Government Excels At Creating Long Lines!

One part of President Obama’s State of the Union speech actually provoked some deep thinking in me:

"We should follow the example of a North Miami woman named Desiline Victor. When Desiline arrived at her polling place, she was told the wait to vote might be six hours. And as time ticked by, her concern was not with her tired body or aching feet, but whether folks like her would get to have their say. And hour after hour, a throng of people stayed in line in support of her, because Desiline is 102 years old. And they erupted in cheers when she finally put on a sticker that read “I Voted.”"

I can empathize a bit since when I voted in Virginia, I showed up just as the polls were opening and waited half an hour.  Of course, that’s nothing compared to six hours, so, like I said, I can empathize a bit.

Nevertheless, that passage precipitated the following thoughts:

1. After all the efforts taken to make voting easier such as absentee ballots and early voting, government still manages to create long lines for voting.  Amazingly, when lines start to form in private sector establishments, they implement a nifty little innovation called “open another checkout stand.”  Sources tell me they have had this innovation in the private sector for quite some time.  I wonder why the government hasn’t adopted it at polling stations?

2. But perhaps that’s the wrong way to look at it.  Maybe we should look at it in a positive way such as: Government Excels At Creating Long Lines!  Bureaucracy has a talent for this.  Go down to your Department of Motor Vehicles any day of the week.  Or if you are an immigrant and want to migrate here legally, sign up with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  Or if you live in Britain or Canada, let some of your joints degenerate and then try to get a hip or knee replacement.  Indeed, here in the U.S. we may be on the brink of finding out what that is like.

3. Given how well government is at making voting a convenient, time-saving endeavor, I have the utmost confidence that government can create manufacturing hubs, combat climate change, produce a clean energy market, drive new research with an Energy Security Trust, cut in half the energy wasted by our homes in the next 20 years, produce high-speed rail, help families refinance their homes, and fund and regulate pre-school.  In short, all of the things that Obama laid out in his SOTU.

Yes, the government’s ability to make voting efficient has shown us the way.  The future is very bright!  FORWARD!

SOURCE

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Baltic Success Reveals The Folly Of Obama’s Doublespeak

This week’s State of the Union address was full of plans for government action and spending to combat U.S. economic malaise. At the same time, the President claimed that there were drastic cuts to the federal budget on the way (referring to sequestration, under which spending actually continues to grow but at a slower rate). This doublespeak mirrors that of European politicians and hides reality: more government isn’t making the economy any better.

Illustrating this point is the dichotomy in economic performance between Western European countries — whose politicians claim to have made cuts but in reality have increased budgets each year since the Eurocrisis began in 2009 — and their Baltic counterparts — which underwent actual cuts in the size of government.

Eurostat just released fourth quarter 2012 data on economic growth this week, and it follows the three-year trend of Baltic over-performance relative to the rest of Europe. The Euro Zone as a whole registered dismal Q4 2012 growth of -0.6 percent while Latvia and Estonia grew by 5.7 and 3.4 percent, respectively.

As I wrote in National Review last month, there is a world of difference between austerity that leaves out the public sector while businesses suffer from recession, and austerity that forces government to tighten its belt along with the private sector. The first strategy, which I like to call “phony-austerity,” doesn’t work. The second one, which I like to call “real austerity,” does.


President Obama should take note.

His calls for federally planned “manufacturing hubs” and more investment into renewable energy won’t jump start growth. Trimming back the federal budget and leaving more money in the pockets of entrepreneurs will.

When crisis hit the Baltics, countries cut public wages and administration, discretionary spending, and social services. Governments felt it best to reduce their burden upon businesses, so that private enterprise could more easily adapt to hard economic times and bounce back quickly. Since the end of austerity in 2010, the Baltic economies have been the fastest growing in Europe.

On the other hand, Western and Southern European countries have decided to prolong the pain of recession by either belaboring cuts to government budgets or avoiding them altogether. In fact, many countries (those not receiving bailout funding) have actually increased spending and taxes since the start of the crisis. And they have had persistently low or negative levels of growth ever since.

A new report by Catholic charity Caritas Europa indicates that the persistent unemployment and increases in taxation in Greece, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal have been especially harmful to low- and fixed-income individuals. Instead of following the Baltic example of strong but short-lived economic pain, these countries instead decided to prolong agonizing economic hardship by refusing to cut government largesse sharply and swiftly and by inhibiting creative destruction within the private sector by propping up inefficient businesses. Wealthier European countries like France and the U.K. have also been undergoing similar, though less severe, long-lasting economic hardship.

Instead of following where Europe has failed in the West, President Obama should learn from where it has succeeded in the East. Reforming costly entitlements, lowering taxes, and cutting red tape is the way to create jobs — and more importantly, wealth.

SOURCE

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The Argentina example

Americans wondering what to expect as their government piles on more debt and refuses to cut spending do not need to look any further than Argentina. A nation once among the most prosperous in the world is now deeply in debt, hemorrhaging cash, and trying to inflate its way out of the mess it has created. This inflation, naturally, has caused prices to rise sharply, and so the government is doing what all governments do in such a situation: instituting price controls.

The government of President Cristina Fernandez claims the annual inflation rate is 10 percent, which, if true, would be bad enough. Private economists believe it’s closer to 30 percent, but they dare not say so publicly for fear of being fired, fined, or even jailed. However, as the Associated Press points out, “The government says it’s trying to hold the next union wage hikes to 20 percent, a figure that suggests how little anyone believes the official index.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) certainly doesn’t believe it. The IMF censured Argentina for exploiting the difference between the official and private inflation rates to make it appear as though the country had saved $6.8 billion since 2007.

No one else is fooled, either. Investors were withdrawing billions of dollars from Argentina until Fernandez “tightened controls in the foreign exchange market and forced companies to repatriate revenue,” Bloomberg reports. Argentines trying to protect their savings by buying U.S. dollars — also depreciating, but at a considerably slower rate than the Argentine peso — were thwarted when the government imposed currency controls on them.

Apparently not content with the level of suffering she has already inflicted on her people, Fernandez is now instituting a two-month price freeze on “every product in all of the nation’s largest supermarkets,” according to the AP.

The intention, of course, is to conceal further the rate at which the peso is being devalued, though the policy is, naturally, couched in the language of helping average people who cannot afford the skyrocketing prices. In fact, it will do just the opposite.

When the price of a product is held below the market level, two things occur. First, since they will be making less profit on each unit sold— or perhaps even taking a loss — producers offer less of the product for sale. Second, recognizing that they are getting the product at a bargain price, consumers purchase more of it than they otherwise would. The end result: a shortage of the very product the government was supposedly trying to enable more people to buy. (Argentines have had experience with this: price controls imposed in 2007 led to food shortages then, too.)

The market will continue to function, of course, but it will be a black market. Scarce products will be available, but almost certainly at prices even higher than would be the case in the absence of the price controls. Consumers fortunate enough to obtain products on the black market will have no legal recourse if those products turn out to be faulty. And everyone involved will live in fear of getting caught engaging in peaceful commerce.

Eventually the price controls will be lifted. (These controls are set to expire on April 1, but who knows what kind of tricks the government might pull that day?) At that point prices will return to their market levels, though they will probably be even higher than they would have been if the controls had not been imposed in the first place, as producers — at least those who didn’t go out of business in the interim — scramble to make up for lost revenue. In addition, observed Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge.com, “many of the local stores will not be around as their profit margins implode and as owners, especially of foreign-based chains, make the prudent decision to get out of Dodge while the getting’s good and before the next steps, including such measures as nationalization, in the escalation into a full out hyperinflationary collapse, are taken….” (Fernandez nationalized the country’s largest oil company last year.)

Is today’s Argentina tomorrow’s America? It is certainly within the realm of possibility. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Argentina was one of the freest and most prosperous nations on the globe. Then came the Great Depression and the rise of demagogues such as Juan Peron, who turned Argentina into a basket case, nationalizing industries, giving vast power to labor unions, and spending as if there were no tomorrow. The country has never fully recovered from the damage, having suffered multiple rounds of inflation, price controls, and even debt default in the ensuing decades, though it is still the second-largest economy in South America.

So, too, with the United States. Prosperous before the Depression, the country elected Franklin Roosevelt to four terms as president during that downturn. He greatly accelerated the process of centralizing power in Washington, cartelizing industries, boosting union leverage, and spending enormous sums of money. Since then the United States has experienced inexorable inflation, price controls (under Richard Nixon), and ballooning debt. The U.S. government now spends more than $1 trillion more than it takes in each year, is roughly $16 trillion in debt, and has many trillions more in unfunded liabilities. The country is still an economic powerhouse compared with most of the rest of the world, but the decades of gargantuan government have taken their toll.

Economist Soledad Perez Duhalde told the AP that instead of price controls, the Argentine government should “reduce government spending, which is financing an expansion of the money supply.” Unfortunately, slashing spending is about as likely to happen in Argentina as it is in Washington. Equally unfortunately, the results of such profligacy — debt, inflation, price controls, and national decline — are also about as likely in America as in Argentina.

SOURCE

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Decayed moral and ethical  foundations can bring down the mightiest

Victor Davis Hanson

Why do once-successful societies ossify and decline?

Hundreds of reasons have been adduced for the fall of Rome and the end of the Old Regime in 18th-century France. Reasons run from inflation and excessive spending to resource depletion and enemy invasion, as historians attempt to understand the sudden collapse of the Mycenaeans, the Aztecs and, apparently, the modern Greeks. In literature from Catullus to Edward Gibbon, wealth and leisure -- and who gets the most of both -- more often than poverty and exhaustion implode civilization.

One recurring theme seems consistent in Athenian literature on the eve of the city's takeover by Macedon: social squabbling over slicing up a shrinking pie. Athenian speeches from that era make frequent reference to lawsuits over property and inheritance, evading taxes, and fudging eligibility for the dole. After the end of the Roman Republic, reactionary Latin literature -- from the likes of Juvenal, Petronius, Suetonius, Tacitus -- pointed to "bread and circuses," as well as excessive wealth, corruption and top-heavy government.

For Gibbon and later French scholars, "Byzantine" became a pejorative description of a top-heavy Greek bureaucracy that could not tax enough vanishing producers to sustain a growing number of bureaucrats. In antiquity, inflating the currency by turning out cheap bronze coins was often the favored way to pay off public debts, while the law became fluid to address popular demands rather than to protect time-honored justice.

After the end of World War II, most of today's powerhouses were either in ruins or still preindustrial -- China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Taiwan. Only the United States and Great Britain had sophisticated economies that survived the destruction of the war. Both were poised to resupply a devastated world with new ships, cars, machinery and communications.

In comparison to Frankfurt, the factories of 1945 Liverpool had survived mostly intact. Yet Britain missed out on the postwar German economic miracles, in part because after the deprivations of the war, the war-weary British turned to class warfare and nationalized their main industries, which soon became uncompetitive.

The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites, rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel, or to maintain adequate defense. Americans have never had safer workplaces or more sophisticated medical care -- and never have so many been on disability.

King Xerxes' huge Persian force of 250,000 sailors and soldiers could not defeat a rather poor Greece in 480-479 B.C. Yet a century and a half later, a much smaller invading force from the north under Philip II of Macedon overwhelmed the far more prosperous Greek descendants of the victors of Salamis.

For hundreds of years, the outmanned legions of the tiny and poor Roman Republic survived foreign invasions. Yet centuries later, tribal Goths, Visigoths, Vandals and Huns overran the huge Mediterranean-wide Roman Empire.

Given our unsustainable national debt -- nearly $17 trillion and climbing -- America is said to be in decline, although we face no devastating plague, nuclear holocaust, or shortage of oil or food.

Americans have never led such affluent material lives -- at least as measured by access to cell phones, big-screen TVs, cheap jet travel and fast food. Obesity rather than malnutrition is the greater threat to national health. Flash mobs go after electronics stores, not food markets. Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.

If Martians looked at the small box houses, one-car families and primitive consumer goods of the 1950s, they would have thought the postwar United States, despite a balanced budget in 1956, was impoverished. In comparison, an indebted contemporary America would seem to aliens flush with cash, as consumers jostle for each new update to their iPhones.

By any historical marker, the future of Americans has never been brighter. The United States has it all: undreamed new finds of natural gas and oil, the world's pre-eminent food production, continual technological wizardly, strong demographic growth, a superb military and constitutional stability.

Yet we don't talk confidently about capitalizing and expanding on our natural and inherited wealth. Instead, Americans bicker over entitlement spoils as the nation continues to pile up trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Enforced equality rather than liberty is the new national creed. The medicine of cutting back on government goodies seems far worse than the disease of borrowing trillions from the unborn to pay for them.

In August 1945, Hiroshima was in shambles, while Detroit was among the most innovative and wealthiest cities in the world. Contemporary Hiroshima now resembles a prosperous Detroit of 1945; parts of Detroit look like they were bombed decades ago.

History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The big picture is hopeful

People who have been around for a while all seem to agree. Never in living memory has the atmosphere on Capitol Hill and in Washington, D.C., generally been so toxic.

I don’t find this to be true out in the hinterland. The country as a whole is divided politically. But it’s not obviously more divided than it was 50 years ago. The toxicity of politics is a D.C. phenomenon. What’s more, the polarization is worse among the elites. It seems that the more education they have, the more polarized people become.

Why is that?

I have a theory. Any period in which there is radical political change is likely to be a period when raw emotions are strained. The reason: political change means we are moving from an old system to a new one. When that happens, people who were wedded to the old system will perceive that they are losing something — a way of life, a shared way of looking at the world, institutions that they relied on.

We are living in such a period. Over the past 30 years the entire world has seen a complete reversal in the political trend of the twentieth century. There was a time, not long ago, when many of us believed that the march toward communism and socialism was inevitable. Country after country moved left. In the first eight decades of the twentieth century, I can’t think of a single place where individual liberty increased — unless you count the aftermath of war in Germany, Italy and Japan.

Collectivism, it seemed, was unstoppable.

Then, in the last two decades of the last century, everything changed. Communism was dismantled almost everywhere. It was not only politically dismantled. Collectivism was intellectually discredited. All around the world, a new wave of thinking emerged — one which saw that the left was wrong. Wrong about everything. Wrong about communism. Wrong about socialism. Wrong about the welfare state.

In country after country, the power of government was rolled back — through deregulation and privatization. It’s hard to exaggerate how fundamental this change has been. When Ronald Reagan was president, not even the most conservative politician would dare talk about privatizing Social Security. This was true in other countries as well. Yet today, more than 30 countries around the world have fully or partially privatized their social security systems. We haven’t done it yet. But we’ve discovered that a presidential candidate can talk about it and still win two elections.

About 40 countries now have a flat tax and tax rates have been generally falling almost everywhere. In Europe, talk of privatizing health, education and welfare was once as taboo as talk of privatizing Social Security was in the US. No longer.

Sweden, once thought of as the model for the modern welfare state, now has a full-fledged school voucher system, has privatized large segments of its health care system and is on the way toward privatization of almost all of its welfare state. Britain, which once boasted that its system of socialized medicine was “the envy of the world” has been privatizing health services for the past decade. Since 2008, National Health Service (NHS) patients have been able to choose any provider (NHS, private for-profit, private non-profit, etc.) they wish for elective care.

The dismantling of the state has not been smooth or even continuous. Some countries have seen reversals. Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and France come to mind. In our country we have gone from Bill Clinton’s declaration that the era of big government is over to a massive new entitlement created by ObamaCare.

These reversals give people on the left hope that the trend is not inevitable. Rather than being resigned to defeat, they see hope that collectivism might rise again.

A persistent myth is the idea that polarization and toxicity in politics has originated on the right. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Tea Party folks are…well…just plain folks with a point of view. If you want to find real bitterness, go interview the participants of Occupy Wall Street.

Paul Krugman is a New York Times columnist who routinely questions the motives, the ethics and even the sanity of people who disagree with him. You can’t find editorials on the right that come close to his routine level of vitriol.

For the most part, the left in this country feels deeply threaten by events occurring all over the world. Every cherished belief of theirs is proving to be wrong. The institutions they revere are being dismantled.

They’re mad.

SOURCE

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Why Downton Abbey riles the Left

One of the first things one notices, if one is a regular viewer of BBC productions, is that Downton is unusually ideologically and religiously balanced. One of the other effects one notices when one watches a lot of BBC is that one starts referring to oneself in the third rather than the first person. But one digresses.

If the viewer is expecting vintage BBC, Downton is full of surprises. This is not PG Woodhouse, with Jeeves the butler easily thinking rings around his Lord. This is not Brideshead Revisted‘s take on the upper classes, packed with alcoholic elders and simmering, repressed homosexuality amongst their offspring. It is not Noel Coward’s Easy Virtue with easy satiric shots at the hypocrisy which arises amongst the upper classes and their dysfunctional patter of religious and sexual…yes there it is again, repression.

The upper classes at Downton aren’t repressed, they’re restrained. They are not inbred, intellectually backward fools; they are intelligent and thoughtful. As a general rule they treat their servants well, care about their welfare and are generally respected by them in turn. They are, in a word, admirable. And for a period drama, that treatment is, in a word, surprising. And surprise is an essential element of compelling drama.

Films and series about Edwardian upper caste manners which portray the genteels uncharitably are boring, like the steady, unending (until one turns the switch off) hum of a fluorescent lamp.Downton Abbey is what George Gilder would call the entropic disruption to the background noise of revolt against the old world. To portray Lord and Lady Grantham as anything other than drunks, fools, hypocrites or either sexpots or sexual glaciers (or best of all, alternately both) is itself an act of cultural rebellion.

That’s arguably why the left is bashing Downton Abbey. The New York Times Art Beat column has reported that British critics are ‘torching’ Downton Abbey. Apparently Downton Abbey is snobbish, culturally necrophiliac (and if you don’t yet know what that word means, I suggest you leave it that way) and its popularity in the United States is due to the rise of the Tea Party movement and conservative opposition to the death tax. Even worse, creator Julian Fellowes is the holder of a Tory Peerage. Definitely not the right sort of people.

Now at first glance one might think that all of this goes a bit too far, dragging politics in where it has no proper place. But on second look, the left’s reaction is understandable. Julian Fellowes and they are on the opposite side of something. But it’s not that Fellowes is on the right, and they on the left. It is that Fellowes is in the middle and they on the far left. Downton Abbey is not an apologetic for the old order. It just gives them a fair shake.

Lord Grantham is admirable, yes, but wrong on many things. He makes a pass at one of the house maids. He flies off the handle at Bates unfairly. He foolishly squanders the family fortune on a bad investment. He expresses bigoted views towards Catholics (of which Fellowes, a practicing Catholic, must surely disapprove). Most tragically, he lets his upper class solidarity lead to a medical decision which may have led to the death of his daughter.

But, in general, Lord Grantham is a faithful, intelligent, decent and benevolent. The world has to change; he knows it, but he wants the world to change more slowly than it wants itself to change. His wife and children are not in general wiser than he (which marks the show as distinct from almost all TV advertisements set in families), but they are sometimes wiser than he…just like in life.

Fellowes seems to be saying that the old order had its day; it was good, though not perfect, during its time. It deserves a decent burial and a fond memory. And he also seems to be saying that change for change’s own sake is just as destructive as preservation for preservation’s own sake. Liberation of women, good. Growth of an all-encompassing set of regulatons, bad. My friend John Tamny (editor of this page) has given a good account of Fellowes’ political philosophy as expressed in his novels

But Downton Abbey is also a rejoinder to the current rage (in both senses) of class warfare. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal:

“I think the—well, not even the subtext, the supertext—of ‘Downton,’ is that it is possible for us all to get on, that we don’t have to be ranged in class warfare permanently—that for the general public, the fact that people are leading different lives with different economic realities and different expectations is perfectly cope-able with.”

 “If you can’t deal with that,” he continues, “then your life would be unlivable. And I think politicians try to encourage us to think in a hostile sense [of] people who have a different circumstance to our own. Which I find very unproductive and uncreative.”

So Downton Abbey‘s message is an anti-class warfare one. The fact is that the spirit of the critics is hard left, and maybe that’s why Downton Abbey makes them so angry, because the success of the series shows that this group does not speak for America.

It also shows something equally important to the future of our culture: that there is no inherent need for good TV to be left of center. Stories sympathetic to virtue, preservation of property and admiration of nobility and of wealth can be told beautifully and to wide audiences, and I suspect they will be more and more in the future.

SOURCE

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A choice example of government "investment"

And so do the taxpayers of Timmins:  A tourist attraction celebrating country-pop singer Shania Twain has officially become a $10-million money pit of taxpayer dollars.

The Shania Twain Centre in this northern Ontario community permanently closes its doors today, barely a dozen years after its grand opening, and will be demolished to become part of an open-pit gold mine.

You can't make stuff this up. It just wouldn't be believable. For those of you who are not up on their Ontario geography, the city of Timmins is located about seven and a half hours north of Toronto. It has a population of 43,165 and the current temperature is -34 celsius. I don't even want to know what the windchill is. The main industry is gold mining. The city's two most famous ex-residents are Myron Scholes (of Black-Scholes fame) and Shania Twain. In fairness it should be noted that Mr Scholes left Timmins at the age of ten to move to the bright lights of Hamilton. Shania left after graduating high school.

I'm guessing that's why Myron got the Nobel and Shania only got a Juno.

Apparently the city coughed up $5 million to build the Shania Twain Centre, while a provincial agency kicked in the rest. The Centre has run a $1 million loss over the last dozen years. The local authorities are blaming the closure of the centre on a lack of marketing and a failure of support from local residents. The centre never attracted more than 15,000 visitors in a given year. The property has now been sold to a mining concern for $5 million dollars.

So let's do some elementary math. There are 43,165 residents in Timmins. The original estimates were that 50,000 people a year would come to the Shania Twain Centre. So once everyone in town has visited the Centre once, why would they go back again? How many times can you gaze in awe at Shania's first guitar? How many people in Timmins like Shania Twain? This would mean that for the Centre to be a viable concern it would need to attract visitors from out of town.

To visit Timmins.

The nearest major towns are Kirkland Lake and Cochrane. The nearest major city is Sudbury. Recall that most people in southern Ontario consider Orillia to be the edge of civilization. Most Torontonians consider Steeles Avenue to be the edge of civilization. Who the hell is going to travel hundreds of miles to visit a museum about a country music singer? They do that for Elvis. But Elvis is Elvis and Graceland is in Memphis. Timmins is not Memphis. There are other things to do in Memphis. In Timmins it's the Shania Twain Centre and then it's the open pit gold mine.

There might be many laudable reasons to live in Timmins. There might be many very fine people in Timmins. But unless you intend on living in Timmins there isn't much of a reason to visit. At least Windsor has a casino. Sudbury has a huge nickel and a gigantic smoke stack. The business case for this cente was not well thought out.

I bring this story to your attention not to mock the good people of Timmins. At least not directly. Their political leadership has spent millions of dollars, which no doubt could have been better spent elsewhere, on a tourist attraction for a city that no sane tourist would willingly visit. Yes, I know Shania Twain is huge. But if Jesus had been born in Timmins I doubt the crowds would have been much larger. Say what you will, but at least Bethlehem is warm.

There is no private investment firm, excepting perhaps one seeking a massive tax write-off, which would invest $10 million in so ludicrous a project. Yet it seems, with something which for bureaucrats approaches insouciance, the provincial and municipal governments forked over a considerable fortune to build a musically themed white elephant. If government officials cannot figure out that Timmins is not a good tourist destination, what makes anyone think they're clever enough to run a health care system? Or a school system? Or a transit system?

Much of the Canadian economy is littered with white elephants and grossly inefficient public services. The Shania Twain Centre is a small fiasco in the larger disaster that is the modern Canadian state.

SOURCE

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South Korea Unveils New Missile

South Korea staged large military training and disclosed that it has a new cruise missile capable of hitting any target in North Korea.

"The cruise missile being unveiled today is a precision-guided weapon that can identify and strike the window of the office of North Korea's leadership," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters."

Comment: As they said on the 13th, the South Koreans wasted no time demonstrating that they are not technologically behind the North in weapons design and development. That is probably also true of nuclear weapons development. South Korea is not known to have an active  weapons program, but it operates 23 nuclear reactors at four power generating stations that produce about 30% of its electricity requirement. It also exports reactors. It certainly has the know-how or can find it quickly, should it need it.

As for the Hyunmoo, South Korean authorities first disclosed the existence of the Hyunmoo (Eagle) III series of cruise missiles in April 2012, after the failure of the first North Korean satellite launch in the Kim Jong Un era. Today they showed its versatility, with film clips of launches from a surface ship and a submarine.

Last April the South Korean defense sources indicated it had a range of 930 miles, which is more than enough to reach any installation in North Korea and some in China. The Hyunmoo III C reportedly has a range of 1,500 miles.

The claims of accuracy are not exaggerated. Some news reporters have called it a ballistic missile. South Korea has short-range ballistic missiles, but what it showed today is a cruise missile, "similar to the US Tomahawk," according to one description.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Operation Hubris

 Jonah Goldberg

One of the great things about American politics is its capacity for punishing hubris.

For the ancient Greeks, hubris didn't merely describe god-like arrogance. It was a crime, usually defined as taking too much pleasure in the humiliation of your foes. In its modern usage it usually means the pride that comes before the fall.

In the wake of Barack Obama's State of the Union address, both connotations seem at least a little apt. We are well into our fourth month of epidemic thumb-suckery over the question, "Are the Republicans doomed?" The latest New York Times Magazine asks, "Can the Republicans Be Saved from Obsolescence." The wished-for answer doesn't require much reading comprehension.

Since the election, a slew of political reporters and analysts -- never mind the self-declared Obama boosters -- have argued that Obama will, must or should crush his enemies (and by enemies, I mean the Republicans). Slate's John Dickerson wrote that if Obama "wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat."

"Obama's only remaining option," Dickerson continued, "is to pulverize. Whether he succeeds in passing legislation or not, given his ambitions, his goal should be to delegitimize his opponents."

Many conservative observers agreed. Michael Barone wrote, "Obama begins his second term with a strategy to defeat and humiliate Republicans rather than a strategy to govern." Rich Lowry, my boss at National Review, wrote that Obama's approach to the debt-ceiling fight should have been called "Operation Humiliation."

That strategy worked for Obama, he figures, so why quit now? His second inaugural address was a frilly campaign stump speech, dividing fools and devils (Republicans) from the wise and the sainted (Democrats).

His State of the Union address, already fading from the mind's eye like the afterglow of a flashbulb, showed that Obama remains committed to his hammer-and-tongs style. His ludicrous claims that massive new expansions of government won't add a "single dime" to the deficit -- technically true, since they would add trillions of dimes to the deficit -- alone made it clear that he's still in campaign mode.

Obama and many in his chorus remain convinced that, after that momentary hiccup known as the 2010 midterm elections, America is finally on a glide path to the new progressive era they'd long been promised.

This is where the two meanings of hubris come together. Liberals panting after the transformative Obama presidency are only seeing what they want to see. The GOP suffered from the same sort of wishful thinking when Republicans believed that George W. Bush -- and Ronald Reagan before him -- signaled a partisan realignment.

Look closely at Obama's State of the Union address, and you see not a progressive colossus poised to conquer all in his path, but a mostly spent force, desperately trying to figure out how to get anything done at all. His main policy ambition was to keep from getting the blame for his own idea: the sequester.

But the emotional heart of the State of the Union comprised three issues: immigration reform, climate change and gun control. Well, as Senate Democrats have made clear, the only way immigration reform passes is if Obama stays out of the process entirely.

On gun control, all Obama is asking for is a vote. He's not even asking for passage of a largely ludicrous assault weapons ban. Why? Because gun control is a wedge dividing Democrats, not Republicans.

So is climate change. Liberal donors want Obama to kill the Keystone pipeline (which Obama failed to mention) and push a green agenda. The union and blue-collar base want good jobs and cheap gas. Indeed, while climate change and gun control may be imperatives for the editors of the New York Times, they are pretty low priorities for Americans growing increasingly nostalgic for economic growth Obama can't deliver. How can it be springtime for liberalism when liberalism's top priorities aren't the public's top priorities?

The remainder of Obama's agenda was fairly pathetic boilerplate. Hike the minimum wage! Redesign America's schools! Manufacturing hubs! Make-work programs!

This is supposed to be liberalism reborn? Lame ideas cribbed from a playbook with 60 years of dust on it? Slogans hatched by pols who needed a few more nouns to round out Obama's sentences? Legislative initiatives that will cost Democrats seats in 2014 and beyond?

Obama's State of the Union had the lowest ratings in 13 years for a reason -- and it's not that America is excited for a new golden age of liberalism. The momentum Obama feels is the pull of gravity, as he starts his fall.

 SOURCE

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Default must be avoided at all costs and should not be an option on the table?

Will U.S. government one day simply refuse to pay what it owes people who have lent it money?

This is from Jason J. Fichtner and Veronique de Rugy, "The Debt Ceiling: Assets Available to Prevent Default," January 25, 2013.
What's their reasoning? Here is the full extent of it:

"Raising the debt ceiling without a commitment to improve our long-term debt problem has adverse consequences as well. Recently, the rating agency Fitch warned the US government that while it wants the debt ceiling to be raised, it also wants the government to come up with a credible medium-term deficit-reduction plan."

Without it, the agency could downgrade the US credit rating by the end of this year. Other rating agencies have also warned the United States of the negative consequence of not dealing with the country's long-term debt.

The rest of the article is about how to avoid default, not whether it's a good or bad idea.

I'm unconvinced. The U.S. government has dug itself a deep hole. Commitments that it has made to various people must be broken. There is no plausible way, for example, that the U.S. government will be able, 20 years from now, to pay for all the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits that it has committed to pay. One such commitment to consider breaking is the commitment to pay the debt.

Bruce Bartlett, in The Benefit and the Burden, his book about taxes, writes that default "would constitute a grossly immoral theft of trillions of dollars from those who loaned money to the federal government in good faith." In my review of his book, I commented, "Really? It's worse to default on creditors who took a risk than to forcibly take money from taxpayers who have no choice?"

Now you could argue that the commitment to pay the debt deserves a priority because of part 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says:

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void."

I take the U.S. Constitution seriously. But note that Fichtner and de Rugy don't make an argument based on the Constitution. Their argument is based on the economics--and, as I noted, I don't think it's that persuasive. To lay out why default might be a good idea takes too much space here. If you want to see a sustained case for default, see Jeffrey R. Hummel, "Some Possible Consequences of a U.S. Government Default," Econ Journal Watch, January 12, 2012.
Fichtner and de Rugy write that it is "irresponsible to signal to the international community that a default on the debt obligations owed by the US government is possible while Washington works through whether it will raise the debt limit before or after it formulates a plan to reduce government spending."

But I think it's irresponsible to tell people that there is unlikely be a default. I'm planning my financial future on the idea that there's a substantial probability that the U.S. government will go right up to the big financial cliff and then default and limit Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The earlier we prepare, the better.

SOURCE

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Lifeboat Drill

Word has come of a gruesome accident in the Canary Islands. A cruise ship anchored there staged a test of its lifeboats, and five crewmen died. At the moment, the cause is said to have been a break in one of the cables by which lifeboats are lowered to the water. A picture shows a capsized lifeboat next to the ship. The dead crewmen were trapped beneath it.

This is sad, but why is it of any more interest than any other industrial accident? Because lifeboats are constantly hailed as a solution, not a cause, of naval disaster.

The 101st anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic arrives on April 14. We will hear a great deal about the importance of government regulations to ensure that every ship has enough boats for its whole company of passengers and crew.

Since the Titanic, this kind of regulation has been in effect. But as with most regulations, the effects have been mixed, to use a conventional kind of understatement. When American total-lifeboat regulations came in, two things happened. One was the ruin of America’s passenger steamship lines to the Orient. The owners couldn’t afford to meet the new standards (which, admittedly, included labor-protectionist provisions only notionally connected with safety). The other was the sinking of the steamship Eastland. The Eastland capsized in the Chicago River, with immense loss of life, because it had been overloaded with lifeboats.


The Eastland before it rolled over

The story of the Eastland is ably presented by George Hilton in his book on the subject. I myself have analyzed the lifeboat issue in my book about the Titanic. I’ll hit some high points:

Only one large passenger ship has ever been evacuated solely by its own boats, and that was a vessel in which almost all the passengers and crew were under military discipline. If a large ship gets into trouble, it ordinarily sinks right away (as did the Lusitania, with horrible results from the attempted launching of lifeboats), or it takes days to sink. In the first case, few boats will probably be capable of successful launch (even the Titanic used remarkably little of its available lifeboat space). In the second case, other ships will appear to take people off the stricken vessel, if that vessel is anywhere near normal lines of travel.

It is a fearful thing to enter a lifeboat and be lowered 50, 60, or 70 feet into an ocean that is probably cold and turbulent. Usually, it’s better to stay with the ship. If the passengers on the Costa Concordia, which suffered a disastrous mishap off the coast of Italy in January 2012, had understood this, they would not have panicked, and they would have sustained fewer deaths. Instead, they remembered propaganda about the Titanic and concluded that they were doomed, because their lifeboats were not efficiently launched. In some cases, they jumped off the ship, and died.

By the way, the Costa Concordia never sank. It’s still there, lying on its side, along the coast of Italy. If you were a passenger without an operative lifeboat, you could still be living on board. Yet watching the one-year retrospectives on this event, one would think that the ship had sunk — and passengers had died because lifeboats were not available.

The truth is that everything people do, or plan to do, has its own risks. Even tests of government-mandated rescue equipment can go wrong, terribly wrong. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or a free rescue, either. Let’s end the pious pretense that there is.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Obama’s reactionary jobs plan:  "Does it bother anyone else that the president of the United States seems to believe that our collective future entails assembling battery parts in a government-subsidized factory for $9 an hour? Is that really what Americans envision for their kids -- an assembly line? Because when you look past Barack Obama's mesmerizingly hollow rhetoric, what he's proposing is a return of jobs that progress and prosperity have left behind."

How will ObamaCare affect Health Savings Accounts?:  "If you are one of the more than 22 million people enrolled in a Health Savings Account (HSA) or a Health Reimbursement Arrangement or if you work for the one of every two employers who now offer one of these consumer-driven health plans, in the future you will have fewer options. The new healthcare law does not outlaw HSA-eligible plans, but it takes away HSA options and future regulations could make these plans impractical and undesirable."

America: Extorting data access:  "U.S. law enforcement wants companies to covertly install so-called computer back doors in the software they produce. This would allow the government to access information on any computer using the software without being detected and without going through an authentication process that protects privacy."

Mail delivery should be privatized:  "The U.S. Postal Service announced last week that it intends to end Saturday mail delivery beginning Aug. 1. The move would save the government's beleaguered mail monopoly $2 billion a year, according to the USPS. The USPS has lost over $40 billion since 2006 and it has maxed out its $15 billion line of credit with the U.S. Treasury. With mail volume in permanent decline, the USPS has no choice but to try and cut costs. ... With the USPS literally on the verge of not being able to pay its bills in full, it will be interesting to see if Congress finally relents. Even if Congress does allow the USPS to drop Saturday mail delivery, the postal service faces a bleak future."

Elite Iranian general assassinated near Syria-Lebanon border:  "A senior commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards has been killed while travelling from Syria to Lebanon, according to Iranian authorities. A man identified as General Hassan Shateri was reportedly assassinated by what Iranian officials described as 'the agents and supporters of the Zionist regime' while travelling from Damascus to Beirut."

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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People at different ends of political spectrum 'use their brains differently'

I have long pointed out that political orientation is substantially inborn  -- JR

People at opposite ends of the political spectrum don't just have different views - they even use their brains differently.

Researchers have found liberals and conservatives use different parts of the brain when they make risky decisions and these regions can be used to predict which political party a person prefers.

The new study by a team of political scientists and neuroscientists suggests that while genetics or parental influence may play a significant role, being a Tory or a socialist changes how the brain functions.

Doctor Darren Schreiber, a researcher in neuropolitics at the University of Exeter, has been working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California on research that explores the differences in the way the brain functions in American liberals and conservatives.

In a previous experiment, participants had their brain activity measured as they played a simple gambling game.

Dr Schreiber and his colleagues were able to look up the political party registration of the participants in public records.

Using this new analysis of 82 people who performed the gambling task, the academics showed that Republicans and Democrats do not differ in the risks they take.

However, there were striking differences in the participants' brain activity during the risk-taking task.

Democrats showed significantly greater activity in the left insula, a region associated with social and self-awareness.   However, Republicans showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala, a region involved in the body's 'fight-or-flight' system.

The results suggest that liberals and conservatives engage different cognitive processes when they think about risk.

In fact, brain activity in these two regions alone can be used to predict whether a person is a Democrat or Republican with 82.9 per cent accuracy.

By comparison, the longstanding traditional model in political science, which uses the party affiliation of a person's mother and father to predict the child's affiliation, is only accurate about 69.5 per cent of the time.

Another model based on the differences in brain structure distinguishes liberals from conservatives with only 71.6 per cent accuracy. The model also outperforms models based on differences in genes.

Dr Schreiber said: 'Although genetics have been shown to contribute to differences in political ideology and strength of party politics, the portion of variation in political affiliation explained by activity in the amygdala and insula is significantly larger, suggesting that affiliating with a political party and engaging in a partisan environment may alter the brain, above and beyond the effect of heredity.'

The results may pave the way for new research on voter behaviour, yielding better understanding of the differences in how liberals and conservatives think.

Dr Schreiber added: 'The ability to accurately predict party politics using only brain activity while gambling suggests that investigating basic neural differences between voters may provide us with more powerful insights than the traditional tools of political science.'

SOURCE

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Australian study explores link between conservatism and happiness

This is a survey of university students only so is pretty idiotic but it does replicate the usual finding that conservatives are happier

A study conducted by a team from UQ Psychology, at the University of Queensland, surveyed 816 undergraduate students to explore the link between conservatism and happiness.

Professor Jolanda Jetten said the findings indicated that conservatives were happier than liberals because of their strong ties to a large network of social groups and a greater access to "social capital."

"In 2008, New York University psychologists Jaime Napier and John Jost were the first to attempt to explain this difference in happiness, arguing that the happiness gap is caused by the difference in ideology between conservatives and liberals," Professor Jetten said.

"It appears (from our research) that what makes conservatives happy is not conservative ideology but rather their social and material advantage - the same advantage that makes conservative ideology appealing in the first place."

Fellow researcher Dr Fiona Kate Barlow said it was found that those with a higher social economic status have access to more group memberships and this created greater life satisfaction.

SOURCE

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The 'Statist of the Union Address'

In his State of the Union address, Tuesday, President Obama did what he does best: blame others to divert attention from his own failings on the economy. Every ill we have, per him, is because of a bill of his Congress won't pass. Where is that "you lie" when you need him?

Democrats closed the Kabuki Theater called the "Jobs Council," an Obama-appointed group of business CEOs that had not met in a year. While unemployment is still very high, Obama recently disbanded the Jobs Council. To be fair, the Council attained its goal of saving one person's job – last November. Mission accomplished.

His speech started by saying they were cutting spending, then he spent 90 percent of his talk laying out more spending plans he cleverly calls "investments."

Obama is not economy friendly. He led the charge on unprecedented government overreach in the form of punishing regulations, spending and intrusion into our lives. Jobs, other than his union supporter's, matter little.

Somali pirate style, he commandeered one-seventh of our economy with Obamacare. It was recently estimated that the third-rate "Bronze" Obamacare insurance plan will cost each American family $20,000 per year. Yet, he said Obamacare was already lowering health care costs. Remember when he told us, "If you like your health care plan you can keep it"? Well, you can't.

He unleashed his EPA to all but kill the coal industry and to hamper oil drilling. Gas prices were $1.65 a gallon when he took office; now they are tickling $4. We have an epic U.S. opportunity in natural gas production, so Obama's EPA go after fracking – based on the vast scientific expertise of Matt Damon and other Hollywood knuckleheads.

In spite of Obama's abysmal economic record and with the persuasion of the lapdog media, uninformed voters could not follow the "Three-card Monte" of the Democrats. They reelected him. Why should Obama care if he is not held accountable? He won 303 electoral votes by only doing interviews on sports radio, "ET," "The View," and "Pimp with a Limp."

Obama has Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid with him; together they have a Mike Tyson-level understanding of economics. Cutting spending around them is like inviting your drug dealer to your intervention.

He is a Chicago politician. He thinks that everything in Washington is a zero-sum game. One side wins, the other loses. He has the same view of the economy. If Apple succeeded, the company must have screwed over someone.

Obama only knows politics, and he only has one go-to reaction: campaign mode. He does not persuade with better ideas, he blames and then destroys his enemies. Remember the Boy Scout Romney?

The hypocrisy of a man who has his Nobel Peace Prize on his wall next to his drone kill list is astonishing. His odd enthusiasm for killing with drones, which mystifies the Left, speaks to his "destroy others" mentality. A picture recently released by the White House showed Obama firing a shotgun. No doubt he was heroically protecting our country from low-flying skeet.

He applies to politics the business model of Chicago street gangs: Destroy rivals to gain turf. But the economy does not work that way. Apple does well with Verizon's success and in spite of AT&T's failure. They depend on each other, with mutually beneficial and enlightened self-interest in a growing economic pie. One person's economic success multiplies into greater wealth for others.

The recession he "inherited" ended July 2009, months after he was sworn in. Since then we have had the worst economic growth of any so-called recovery in 65 years.

All recessions end. Of the 10 recessions of the past 65 years, economic growth for the following three years averaged 4.6 percent. GDP growth under Obama's "recovery" has registered a tepid 2.2 percent.

The White House finds it comforting to say that this was a bad recession. But as any sober economist will tell you, the worse the economic downturn, the more robust the recovery (historically 5.9 percent). The difference between 5.9 percent historic growth and Obama's 2.2 percent would mean $1.6 trillion more over three years, or $7,000 per working American.

Al-Qaida could not have done as much damage to the U.S. as this administration has, working to destroy our economy with a morass of entrenched bureaucracies. The terrorists can now retire. They set about to weaken and destroy America, which task is now in the capable hands of the Left.

SOURCE

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California defines doctoring down

 As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients.

Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare.

They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.

"We're going to be mandating that every single person in this state have insurance," said state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chairman of the Senate Health Committee and leader of the effort to expand professional boundaries. "What good is it if they are going to have a health insurance card but no access to doctors?"

Hernandez's proposed changes, which would dramatically shake up the medical establishment in California, have set off a turf war with physicians that could contribute to the success or failure of the federal Affordable Care Act in California.

Doctors say giving non-physicians more authority and autonomy could jeopardize patient safety. It could also drive up costs, because those workers, who have less medical education and training, tend to order more tests and prescribe more antibiotics, they said.

"Patient safety should always trump access concerns," said Dr. Paul Phinney, president of the California Medical Assn.

Such "scope-of-practice" fights are flaring across the country as states brace for an influx of patients into already strained healthcare systems. About 350 laws altering what health professionals may do have been enacted nationwide in the last two years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Since Jan. 1, more than 50 additional proposals have been launched in 24 states.

As the nation's earliest and most aggressive adopter of the healthcare overhaul, California faces more pressure than many states. Diana Dooley, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, said in an interview that expanding some professionals' roles was among the options policymakers should explore to help meet the expected demand.

At a meeting of healthcare advocates in December, she had offered a more blunt assessment.

"We're going to have to provide care at lower levels," she told the group. "I think a lot of people are trained to do work that our licenses don't allow them to."

Currently, just 16 of California's 58 counties have the federal government's recommended supply of primary care physicians, with the Inland Empire and the San Joaquin Valley facing the worst shortages. In addition, nearly 30% of the state's doctors are nearing retirement age, the highest percentage in the nation, according to the Assn. of American Medical Colleges.

Physician assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and optometrists agree that they have more training than they are allowed to use.

"We don't have enough providers," said Beth Haney, president of the California Assn. for Nurse Practitioners, "...so we should increase access to the ones that we have."

Hernandez, who said he would introduce his legislation and hold a hearing on the issue next month, said his own experience as an optometrist shows the need to empower more practitioners. He said he often sees Medicaid patients who come to his La Puente practice because they have failed their vision test at the DMV. Many complain of constant thirst and frequent urination.

"I know it's diabetes," he said. But he is not allowed to diagnose or treat it and must refer those patients elsewhere. Many of them may face a months-long wait to see a doctor.

The California Medical Assn. says healthcare professionals should not exceed their training. Phinney, a pediatrician, said physician assistants and other mid-level professionals are best deployed in doctor-led teams. They can perform routine exams and prescribe medications in consultation with physicians on the premises or by teleconference.

Allowing certain health workers to set up independent practices would create voids in the clinics, hospitals and offices where they now work, he said. "It's more like moving the deck chairs around rather than solving the problem," Phinney said.

His group proposes a different solution: It wants more funding to expand participation in a loan repayment program for recent medical school graduates. Doctors can now receive up to $105,000 in return for practicing in underserved communities for three years.

Still, it typically takes a decade to train a physician. Health experts say the pool of graduates cannot keep pace.

"We're not going to produce thousands of additional doctors in any kind of short-term time frame," said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento). "It makes sense to look at changes that could relieve the pressure that we're going to undoubtedly encounter for access to care."

Administrators of community clinics and public hospitals say nurse practitioners and other non-physician providers already play key roles in caring for patients, a trend they predict will grow as more Californians become insured and enter the healthcare system.

At Kern Medical Center in Kern County, two clinical pharmacists have run the hospital's diabetes clinic, treating about 500 patients a year, since the specialist physician in charge retired. They are licensed to perform physicals, order lab tests, prescribe medicines and counsel patients on lifestyle changes.

"We're going to have to get a whole lot more creative about how care is provided," said Paul Hensler, Kern Medical Center's chief executive.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Tokugawa Shogunate

My brief note yesterday may have conveyed the impression that I approve of the tyranny of the Tokugawas.  I don't of course.  But the sharply stratified society of Tokugawa Japan was  much the same in Europe.  Both liberties and food security for the common man were very limited in both Europe and Japan.  The difference is that Europeans had to put up a lot of pretty vicious wars on their territory as well.  Life in Japan was at least pretty predictable.  And there was always the "floating world" for those who rose above the peasantry.

Predictability is not everything, however, and it could be argued that the insecurity in Europe was what lay behind the scintillating and eternal works of art that Europe produced at that time:  The work of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi etc.  By comparison, Japan at that time  produced practically nothing cultural that has gained renown outside its own borders -- excepting of course the work of Hokusai

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A Christian philosopher

I don't  personally find Plantinga persuasive but his enterprise is certainly a bold one

The world-renowned philosopher Alvin C. Plantinga has recently received the prestigious Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy, awarded by the University of Pittsburgh’s Departments of Philosophy, History, and Philosophy of Science, and the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science. Plantinga is widely known for his work in the philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics and Christian apologetics, and he has revolutionized scholarly interest in Christian theism, shown naturalism/atheism to be self-refuting and incoherent, and set the new standards for the defense of free will, individual agency, consciousness, rational inference, science, objective truth and morality, and more.

As a result, Plantinga has both directly influenced the entire field of philosophy and has mentored and inspired new generations of top scholars who are critiquing the reductionism, relativism, materialism, collectivism, scientism, positivism, determinism, and de-humanization of the modern era. In short, Plantinga has devastated the prevailing view in Western elites that human beings are merely “matter in motion” (i.e., purposeless, accidental, robotic products of a closed, natural world ruled solely by physical laws and that truth, reason, morality, and God are illusions).

Plantinga is the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy at Calvin College, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center on Culture and Civil Society at the Independent Institute. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University, he has served as President of the American Philosophical Association (Western Division) and Society of Christian Philosophers, and he has delivered the Gifford Lectures in Scotland three times.

Plantinga’s work is of immense importance to all thinking in epistemology, ethics and economics, especially regarding individual action, entrepreneurship, free markets, civic virtue, and the rule of law. Plantinga has shown that those scholars who attempt to ground reality in naturalism are not just pursuing a futile quest leading to determinism and nihilism but are embracing views that defeat their very intellectual enterprise, including science itself. Unfortunately, many superb classical liberal and libertarian scholars remain unaware of Plantinga’s work and are oblivious of the profound weaknesses in their naturalistic assumptions. In this regard, I authored an earlier, preliminary paper, “Economic Science and the Poverty of Naturalism,” that discusses this dilemma and the crucial value of the critiques of metaphysical naturalism by both C.S. Lewis and Plantinga, especially as this is relevant to the corpus of economic reasoning in the Austrian School, Public Choice and other traditions within what Peter Boettke describes as “mainline economics” in his new Independent Institute book, Living Economics.

For example, Plantinga’s “evolutionary argument against naturalism” brilliantly argues that if evolution is true, it is an epistemic defeater for naturalism, leaving naturalism in ruin. The influential philosopher Thomas Nagel agrees and utilizes Plantinga’s work in his recent book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press). Nagel also recently and favorably reviewed Plantinga’s newest book, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford University Press), in the New York Review of Books.

Similarly, Plantinga developed the “Modal Ontological Argument” for the existence of God, drawing on the work of St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century but correcting the argument using modal logic in a more rigorous, formal, and irrefutable way. Here is a video discussion of Plantinga’s Modal Ontological Argument and a further video that refutes objections. Here, here and here are videos that further discuss the argument.

In his book God, Freedom, and Evil (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), Plantinga’s essay “The Free Will Defense,” with its implicit libertarianism, is accepted today by most philosophers who have come to see the “problem of evil” as having been sufficiently rebutted and showing that free will is necessarily true.

SOURCE

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Bloody Hands: The Southern Poverty Law Center

Long before homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC) with the intent to commit mass murder, I warned from the rooftops that the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-Christian “hate group” propaganda might spur such bloodshed. With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.”

Tragically, my deepest fears were realized.

Then, in August, days after Corkins was heroically disarmed by FRC employ Leo Johnson, whom Corkins shot in the arm, I penned another column titled “Fanning the flames of left-wing violence.” I plead with the SPLC to end its “dishonest and reprehensible” strategy of “juxtaposing FRC and other Christian organizations with violent extremist groups” in a transparent effort to marginalize them.

“I appeal to your sense of goodwill. This is not a game. Lives are at stake,” I implored. “I know you have good employees (I’ve met some) who believe they’re doing the right thing; so, please, validate that belief. It’s time to remove your metaphorical ‘hate group’ Star of David from mainstream Christian organizations before another of your ideological allies spills blood.”

I no longer believe the SPLC has a sense of goodwill. In fact, based on FBI evidence and the group’s own actions (and inaction), I and many others are left with no other inference but this: The SPLC – a left-wing extremist fundraising behemoth – may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence.

Just days ago, Corkins pled guilty to a number of charges, including domestic terrorism. FBI evidence revealed that he was both motivated by and utilized the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate map” to target and locate his intended Christian mass murder victims.

Further evidence reveals that the “hate map” – more accurately labeled “hit map” – even provided the exact location of FRC and other Christian groups found on Corkins’ hit-list with little red dots to helpfully pinpoint their precise locations.

Corkins told the FBI after the shooting that he intended to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches (which he brought with him) in victims’ faces.” Prosecutors said that he planned to leave FRC after the attack and go to another conservative group to continue his reign of terror. A handwritten list of three other groups was found with his belongings while an investigation of Corkins’ computer revealed that he identified his targets on the SPLC website. The other groups were also maliciously listed by the SPLC as “hate groups.”

Motive to kill? Fomented. Who to kill? Provided. Where to kill? Pinpointed, with easy access to driving directions. The only thing the SPLC did not do was purchase Corkins’ gun and drive him to the crime scene.

Here’s why, to my own aghast bewilderment, I’m left with little choice but to believe the SPLC may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence. As noted by the FRC, “Even after an attempted mass murder of the FRC staff, the ‘hate map’ is still prominently featured on the SPLC website today – which shocks most conservative pundits.”

“Shocks” is an understatement.

“When Congresswoman Giffords and several others were shot in Arizona by Jared Loughner, the left went into overdrive blaming Sarah Palin for a map that had a list of political targets on it. After the fact, we learned that Loughner was apolitical and he clearly had not used Sarah Palin’s map of political targets. That did not stop the left from blaming the right,” noted RedState’s Erick Erickson. “By the way, Palin took down her target map after the controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center? Crickets …”

What other explanation is there? I understand that it’s difficult to admit you’re wrong, especially when the scheme seemed so delicious at the time. But once FBI evidence conclusively proves that you were, to a large degree, responsible for inciting an act of domestic terrorism, most reasonable people would take a deep breath, take a step back, admit fault and hobble forward in an effort to rehabilitate a reputation in ruin.

Is the SPLC a left-wing extremist group? Absolutely. Are they anti-Christian? Without a doubt. But few would have believed, until now, that they might intentionally, with malice aforethought, seek to incite anti-Christian bloodshed.

Scandalously, the Obama administration continues to maintain deep ties with this radical organization.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center has a long history of maliciously slandering pro-family groups with language and labels that incite hatred and undermine civil discourse,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “In the issues of family and marriage, Christians are literally in the crosshairs of radical homosexual activists, and the SPLC is fueling the hatred and providing the targets. The SPLC should be held accountable for its reckless acts. Even more disturbing than the SPLC’s irresponsible behavior is the fact that the Obama administration is in bed with this group,” said Staver.

“It is ironic that Christians who believe in natural marriage have been isolated by radical homosexual activists and demonized as ‘homophobes’ and ‘haters,’” he concluded.

Weeks before Corkins pleaded guilty of terrorism and assault with intent to kill, a study from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point entitled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far Right” said the “violent far right” exhibits an intense fear or dislike of foreign people, “including people with alternative sexual preferences.” The SPLC’s warped view of reality has been adopted by the Obama administration.

“What the SPLC and other homosexual activists are doing is intentional and dangerous,” said Staver. “It is time to end the dangerous rhetoric and resume a civil discourse on the subject of natural marriage and morality.”

Indeed if, God forbid, this SPLC “hate group” propaganda leads to another act of left-wing terrorism like that at FRC, this dangerous group should be held legally – perhaps even criminally liable.

In the meantime, to the media, I say this: If you dare, even for a moment, give any credence whatsoever to this deadly SPLC “hate group” nonsense, you too will have blood on your hands.

SPLC, you’re no longer fooling anyone.

Stop fooling yourselves.

SOURCE

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Obamacare: A Beehive of Stings You Weren’t Expecting

Many promises were made to different groups to sell the new healthcare law to a skeptical public. Having watched the medical insurance games–government and private–for my whole career, I thought these promises were too good to be true.

What is coming to light now is like “The Big Con” that Robert Redford’s character skillfully pulled off in the classic movie The Sting. Only the Pelosi-Reid-Obama trio forced through an even bigger “Sting” on the entire country, especially the very constituencies they promised their healthcare law would help.

One by one, the political promises fall like dominoes. The very groups that strongly supported government control of healthcare are now some of the ones getting stung badly. The effects are like a swarm of killer bees suddenly descending on the unsuspecting, stinging everyone in sight.

Our personal New Year’s sting was a 22.5% jump in my husband’s Medicare supplemental premium for the 2013 renewal. Reason: Obamacare regulations and mandates.

Then I received the notices for our employees’ health insurance premiums: more premium increases – even though we have a high deductible, catastrophic illness type plan to help keep costs affordable.

Next, the IRS projected premiums of $20,000 per year for a family of four. Affordable? For whom? This sting is a $3,000 to $5,000 increase instead of the promised $2,500 savings per year—a miscalculation of $5,500 to $7,500 for a family of four.

Large national restaurant chains are cutting employees’ hours because they cannot afford to pay the high health insurance premiums for “fulltime” employees. How can the middle class make ends meet on part-time work?

Liberal groups that overwhelmingly supported Obamacare are also getting stung. Of course, these announcements came after the election, in which these constituent groups supported Obama in droves:

* College students: Before Obamacare, young healthy college students paid average health insurance premiums that only cost $100-600 per year. Obamacare mandates mean that premiums are rising to $1,700 to $2,000 per year. In New Jersey, where health insurance is mandatory for college students, this is indeed a huge sting!

* College faculty: At many universities, faculty hours are being cut back to less than 29 hours a week to avoid the costly Obamacare premiums.

* Union members: the sting of Obamacare has come in many forms, so Big Labor is now seeking waivers for union members.
Smokers: Many who fell for Obama’s promise of “free” or lower cost medical care are learning that their premiums will be 50% higher than nonsmokers –up to $4,250 dollars per year in excess costs for smokers age 55 and older.

* Employers: Paying for all the Obamacare mandates in employer-provided health insurance adds $1.79 to the hourly rate to hire an employee. That’s why many are not hiring.

* Seniors: After the election, seniors are learning that all the promises of “no cutbacks” in their medical care were false.

The Senior Sting is especially ugly. One 80-year-old patient told me his heart medicine was no longer covered, “because I am too old now.” Preventive services and cancer screenings for the older patients, such as prostate and breast cancer checks, are being cut to pay for “free” birth control pills. As of 2012, hospitals are paid more to provide fewer surgeries. Popular and lower cost Medicare Advantage plans are being cut back or eliminated.

Then there is the Medicaid sting: States that are expanding Medicaid plan to cut payments to doctors and hospitals to about 56% of what private insurance companies pay. This means more patients lined up for fewer doctors and hospitals.

And let’s not forget the privacy sting. Your electronic health record will be used to decide what treatments you will be allowed. The IRS will be collecting expanded personal information about your income, habits and family to decide what to sting you on penalties.

In short—old or young, black or white, liberal or conservative—once Obamacare was forced on patients across the country (except Congress and the President)– everyone has gotten The Sting….in the Biggest Con of all.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The martial paradox

The martial paradox is well-known and generally accepted among conservatives but is ridiculed by Leftists.  Why?

I think it helps if we consider its origins.  I am not historian enough to give a comprehensive history of it but I can offer a few brief notes.

The paradox is familiar as "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" or: "si vis pacem para bellum" -- from Vegetius, a Roman military writer in his Epitoma rei militaris.  In English:  "If you want peace, prepare for war".

And there is no doubt that it is true.  A key period for progress in most spheres during the development of Western Europe was the long peace between 1871 and 1914.  And that period was ushered in by a series of military conquests supervised by Otto von Bismarck -- which led to the creation of a unified Germany.  The fear of the Kaiser's hordes and Krupp artillery kept everyone else on tiptoe for a long time after that -- a long time when nobody was willing to risk war -- despite Europe's long history of wars before that.

But perhaps we see the process most clearly in Japan.  The Japanese samurai code (Bushido) was developed during a long series of wrenching civil wars between rival clans. And when one clan finally got the upper hand over all the rest, that code became in effect the official religion.

So what was that code?  The most extensive exposition of it appears to be the Hagakure -- and you don't have to read the Hagakure for long to find a scale of values that is very different from a modern Western scale of values. It is a very rambling document but repeatedly you find in it two major themes:  Indifference to death in battle or otherwise and loyalty to the master.  It glorifies conflict and a militarized society, in short.

Yet men who followed that code -- the men of the Tokugawa Shogunate -- created and sustained the longest period of of peace that any nation has ever known: A period generally reckoned to stretch from 1600 until 1868.    So while Europe was tearing itself apart, fanatical militarists gave Japan unrivalled peace.

But the values found in the Hagakure are not so alien to those who know our own more remote history.  Ancient Germanic values were never spelled out the way they are in the Hagakure but they seem to have been not a lot different from that which we read in the Hagakure.  One can refer to Caesar, Tacitus and others for an account of those values but we do not really need to go much further than that great classic of old Anglo-Saxon literature: "Beowulf".  The comparison is not precise but in Beowulf too the focus was on the glory of battle and conquest -- and also incidentally the centrality of kings*.

So from the Romans to the old Anglo-Saxons, to the Tokugawas to  Bismarck, the martial paradox has prevailed.  Which, I take it, is why Leftists reject it.  Rejecting anything established is a  kneejerk reaction for them.  They are always sure that they can soar above established wisdom.  That they cannot the many "unintended consequences" of their policies make clear. And with Obamacare heading down the pike we will soon be seeing lots of that.

* Though in the Anglo-Saxon case the king seems mainly to have been a "giver of rings"  -- i.e. someone who awarded honors. That's still true in Britain today.
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About turn!  Proof that Leftist "principles" are made of sponge rubber

Support for Obama's unconstrained assassination program makes that crystal clear

Glenn Greenwald

This past week has been a strangely clarifying political moment. It was caused by two related events: the leak of the Justice Department's "white paper" justifying Obama's claimed power to execute Americans without charges, followed by John Brennan's alarming confirmation hearing (as Charles Pierce wrote: "the man whom the administration has put up to head the CIA would not say whether or not the president of the United States has the power to order the extrajudicial killing of a United States citizen within the borders of the United States"). I describe last week's process as "strange" because, for some reason, those events caused large numbers of people for the first time to recognize, accept and begin to confront truths that have long been readily apparent.

Illustrating this odd phenomenon was a much-discussed New York Times article on Sunday by Peter Baker which explained that these events "underscored the degree to which Mr. Obama has embraced some of Mr. Bush's approach to counterterrorism, right down to a secret legal memo authorizing presidential action unfettered by outside forces." It began this way:

"If President Obama tuned in to the past week's bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself.

"Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of President George W. Bush finds himself cast as a present-day Mr. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country's core values in the name of security."

Baker also noticed this: "Some liberals acknowledged in recent days that they were willing to accept policies they once would have deplored as long as they were in Mr. Obama's hands, not Mr. Bush's." As but one example, the article quoted Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor and fervent Obama supporter, as admitting without any apparent shame that "if this was Bush, I think that we would all be more up in arms" because, she said "we trust the president". Thus did we have - while some media liberals objected - scores of progressives and conservatives uniting to overtly embrace the once-controversial Bush/Cheney premises of the War on Terror (it's a global war! the whole world is a battlefield! the president has authority to do whatever he wants to The Terrorists without interference from courts!) in order to defend the war's most radical power yet (the president's power to assassinate even his own citizens in secret, without charges, and without checks).

Last week's "revelations" long known

Although you wouldn't know it from the shock and outrage expressed over the last few days, that Barack Obama claims the power to order US citizens assassinated without charges has been known for three full years. It was first reported more or less in passing in January, 2010 by the Washington Post's Dana Priest, and then confirmed and elaborated on by both the New York Times and the Washington Post in April, 2010. Obama first tried to kill US citizen Anwar Awlaki in December 2009 (apparently before these justifying legal memoranda were concocted) using cruise missiles and cluster bombs; they missed Awlaki but killed 52 people, more than half of whom were women and children. Obama finally succeeded in killing Awlaki and another American, Samir Khan, in October 2011, and then killed his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman in a drone strike two weeks later.

That Obama is systematically embracing the same premises that shaped the once-controversial Bush/Cheney terrorism approach has been known for even longer. All the way back in February, 2009 - one month after Obama's inauguration - the New York Times' Charlie Savage reported that "the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor's approach to fighting Al Qaeda" and that this continuity is "prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies" (I actually wrote at the time that Savage's alarmist conclusions were premature and overly pessimistic, but subsequently told him how right, even prescient, he turned out to be). In April, 2009, the Obama-friendly TPM site announced that "Obama mimics Bush" when it comes to assertions of extremist secrecy powers. In June, 2010, Obama's embrace - and expansion - of many of Bush's most radical policies had become so glaring that ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero gave a speech to a progressive conference and began by proclaiming himself to be "disgusted with this president", while Bush's most hawkish officials began praising Obama for his "continuity" with Bush/Cheney policy.

That many Democratic partisans and fervent Obama admirers are vapid, unprincipled hacks willing to justify anything and everything when embraced by Obama - including exactly that which they pretended to oppose under George W Bush - has also been clear for many years. Back in February, 2008, Paul Krugman warned that Obama supporters are "dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." In May, 2009, a once-fervent Obama supporter, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, wrote a column warning that Obama was embracing many of the worst Bush/Cheney abuses and felt compelled - in the very first sentence - to explain what should be self-evident: "Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House." The same month, former Bush DOJ official Jack Goldsmith - who provided the legal authorization for the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program - went to the New Republic to celebrate that Obama was not only continuing the core Bush/Cheney approach to terrorism, but even better (from his perspective), was strengthening those policies far beyond what Bush could achieve by transforming Democrats from opponents of those policies into supporters.

And exactly as Goldsmith happily predicted, polls now show that Democrats and even self-identified progressives support policies that they once pretended to loathe now that it is Obama rather than Bush embracing them. On MSNBC, Obama aides and pundit-supporters now do their best Sarah Palin impression by mocking as weaklings and losers those who think the President should be constrained in his militarism and demonizing as anti-American anyone who questions the military (in between debating whether Obama should be elevated onto Mount Rushmore or given his own monument). A whole slew of policies that would have triggered the shrillest of progressive condemnations under Bush - waging war after Congress votes against authorizing it, the unprecedented persecution and even torturing of whistleblowers, literally re-writing FOIA to conceal evidence of torture, codifying indefinite detention on US soil - are justified or, at best, ignored.

So none of this - Obama's assassination program, his general embrace of Bush/Cheney radicalism, the grotesque eagerness of many Democrats to justify whatever he does - is at all new. But for some reasons, the events of last week made all of this so glaring that it could no longer be denied, and it's worth thinking about why that is.

What made last week's revelations so powerful?

What this DOJ "white paper" did was to force people to confront Obama's assassination program without emotionally manipulative appeal to some cartoon Bad Guy Terrorist (Awlaki). That document never once mentioned Awlaki. Instead - using the same creepily clinical, sanitized, legalistic language used by the Bush DOJ to justify torture, renditions and warrantless eavesdropping - it set forth the theoretical framework for empowering not just Obama, but any and all presidents, to assassinate not just Anwar Awlaki, but any citizens declared in secret by the president to be worthy of execution. Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee wrote that the DOJ memo "should shake the American people to the core", while Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman explained "the revolutionary and shocking transformation of the meaning of due process" ushered in by this memo and said it constituted a repudiation of the Magna Carta.

In doing so, this document helpfully underscored the critical point that is otherwise difficult to convey: when you endorse the application of a radical state power because the specific target happens to be someone you dislike and think deserves it, you're necessarily institutionalizing that power in general. That's why political leaders, when they want to seize extremist powers or abridge core liberties, always choose in the first instance to target the most marginalized figures: because they know many people will acquiesce not because they support that power in theory but because they hate the person targeted. But if you cheer when that power is first invoked based on that mentality - I'm glad Obama assassinated Awlaki without charges because he was a Bad Man! - then you lose the ability to object when the power is used in the future in ways you dislike (or by leaders you distrust), because you've let it become institutionalized.

Much more HERE

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French socialism in big trouble

The daily drumbeat of layoff and plant-closure announcements in France has been riling up desperate workers who stand to lose their livelihood without much hope of finding a job elsewhere as unemployment has hit 10.5%. But now the government is worried about a “radicalization” of these angry workers. A major quandary: on one hand, the Socialists promised during the election to side with the workers; but on the other hand, they must somehow figure out how to create an environment where the private sector can survive.

And the private sector is gasping for air. The Services Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 43.6 in January, from 45.2 in December (below 50 = contraction), the fastest rate of contraction since March 2009. Particularly worrisome was the steep decline in employment. Manufacturing was even worse. Its index fell to 42.9 in January. New orders plunged at the fastest rate since March 2009, with domestic demand the primary culprit. Employment skidded as excess capacity led companies to slash their headcount.

That these references to March 2009, the dark days of the financial crisis, keep cropping up in economic data is troubling. The report speaks of a “deepening malaise” and “a broad-based deterioration in the private sector” with “significant headwinds,” “accelerated job cutting,” and “heightened levels of uncertainty.” President François Hollande and his government should be in panic mode.

The private sector is anemic in France. Based on the 2013 budget, the central government will contribute 56.3% to the economy. The remaining 43.7% is spread over local and regional governments and finally the private sector—that is shriveling with the relentless de-industrialization of France.

Plant shut-downs and layoffs, or merely the announcement of these events often months or even years down the road, make bold headlines. Video clips of protests associated with them show up on TV, with angry men and women blocking the site. There are images of fires and mayhem. Managers are taken hostage. Politicians weigh in gravely and speak of “dialogue.” Layoffs and plant closures don’t go down smoothly in France.

A series of big-name companies, some of them part-owned by the state, has become part of the nightly layoff blues: Air France, steelmaker ArcelorMittal, Texas Instruments, Goodyear, refiner Petroplus, or automakers PSA PeugeotCitroën and Renault, whose unit sales in France had plunged 17% and 20% respectively last year. But it doesn’t stop there. Now home sales are grinding to a halt

The numbers are adding up: in 2012, according to Trendeo, which tracks the creation and destruction of jobs in France, 266 industrial plants were closed last year, a 42% jump from 2011! Since 2009, a total of 1,087 old factories were shuttered while only 703 new ones were brought to life, for a net loss of 384 plants. And these new factories have on average 8.5% fewer employees than factories that are being shut down.

Just how deeply the government is worried about the growing labor unrest emerged during an interview on BFMTV on Tuesday:

And not in a propitious location: Interior Minister Manuel Valls was discussing the hunt for Islamist terrorists in France—efforts that the government has redoubled since its military involvement in Mali—when suddenly the topic shifted to the government’s fear of “excesses and violence” during the next labor-related demonstrations.

“Social anger”—meaning, anger by unionized workers—“as a consequence of the financial and economic crisis, job insecurity, unemployment, and layoffs is here and has been rumbling for years,” admitted Valls. “But what we’re seeing today are less social movements but social implosions or explosions.”

Turns out, the government is already preparing for them. A memo to that effect, dated January 30, bubbled to the surface. Sent to regional directors of the police intelligence service, it underlines “the risks of incidents” or possible “threats to production equipment in case of radicalization of the conflict.” To get a handle on the situation, the government has instructed its police intelligence apparatus to gather information on the movements and to follow teetering companies “very closely” in order to anticipate a possible “radicalization” of the labor unrest.

Valls confirmed the police surveillance. “You have to carefully analyze it,” he said about the social anger. And that was the job specifically of the intelligence services of the police, he added. Ever the likeable Socialist, he found the right words. “We have to try to understand the reasons that push men and women into desperation,” he said. “Men and women who are in the process of losing their jobs.”

What about vandalism and destruction of production equipment often associated with these movements? “We have to try to understand them, but we cannot permit them,” he said firmly, as the interview drifted to the next topic: rising violence and property crimes against individuals.

The heightened police presence at these sites during times of labor unrest, often in unmarked cars, has the unions worried. And Bernard Thibault, Secretary General of the CGT, warned that it would be seen as a “provocation.” And so the second largest economy of the Eurozone enters into a phase where fear of a labor revolt hangs over every economic decision the government makes.

The unemployment rate in particular has become treacherous. While all countries use inscrutable statistical systems to make unemployment look better, France also has an administrative tool: removing tens of thousands of people every month from the unemployment rolls for spurious reasons.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena .  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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