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“Robbers perform surgery on God inside this domain (or stately home).” – Antoine Clarke’s translation (see the comments) of the French bit of a multilingual sign warning against thieves, that I recently photoed in the Brick Lane part of London. Usually we like to joke about how the foreigners get English wrong. So, it’s good to notice when we get one of their languages wrong. May 26th, 2011 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
 “You heard it here first – we were not born in the Garden of Eden.” – Tara Smith, talking at the Adam Smith Institute last week, with reference to the idea that we get to inherit something called Original Sin. May 24th, 2011 | 96 comments - (Comments are closed)
The main problem with having discussions about economics and financial markets is this: People look at these complex phenomena through entirely different prisms; they use vastly dissimilar – even contrasting – narratives as to what has happened, what is going on now, and what is therefore likely to happen in the future. Citing any so-called “facts” – statistical data, or the actions and statements of policymakers – in support of a specific interpretation and forecast is often a futile exercise: The same data point will be interpreted very differently if some other intellectual framework is being applied to it. – The opening paragraph of Detlev Schlichter’s latest commentary on the state of the world, entitled Beyond Repair – This will not have a happy ending. May 21st, 2011 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
May 18th, 2011 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The man must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and in any event, there is still some chance that the whole sordid affair turns out to have been a political set-up, in which case he might even emerge from this bizarre scandal with credit and sympathy. Yet it is about time Europe’s ownership of the International Monetary Fund, and particularly France’s apparently divine right to the top job, was brought to a close. If Mr Strauss-Kahn’s nemesis in a New York hotel room loosens Europe’s grip, then that may be no bad thing. Whatever the truth of otherwise of the allegations, Mr Strauss-Kahn’s spectacular fall from grace is widely seen as a near catastrophe both for the IMF and the delicate negotiations around further rescue packages for the stricken eurozone periphery. This it is definitively not. To the contrary, it might even bring about a rethink of the currently doomed strategy of throwing good money after bad.” May 17th, 2011 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
May 16th, 2011 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
I eagerly await Amnesty’s Human Rights Action Centre being turned over to the BNP for a debate on how changing demographics in England are depleting national pride Superb. May 11th, 2011 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Anybody visiting the Middle East in the last decade has had the experience: meeting the hoarse and aggressive person who first denies that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and then proceeds to describe the attack as a justified vengeance for decades of American imperialism.” – Christopher Hitchens on Noam Chomsky. May 10th, 2011 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
May 6th, 2011 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
“At the moment, I am very pessimistic about the prospects for the United States solving its fiscal problems without a crisis. Given that we have divided government, a reasonable long-term budget will require a compromise. But the two sides seem to live in alternate universes. The Republicans’ alternate universe is based on the belief that government spending ought not to exceed its historical average of about 20 percent of GDP. You can’t get future spending down to that level, however, without really major cuts in future spending on Social Security and Medicare. Much as I would like to see those programs phased out completely, neither I or nor anybody else can claim to have won an election on that platform. The Democrats’ alternate universe is based on (a) the belief that the rich are not paying their share of taxes and (b) with Obamacare passed, the rise in health care spending as a share of GDP is as good as arrested. So they see no need to change the status quo on entitlements.” I think a crisis is coming. And maybe, in a spirit of schadenfreude, we can finally prove the truth of Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”, but not in a way she approves of. May 6th, 2011 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Some people are just neurotically sceptical. But even they won’t deny what is before their eyes. Is there anyone who seriously questions the fact that Saddam Hussein is dead? That’s the way to do things these days. Don’t launch a bloody, decade defining series of wars and then refuse to release photos of a dead body, or better still display the actual body, because you’re worried it’ll upset people. Shoot the ****** in the head on camera then release it on youtube. May 3rd, 2011 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment. – Christopher Hitchens, as seen in this excellent article about the great man, written by Martin Amis April 26th, 2011 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
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