Leftist Fascism; Windfall Taxes; & World War I, Part Deux
Leftist Fascism; Windfall Taxes; & World War I, Part Deux
Enemies of the People: Mark Zuckerberg
In his Editor’s Column this week, Michael Walsh offered an analysis of Joe Biden’s speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.
From Hell's Heart
After Joe Biden's disgraceful speech last week —the worst and most deliberately provocative bully pulpit address in American history—many people have finally woken up to the very real threat threat of Leftist fascism (historically, there is no other kind) and its burning desire for civil war, and have begun asking themselves: what if this idiot is serious?
That Biden is, in fact, an idiot, is beyond dispute. For more than half a century this thoroughly nasty piece of work has been bullying, blustering, bragging, plagiarizing, insulting, sliming, and attacking his political enemies—which now apparently include anyone who opposes him and his criminal Anti-American Party—without any fear of reprisals whatsoever. Since he spent most of that time in Congress, profiting handsomely at the public teat, attacking Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, he was immune from consequences thanks to the Speech and Debate clause in the Constitution: the same Constitution he now openly despises and seeks to supplant.
Bidding fair to claim the title of Second-Worst Irish-American politician in American History, and closing fast on the current titleholder, Ted Kennedy [the noxious "Robert Bork's America" speech begin at 25:38 and is well worth a watch], Biden vilified his predecessor, his supporters, and by extension every American who voted for the Republican candidate during the contentious and hotly contested 2020 election. You can see the hatred and the anger on his face as he "calls for unity."
The fact is, Biden is Fredo Corleone without the wit, charm, or brains: "I can handle things. I'm smart. It's not like everybody says, I'm dumb. I'm smart and I want respect." He is Ubu Rex without the self-restraint, a Roman emperor who judging from the two Marines outrageously stationed behind him actually trusts his Praetorian Guard. Like another National Socialist who instantly comes to mind, he's forever mad at the world for not recognizing his talent and his genius and will show us who's boss or die trying….
Despite his manifest unworthiness for the highest office in the land, Joe Biden is in a way the perfect president for our times. Since Reagan, and with the partial exception of Donald Trump, we have had a parade of base, weak, conniving, corrupt, and otherwise unsuitable presidents, so why should he be any different? In latter-day America, only scions and plutocrats need apply: starting with the CIA's very own commander-in-chief, George H.W. Bush, we've had William Jefferson Blythe III, George W. Bush (aka Junior), Barack Hussein Obama II, Donald J. Trump, and now Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. And if the president's staff of Drs. Feelgood can keep him ambulatory and relatively sentient and publicly continent until January 2025, there's a very good chance he'll be POTUS again, especially if he runs against his fellow obsessive geriatric, Trump.
John O’Sullivan made the case against Oil & Gas “windfall” taxes, which have become popular in Great Britain with energy prices soaring.
In Britain, the Time Bell Rings
Whoever wins the premiership then, however, will have to face a general election within about 28 months. Given the severity of Britain’s problems, the Tories will undoubtedly face an uphill battle. That means Sir Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition, must now be taken seriously as a potential prime minister….
Labour is demanding the recall of Parliament to debate the “cost of living crisis.” That’s quite a shrewd demand since Johnson is now a “caretaker” Prime Minister who constitutionally has to leave all major decisions to September the 5th and his successor. Starmer's attack on the Tories as a “do nothing” government in the face of the cost of living crisis then carries more weight. By contrast, he was able to step up to the plate with his own remedies in a speech that was better received than any earlier efforts and proposed solutions that according to opinion polls are in tune with the popular mood.
Those solutions—an energy price “freeze” paid for by the $34 billion proceeds of a higher windfall tax on oil and gas producers— are not new. They have been kicking around the Labour party’s thinking on energy since two leaders ago. And when Rishi Sunak himself was chancellor only a few months back, he introduced a much milder $6 billion version of the same thing which he delicately called a “temporary, targeted energy profits levy” of 25 percent. (It came accompanied by a 90 percent tax relief for firms that invest in oil and gas extraction in the U.K.)
The problem with such “concessions” to opposition attacks and the popular mood is that they concede the principle without satisfying the demand. Worse, they make Labour’s proposals look like common sense to which the Tories are offering only a miserly response.
Commonsense is a rare and valuable commodity in public life, but economics is one of the very few areas where it can’t be applied wholesale. Commonsense suggests that we should charge lower fares for railway journeys at rush hours when the trains are crowded and uncomfortable. Economists respond that we should charge higher fares then and lower fares at off-peak times to encourage people to travel in less crowded and more comfortable conditions at all times. If we ignore them, commonsense ensures that we end up strap-hanging for hours in cattle cars.
In the same way the economically sensible response to higher energy prices is to devote state assistance to cash subsidies to the consumer—with larger subsidies going to poorer people for whom energy is a bigger proportion of their total spending. People then get to decide whether to devote this increase in their income to energy, to food, or to their other household needs. They know those needs better than “the Man in Whitehall.”
Given this full responsibility over how to spend their total income, they would be free to change their behavior by, for instance, using less power than usual. Moreover, high electricity prices, for instance, would give them further encouragement to do so, thus reducing demand for electricity, oil, and making a gradual start to solving the energy crisis in general.
So much for the demand side. On the supply side, as long as prices remain high—and any decline would likely be gradual—energy companies would have the incentive of high profits to search for new oil and gas fields and to re-open old ones closed in response to regulation. (We already see that happening.) Even as demand was being moderated by high prices, supplies of energy would be encouraged and increased by them. The energy market would come into balance, and other things being equal, prices would fall.
Tom Finnerty has started to get a ‘World War I’ feeling about the goings-on in Europe.
'The Lamps Are Going Out All Over Europe'
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Canada recently begging Justin Trudeau for Liquified Natural Gas. “Canada is our partner of choice,” said Scholz, adding “we hope that Canadian LNG will play a major role” in his country's attempt to wean itself off Russian energy.
Trudeau was characteristically dismissive, saying there has “never been a strong business case” for exporting Canadian LNG to Europe….
Humiliating, but what else could he do? Beggars can't be choosers, and Germany is very much a beggar. As we've discussed before, Germany's mad environmentalist politicians pushed the country into transitioning to "renewable" energy sources which don't produce anywhere near the amount of power necessary to run a first world country, let alone the largest economy in Europe. The only way to make the transition "work" was to import large amounts of Russian gas to make up the difference. Now they're trying to break their reliance on that so as to comply with Western sanctions imposed in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and it isn't going well….
The story is much the same throughout the continent -- in Poland people have been lining up in their cars for multiple days in the hopes of buying rationed coal to get them through the next several months (the E.U. has also embargoed Russian coal imports). The manager of Finland's power grid has begun telling the country to "prepare for shortages this winter." The British were recently informed that their heat and energy costs would increase by 80 percent as of October 1, and their national grid managers, too, have begun to talk more about shortages than cost.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo recently said that Europe could be looking at ten years worth of tough winters, as far as heat and power were concerned. Dutch energy prices are currently sitting at "15 times the average for this time of the year," according to Bloomberg. Italy, which is also heavily dependent on Russian energy, is already on the brink of a debt crisis -- what will their economy look like after months of rolling black-outs, frozen pipes, and freezing people?
French President Emmanuel Macron speaking of the difficult months ahead, asked his countrymen to “accept paying the price for our freedom and our values,” referring to the cost of Europe's unreservedly supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Andrew Stuttaford rightly points out that "European voters are... entitled to wonder why they should continue to support politicians who left them so exposed to Russian blackmail in the first place."
Peter Smith contributed a piece on the good news that coral on the Great Barrier Reef has set a growth record, and the desperation of environmentalists to make all good environment-related news sound like bad news.
Abundant Coral on the Great Barrier Reef? Sound the Alarm!
Despite assuring us in his 2009 inauguration speech that “this was the moment when the rise of oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal,” President Obama expressed concern about the health of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) when visiting Australia in November 2014. Later, in May 2015, he sat down for a televised meeting at the White House with British naturalist and climate scaremonger David Attenborough. They shared each other’s mutual concern.
How then can it possibly be? Coral cover on the Reef has hit a new record measured over two-thirds of its 2,300 km length, according to the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). And, incidentally, remains at a relatively high level over the other (southern) third. What to say to spare Barack’s and Sir David’s blushes? Phew! Bullet dodged for the zillionth time. Relief all round? Well, not quite all round.
“We are in uncharted territory and still trying to understand what this means,” whined AIMS program leader Mike Emslie. The institute's CEO, Dr Paul Hardisty, knew what to do. Focus on the part of the Reef that had fallen short of a record. “A third of the gain in the coral cover recorded in the south in 2020/21 was lost last year due to ongoing crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks,” he said. And, risibly, with no sense of the ridiculous, added: “This shows how vulnerable the Reef is to continued acute and severe disturbances that are occurring more often, and are longer-lasting.”
A healthy GBR does not spell success? Not if you want to continue to attract multi-millions of government research dollars it doesn’t. And not if you want to use the state of the Reef to further the apocalyptic climate-change agenda. Never mind, Emslie and Hardisty can look forward to better days ahead. The coral cover is almost bound to decline next year from its record level and their tendentious dire warnings can resume unhindered by an ill-behaved Reef. Though, to be clear, the actual state of the Reef is incidental to its perpetual imminent demise.
And, finally, our very own acclimatised beauty Jenny Kennedy, deals with her complicated feelings towards cars.
Diary of an Acclimatised Beauty: Concoursing
Thanks for reading, and keep a look out for upcoming pieces by John O’Sullivan, Steven Hayward, and David Solway. All this and more this week at The Pipeline!