For years, corporate media has been encouraging Americans to hate each other across the political divide. It’s part of their business model and no longer in dispute. Matt Taibbi has written an entire book on the subject, to critical acclaim and all the damage wrought to the American polis has been done in the cynical pursuit of ratings. This essay was originally written as a response to an article in Quillette covering the politicisation of anthropology and the Capitol Riots: The Society of Cultural Anthropology’s Campaign to Present American Populism as Fascism
An interesting essay. One thing that struck me about the commentary on the subject of the Capitol riot is that, whilst I by no means condone the violence, a significant percentage of the 120 or so key instigators of the violence had major financial setbacks in their recent history, either in the form or bankruptcies or home repossessions. Once we understand that Trump was a symptom of economic desperation and dissatisfaction with America’s political class, not- as many have impugned- a manifestation of fears over the loss of cultural power, then we can begin to see a clear unbroken line running through American politics.
Most of America is entrenched in its political affiliation. At least 40% on each side would elect a three-legged goat for POTUS, if they thought it could beat the opposition. But, of those who were swayable, a large minority voted first for Obama, then wanted Bernie over Hilary, and finally plunked for Trump as the agent of change. They wanted someone who was willing to take a wrecking ball to the political paradigm of Washington’s establishment class, and despite being a narcissistic Reality TV star, Trump delivered on this promise.
Doubtless, there are some areas where Trump’s influence has been more baleful than good- a more reasonable and less partisan debate on immigration would have seen America shift its policy away from inward migration which competes directly with the source of all of America’s historical populist movements- the blue collar class- and towards addressing skills and knowledge shortages that the country desperately needs, and which university sectors always massively fail to deliver. And some of the rhetoric directed at illegals was truly appalling.
But in other areas the paradigm shift has been more healthy. The relationship with China has been reset, and even if it now needs to be repaired, any politician who attempts it will need to look to the interests of the American people rather than the corporate interests of a few billionaires. At long last, politicians are questioning the advisability of Trade deals which saw American jobs offshored.
Support for the Forever Wars of the Washington Policy Establishment may still be popular within the legacy media, but amongst the American people it has never been lower- and if the networks and Cable News shows could be bothered to put the right question in the field, they would find that it is perhaps the single biggest reason why so many are tuning out, and turning to YouTube news sources like Breaking Points, which now has higher viewing figures than CNN.
Even the campaign to oust Donald Trump, in the form of the Democratic Primaries had positive side effects. Political outsider Andrew Yang may not have polled well, because of legacy media running interference for the corrupt political class, and his 2021 bid for Mayor of New York might have fallen flat on its face (largely because of his absorption by osmosis of the stale, outdated ideas of the establishment in policy areas like Israel), but he was absolutely accurate in diagnosing exactly why Hilary failed and Trump won.
It was the automation crisis in Key Battleground States that made the blue collar class willing to vote successively for Obama, Bernie and Trump- the economic and social dissolution of entire American States which made people susceptible to his message- not Russia, sexism, racism or Hilary’s emails. If one were to sum up all of the smears, foreign influence, fake news and supposed prejudices of those voting against Hilary, and weighed them against the Deplorables comment, a too close relationship with the loathed Wall Street crowd (see the GameStop Rebellion) through the Clinton Foundation and the fact that she lacks the personal charisma and ease with strangers that her husband possesses in droves then one can see the media’s reasons for why she lost are dwarfed by these other mammoth factors. I would highly recommend reading the Glenn Greenwald extract from his Substack, in the GameStop link.
But the real tragedy of the legacy media profit model which causes Americans to hate each other across the American partisan divide, is that there are so many issues America could have fixed with the energy, time and effort expended on The Culture War. There could have been a national debate on Police Reforms which didn’t compromise public safety. The wave of Progressive Prosecutors sweeping the nation could have had their laudable ambitions tempered by the conservative caution which prioritises public safety and quality of life for residents in America’s most troubled neighbourhoods.
Reparations could have been reframed as an issue for the universal improvement of the prospects of every American kid who doesn’t do well at school, the demographics of whom are disproportionately African American (75% of African American boys in California’s Public Schools don’t meet state reading standards). It could have provoked a shift towards vocational training at 14 for those failing in public education, with over seven million reasonably well-paid jobs in Blue Collar roles going unfilled and vacant in 2019.
But instead we get the same tired politics which encourage us to hate one another, for no good reason. Yes, there are White Supremacists in America but they constitute a tiny, tiny fraction of a percent. Yes, a substantial portion of the Antifa cohort really are committed communists who want to see a bloody revolution, to make policing unworkable in America and watch it all burn, scorched from the Earth, as a result- but they too are a tiny subset of the population.
Regardless, none of this bodes well for the Democratic Party in 2022. Americans are getting tired of the lurch to the Left. According to Civiqs, support for BLM remains consistently high amongst Democrats and low amongst Republicans, but amongst Independents the ground has shifted- support was once 51% and has now dropped to 39%, and opposition was once 26% and has now risen to 44%. This important poll by Rasmussen shows that two-third of the country want a Capitol Riot style commission on the BLM activities of summer 2020, whilst recent other polling has shown that support for Democrats in Key Battleground States is tailing by 6%, which suggest that in real-terms the Democrats face a 10% wall which will likely see them lose the House.
Now that House Democrats have created a committee to investigate the January 6 Capitol riot, most voters believe Congress should also investigate the Black Lives Matter protests that sparked violence in major cities last year. (From the Article)
Many liberals don’t like Rasmussen as a source, but the fact that it able to elicit more honest results from both the Right and Independents means that its polling has been more accurate than most in every recent American election other the 2018 midterms where the Trump vote was understandably depressed. In May 2018, noted British luminary Stephen Fry argued against Political Correctness in the Munk Debates.
Quite apart from the fact that Mr Fry elucidated the idea that he, like so many, was uncomfortable with the sense that public life had become like something out of communist bloc East Germany, with the omnipresent fear that Stasi informers might be listening in, he also questioned the fundamental assumptions that the PC authoritarianism of the Left could ever win politically. The Congressional Democratic Party is currently in the thrall of this ideology, busy de-gendering the language, erasing the word mother and using phrases like ‘Amen and Awomen’ without a care in the world as to how it will look to the average voter as they increasingly begin to sit up and pay attention.
And the American people will punish them for their Folly at the ballot box. God only knows who we might see next sitting in the White House and Congress.
Race relations in America, unfortunately, seem to be driven by race hustlers like Ibram X Kendi & Robin DiAngelo. And the one thing that race hustlers want is to keep the hustle going. If race relations actually improve, then they're out of a job. Kimberle Crenshaw makes this point explicitly in (IIRC) "Mapping the Margins" - Critical Race Theory has as its primary purpose the continuation of Affirmative Action & minority set-asides. James Lindsay in one of his recent <a href=https://newdiscourses.com/2021/06/why-you-can-be-transgender-but-not-transracial/>podcasts</a> goes into this in some detail.
Good comment, but I wouldn't call them hustlers- other than DiAngelo, that is :). What they fail to see is that it is liberal policies in education, housing and welfare (worst of all, disincentivising) which have had such a terrible effect on African Americans. They can't see it because they live in the Blue Church stronghold of academia (which they love dearly), and to do so would invalidate their urges for government intervention in all but the most cautious, evidenced and pilot-studied circumstances. We know it's true because the same policies had an identical effect in the UK with Afro Caribbean, Bangladeshi and White Working Class demographics.
Progressive public education is the worst. It amplifies the differences in achievement across the socio-economic spectrum, because with such poor knowledge sources in schools, much of the work of education is left to parents, which naturally favours those with highly educated parents. John McWhorter has stated that teaching phonics alone (which the progressive system loathes, for some reason) could have a huge impact on Black kids.
I would highly recommend watching Shelby Steele's documentary 'What Killed Michael Brown?' It not only sheds light on the specific misframing of the case, but it also goes back into the history of the post-war and War on Poverty era and shows exactly how so much damage was done by liberal good intentions. There is even a rare excerpt of James Earl Jones in a drama, pushed out of cohabiting with his partner by a government welfare officer searching for signs of men living in the apartment.
It's available on Amazon, but I wouldn't bother with the HD version- the production values, though adequate, don't rate the added expense. Alternately, BloggingHeads.tv has a podcast hosted by Glenn Loury and John McWhorter interviewing Shelby Steele and his son Eli about the documentary. I would definitely recommend the movie though- it put together a lot of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle for me.
Kendi, et.al. are race hustlers. If they were the intellectuals they purport to be they would take the stage and debate their critics. They fleece the guilt ridden.
The thing to bear in mind about Kendi is that in all probability when he wrote his ideas they were in an academic setting, where raising bizarre questions is seen as a means of provoking interesting discussions and debate. Of course, he has cashed in it since, but one can hardly blame an obscure academic who never thought his ideas would be taken seriously for not making the distinction when the concepts go mainstream, and wealth, fame and cultural importance beckon.
On the other hand, I think the Red Skull comic he wrote about Jordan Peterson was not only bizarre, but bloody atrocious.
Fixing the political divide isn't really possible. People will always hold different opinions, like different things, hate different things, think/want/need/act differently.
Liberty is found the only proven balm, one that accepts diversity, tolerates differences, isn't aggressive, lives and let lives and more prosper. It doesn't use force, coercion, fear and intimidation to impose itself on others. It's a voluntary, free choice, free trade world in which the end result when people interact is both are better off.
Equality under the law was found to be the best way to deal with limited government powers over personal liberty when it comes to those who will use fraud, force, theft and extortion. It means laws don't protect special interests. It means there's no crony capitalism. It means taxes are uniform and the same for all so paying them doesn't seem to make you the chump little people. It means government programs are paid for with taxes it imposes on those who exists for and to pay back debt that expires when or before the benefits of the program end.
But we'll never get these. Factions are too powerful. Fear easily causes most to submit. Division is easier. Suggesting others choices that are not like our own are bad and shouldn't be allowed is easy. Being a victim of power is the norm.
Liberty and equality turn out to be harder for the human mind than truly believing in fairy tales.
Ha! Well, if we believed in equality under the law, then yes. Should the richer person get more votes? Should they get more use of government services?
But in my case, no. I mean a flat tax rate that even the poorest would pay if the poorest had income or spent money. If society wants to tax itself sufficient to pay for a safety net for the poorest, so be it, though that sort of thinking destroys the moral value of charity and human kindness for government force and likely abuse and harm of the poor by people who don't actually care about them. Just don't spend more than you tax (even if you spend some on interest for debt, though wisely a government would go into debt for things that are gone before the debt is repaid).
Once you tell one person they can have X by taxing Y if they vote for Z, you have a broken, lost, corrupt, dependent, slave culture.
I think the answer is lower income taxes, modest consumption taxes which exclude the basics of living (such as food, accommodation and nappies), plus very specific taxes. A good example would be a Tobin-style tax on financial transactions.
This was one of the little reported revenue suggestions from the Andrew Yang Presidential Primary Campaign (which media neglected to mention in the mainstream because of their alignment with Wall Street). It would basically introduce a small tax on financial transactions which most people would barely notice, but if you are a brokerage, an offshore Holding company or anyone who deals in a high volume of trades then you would notice it- although it would hardly break the bank.
The Yang campaign estimated it would raise $60 billion a year, although knowing Democrats this was probably set at least 33% higher than tenable, so let's say $40 billion.
A financial transaction tax does hit the ultra-wealthy, mainly through their investments, but we need to be cognisant of capital flight. The Obama Administration decided to go after overseas capital and Americans, with the net result that 38% percent of the world companies no longer want to do business with expat Americans, because the reporting requirements allow the US government to favour American corporations.
The other way to go is to look at the top 10% and 2% of property taxes and introduce a mansion tax. There are very few ways to extract the wealth or income of the ultra-rich. Another method is a very modest land banking tax, because when venture capital is fully subscribed money family wealth tends to invest in land, but the thresholds would need to be carefully calibrated, and like most taxes on the rich, you don't want the tax to be more than the cost of the legion of tax lawyers and accountants they can pay to get out of it.
The key is to understand that the rich shouldn't be seen as a group that needs punishing, but rather as a financial asset which can be optimised to produce returns in the form of revenue. This is one of the reasons why the Nordic Model has been so successful since the early nineties- they don't tax the rich to punish, but treat them as an investment- they make more revenue from the CGT which comes from their investments being onshore, because the rich no longer fear the government is coming to to take their money.
One of the most interesting phenomena is Swiss multimillionaires and billionaires. It is the only country which has successfully introduced a wealth tax, without more severe adverse consequences. They are willing to pay around 0.7% on their wealth per year, but if the canton raises the tax they switch cantons and move.
Of course, it is also understood in Switzerland that the wealth tax in an alternative to income tax, inheritance tax or CGT, not a supplement, and the tax code reflects it. Their inheritance tax laws are quite generous, especially to spouses and children. Like the Nordic countries, they understand that the rich should be treated well and not punitively, so that their wealth can be a constant source of revenue for the tax base.
Sure, but these are variations we'll not likely see. But I hope the number is much bigger than $60 billion as that isn't even a number in the US federal budget deficit.
I think a flat tax on all is better (it can be a transaction tax, as the more transactions a tax covers, in theory, the lower the rate can be to raise the same amount, and it actually harms people more equally as it forcefully takes your money for other people's interests). It makes everyone part of the government operations. And you can always give some money/services directly back to those who need it because they are incompetent/incapable. Then you don't have caviar and fine foods tax free, nor higher end accommodations untaxed as the rich tend to do better, and then require food be tax free unless X, Y or Z, all the central controls nobody needs as today's luxury may be tomorrow's essential (think a cell phone, or internet access, or refrigeration). Just tax it all, and provide a safety net so it's clear we all participate equally, we're all equal under the law, we're as free as the next person, and if we do get benefits from government special interest laws, it's clearly so.
"if we believed in equality under the law, then yes."
That's one interpretation of equality I suppose. But in time of war would equality also mean that a blind cripple be drafted along with a healthy young male? Or a kid be treated before the law like an adult or the competent like the retarded? Or would we continue to set a minimum age for driver's licenses?
I believe in freedom more than equality under the law, as I mentioned before that liberty is the real value, and equality under the law for those instances where people violate the basic idea of liberty with violence/coercion/force/fraud/theft/etc. But yes, equality under the law means the law treats all people equally and doesn't discriminate, and that rights (including voting) aren't given to some over others.
But it also doesn't mean people stop thinking or taking reality in consideration, just as we do now with killing a person or taking something without permission or telling a tale (it's not all just murder and theft and fraud).
If those are the reasons why we don't get liberty and equal protection and instead get a massive government power that runs daily undeclared wars against people who never attacked, has military bases across the world, owns and occupies territories, locks up its citizens in cages in record numbers, allow massive crony capitalism, prefers special interests, lock its citizens down, closes its borders, determines who is essential and who is non-essential, taxes so wildly that it can't pay its bills and the middle class tend to pay a larger share of their income, borrows against the future with massive printing of money, doesn't uphold contracts, imposes sanctions and embargoes on poor nations, doesn't police in areas that needs it more, creates terrible choice-free schools, allows the homeless on the streets in great numbers, I'd be surprised.
Stephen Fry was a comedian not a `noted British luminary` (though no doubt he would not cavil at the description) but I suppose he has just as much right as a real estate baron to comment on the topic. Politics, which most seem to forget, is always a balance which will leave some dissatisfied every time. Most political debate nowadays revolves around the pot calling the kettle black with the commensurate blindness attached. That is the danger - the art of compromise and when to change has been forgotten.
Trump raised some tariffs and lowered others. All cost jobs in this country. The Solar power industry lost 1000's of jobs. Factory work here also lost 1000's of jobs.
I'm not a Trump fan- I like Andrew Yang's description of him, because it doesn't really mischaracterise his supporters- a narcissistic reality TV star. That being said, his economy was the best it has been for more than thirty years for blue collar workers. It wasn't really that his deported that many people- Obama deported far more. And it wasn't the wall, which was mainly symbolic, a way to discourage illegal workers from making the journey.
It was that he really did threaten to punish companies, if they employed illegal workers in jobs that Americans desperately needed. The pundit class was convinced that Americans wouldn't want to work for low wages and in poor conditions, but when Tyson foods was targeted and forced to hire Americans as a result, people were queued up around the block for the federal minimum wage.
It goes to the heart of the psychological divide between liberals and conservatives and is the reason why liberals are always convinced that conservatives are racists, when the data supports that the actual level of racism in America is somewhere between 5% and 10% (Steven Pinker source). Ingroup occurs in every group in the world other than cosmopolitan liberals in the West, but at least in the West it is construed along cultural rather than racial lines. It's not a matter of experience or education, but rather is caused by the socio-economic and family circumstances in which one grows up- particularly parental education.
It's why American liberals seem to think that the British must have some historical racial distinction against Eastern Europeans, which us Brits find highly amusing given we've had warm relations for centuries. I was a remainer-by the way- but took the time to research why my side lost in the referendum, and found I hadn't really understood conservatives at all of my life. Outgroup hostility can be defused, but the preference for culturally homogeneous communities cannot- which is why even if one removed all the economic issues, Harlem residents would never have been happy about white hipsters moving into their neighbourhood.
The other main difference psychologically is trait openness to new experience and trait conscientiousness. Liberals are high in trait openness, which is also associated with slightly higher intelligence. There are actual brain differences on average relating to this openness to new experience. Liberals see low wage, dull and monotonous work as exploitative.
By contrast, conservatives are high in conscientiousness. This means they would rather work and take home low wages than receive more money in welfare and stay home. If forced to be idle for any length of time, they develop substance abuse problems and are more likely to commit suicide- although this is also associated with trait extroversion.
As a kid going on holiday, I could never understand why my fellow Brits would want to eat fish and chips, and just sit on the beach or by the pool, when there was a whole world of culture, cuisine, art and architecture out there to explore. I now understand that it because like most people in the world, they are cognitively different to individuals like me in somewhat substantial ways.
I agree with you on the solar panel issue- the aluminium tariffs were an absolute disaster for the industry. It shows that even at a detail level, Trump was strongly pro-fossil fuels. But we new that already- the appointment of Rex Tillerson to Secretary of State was an obvious signal that he wanted to do a deal with the Russians over the development of their fossil fuel and mining industries right from the get-go.
We need to make an effort to understand each other more- a lot of our differences are over misunderstandings caused by basic psychological make-up. If it helps, the ingroup found in conservatives is just as prevalent in African Americans and Latinos- who also seem to be the only ones who actually vote in their economic interest.
I hope you will follow my future newsletters, but I will understand if you don't. I always like a bit of pushback.
I don't agree with all of your points. Lowering corporate taxes resulted in huge winfalls for upper management and stockholders. Many factory workers lost jobs due to the lowering of tariffs. Removing tax deductions placed non-profits at the mercy of big money and caused serious cutbacks on services. Some programs closed altogether.
If only you could set all the prices, determine where work should be done, which work should be done, and which people get to benefit from doing the work, life would be better for all.
Lol. I presume you mean my comments on housing, specifically the oligopoly segment. That being said, it is a highly unusual approach to allow depreciation for residential housing owned by businesses. It's certainly not something allowed by most tax systems. Here in the UK, we do allow for depreciation on the furnishing in furnished rental accommodation.
No, more towards Scott's comment, but far too many others as well. It seems everyone knows if government just taxed T, spent more of other people's money on U, limited the import of V, precluded the export of W, only taught about Y, never teach Z, increased jobs for A, stopped people from liking B, required businesses to hire C, set workers pay to C, kept people safe from D, invaded E, occupied F, kept out the people from G....then we'd have a good society because you just can't go around letting people choose for themselves, be non-aggressive/coercive/forceful towards others, be tolerant, accept diversity and live and let live as that would be monstrous.
The corporation tax rates are not the main problem- it's the way the corporate tax code is written to allow corporations to circumvent tax. One of the worst areas in which American legislators have failed the ordinary American taxpayer is in relation to corporate ownership of property- the system can be gamed in ways which are not normal for other advanced economies. You should look up corporate depreciation and amortisation- which are perfectly valid for many areas of business, but shouldn't really apply to property, unless there are specific reasons why a commercial property depreciates or requires investment (hotel repair, etc).
The rules are meant to incentivise construction, but like the UK the problem is not a demand side issue- it's oligopoly- specifically the way that finance, local government and the big construction companies collude to create artificial scarcity and the fact that homeowners are being used as an ever-inflating source of debt assets for investors. It's not the market (which is not free), and it's not government- it's both- with those greedy f**kers on Wall Street thrown into the mix.
Liam Halligan, a Telegraph economist, has written a book on the subject called Home Truths. He was within an inch of convincing then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, to implement radical reforms- but then Dominic Cummings overruled him and he resigned.
So corporate deductions. Last time I looked at corporation tax as a share of total government revenue, Sweden received 2.75% of total revenue from CT, the UK 1.8% and the US 1.13%. Both Sweden and the UK had lower corporation tax rates than the US at the time. In 2019, Sweden reduced their CT even further to 18%, inline with the UK at the time- under the pretty realistic expectation that the Laffer curve would see more money being paid into the government coffers. Here in the UK we have recently raised it back to 25%, but only because we have been as generous to our businesses (especially the small ones) as we have been to our citizens during the pandemic.
I agree completely with you on the stock buyback issue. It's an artificial way of creating value, when the far better approach is to materially invest in your business. I largely agree with you on the non-profit issue- the only thing I would add is that it is iniquitous that their is a parallel system within the non-profit tax code which allows for political campaigning and lobbying, and non-profit CEO's to claim they are only taking $40K from the charity, whilst simultaneously claiming hundreds of K from the parallel side of the setup. It wouldn't be a problem if those who donate were clearly told to which side of the non-profit they are contributing.
"a significant percentage of the 120 or so key instigators of the violence had major financial setbacks in their recent history, either in the form or bankruptcies or home repossessions."
Frightened, hurt people become irrational and dangerous, who would have guessed?
Which violence? In the U.S., Antifa is very real and run from under the radar by a numbe rof very vicious people. Many of them from comfortable backgrounds.
Good comment. Apparently the media calls them the tourists- they regularly book spots to wherever the most recent violent hotspot happens to be. During the looting in New York, there were kids being dropped off in Mercedes by their soccer mums, so that they go and participate in the mayhem. Within the Antifa movement there is a definite faction of champagne communists.
Nice article! I have always said you couldn't fill a high school football stadium with white supremacist unless you believe the garbage media and Biden but by the way the media is covering the days events--by god I'm probably living next to one!!
According to the ADL (and before they decided to make it very hard to find their previous figure), their estimated total number of active White Supremacists in the US is roughly 11,000. About a third of these are Aryan Brotherhood former prison inmates, whose sole organised activities seem to be selling drugs and dealing in illegal firearms.
Online only solo activity is higher, with an accurate estimate likely somewhere around 35,000, but often these are the dangerous ones most likely to produce spree killers and major incidents- in this respect, fatherlessness, social alienation and online radicalisation all seem to be prevalent factors. There are also striking parallels between these types, and one can also included school shooters in the profile.
Still, it's a tiny number compared to the total population of white people in America.
Seems this is the same list of disfunctions that create the social misfits favored by our betters; looters and the like. Which group is more dangerous to a civil society?
They are both extremely dangerous and feed on the fears that their polar opposites generate, swelling their ranks in the process. When the New Zealand shooter published his manifesto, he actually wanted to discredit the American Conservative movement because he saw it as the major roadblock to recruitment of more to his cause. This was a fact that the legacy media completely failed to report. Likewise, we've seen groypers turn up at Dan Crenshaw and Ben Shapiro speaking engagements, and try to ask pointed questions which discredit conservatives. They both went ballistic at the arseholes.
Likewise Antifa despise moderate liberals for more than they do conservatives, because they rightly see them as an equivalent roadblock to a bloody far left revolution.
Race relations in America, unfortunately, seem to be driven by race hustlers like Ibram X Kendi & Robin DiAngelo. And the one thing that race hustlers want is to keep the hustle going. If race relations actually improve, then they're out of a job. Kimberle Crenshaw makes this point explicitly in (IIRC) "Mapping the Margins" - Critical Race Theory has as its primary purpose the continuation of Affirmative Action & minority set-asides. James Lindsay in one of his recent <a href=https://newdiscourses.com/2021/06/why-you-can-be-transgender-but-not-transracial/>podcasts</a> goes into this in some detail.
Good comment, but I wouldn't call them hustlers- other than DiAngelo, that is :). What they fail to see is that it is liberal policies in education, housing and welfare (worst of all, disincentivising) which have had such a terrible effect on African Americans. They can't see it because they live in the Blue Church stronghold of academia (which they love dearly), and to do so would invalidate their urges for government intervention in all but the most cautious, evidenced and pilot-studied circumstances. We know it's true because the same policies had an identical effect in the UK with Afro Caribbean, Bangladeshi and White Working Class demographics.
Progressive public education is the worst. It amplifies the differences in achievement across the socio-economic spectrum, because with such poor knowledge sources in schools, much of the work of education is left to parents, which naturally favours those with highly educated parents. John McWhorter has stated that teaching phonics alone (which the progressive system loathes, for some reason) could have a huge impact on Black kids.
I would highly recommend watching Shelby Steele's documentary 'What Killed Michael Brown?' It not only sheds light on the specific misframing of the case, but it also goes back into the history of the post-war and War on Poverty era and shows exactly how so much damage was done by liberal good intentions. There is even a rare excerpt of James Earl Jones in a drama, pushed out of cohabiting with his partner by a government welfare officer searching for signs of men living in the apartment.
It's available on Amazon, but I wouldn't bother with the HD version- the production values, though adequate, don't rate the added expense. Alternately, BloggingHeads.tv has a podcast hosted by Glenn Loury and John McWhorter interviewing Shelby Steele and his son Eli about the documentary. I would definitely recommend the movie though- it put together a lot of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle for me.
Good recommendations, all.
Kendi, et.al. are race hustlers. If they were the intellectuals they purport to be they would take the stage and debate their critics. They fleece the guilt ridden.
The thing to bear in mind about Kendi is that in all probability when he wrote his ideas they were in an academic setting, where raising bizarre questions is seen as a means of provoking interesting discussions and debate. Of course, he has cashed in it since, but one can hardly blame an obscure academic who never thought his ideas would be taken seriously for not making the distinction when the concepts go mainstream, and wealth, fame and cultural importance beckon.
On the other hand, I think the Red Skull comic he wrote about Jordan Peterson was not only bizarre, but bloody atrocious.
Fixing the political divide isn't really possible. People will always hold different opinions, like different things, hate different things, think/want/need/act differently.
Liberty is found the only proven balm, one that accepts diversity, tolerates differences, isn't aggressive, lives and let lives and more prosper. It doesn't use force, coercion, fear and intimidation to impose itself on others. It's a voluntary, free choice, free trade world in which the end result when people interact is both are better off.
Equality under the law was found to be the best way to deal with limited government powers over personal liberty when it comes to those who will use fraud, force, theft and extortion. It means laws don't protect special interests. It means there's no crony capitalism. It means taxes are uniform and the same for all so paying them doesn't seem to make you the chump little people. It means government programs are paid for with taxes it imposes on those who exists for and to pay back debt that expires when or before the benefits of the program end.
But we'll never get these. Factions are too powerful. Fear easily causes most to submit. Division is easier. Suggesting others choices that are not like our own are bad and shouldn't be allowed is easy. Being a victim of power is the norm.
Liberty and equality turn out to be harder for the human mind than truly believing in fairy tales.
Veni Vidi et Divisit
Great comment, BTW
"It means taxes are uniform and the same for all"
So Jeff B. and the guy who sleeps on the sidewalk pay the same tax?
Ha! Well, if we believed in equality under the law, then yes. Should the richer person get more votes? Should they get more use of government services?
But in my case, no. I mean a flat tax rate that even the poorest would pay if the poorest had income or spent money. If society wants to tax itself sufficient to pay for a safety net for the poorest, so be it, though that sort of thinking destroys the moral value of charity and human kindness for government force and likely abuse and harm of the poor by people who don't actually care about them. Just don't spend more than you tax (even if you spend some on interest for debt, though wisely a government would go into debt for things that are gone before the debt is repaid).
Once you tell one person they can have X by taxing Y if they vote for Z, you have a broken, lost, corrupt, dependent, slave culture.
I think the answer is lower income taxes, modest consumption taxes which exclude the basics of living (such as food, accommodation and nappies), plus very specific taxes. A good example would be a Tobin-style tax on financial transactions.
This was one of the little reported revenue suggestions from the Andrew Yang Presidential Primary Campaign (which media neglected to mention in the mainstream because of their alignment with Wall Street). It would basically introduce a small tax on financial transactions which most people would barely notice, but if you are a brokerage, an offshore Holding company or anyone who deals in a high volume of trades then you would notice it- although it would hardly break the bank.
The Yang campaign estimated it would raise $60 billion a year, although knowing Democrats this was probably set at least 33% higher than tenable, so let's say $40 billion.
Raise the taxes on the ultr wealthy. That is genuine equality.
A financial transaction tax does hit the ultra-wealthy, mainly through their investments, but we need to be cognisant of capital flight. The Obama Administration decided to go after overseas capital and Americans, with the net result that 38% percent of the world companies no longer want to do business with expat Americans, because the reporting requirements allow the US government to favour American corporations.
The other way to go is to look at the top 10% and 2% of property taxes and introduce a mansion tax. There are very few ways to extract the wealth or income of the ultra-rich. Another method is a very modest land banking tax, because when venture capital is fully subscribed money family wealth tends to invest in land, but the thresholds would need to be carefully calibrated, and like most taxes on the rich, you don't want the tax to be more than the cost of the legion of tax lawyers and accountants they can pay to get out of it.
The key is to understand that the rich shouldn't be seen as a group that needs punishing, but rather as a financial asset which can be optimised to produce returns in the form of revenue. This is one of the reasons why the Nordic Model has been so successful since the early nineties- they don't tax the rich to punish, but treat them as an investment- they make more revenue from the CGT which comes from their investments being onshore, because the rich no longer fear the government is coming to to take their money.
One of the most interesting phenomena is Swiss multimillionaires and billionaires. It is the only country which has successfully introduced a wealth tax, without more severe adverse consequences. They are willing to pay around 0.7% on their wealth per year, but if the canton raises the tax they switch cantons and move.
Of course, it is also understood in Switzerland that the wealth tax in an alternative to income tax, inheritance tax or CGT, not a supplement, and the tax code reflects it. Their inheritance tax laws are quite generous, especially to spouses and children. Like the Nordic countries, they understand that the rich should be treated well and not punitively, so that their wealth can be a constant source of revenue for the tax base.
Sure, but these are variations we'll not likely see. But I hope the number is much bigger than $60 billion as that isn't even a number in the US federal budget deficit.
I think a flat tax on all is better (it can be a transaction tax, as the more transactions a tax covers, in theory, the lower the rate can be to raise the same amount, and it actually harms people more equally as it forcefully takes your money for other people's interests). It makes everyone part of the government operations. And you can always give some money/services directly back to those who need it because they are incompetent/incapable. Then you don't have caviar and fine foods tax free, nor higher end accommodations untaxed as the rich tend to do better, and then require food be tax free unless X, Y or Z, all the central controls nobody needs as today's luxury may be tomorrow's essential (think a cell phone, or internet access, or refrigeration). Just tax it all, and provide a safety net so it's clear we all participate equally, we're all equal under the law, we're as free as the next person, and if we do get benefits from government special interest laws, it's clearly so.
"if we believed in equality under the law, then yes."
That's one interpretation of equality I suppose. But in time of war would equality also mean that a blind cripple be drafted along with a healthy young male? Or a kid be treated before the law like an adult or the competent like the retarded? Or would we continue to set a minimum age for driver's licenses?
I believe in freedom more than equality under the law, as I mentioned before that liberty is the real value, and equality under the law for those instances where people violate the basic idea of liberty with violence/coercion/force/fraud/theft/etc. But yes, equality under the law means the law treats all people equally and doesn't discriminate, and that rights (including voting) aren't given to some over others.
But it also doesn't mean people stop thinking or taking reality in consideration, just as we do now with killing a person or taking something without permission or telling a tale (it's not all just murder and theft and fraud).
If those are the reasons why we don't get liberty and equal protection and instead get a massive government power that runs daily undeclared wars against people who never attacked, has military bases across the world, owns and occupies territories, locks up its citizens in cages in record numbers, allow massive crony capitalism, prefers special interests, lock its citizens down, closes its borders, determines who is essential and who is non-essential, taxes so wildly that it can't pay its bills and the middle class tend to pay a larger share of their income, borrows against the future with massive printing of money, doesn't uphold contracts, imposes sanctions and embargoes on poor nations, doesn't police in areas that needs it more, creates terrible choice-free schools, allows the homeless on the streets in great numbers, I'd be surprised.
100%
Stephen Fry was a comedian not a `noted British luminary` (though no doubt he would not cavil at the description) but I suppose he has just as much right as a real estate baron to comment on the topic. Politics, which most seem to forget, is always a balance which will leave some dissatisfied every time. Most political debate nowadays revolves around the pot calling the kettle black with the commensurate blindness attached. That is the danger - the art of compromise and when to change has been forgotten.
Trump raised some tariffs and lowered others. All cost jobs in this country. The Solar power industry lost 1000's of jobs. Factory work here also lost 1000's of jobs.
I'm not a Trump fan- I like Andrew Yang's description of him, because it doesn't really mischaracterise his supporters- a narcissistic reality TV star. That being said, his economy was the best it has been for more than thirty years for blue collar workers. It wasn't really that his deported that many people- Obama deported far more. And it wasn't the wall, which was mainly symbolic, a way to discourage illegal workers from making the journey.
It was that he really did threaten to punish companies, if they employed illegal workers in jobs that Americans desperately needed. The pundit class was convinced that Americans wouldn't want to work for low wages and in poor conditions, but when Tyson foods was targeted and forced to hire Americans as a result, people were queued up around the block for the federal minimum wage.
It goes to the heart of the psychological divide between liberals and conservatives and is the reason why liberals are always convinced that conservatives are racists, when the data supports that the actual level of racism in America is somewhere between 5% and 10% (Steven Pinker source). Ingroup occurs in every group in the world other than cosmopolitan liberals in the West, but at least in the West it is construed along cultural rather than racial lines. It's not a matter of experience or education, but rather is caused by the socio-economic and family circumstances in which one grows up- particularly parental education.
It's why American liberals seem to think that the British must have some historical racial distinction against Eastern Europeans, which us Brits find highly amusing given we've had warm relations for centuries. I was a remainer-by the way- but took the time to research why my side lost in the referendum, and found I hadn't really understood conservatives at all of my life. Outgroup hostility can be defused, but the preference for culturally homogeneous communities cannot- which is why even if one removed all the economic issues, Harlem residents would never have been happy about white hipsters moving into their neighbourhood.
The other main difference psychologically is trait openness to new experience and trait conscientiousness. Liberals are high in trait openness, which is also associated with slightly higher intelligence. There are actual brain differences on average relating to this openness to new experience. Liberals see low wage, dull and monotonous work as exploitative.
By contrast, conservatives are high in conscientiousness. This means they would rather work and take home low wages than receive more money in welfare and stay home. If forced to be idle for any length of time, they develop substance abuse problems and are more likely to commit suicide- although this is also associated with trait extroversion.
As a kid going on holiday, I could never understand why my fellow Brits would want to eat fish and chips, and just sit on the beach or by the pool, when there was a whole world of culture, cuisine, art and architecture out there to explore. I now understand that it because like most people in the world, they are cognitively different to individuals like me in somewhat substantial ways.
I agree with you on the solar panel issue- the aluminium tariffs were an absolute disaster for the industry. It shows that even at a detail level, Trump was strongly pro-fossil fuels. But we new that already- the appointment of Rex Tillerson to Secretary of State was an obvious signal that he wanted to do a deal with the Russians over the development of their fossil fuel and mining industries right from the get-go.
We need to make an effort to understand each other more- a lot of our differences are over misunderstandings caused by basic psychological make-up. If it helps, the ingroup found in conservatives is just as prevalent in African Americans and Latinos- who also seem to be the only ones who actually vote in their economic interest.
I hope you will follow my future newsletters, but I will understand if you don't. I always like a bit of pushback.
I don't agree with all of your points. Lowering corporate taxes resulted in huge winfalls for upper management and stockholders. Many factory workers lost jobs due to the lowering of tariffs. Removing tax deductions placed non-profits at the mercy of big money and caused serious cutbacks on services. Some programs closed altogether.
Homelessness burgeoned under Trump. Etc., etc.
If only you could set all the prices, determine where work should be done, which work should be done, and which people get to benefit from doing the work, life would be better for all.
Lol. I presume you mean my comments on housing, specifically the oligopoly segment. That being said, it is a highly unusual approach to allow depreciation for residential housing owned by businesses. It's certainly not something allowed by most tax systems. Here in the UK, we do allow for depreciation on the furnishing in furnished rental accommodation.
No, more towards Scott's comment, but far too many others as well. It seems everyone knows if government just taxed T, spent more of other people's money on U, limited the import of V, precluded the export of W, only taught about Y, never teach Z, increased jobs for A, stopped people from liking B, required businesses to hire C, set workers pay to C, kept people safe from D, invaded E, occupied F, kept out the people from G....then we'd have a good society because you just can't go around letting people choose for themselves, be non-aggressive/coercive/forceful towards others, be tolerant, accept diversity and live and let live as that would be monstrous.
Homelessness in our time is a local issue, not a federal one. This is on stares and cities.
That's an absurdity. The fact is that Trump pushed the economy so far in that direction that homelessness increased.
We had the highest employment levels in modern times. I’m not following your logic.
The corporation tax rates are not the main problem- it's the way the corporate tax code is written to allow corporations to circumvent tax. One of the worst areas in which American legislators have failed the ordinary American taxpayer is in relation to corporate ownership of property- the system can be gamed in ways which are not normal for other advanced economies. You should look up corporate depreciation and amortisation- which are perfectly valid for many areas of business, but shouldn't really apply to property, unless there are specific reasons why a commercial property depreciates or requires investment (hotel repair, etc).
The rules are meant to incentivise construction, but like the UK the problem is not a demand side issue- it's oligopoly- specifically the way that finance, local government and the big construction companies collude to create artificial scarcity and the fact that homeowners are being used as an ever-inflating source of debt assets for investors. It's not the market (which is not free), and it's not government- it's both- with those greedy f**kers on Wall Street thrown into the mix.
Liam Halligan, a Telegraph economist, has written a book on the subject called Home Truths. He was within an inch of convincing then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, to implement radical reforms- but then Dominic Cummings overruled him and he resigned.
So corporate deductions. Last time I looked at corporation tax as a share of total government revenue, Sweden received 2.75% of total revenue from CT, the UK 1.8% and the US 1.13%. Both Sweden and the UK had lower corporation tax rates than the US at the time. In 2019, Sweden reduced their CT even further to 18%, inline with the UK at the time- under the pretty realistic expectation that the Laffer curve would see more money being paid into the government coffers. Here in the UK we have recently raised it back to 25%, but only because we have been as generous to our businesses (especially the small ones) as we have been to our citizens during the pandemic.
I agree completely with you on the stock buyback issue. It's an artificial way of creating value, when the far better approach is to materially invest in your business. I largely agree with you on the non-profit issue- the only thing I would add is that it is iniquitous that their is a parallel system within the non-profit tax code which allows for political campaigning and lobbying, and non-profit CEO's to claim they are only taking $40K from the charity, whilst simultaneously claiming hundreds of K from the parallel side of the setup. It wouldn't be a problem if those who donate were clearly told to which side of the non-profit they are contributing.
"a significant percentage of the 120 or so key instigators of the violence had major financial setbacks in their recent history, either in the form or bankruptcies or home repossessions."
Frightened, hurt people become irrational and dangerous, who would have guessed?
Which violence? In the U.S., Antifa is very real and run from under the radar by a numbe rof very vicious people. Many of them from comfortable backgrounds.
Good comment. Apparently the media calls them the tourists- they regularly book spots to wherever the most recent violent hotspot happens to be. During the looting in New York, there were kids being dropped off in Mercedes by their soccer mums, so that they go and participate in the mayhem. Within the Antifa movement there is a definite faction of champagne communists.
Nice article! I have always said you couldn't fill a high school football stadium with white supremacist unless you believe the garbage media and Biden but by the way the media is covering the days events--by god I'm probably living next to one!!
According to the ADL (and before they decided to make it very hard to find their previous figure), their estimated total number of active White Supremacists in the US is roughly 11,000. About a third of these are Aryan Brotherhood former prison inmates, whose sole organised activities seem to be selling drugs and dealing in illegal firearms.
Online only solo activity is higher, with an accurate estimate likely somewhere around 35,000, but often these are the dangerous ones most likely to produce spree killers and major incidents- in this respect, fatherlessness, social alienation and online radicalisation all seem to be prevalent factors. There are also striking parallels between these types, and one can also included school shooters in the profile.
Still, it's a tiny number compared to the total population of white people in America.
Seems this is the same list of disfunctions that create the social misfits favored by our betters; looters and the like. Which group is more dangerous to a civil society?
They are both extremely dangerous and feed on the fears that their polar opposites generate, swelling their ranks in the process. When the New Zealand shooter published his manifesto, he actually wanted to discredit the American Conservative movement because he saw it as the major roadblock to recruitment of more to his cause. This was a fact that the legacy media completely failed to report. Likewise, we've seen groypers turn up at Dan Crenshaw and Ben Shapiro speaking engagements, and try to ask pointed questions which discredit conservatives. They both went ballistic at the arseholes.
Likewise Antifa despise moderate liberals for more than they do conservatives, because they rightly see them as an equivalent roadblock to a bloody far left revolution.