Amerika

• Germany could soon bury its ‘black zero’ budget rule

  Here you can see the backdoor socialism of Keynesianism at work:

  A senior government official told Reuters this month that the finance ministry is toying with the idea of issuing new debt in the form of “green bonds” which could help finance a costly climate protection package.

  As the economy teeters on the brink of recession and borrowing costs hit record lows, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has also said that Germany’s reduced debt level gives Berlin the fiscal muscle to counter a possible crisis “with full force”, suggesting room for extra spending of up to 50 billion euros (£46 billion).

  The core of Keynesianism emerges from the socialist theory of a society based on worker ownership, in other words receiving dividends from ownership of nationalized industry. Imagine if Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft formed a union and bought up the rest of American industry, then issued every citizen a stock certificate for a portion of that union. People would get checks every quarter representing their equal share of the output of industry. As you may have guessed, over time these checks would decline as people dropped out of being productive, and so that society would have to generate higher figures for the amount of currency present in order to keep those checks looking good, even though even the higher amount would buy less, sort of like wage stagnation in America since we introduced our own “anti-poverty” socialist-style programs.

  Germany is doing the same thing. Its entitlement state has bankrupted the government, so it is contemplating borrowing more money in order to make Keynesianism work through its famous “pump priming” mechanism: dump money on the people, especially those most likely to spend carelessly i.e. the lower classes, and they will throw that money back into the economy by purchasing random junk. Consumerism and socialism thus are one, joined by the idea of distributing money in order to generate wealth and as a replacement for natural wealth generation through actual productivity.

  The alternative is to create a society based around culture and value, and we are seeing the first steps toward a culture-based capitalism even if it threatens to be absorbed by the anti-culture of Leftism which unfortunately remains predominant despite declining in our society:

  The reimagined idea of a corporation drops the age-old notion that corporations function first and foremost to serve their shareholders and maximize profits. Rather, investing in employees, delivering value to customers, dealing ethically with suppliers and supporting outside communities are now at the forefront of American business goals, according to the statement.

  Here is the full Business Roundtable statement.

  Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation

  Americans deserve an economy that allows each person to succeed through hard work and creativity and to lead a life of meaning and dignity. We believe the free-market system is the best means of generating good jobs, a strong and sustainable economy, innovation, a healthy environment and economic opportunity for all.

  Businesses play a vital role in the economy by creating jobs, fostering innovation and providing essential goods and services. Businesses make and sell consumer products; manufacture equipment and vehicles; support the national defense; grow and produce food; provide health care; generate and deliver energy; and offer financial, communications and other services that underpin economic growth.

  While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders. We commit to:

  • Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
  • Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect.
  • Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers. We are dedicated to serving as good partners to the other companies, large and small, that help us meet our missions.
  • Supporting the communities in which we work. We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.
  • Generating long-term value for shareholders, who provide the capital that allows companies to invest, grow and innovate. We are committed to transparency and effective engagement with shareholders.

  Each of our stakeholders is essential. We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.

  This represents an alternative to socialism: instead of distributing money, they aim to enhance value by supporting culture, productive workers, the broader network of businesses around them, long-term value, and the culture that hosts them. This increases the value of civilization, in which each citizen has a stake, instead of simply handing out money.

  Business has basically announced that it is being strangled by short-term interests, and wants to bring culture and the future health of the nation back into the picture, which makes sense since the 1990s unipolar order and its idea of a “universal” values system has collapsed. Instead, humanity has reverted to cellular order, where each nation is an ethnic group which makes up its own rules, and these demand companies that do not offend that national sentiment.

  Where CEOs in the past might simply look at a balance sheet and say, “We can do this cheaper by hiring illegal aliens,” CEOs of the future are going to take into account social capital or combined learning, trust, and behaviors and try to work with those. That will in turn kick back against the unions, who are going to have to show that they are not simply parasites (and will fail).

• In blue Seattle, Trump supporters are starting to come out of hiding

  Well, now Trump, of all candidates, has nearly three times as many donations from Washington state as Bernie Sanders does. The Vermont senator has 8,080 itemized donations here, while Trump has the most ever recorded at this point in an election, by any candidate in either party, 21,657. What’s more, these are “itemized donations” — meaning the donors were required to list their names, occupations and addresses, and risk the backlash Selig was so concerned about.
  

  An old saying from The American Revolution goes “We hang together or we hang seperately.” Apparantly Conservatives in Seattle/Kinshasa have figured that out. Donald J. Trump’s reelection campaign has dominated the headcount of donations by individuals because all of these people already bear The Mark of Cain in the eyes of the baying mobs. They have nothing to lose by hiding. They need to put their money where their survival is. Now what do these people in Seattle know about Leftists from living with them on a daily basis? Read The Gulag Archipelago and find out.

• Thousands of Cubans try to enter the U.S. at a border now practically closed off to them

  Several decades ago, the Cubans coming here voted Republican and hated Communism. More recent ones have behaved like all other Hispanics in that all but the wealthiest and most successful tend to vote hard Leftist. What changed? Cuba, as a mixed-race country, possessed an upper caste of Spaniards and varying grades below them of people who were mixed with Amerinds and Africans. The Communists took power, deposed the Spaniards, and replaced them with the mixed groups. That meant that the initial waves of Cuban immigrants to the United States were mostly European in origin, but the ones coming later were mostly non-European. Not surprisingly, Trump has closed the border to a group that ethnically resembles Central Americans more than Spaniards. Every day, in tiny details, the Trump Administration is making immigration to the US less of a sure thing, and therefore more expensive, while chipping away at the easy benefits achieved by coming here. This will over time reduce immigration without causing a catastrophic drop in labor that industry cannot absorb. The next Republican president will have to continue this policy and abolish things like affirmative action, civil rights, and the entitlements state, at which point the outflow will turn immigration into a net negative, which will in turn inspire more to leave as they perceive that their political and social situation has become unstable.

• Blackface, Staple of Arab Comedy, Faces Surge of Criticism

  Other cultures avoided infection with the utilitarian/individualist virus of The Enlightenment,™ therefore they feel free to notice consistent patterns and make fun of them. They mock LGBT, other races, and the idea of women serving in the same roles as men. They torture the Islam out of Uighurs. We in the West are expected to condemn these things, but really, what do we care about how they run their societies?

• Why Some Christians ‘Love the Meanest Parts’ of Trump

  Ben “The Wronged Evangelical” Howe reminds me of the Lead Caterwaul of the “Christian” Rock Band Creed. The guy would never have premarital sex, but he’d sure take a nice, soothing BJ after a extra-long set. It only proved the old saw from St. Paul that lust for fame was the fountainhead of sin.

  He is angry that leaders of the religious right, who long claimed to be the champions of American morality, appear to have gladly traded their values for power. He is angry that Christians claim they support the president because they want to end abortion or protect religious liberty, when supporting Trump suggests that what they really want is a champion who will mock and crush their perceived enemies. To redeem themselves, Howe believes, evangelicals have to give up their take-no-prisoners culture war.

  No, Ben is angry that leaders and champions of morality haven’t surrendered their self-interest and given Ben power. He needs to try reading that old Bible of his before he thumps it too many times. I’m supposed to love my fellow Christians like brothers and sisters (but love God with all my heart). When condign, my sister and I always inform each other when one of us believes the other is full of crap. I respect my sister, but she doesn’t tell me who to associate with or vote for any more than my mom still dresses me funny.

  I’ve heard a critique of Christianity that goes that everyone sitting in the back pews imagines themselves up in the pulpit. When Ben writes about his fellow congregants as The Immoral Majority, he has just done the nearly impossible. Made Richard Dawkins still appear relevant.

  Ultimately, Ben Howe and other whinging Cuck Christians are making a categorical moral error. They are so mad about someone they don’t personally approve of winning the evangelical votes, that they chase these people out of the temple. Southern Baptists of the sort Ben Howe condescendingly condescends to have always had two powerful vetoes. ₁They don’t show up. ₂They don’t send money. Ben Howe’s carnival act eventually reaches too small an audience for either George Soros or Howard Dean to continue funding the charade.

  All of these people who aren’t at church are also not depraved heathens. They are smart enough to see that Donald Trump commits an occasional sin. All of them are Christian enough to forgive him. Perhaps these millions of wayward souls would come on back to chapel if “Christians” like Ben Howe would contemplate how to better practice Christianity. At that point we’d all be glad forgive Brother Ben his manifold sins.

• Plant milks worse for environment than cow milk: Fonterra

  But milk substitutes such as soy, almond, oat and rice have double the greenhouse gas emissions of Fonterra’s milk produced in New Zealand, when compared on the basis of their nutrient content.

  The old dodge, as seen first with diet soft drinks and low-alcohol beer: you can remove the “dangerous” elements from something, but then more of it is needed, so you actually gain nothing. That is, except for the millions made by those who have sold milk substitutes to a clueless public. We are making ourselves sicker in the name of saving the environment, which is really a quality-versus-quantity issue; we have too many humans, so we are reducing the quality of life, when what we should do is increase the quality of life and have fewer humans. However, Enlightenment™-style individualism/utilitarianism prohibits that. Guess what will die an ignominious death in the next century? Equality, the bell tolls for thee.

• How online extremists are shaping the minds of white teens

  Weepy hand-wringing neurotic nanny state third world critics of our society complain that youth are being radicalized by online content; youth point out that conservatism just makes sense, society does not, and that what society rams down their throats has officially become the new impotent ideology of distracted and thus brain-dead adulthood. Of course kids are going to rebel against it; it is mandatory nonsense, and therefore needs satirizing, where the non-artificial narrative of what works needs no defense and is learned through pain in life. Why not just teach that to our kids? Well… uhm… it conflicts with our Enlightenment™-style individualistic/utilitarian secular religion.

• The U.S. Navy Wants To Build the World’s Largest Robot Warship

  The U.S. Navy is calling on industry to present ideas for its Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle (LUSV) ship. The Navy wants ten LUSV ships in five years. The ships would function as scouts for the main battle fleet, carrying sophisticated radar and sonars or floating magazines packing extra anti-air and cruise missiles. Above all, the ships will do what proponents call the “3D work”: dull, dirty, and dangerous work.

  Two ways to look at this one.

  1. As the battlefield evolves, humans have no prayer on it. Put the robots out there instead and control it all with a joystick.
  2. As the human capital of a declining culture degrades, you don’t want to trust it with decisions or important responsibility. Machines do exactly what you tell them to. Now, in a land of declining human capital, what about that guy giving the machines instructions?
• Our Brains Tell Stories So We Can Live

  We notice details, stitch them together into a picture, and use this to recognize patterns. However, this involves rationalizing after the fact, or balancing what we already have in order to invent a narrative. Some narratives are artificial, or must be communicated like the “artist statements” on those little sheets of paper next to the paint blots in a modern art gallery. Some narratives are natural, or inherently observable by anyone with enough intellect to make sense of them.

  As the article points out, we have a problem with jumping the gun and rationalizing based on not enough information, which allows scientific or other hypotheses to become accepted as fact and then both ₁used to interpret all future facts and ₂defended against any contradictory information.

  We might in fact see Leftism as an offshoot of this process. Where healthy people strike out for objectives, Leftists rationalize from what is because they do not believe that more can be. This causes them to focus on dividing up what already exists instead of orienting toward the future, which is why they invent artificial narratives that explain their ideas as “new” and “innovative.”

• Planned Parenthood May Withdraw From Title X Funding

  Trump works his indirect magic by attacking cause and not effect. In this case, the cause was that Planned Parenthood was supporting abortions everywhere because it was subsidized by the government, which allowed it to expand its footprint and charge enough for services to become semi-profitable. He changed the rules so that if it accepts such aid, it has to also accept rules limiting its advocacy of abortion. This in turn makes the organization unable to accept aid without wrecking its own business model. Quietly, covertly Trump has wrecked them.

• China’s version of GPS now has more satellites than US original

  Democracy won the world wars and the cold war and then promptly went to sleep while a new enemy — an ancestral one, dating to before the times of the Khan and his Golden Horde — rose in power using all of the skills, science, technology, and social know-how that we taught them. When people realize that they are going to have to fight a hard war that was easily preventable because democracy lulls voters to sleep with its pursuit of flattering symbolism instead of hard realities, they too will be wondering where they vote to end democracy, as I have for years. Surely any good system includes the ability to undo itself, but somehow “tolerance” and “equality” never offer that ability.

• Toupee Or Not Toupee

  Nationalist traditionalist libertarian anarchist group Lilou & John give an interview. Sorry for the word salad, but that is the best way I can come up with to describe their beliefs; they are basically libertarians who recognize the need for nationalism and the failures of democracy and socialism. Some interesting stuff comes out in this conversation.

• Ancient DNA from the skeletons of Roopkund Lake reveals Mediterranean migrants in India

  A historical mystery has Mediterranean people wandering through the Himalayas around 1800 AD.

• Florida trucker arrested, charged with plotting church shooting: prosecutors

  Our society does everything backward because it thinks backward, arising from its need to consider individuals first before social, natural, logical, and divine order. The media feeding frenzy over these events — driven by the desire of the neurotic Left to hammer home its gun control agenda — has made every crazy person come out of the woodwork to desire their fifteen minutes of fame and gore. Instead of censoring their manifestos and then inspecting their lives in detail, we should ignore the people and focus on the manifestos, simply because the really crazy ones — as opposed to the ideologues — cannot write coherent manifestos, and therefore will seek attention elsewhere. Maybe they should get hobbies.

• NJ gave more than $3.8 million in financial aid to undocumented college students last year

  Your money is flowing out of your country. It goes to China when we buy their inferior-quality dishwashers, to Mexico when illegals enviar dinero a Mexico, and to illegals here who get university degrees on our dime. The voters remain oblivious to this problem because to them, the government just prints more money to pay for all this free stuff, and they only get occasional flashes of queasiness when they realize that we are in debt up to our eyeballs and will certainly default, at which point everything we own decreases in value and our retirement funds go away. Well, you voted for this, I guess.

• Russia and China Say New U.S. Missile Test Is Just the Kind of ‘Arms Race’ They’re Trying to Avoid

  Russia and China are disappointed that the United States is continuing to develop its weapon systems. They wanted us to continue stagnating, as we did under Obama and would have under HRH HRC, so that they could dominate us easily. Instead, WW3 might actually be a fair fight, since they outnumber us twelve-to-one. Where have we seen that ratio before? Except at Stalingrad, of course. Of course.

Brett Stevens, J.P. Wilkinson, Paxton Jackson, and Claire Stevens contributed to this report.

Tags: linkpost, periscope