawyers and members of the public when they were being taken from the courtroom to the lock-up by the CBI, India's investigation agency. "As both Pandher and Kohli were being taken to the lock-up from the courtroom, a group of lawyers caught hold of them and beat them black and blue," PTI reported. Television footage showed the mob lashing out at the accused and hitting them as police tried to protect them. Mr Pandher was shown lying on the ground."

Islamic germ warfare? "Britain's laboratories have been ordered to strengthen security on stocks of more than 100 deadly viruses and bacteria after an MI5 warning that Islamic terrorists are training in germ warfare. The biological agents include polio, rabies, tuberculosis and bird flu. Food-poisoning bacteria such as E.coli and the sources for a number of rare tropical and Middle Eastern illnesses are also included. Scientists and lab staff in universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies who deal with agents will have to be vetted by police, and their laboratories will be checked by government safety inspectors. Stock will have to be accounted for and regularly audited. The crackdown comes after MI5 privately warned the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that al-Qa'ida was actively recruiting scientists."

Reasonable decision ignites British hysteria: "A British judge freed a convicted "pedophile" today after citing a government warning about prison overcrowding, instantly igniting a law-and-order furore that could damage Prime Minister Tony Blair's government. Mr Blair's Home Secretary John Reid had already drawn fire from opposition Conservative critics and mass-circulation newspapers for writing to judges to warn of prison overcrowding and urge that prison places not be wasted on non-violent offenders. But a senior judge's decision to free a man who downloaded sexual images of children suddenly catapulted the story to the top of news reports, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Home Office law-and-order ministry over the past year. The BBC reported from North Wales that Judge John Rogers cited Mr Reid's remarks while handing a suspended jail sentence to Derek Williams, 46, who downloaded child pornography... Britain is scrambling to find new places for prisoners after a sharp upsurge in the prison population, with the Government suggesting it could house offenders in disused military barracks, police jail cells and on ships.... On Tuesday, Mr Reid told a conference of regional newspaper journalists that courts should not be "squandering taxpayers' money to monitor non-dangerous and less serious offenders". "Prisons are an expensive resource that should be used to protect the public," he said, according to the BBC." [My paper on penological policy is here]

A despicable award from a despicable regime: "I missed this the other day... The French government, the same people who gave aid and comfort the the instigators of the Rwanda genocide, and have done everything they could to thwart the arrests of mass murderous Serbian war criminals in Bosnia, have decided to 'honour' one of their own. They have awarded the Legion D'Honneur, France's highest award, to Harold Pinter, that well know playwright, man of letters, literary colossus and apologist for mass murdering national socialist Slobodan Milosevic and mass murdering national socialist Saddam Hussain. Vermin, one and all.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason -- Details here and here

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