A Glimpse Into the Ideological Monoculture of Literary New York – Quillette

For all the predictable speechifying about “diversity” that I heard at
cocktail parties and literary events, I became struck by just how
politically monolithic this scene really is. It’s not just that writers
and editors have to be PC when it comes to their books and their public
pronouncements: There also seems to be a crushing uniformity in regard
to their privately held viewpoints.

An agent (who, to his credit, read my manuscript off the slush pile)
scolded me for “bigotry” because the imagined world of 2036 has
witnessed a successful Muslim insurrection in France. Another accused me
of “misogyny” because the self-absorbed Henri has become less attracted
to his aging wife. A third told me that The Absolved was a
“terrific read,” but that she couldn’t represent the book because of its
“distinctively male voice.”

In The Absolved, my protagonist, Henri, states: “Sometimes,
when I’m made to suffer through someone parroting the drivel that has
become the zeitgeist, I wonder if I should disappear into the desert,
silence surely being preferable not only to stupidity but unanimity, as
well.”

I’m not going to take Henri’s advice, as I still think the search for
truth is a path worth taking. But if you’re wondering why so many of
the literary books that are now being published cater to just one narrow
sliver of the market, I think my experience over the last two years
qualifies as instructive.

A Glimpse Into the Ideological Monoculture of Literary New York – Quillette

Sorry, Stiglitz: It’s Socialism That’s Rigged — not Capitalism | William L. Anderson

There is a problem with the Stiglitz analysis: It is wrong both theoretically and
empirically. First, the 1970s were a decade both of inflation and
economic decline in both the USA and Great Britain. In the USA, the
economy wavered between inflationary booms (with inflation reaching well
over 10 percent) and devastating busts, including the 1974-75
recession, and in Great Britain, the situation was even worse, as demonstrated in a 1977 “60 Minutes” broadcast, “Will There Always Be An England?”

The sad thing is that Stiglitz is trying to claim that Americans were
better off economically in 1980 than they are now, which only can mean
he believes Americans had a better standard of living 40 years ago than
today. Yet, as pointed out by Philip Brewer, it is easy to confuse
something like income equality to higher living standards. The so-called
Golden Age of the 1950s was a time when a third of Americans lived in poverty.

Sorry, Stiglitz: It’s Socialism That’s Rigged — not Capitalism | William L. Anderson

The Most Prominent Arguments For Banning Cash — And Why They’re Wrong

catoinstitute:

The arguments for phasing out cash or confining it to small denomination bills are, when not entirely mistaken, extremely weak…

Many have argued that banning or restricting use of cash will reduce criminal transactions within the underground economy. However, just how much underground economic activity constitutes truly harmful criminal acts, as opposed to productive activities that evade taxes or other regulations but nonetheless increase social welfare, is unclear. Further, the likely effects of a cash ban on genuinely predatory activities such as extortion, human trafficking, drug-related violence, and terrorism are extremely difficult to quantify. 

Economist Friedrich Schneider estimated that even a complete phasing out of cash would only shrink the underground economy by 10-20 percent. Yet high-denomination bills still account for a substantial volume of licit transactions, so even a ban limited to such high-denomination bills could harm many innocent persons.

Phasing out cash would have a particularly negative effect on the unbanked, including many poor and vulnerable persons, who might find themselves still further excluded from the modern economy. Anti-cash advocates who recognize this admit that any plan to phase out use of cash would have to include corresponding efforts to provide such persons with basic debit cards, if not with smartphones, at a cost that one estimate puts at $32 billion. Phasing out cash would particularly affect illegal immigrants, drastically cutting their labor contributions and creating additional deadweight loss for the U.S. economy. Internationally, a ban on cash would harm those who use U.S. dollars as a refuge for value, sheltering their savings from the influences of unstable currencies and corrupt governments.

Advocates of phasing out currency also see it as a means of allowing monetary authorities to implement negative interest rate policies. Negative rates could then be imposed on all money holders, acting as a direct tax on their money monetary balances. The necessity of this tool is questionable at best – there are only three instances in the past quarter century where negative interest rates could possibly have been helpful, hardly meriting the extreme measure of eliminating cash. Negative interest rates in a cashless economy end up giving an unelected regulatory body discretionary power to tax money and would require massive restructuring of financial institutions and norms.

Finally, most arguments for doing away with cash ignore the public-choice dynamics of the myriad regulations that such a reform would require. Even if banning cash produced benefits such as a reduction in crime, do those benefits offset the harms and costs to those who use cash for legitimate reasons? Consideration should be given to alternative means for preventing crime and tax evasion that do not cast their web so widely.

In short, none of the arguments favoring restrictions on cash withstand close scrutiny.

It is the advocates of restricting hand-to-hand currency who bear the burden of proof for such an extensive reshaping of the monetary system, no matter how cautiously or slowly implemented and no matter whether all cash is eliminated or just large-denomination notes. 

Learn more…

Socialism’s Empty Seduction

Over the past half century, scores of economic historians have sought to
explain the factors that produced the economic progress that Europe and
some of its offshoots enjoyed in the 18th-20th centuries. This group of
scholars, which includes Angus Maddison, Joel Mokyr, Eric Jones, David
Landes, Deirdre McCloskey and Douglass North, tend to hold quite diverse
political preferences, but they universally agree on the facts:
Government policies that safeguard a combination of personal economic
freedom, secure property rights, and the ability of individuals to gain
personally by participating in markets have promoted the effort and
innovation that conquered poverty and promoted growth through the ages.

Socialism’s Empty Seduction

Saying ‘Only Hitler is Hitler’ is Offensive to Facebook

gettothestabbing:

I’ve had thousands of death threats on social media from Muslims, and they were able to continue to threaten me with impunity on these platforms, no matter how many me and my friends reported. Social(ist) media companies claim that they’re “politically neutral”, which everyone knows is a lie. If they were honest about their practice of punishing the right, while giving a pass to leftists and Muslims, they wouldn’t be as big as they are. They’re frauds. That’s why their reputations are eroding.

Saying ‘Only Hitler is Hitler’ is Offensive to Facebook

How Trump-skeptical Republicans swung the 2018 midterms

chaos is the rule right now

And unlike Nichols, who has left the GOP
and believes that the party is “dead” (adding, “Even when Trump is
gone, the populist dumpster fire he’s been fueling will smolder on”),
Goldberg argued that by leaving the GOP to the Trumpists, that would in
effect be dooming the Republican Party, and the conservative movement.

“I think the dilemma for a lot of Trump-skeptical
conservatives is that if you completely abandon the GOP or even the
conservative label, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “As
my colleague Dan McLaughlin puts it, ‘I’ll be damned if they can have
my party.’”

Goldberg added that he didn’t see space for himself and
other conservatives among Democrats and liberals. “Democrats and most
partisan liberals have shown zero interest in moderating their views to
accommodate defectors. Instead, the defectors are expected to recant all
of their views. I can’t and won’t do that. After all, the whole reason I
haven’t jumped on board the Trump train is that I refuse to lie for
him. I see no reason I should start lying to oppose him either.”

GOP of Goldberg, French and Ericson (the prog light crowd)is dead 4 good reason.

 we where playing on a narrow field before so they fit,
they have no where to go because they no long fit in the current battle field,

Nichols told me he believed that Trump — and moreover, how Trump’s base has shrunk
— played a big part in causing some Republicans to vote for Democrats.
“Trump’s capture of the GOP as a cult of personality — which I had
thought not possible — goes right down to the local level, and so my
guess is that many of these voters were not trying to send a message (as
some of us Never-Trumpers were trying to do) but rather finding
themselves defined out of the Trump base, which is increasingly white,
male, and uneducated,” he said.

“Republicans to vote for Democrats

“ never rep. or bought lies

“white,
male, and uneducated

“if so so?

he wrote a piece for the Washington Post titled,
“Want to save the GOP, Republicans? Vote for every Democrat on this
year’s ballot,” in which he argued that the Trump takeover of the GOP
from the White House to Midwestern statehouses could only be stopped by
rejecting the Republican Party, full stop

“Midwestern statehouses

“ dumpster fires and chaos

How Trump-skeptical Republicans swung the 2018 midterms

Maybe there should be a second Brexit referendum – AEI

If Parliament rejects the agreement, the other available Brexit is a
chaotic one, destroying existing cross-border value chains, damaging the
numerous forms of security and foreign policy cooperation, and creating
dramatic uncertainty for businesses and individuals.

There would also be political reverberations. If an early election is
called amidst the chaos — conceivably in exchange for Labour’s support
for Mrs. May’s deal — Jeremy Corbyn can become prime minister. Mr.
Corbyn, an apologist for the mullahs of Iran and the regimes in Russia
and Venezuela, has nothing but disdain for democratic capitalism and has
proven unable to control vicious anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. His
ascent to power would mean reckless domestic policies, not tempered by
the rules of the European single market (many of which were written in
the 1980s by British Conservatives) and an unprecedented strain on the
UK’s alliances, including on the transatlantic partnership.

well okay, maybe but how long does he last, the thing about hitting rock bottom…

But if those are the only options, then they should admit that Brexit
has been a failure, and return the decision to the people. 

we screwed it all up so just just vote again and get our way

Maybe there should be a second Brexit referendum – AEI