Category Archives: Economics

Why is Greta protesting against a wind farm?

This story proves that the main impulse of many in the climate change movement is not to save the planet, but to bring down humanity.

Not only do they not believe in progress, they actively combat it. Or, put another way: They DO believe in progress, but only as a fundamentally malignant force.

“What Western climate activists are really celebrating here is subsistence farming and absolute, grinding poverty. They are exploiting the indigenous people and their alleged harmony with nature to push the UN’s anti-growth agenda.”

How Inflation Poisoned Our Food

Video interview (54 min) that Tom Woods conducts with Matthew Lysiak.

Description:

Matthew Lysiak discusses the various interests that combined to substitute cheap, fake food for the real food Americans used to eat. A key driving force: trying to conceal the effects of inflation on food prices by persuading Americans to consume cheap — and, it turns out, unhealthy — alternatives.

Government and Science: A Dreadful Mix

Tom Woods interviews Terence Kealey

“In one of the strongest episodes of this show ever (see also here), Terence Kealey, professor emeritus at Buckingham University and a research fellow of the Cato Institute, makes a stunningly powerful case for the separation of science and state.”

Here is an article by Kealey on the same subject:

Governments Need Not Fund Science (at Least, Not for Economic Reasons)

From the conclusion of the above:

The evidence that governments need not fund science for economic reasons is overwhelming, and it is ignored only because of self‐​interest: the scientists like public funding because it frees them to follow their own interests, companies like it because it provides them with corporate welfare, and politicians like it because it promotes them as patrons of the public good (witness Bill Clinton’s leading the celebrations over the mapping of the human genome.) So the empirical evidence is ignored in favo r of abstract theories.

There are, of course, non‐​economic reasons, such as defense or the study of pollution, why a government might want to fund science (and a democratic polity, moreover, might not wish to be dependent only on private entities for its expertise in science) but in this document I cannot pronounce on these non‐​economic justifications for the government funding of research: only democratically‐​elected representatives have that competence. Here I can make only the technical argument that there is no credible evidence that governments need fund science for economic reasons.

But we can nonetheless note that in his own farewell address (known for its regrets for the “industrial‐​military” complex and for the “three and half million men and women directly engaged in the defense establishment”) Truman’s immediate successor as President lamented the effects of the federal government’s funding for science. He lamented the effects on the universities:

In the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery … a government contact becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment … is gravely to be regarded.

And he also lamented the effects on the federal government itself:

We should be alert to the … danger that public policy could itself become captive of a scientific‐​technological elite.

And here is another:

Don’t Be like China: Why the U.S. Government Should Cut Its Science Budget

David Rockefeller, “Proud Internationalist”

Occasionally, I see this quote attributed to David Rockefeller:

“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. … It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

On Wikiquote, I found this about the above quote:

Purported remarks at a Bilderberg Group meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany in June 1991, as quoted in Programming, Pitfalls and Puppy-Dog Tales (1993) by Gyeorgos C. Hatonn, p. 65 and various nationalist tracts. The ultimate source for the quotation (i.e. the person who passed it on to the public) is never identified.

On the same page, I found this, “proper” quote from D. R. (from his “Memoirs” of 2003, chp. 27, “Proud Internationalist”, p. 406):

For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
The anti-Rockefeller focus of these otherwise incompatible political positions owes much to Populism. “Populists” believe in conspiracies and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world’s economy. Because of my name and prominence as head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of “conspirator in chief” from some of these people.
Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted in our active international role during the past half-century. Not only was the very real threat posed by Soviet Communism overcome, but there have been fundamental improvements in societies around the world, particularly in the United States, as a result of global trade, improved communications, and the heightened interaction of people from different cultures. Populists rarely mention these positive consequences, nor can they cogently explain how they would have sustained American economic growth and expansion of our political power without them.

“to build a more integrated global political and economic structure” – it’s the “political” bit of this “integrated structure” that is causing many problems today.

‘Trust the Experts’: 1,600 Scientists Sign Declaration Denouncing Climate Change Hoax

And: 30 Population Control Quotes That Show That The Elite Truly Believe That Humans Are A Plague Upon The Earth

Writes thecollegefix.com:

A total of 1,609 scientists, professors and other scholars have signed on to a new declaration that argues there is no climate change crisis.

“There is no climate emergency” is the title of the declaration that consists of 53 pages’ worth of signatories from across the globe, including some Nobel Laureates and other researchers from prestigious universities. Other signers include engineers, attorneys and other professionals.

The declaration, published with its endorsers in mid-August [2023], lists six main arguments against the alleged climate crisis, including that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and is actually “plant food” and “the basis of all life on Earth.”

The motivation for the statement “is to counter the almost universal media climate catastrophe narrative with objective facts verified by over 1,600 independent scientists, engineers and professionals from over 30 countries,” said Jim O’Brien, chair of the Irish Climate Science Forum, in an email to The College Fix.

These heroic scientists, many of whom will most certainly soon have trouble finding funds for their research, are countering a narrative supported by people who spout genocidal fantasies such as here.

A Year of Lying About Nord Stream

Seymour Hersh writes about his research on this topic.

Excerpt (conclusion):

The Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.

Interview with Rvd. Dr. Joseph Boot

Author or The Mission of God

Boot was recently interviewed by Revelation TV.

Here are my notes:

How do we address the culture we’re living in?

JB: In the Western World, the objections to Christianity have been changing. 27 or so years ago, the focus was still on questions such as “does God exist”, “what about evil and suffering”, “is Jesus the only way to God”. Objections have changed, in university, media etc, people are not literate in theological points to ask these questions any more. The challenges are now civilizational. Christianity is deemed imperialistic, colonial, oppressive, anti-choice, misogynistic, transphobic etc. These are the kind of questions the pagan world asked Christians in Augustine’s time. He in turn wrote as an answer to these questions the tome “The City of God”.

We need a cultural apologetic to the challenges of our time.

The challenge to Christianity now is that Christianity itself is deemed evil.

What we’re facing now is radical de-Christianisation, it’s a revolutionary movement. It began in Europe with the French Revolution, which was the political expression of the philosophy of the enlightenment. Reason leading to the autonomy of man. Existence precedes essence. We’re not image-bearers of God, we are merely a choice, standing on the edge of the abyss. Everything’s about me. Then there was the neo-Marxist movement, the Frankfurt School which gave us Critical Theory, everything is socially constructed. The male Christian is the oppressor. The oppressed must become the oppressor.

The opposite movement to that has been the retreat of the church.

The Ezra Institute is trying to put some backbone back into the church. What does it truly mean to be a Christian? Great Commission. We’ve retreated from externalising the faith. Culture is religion externalised. We’ve left the various institutions of cultural life to the forces of secularism, humanism and paganism. We’ve sent our children to Caesar to be educated and are shocked that they return as Romans.

We’ve reduced Christianity to personal salvation and neglected that we pray “Your Kingdom come, your will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven”. We’ve surrendered Jesus’ Lordship over all life.

The temptation for the church has always been to be synthesised with the culture around it. This happened when the pagan elites became Christianised. They wanted to synthesise their culture. Roman Catholicism was a synthesised culture. Then the Reformation came along. And with that the rediscovery that Jesus is the king of kings. Meaning that in economics, law, education, political life, in the arts etc. we must bring to bear the claims of the Lord Jesus.

What we’re saying in the West now is that we like the fruits of Christendom: Freedom, the rule of law, economic prosperity, peace and stability, etc. But we don’t want the root, which is Christ. We thought we could retain those things without the Gospel of Jesus Christ and submission to his word. We’ve been living off the energy of Christendom for a long time. We now find the Christian capital so eroded we’re in a crisis spiritually.

What principle markers should we be looking for in the path to recovery?

We need to recognise that Jesus is not just our saviour, but also our Lord. Christ is not just redeemer, he is also creator. He is Lord over all areas of life, not just in the church and a little bit in the family.

Our situation is like in a double-decker bus. Where in the upper deck we do the spiritual disciplines. In the lower deck we have the “secular area” which can be governed by the neutral forces of reason. Problem: That’s where the driver is. And it’s driving off a cliff. Paul says be transformed by the Holy Spirit and present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

That means take off that upper deck altogether. Just have one deck. It’s called the Kingdom of God. No area of life is outside the Kingdom rule and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ve lost the Christian life view. Human existence is in every area a response to the Word of God. You can’t have Christian action if you don’t have Christian thinking. Young, enthusiastic Christians who want to do something end up doing things with are “Karl Marx baptised” or some other world-life view sprinkled with some Christian name. We’ve got to recover a Christian world and life view so we can act and live Christianly.

We’re currently not the salt and light of the culture.

There’s the elements of Prophet, Priest and King. It’s the King element that’s missing. My father was told “we shouldn’t be interested in property”. He said: “Well the devil is.”

Every square inch of the universe is contested between Christ and the Enemy. People want to stay on the mountain, have the sort of monastic life. No, you have to come down from the mountain and deal with the boy possessed by an evil spirit.

Jordan Peterson on Canada and the West in general

In this 25 minute video interview with a journalist from the Telegraph, he says, among other things, that the predictors of “left-wing authoritarianism” are: 1. low verbal intelligence, 2. being a woman, 3. having feminine traits, 4. having taken part in a “political correctness” course.

The traits of such people are the “dark tetrad”: 1. narcissism, 2. Machiavellianism, 3. psychopathy and 4. sadism,

There is always a small number of psychopaths, about 3 percent, in every society. If they rise to 5 percent, people realise there is a problem (“we have to beat back the snakes”) and they beat them back. If they fall to 1 percent, people lose their guard and become “too nice”, which the psychopaths exploit, so they grow back again to 3 or more percent.

We’re in a post-Christian era. He also talks about Covid, climate change and “group rights” (which are an oxymoron because there is no such thing as group responsibilities).

Something is happening in Argentina

They may be about to elect the world's first AnCap president

Says Doug Casey in this interview.

Excerpt:

Milei is totally sound from an economic, political, and a philosophical point of view. But—and this is critically important—he’s sound from a moral point of view.

He deals in basic concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. That’s something that no politician anywhere discusses, certainly not in South America. It’s the equivalent of hitting a donkey between the eyes with a two-by-four to get his attention. Everyone intuitively understands that the political class is essentially criminal—but only Milei is brave enough to say it. The average guy wants to do the right thing, the moral thing. That’s what Milei is pointing out to people and why they like him. He doesn’t use doubletalk, brook compromise, or support half measures.