Category: The Big Picture

Failure of western democracy, tensions between the US and China, the Arab Spring and other major global events.

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May Looks Beyond Brexit | Bloomberg

Robert Hutton at Bloomberg discusses Theresa May’s speech, Wednesday, at the Conservative Party’s annual conference:

….May’s comments mark a change of emphasis from the views of her predecessor. In his 11 years as Tory leader, David Cameron argued that the party needed to show that it was in touch with modern Britain by focusing on climate change and gay rights. May, by contrast, argues that the party needs to reach “ordinary working-class people.”

She’ll say she sees the role of the government as providing “what individual people, communities and markets cannot.” And she’ll argue that this means “providing security from crime, but from ill health and unemployment too. Supporting free markets, but stepping in to repair them when they aren’t working as they should. Encouraging business and supporting free trade, but not accepting one set of rules for some and another for everyone else.”

….three senior figures in May’s administration said financial-services companies would get no special favors. The extracts of May’s speech suggest she thinks Cameron was too focused on that sector. “If we act to correct unfairness and injustice and put government at the service of ordinary working people,” she’ll say, “we can build that new united Britain in which everyone plays by the same rules, and in which the powerful and the privileged no longer ignore the interests of the people.”

Source: May Looks Beyond Brexit to Portray Herself as Workers’ Tribune – Bloomberg

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Kevin Andrews and the challenges for Australian conservatism

By William Hill:

The Liberals …have to decide how to confront the anti-business, anti-immigration trend that is developing on their right flank.

John Howard was able to manage One Nation by moderating his criticism and by appearing to assuage some of their concerns. On the BBC Howard responded to a criticism of his refugee policy by arguing that the handling of the former helped to mitigate opposition to orderly migration.

Concerns are real and perceived but the economic insecurity confronting so many Australians and their children is a palpable thing. Some people voice their frustration by voting for a moderate protectionist such as Nick Xenophon and others hitch themselves to One Nation’s more assertive and aggressive style. The Liberals are in difficulty when so many of its natural voters are suspicious of capitalism and the importation of more and more people into the country.

……The supporters of Hanson, Xenophon, Lambie and Katter do not feel that the present arrangements in parliament are working for them and we should not rush to dismiss them. We should also give these voters the benefit of the doubt that they do not share the faults and naiveties of the people they have elected. Andrews advocates a more conciliatory approach when it comes to Hanson’s supporters:

“You have to listen to their concerns, the fact that a person votes for One Nation doesn’t mean that they are a racist, redneck, homophobic whatever. Some might be but usually there is an underlying concern about the direction of the country and the direction of the economy that’s motivating them.”

That underlying concern is nothing less than their fear for their economic wellbeing and that of the next generation. If the Liberal Party is going to defend free enterprise, free trade and immigration against protectionists and nationalists then it had better do as Howard did successfully and give the concerns of the latter fair hearing.

Source: Kevin Andrews and the challenges for Australian conservatism after Hanson – On Line Opinion – 21/9/2016

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Niall Ferguson: The West and the Rest – The Changing Global Balance of Power

Niall Ferguson is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University.

I would love to see Ferguson re-visit this 2011 talk every five years. One certainty about the future: it isn’t what we think it’s going to be. China’s economic rise seems to be slowing far more rapidly than was expected. Foreign reserves have declined by $800 billion in the last two years (from a peak of $4 trillion) through PBOC efforts to prevent the collapse of the Yuan in the face of rising interest rates from the Fed. China’s growth-through-infrastructure-investment model seems to have run its course and is now facing diminishing returns. Transition to a consumer society is not going to be easy. And China’s property bubble has created an extremely fragile banking system with massive bad debts.

On the plus side, Ferguson seems to have been right about rising Chinese nationalism — to deflect the population’s attention from enormous inequality in the distribution of wealth — and the CCP’s ability to maintain tight political control. Let’s hope that he is also right about China’s inability to suppress personal and political freedom in the long-term if it wants to maintain stable growth.

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Margaret Thatcher: Interventions

The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact.

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Portugal: What Happened After It Decriminalized Drugs | VICE

By Samuel Oakford

…..16 years ago, Portugal took a leap and decriminalized the possession of all drugs — everything from marijuana to heroin. By most measures, the move has paid off.

The rate of new HIV infections in Portugal has fallen precipitously since 2001, the year its law took effect, declining from 1,016 cases to only 56 in 2012. Overdose deaths decreased from 80 the year that decriminalization was enacted to only 16 in 2012. In the US, by comparison, more than 14,000 people died in 2014 from prescription opioid overdoses alone. Portugal’s current drug-induced death rate, three per million residents, is more than five times lower than the European Union’s average of 17.3, according to EU figures.

Source: Portugal’s Example: What Happened After It Decriminalized All Drugs, From Weed to Heroin | VICE News

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Political correctness: the demise of debate | On Line Opinion

By Louis O’Neill:

Frequently I find myself holding what one might consider a politically incorrect opinion, such as having scorn for Islam, disagreeing with myths peddled by the third wave feminist movement or finding no legitimacy in the claims of the black lives matter movement.

As a result my adversaries are more than ready to deviate from the laws of discourse, veering off into ad hominem, red herring or appeal to emotion fallacies…..

To disagree with the wage gap myth should not equate to being misogynist. One who believes that the doctrines of Islam and tenets of Sharia Law cannot peacefully run alongside a secular, democratic society should not be labelled “Islamophobic” or xenophobic.

To suggest that black-on-black crime is a cause for increased police confrontations in African American communities should not equate to being a racist. To comment that the institution of marriage is aimed at incentivising long-term heterosexual relationships as they are most conducive to a positive upbringing for a child, should not be tantamount to homophobia.

We are amidst an era of ideological fascism, incited by the left-leaning media, celebrities and television which has begun to pervade every crevice of popular thought……

Source: Political correctness: the demise of debate – On Line Opinion – 19/8/2016

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How to Counter the Putin Playbook | The New York Times

Michael A. McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford, served as United States ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014:

…We will not find security in isolationism. No missile defense shield, cybersecurity program, tariff or border wall can protect us if we disengage. Menacing autocracies, illiberal ideas, and antidemocratic and terrorist movements will not just leave us alone or wither away. The threats will grow and eventually endanger our peace, as we saw in Europe and Japan in the 1930s, and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Conversely, the growth of democracy around the world serves American interests. Democracies do not threaten us; autocracies do. Democratic allies also vote with us at the United Nations, go to war with us, support international treaties and norms, and stand with us against tyranny.

So we must push back, in new ways. Just as the Kremlin has become more sophisticated at exporting its ideas and supporting its friends, so must we.

We should think of advancing democratic ideas abroad primarily as an educational project, almost never as a military campaign. Universities, books and websites are the best tools, not the 82nd Airborne. The United States can expand resources for learning about democracy……

I agree with the sentiment but not the execution. Win friends by promoting education and building infrastructure abroad. These have practical, tangible benefits to citizens of developing nations. Democracy can come later. In many parts of the world it is as foreign a concept as gay marriage.

Source: How to Counter the Putin Playbook – The New York Times

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How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen | WSJ

Great column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal on the growing detachment between political and cultural elites and the problems facing ordinary citizens on the lower rungs of society. There is plenty of evidence of out-of-touch elites, including Brexit and Angela Merkel’s unilateral decision to allow 800,000 migrants and refugees from Muslim countries.

Nothing in their lives will get worse. The challenge of integrating different cultures, negotiating daily tensions, dealing with crime and extremism and fearfulness on the street — that was put on those with comparatively little, whom I’ve called the unprotected. They were left to struggle, not gradually and over the years but suddenly and in an air of ongoing crisis that shows no signs of ending — because nobody cares about them enough to stop it.

The powerful show no particular sign of worrying about any of this. When the working and middle class pushed back in shocked indignation, the people on top called them “xenophobic,” “narrow-minded,” “racist.” The detached, who made the decisions and bore none of the costs, got to be called “humanist,” “compassionate,” and “hero of human rights.”

Surprising support for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders also reflect the disillusionment of the bottom half with leadership by the 1 percent. They feel they have been taken for granted — if not shafted — and their anger will be reflected at the ballot box. Hopefully we can avoid the rise of tyranny as in the 1930s — after the last financial crisis — but these are dangerous times.

Source: How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen – WSJ

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