George Rebane
New Scientist, always politically correct, has discovered the possibility that if Greece goes under and reduces its GDP by the predicted 50%, then it will not only leave the eurozone but also the EU. The real Greek tragedy is that this could well start the dominoes falling, resulting in beggaring half the EU countries, and cause the whole system of European unity to come crashing down. The upshot of the science journal’s concern is that Europe’s climate control measures will then go by the board since poor countries are never good stewards of the environment.
They note that “The climate always takes a back seat when economies turn sour, but the impact of a euro break-up would be profound. Any country leaving the euro would also breach the treaties of Maastricht, Lisbon and Rome, and therefore be forced to leave the EU. A euro break-up is likely to shatter the EU, and with it the hard won architecture of climate policy.” (more here) Socialists are always belatedly surprised that a clean environment only comes arm-in-arm with a good dose of functional capitalism.
If you’re so rich, why aren’t you smart? That’s a question no one would ever have thought to ask Mortimer Zuckerman, Democratic billionaire and social scene commentator extraordinaire. We read Mortimer’s commentaries for years as the final word in the US News & World Report. Their leftist tilt was always a bit jarring when considered in the context of the centrist editorial policy evident in the rest of the magazine.
Well, now we find out that Mortimer is disappointed in the man he voted for in 2008 (more here). Doesn’t anyone pay attention to what the community organizer promised us? Apparently Mortimer was a bit too busy making his billions to really discover what made it all possible.
And, of course, the question could also apply to that Wizard of Omaha who is now getting a new tax named after him. The Buffett Tax on “millionaires and billionaires” is the new replacement for or addition to (depending on the intensity of your faith in government justice) the AMT. Ol’ Warren is even using the sleazebag trick of arguing that his tax only applies to the hundreds, when America’s great minority (aka federal taxpayers) knows that in reality it will be applied to the millions. His rationale seems to be that the country already has enough millionaires, and this is just the ticket to put a cork in it. (more here)
Elizabeth Warren, Obama’s former consumer czar cum candidate for the Senate, has persuaded legions of leftists that the rich got that way by using taxpayer funded roads, taxpayer funded police for security, and other amenities of a publicly funded society. Her argument then proceeds that the money they earned was not really earned by them alone, but earned by all the citizens. Her leaps of economic logic finally conclude that these rich unfairly garnered what could have been more fairly earned by millions of others who apparently couldn’t figure out how to use the roads and the police and the tax code and the … . Therefore social justice demands that such unfair advantages shosuld be leveled by making them pay an even more generous share of the federal take for eventual redistribution to those who have been cheated by the fickle goddess Fortuna.
All this goes to bolster the progressive view that wealth creation is a matter of fortune or luck – some have it, most don’t. Therefore government’s proper role is to act as the Luck Leveler with a gun. And how is the correct luck level determined? Democratically, of course.
Professor Nouriel Roubini ('Dr No'), national pundit and premier economic prognosticator, has come to recognize that the systemic inequality of people's ability to create wealth in a globalized high-tech world can lead to social instability and blood in the streets. He even recognizes the impact of the Great Doubling (search RR) on the American workforce. He doesn't have a solution, but sees only a dark future if things continue as they are (more here). Welcome aboard!
Finally, here is a talk by Tarek Fatah, a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim, on Islamism, its intentions for the west, its penetration into the highest government circles (including the White House), and the politically correct silence that we, the children of western civilization, shamefully practice toward enemies sworn to exterminate us. H/T to RR reader.
[update] There's finally some good news from Washington. Apparently the nation's fisc is nowhere near the disastrous state that some of us have reported. A correspondent and RR reader informs me that the State Department is sending representatives from suitable NGOs on overseas junkets. Even one of our local NGO executives will be spending some quality time in China and Mongolia on our nickel. Things are looking up.
