Article on Zero-Hedge here.
Category Archives: Economics
Two Princeton, MIT Scientists Say EPA Climate Regulations Based on a ‘Hoax’
Article by Kevin Stocklin, quote:
Citing extensive data (pdf) to support their case, William Happer, professor emeritus in physics at Princeton University, and Richard Lindzen, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), argued that the claims used by the EPA to justify the new regulations are not based on scientific facts but rather political opinions and speculative models that have consistently proven to be wrong.
Why is the West so Weak (and Russia so Strong)?
The role of human capital and western education
Article by Gaius Baltar.
I suggest that the cause of this unfolding disaster is a serious structural problem in the West – which Russia seems to have largely avoided. This structural problem is a necessary condition for the current western system and has been purposely created to bring it about and maintain it. This problem is the subject of this article – as well as the “mechanism” behind it. This is unfortunately a long article, but the subject matter demands it.
Never Forget: Leftists Showed Their True Authoritarian Colors During Covid
Article by Brandon Smith
Excerpts:
And why did so many Americans (mainly leftists) jump on the authoritarian bandwagon when it comes to lockdowns and forced vaccination?
I want to explore the psychology of such people here, because I think it’s the natural inclination of the public today to move on quickly from the discomfort of terrible events and ignore the deeper implications. We cannot move on from this, because the ultimate problem was never solved. These same leftists and globalists were never admonished for their behavior, they never had to admit they were wrong and they WILL attempt the same draconian measures again in the future if left unchecked.
[. . .]
The political left uses the mentally ill as a bludgeon, an easily manipulated tool for chaos. During the lockdowns and restrictions the establishment and the media stoked the fires of paranoia. By themselves they have no power; they need the crazed mob as a weapon to keep the rest of the country afraid and in line. They needed good little Stasi, always watching, always correcting, always screaming at those without masks, attacking those that refused to get vaxxed and mocking those that spoke out about scientific inconsistencies.
And, in return, the establishment made the mentally ill feel as if they were normal. For a fleeting moment in time, the most unstable and narcissistic people on the planet were made to feel like THEY were on the right side of history and rationality. It was a parasitic feedback loop that almost destroyed the last vestiges of America.
[. . .]
All of this could very well happen again. The big tyrants and tiny tyrants are still out there, waiting for the next crisis; the next panic event to take the public off their guard. Another viral event is unlikely, but they do seem anxious to use climate change, war and economic turmoil as the next great “reset” button. In the end, there will have to be a dramatic shift in how the liberty minded interact with the authoritarian left. It is clear that we cannot share the same country, or the same civilization. Our values are fundamentally at odds. It’s only a matter of time before a single spark ignites a firestorm.
The Problem With Environmentalists
They have succumbed to fear-mongering and a psychological urge to "return to Eden"
The disagreement I have with environmentalists is, I think, on two levels.
The first level is the propagandistic level, the relentless, baseless fearmongering. For example the General Secretary of the UN, António Guterres, proclaiming last month that the “era of global boiling has arrived”.
That attempt to create a panic “meme”, spread throughout the world by a sickeningly compliant media, is, on the face of it, beyond ridiculous. What will they say next year, or next decade? Maybe this: “Earth has now reached the aggregate phase of plasma”.
How does the spreading of these kinds of memes tally with the most frequently repeated commandment in the Bible, namely “do not be afraid”?
The other level also has deeply religious connotations. On the deepest level, environmentalists appeal to the “urge to go back to Eden”. Psychologically speaking the “unwillingness to grow up”. That appears a bit harsh as a statement. However, state education and media pronouncements are designed to see in “Big Brother” or rather “Big Daddy”, the state and the corporations it is living in symbiotic relationship with, as the only saviour. No other God allowed, and no individual thinking and research either.
Succumbing to this trend is an expression of the fear of responsibility, responsibility which was given to us by God before the Fall, to “fill the earth and govern it” (Gen 1:28, other translations say: “subdue it”, or, as the Amplified Bible writes: “subjugate it [putting it under your power]”). Governing entails responsibility. To whom? Ultimately to God.
Environmentalists however don’t tend to think that way. Or if they do, they like to appeal to the government (i.e. Caesar) to sort out what they consider to be a problem. Instead of doing it themselves. They pass on the responsibility to the government. Thereby rendering to Caesar what in truth is God’s. Empowering Caesar in a way contrary to what Jesus commanded.
In Genesis 2:15, it says (again in the Amplified Bible): “So the Lord God took the man [He had made] and settled him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.” Note that “cultivate” precedes “keep”. That means, again, taming nature and making it amenable for human use.
In other words: We are not to “retreat” to Eden (impossible anyway according to Genesis 3:24). Attempts to do so will cause no end of troubles. That’s not “fearmongering”, that’s a statement aligned with the commandment to “fear God” (e.g. 1 Peter 2:17). We were not even meant to remain in Eden before the Fall (at least, not exclusively), but to venture out into the world and govern and cultivate it. For what purpose? To be, as the image of God, the cultivators of nature – under God’s guidance and commandments – and stewards of the resulting Kingdom of God.
In other words, instead of retreating to Eden, which is conceptually at the heart of environmentalism, we are to progress towards the Kingdom of God. One of the central commandments of God which enables us to do exactly that is of course “thou shalt not steal”. This is a commandment we are progressively, institutionally breaking on a massive scale: The progressive abrogation of private property through taxes (way beyond the tithe), regulation and inflation.
Private property rights is the main instrument with which humans can exert their stewardship under God. The manifold stealing of theses rights is what lies at the heart of our environmental problems. But it is this root, this economic, institutional and not least spiritual root, that the institutions committing the infringements are loath to address, because they profit from continuing with their infringements. Most environmentalists appear to be totally oblivious of this root problem. Or, if they are aware of it, they are silent about it for reasons that may sometimes even be nefarious.
It is interesting to note that it is often the biologists who want to do the retreating and the economists who want to do the progressing. This was exemplified by the bet that the economist Julian Simons arranged with the enviromento-alarmist biologist Paul Ehrlich in 1980. Here’s an article about it. To quote from it:
To make his case, Simon published an article in Social Science Quarterly that taunted Paul Ehrlich, the main proponent of imminent doom, into taking a bet on their respective views. If population growth was outpacing the finite quantity of resources, the prices of key resources should (theoretically) be rising. If prices increased, then Ehrlich would be vindicated. If not, Simon would be. Ehrlich chose five resource prices and bet on their trends over a decade. Simon won the debate, as all five commodities (copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten) declined in the wager period of 1980 to 1990.
(Ehrlich then offered a counter-bet which Simon rejected, for good reasons. Read about it in the above linked article.)
I think this disagreement between a biologist and an economist is almost archetypal. I think so because biologists argue from the point of view of nature, and economists from the point of view of humans.
Economists also are trained to think in terms of cost-benefit analyses, which may entail more than just monetary costs and benefits. Which is why the world should listen more to Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician who has emerged from the environmentalist movement saying that, while he believes human made climate change is happening, it is “not the end of the world“. He even explains how a rising temperature will actually save lives and that there are much more pressing problems we could and should solve and which we could do with much less effort and thus save – human – lives.
It’s no wonder most people are not aware of positions like Lomborg’s. They have been essentially frozen out of the debate. Which is one of the reasons I became instantly suspicious when I saw how the media handled the Covid pandemic and started pushing for “solutions” which served a nefarious agenda, while obviously ignoring a proper cost-benefit analysis of the promoted measures.
I had seen it all before, in relative “slow motion”, during the preceding decades of climate debate and policies. I continue to see it now.
Creation Stewardship
From the book “The Mission of God” (2016 [2014]) by Joseph Boot, p.249-251:
Much is said today about nature or land and ‘environmentalism,’ and Christians (usually the younger evangelicals), often with good intentions, can get caught up in the ‘save the planet’ rhetoric and agenda.
[. . .]
A truly biblical picture of creation stewardship does not elevate nature to the status of God as the source and wellspring of life, nor does it give nature or land priority over man, but rather tells us that the land suffers because of man; and because God governs all things by his personal agency, the created order responds to our moral conduct.
[. . .]
But because most people today (even Christians) think in impersonal terms about the creation and the land and view ecological processes in purely naturalistic terms, they do not think about man’s sin in relationship to the fruitfulness of farming, husbandry, forest health and animal populations.
[. . .]
Biblical creation care however, means obedience to God’s law as it concerns God, man and the land. This means that the environmentalists of today, who claim to love Mother Nature and therefore want to sav the planet whilst worshiping idols, advocating the killing of the unborn to reduce carbon footprints, pursue the theft and re-distribution of land and resources, seek a radical equalization of all things, viewing the wealthy, the church, the family and Christian marriage as the primary obstacle to planetary salvation, are in fact destroying the environment; the land, cursed on their account, will vomit them out. IF we are concerned with responsible care for creation and want to see human flourishing in the land and blessing on our agriculture, cattle, wilderness and animal kingdoms, we must obey God’s law. If we are parched in these areas, we need look no further than our sins. Obedience is green! Thus the Puritan mind actually takes the totality of the law seriously in these matters rather than arbitrarily picking bits from the Torah or prophets that might fit with a given ideology, then setting the rest aside as hopelessly outdated and inconvenient.
My own thoughts on this: I have long considered our fundamentally flawed and fraudulent monetary system to be the main if not root cause for many of society’s ills, including environmental degradation. In the latter case, another ungodly cause can be identified: The denial by the courts of property rights, which happened in the course of the 19th century. To accelerate industrialisation, people were denied the possibility to sue companies polluting their land. When this eventually lead to such great environmental degradation that it could no longer be ignored, the property rights were not re-instated, as they should have. Instead, governments declared that they would henceforth be the protectors of the environment. As if. Only when we do the biblical thing, which is to re-instate property rights and thereby fully re-instate individuals and their families as the true stewards of creation, responsible and answerable to God, will we receive a truly sustainable improvement of the state of nature.
By the way, the author, Joseph Boot, is affiliated with the Ezra Institute.
The human cost of Net Zero
The war on fossil fuels is far more dangerous than climate change.
Article by Ralph Schoellhammer.
Excerpts:
The truth is that our societies are still massively dependent on fossil fuels. For all the talk of the advances made in renewable energy, the proportion of our electricity production reliant on fossil fuels has barely changed over the past 40 years. In that time, only nuclear power has declined as a source of electricity.
None of this is to say that an energy transition is impossible. A target of Net Zero by 2050 could well be met. But the rapid abandonment of fossil fuels that this demands would inflict misery and hardship on billions of people.
[. . .]
Canadian political scientist Vaclav Smil lists cement, steel, plastics and ammonia as the four ingredients that make the modern world possible. For example, modern healthcare systems need enormous amounts of plastic (for everything from flexible tubes to sterile packing), making it yet another crucial ingredient in the wellbeing of humanity. And without steel and cement, nothing could be built – no roads, no houses, no harbours, no airports. Plastics, steel and cement also require fossil fuels for their production.
[. . .]
Industrialisation transforms societies. The industrialisation of agriculture, for example, enables higher outputs with less labour, freeing humans for other endeavours. In the US, the labour needed to produce a kilogram of grain fell by 98 per cent between 1800 and 2020. The share of the population working in agriculture fell by a similar margin during that period. Not every country will have to follow this development path exactly – coal, for example, could be replaced by gas and nuclear. But what is certain is that no country will be able to industrialise and develop without fossil fuels.
[. . .]
The talk of leaving fossil fuels behind is not based in reality. It’s fuelled instead by a mixture of apocalypticism, hypocrisy and sheer wishful thinking. In the future, perhaps we will be able to power hospitals using kinetic energy. But right now, the costs of abandoning fossil fuels will likely do far more harm than climate change itself.
The WHO Is a Real and Present Danger
And: Why did so many German doctors join the Nazi Party early?
Article by Justin Hart.
Here’s the first paragraph:
Our governments intend to transfer decisions over our health, families, and societal freedoms to the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), whenever he or she declares it necessary. The success of this transfer of power depends on public ignorance of its implications, and of the nature of the WHO itself and its recent pandemic policy reversals. When the public understands, then its leaders are more likely to act in their interests rather than against them.
Here’s the final paragraph:
The only real question is whether, and how, this society-wrecking pandemic train can be stopped. The public health professions want careers and salaries, and will not intervene. They have proven that in previous manifestations of fascism. The public must educate themselves, and then refuse to comply. We can just hope some of our supposed leaders will step forward to help them.
The above link leads to this study:
Why did so many German doctors join the Nazi Party early?
Meanwhile, someone’s wearing a duncecap for a mitre:
Welby’s dream of insult-free universities amounts to an unwitting attack on free speech, truth and reason. A university should never be punished for allowing free and open debate. And it should never seek to shut down the questioning of any ideology – not least trans ideology, which is based on denying biological reality. People must be allowed to tell the truth, no matter how offensive or insulting some might find it. And students should be continually exposed to difficult ideas.
The Religion of Statism
From the book: 'The Mission of Gd', by Joseph Boot
From chapter 4 of Boot’s book:
“The Puritan missiologist, however, is neither a retreatist pacifist nor a neo-Marxist, but believes in the necessity of civil government, qualified by the biblical conviction that the state only has abiding legitimacy where it surrenders to its limited God-ordained role as minister (diaconate) of justice in terms of God’s authority (Rom. 13:4)
[. . .]
“As soon as the state steps outside this sphere it plays God and offers every form of counterfeiting of the Word of God. [. . .] Such a state will be judged by God and once a state commands what God forbids, if Christ is truly Lord, then the Christian has to religious duty to resist. [Emphasis in the original.]
[. . .]
By moving outside its God-ordained sphere, the state thus progressively destroys localism and with it, liberty, as it asserts a messianic (saving) role for itself in the centralized politics of power that exists to serve itself. This is done by attaching to itself the prerogatives of God. It is fascinating to observe in this regard that the theological categories of God’s word are inescapable to all people, and if denied to God are typically transferred to the individual (anarchism) or the state (totalitarianism). When examined through theological lenses, statism involves a pretending to deity by offering everything from usurped sovereignty and law (in terms of human autonomy and positivistic law-making), to providence (cradle-to-grave security through state welfarism), predestination (by social science and planning), incarnation (by the implementing of man’s ‘word’ and idea), atonement (via political reparations, payments, and the politics of guilt), salvation (through a growing world order) and judgement (by threatened environmental and social catastrophe for disobedience) and thus a counterfeit kingdom – the dream of Babel.
The Perfect Dictatorship
According to Aldous Huxley
“The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of a democracy, but would basically be a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping. It would essentially be a system of slavery where, through consumption and entertainment, the slaves would love their servitudes.”
Found here.
And here‘s a fitting quote from George Orwell’s “1984”.