In an NRO article, which fisks the former Enron advisor’s latest column, Donald Luskin calls Paul Krugman “America’s most dangerous liberal pundit”.
I’m not so sure — I think he’s an asset for the right.
Krugman and his friends in the angry left can’t hide the disdain they have for middle America. They call them rednecks, hicks, illiterates, the flyover states, etc.
Guess what? Middle America can hear them, and they don’t want to vote for a side that treats them with contempt.
(Via Let It Bleed.)
National Review’s John Derbyshire believes “Britain will yield”, because they will decide not enough is at stake to keep up the fight.
I still think not. See for example, the words of a David Frum reader from London:
It is simply ridiculous to state the one of the most important things to do is to grieve. Give me a break. People are free to grieve privately if they wish, but spare me the candle lit marches. I don’t care why these people do things like this, they are going to lose. My kids were in school this morning on time, I was on the subway during rush hour, and everyone in my office was here on time, even though we’re a stone’s throw away from bombs. The Brits may whine about health and benefits but they take bombs well.
On September 11 I told my sons that the day they wrap my daughters in burkas every single male member of our family had better be dead. I stand by that today. They can grieve later.
(Derb’s article seen via Let It Bleed.)
In counterpoint to the Live 8 theory of how to cure Africa (i.e. “Give us yer fokkin’ money”), Der Spiegel has an interesting interview with Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, in which he makes the case that foreign aid is causing long-term harm to Africa.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…
Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop.
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
Shikwati’s premise is simple. Western nations go to great lengths to protect their industries from cheap imports. In Canada, consider what we have done to protect automobile and aircraft manfacturing, and milk, egg and wheat production>. In the United States, the phrase “anti-dumping” refers not only to imports that are being sold at less than the cost of production at the source, but less than it would cost to produce in the U.S.
Yet in Africa, we destroy markets for goods such as food and textiles with thousands of tonnes of cheap or free clothes, wheat and corn.
Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It’s only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it’s not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa. … Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.
And labour markets are distorted when the best chance to become rich is to be a friend of the ruling party, and the failing that the best-paying jobs are with aid agencies and NGOs.
Shikwati: … There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.
SPIEGEL: If they did that, many jobs would be immediately lost …
Shikwati: … jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality. Jobs with foreign aid organizations are, of course, quite popular, and they can be very selective in choosing the best people. When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it’s unacceptable that the aid worker’s chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently — and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That’s just crazy!
(Seen via Nealenews.)
The news from London is awful today, but I expect we’ll see the reaction of Londoners will be much different than what we saw after Madrid.
From the Blitz to the IRA, the killing of innocents with bombs is not new to Britain, and it has never succeeded in achieving its desired effects.
Some commentators today noted the timing of the attack, coming just after Live 8, the Olympics 2012 announcement, and the start of the G8. Although less recent, I offer two dates that are more relevant : June 6, 1944, and October 15, 1805.
Paul Wells’ post Some Chicken, Some Neck sums it up in one line:
If you were a fanatic murderer who liked to flatter yourself on your knowledge of history and you wanted to terrorize a population, could you possibly choose a worse target than the people of London?
The title of Wells’ post refers to a Dec 30, 1941 address by Winston Churchill to a joint session of our Canadian Parliament. CBC audio clip of the speech is here, skip forward about 2:45 for the relevant bit.
In an update, Wells also links to a blogger from London who bluntly responds to the men who did this evil (NSFW).