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Rightward changes continue: the left-wing will become the leading racists

Why we on the Left made an epic mistake on immigration

In Leicester and Bradford, almost half of the ethnic population live in what are technically ghettos (defined as areas where minorities form more than two-thirds of the population). Meanwhile, parts of white working-class Britain have been left feeling neither valued nor useful, believing that they have been displaced by newcomers not only in the job market but also in the national story itself.

Those in the race lobby have been slow to recognise that strong collective identities are legitimate for majorities as well as minorities, for white as well as for black people.

For a democratic state to have any meaning, it must ‘belong’ to existing citizens. They must have special rights over non-citizens. Immigration must be managed with their interests in mind. But it has not been.

The justification for such a large and unpopular change has to be that the economic benefits are significant and measurable. But they are not.

One of the liberal elite’s myths is that we are a ‘mongrel nation’ that has always experienced high inflows of outsiders. But this isn’t true. From 1066 until 1950, immigration was almost non-existent (excluding Ireland) — a quarter of a million at the most, mainly Huguenots and Jews.

What's interesting about the policy is that it was forced upon the people by the left-wing governments across the West, just as the euro and European Union have been forced upon the people of Europe.

The fault lies with our leaders, not with the people who came for a better life. There has been a huge gap between our ruling elite’s views and those of ordinary people on the street. This was brought home to me when dining at an Oxford college and the eminent person next to me, a very senior civil servant, said: ‘When I was at the Treasury, I argued for the most open door possible to immigration [because] I saw it as my job to maximise global welfare not national welfare.’

You can see the seeds of the major rightward swing unfolding. The traditional right wing is out of power in most countries, but it is very stable in belief because it elevates tradition. If you meet an actual paleoconservative in the U.S. for example, such as Pat Buchanan, you meet someone whose fundamental beliefs would be recognizable to someone from 100 years ago. The left, however, is far more dynamic and volatile. It was religious conservatives who opposed eugenics in the United States and Europe, while progressives pursued it 100 years ago. It was the right that opposed democratic revolutions (be they liberal, communist or fascist), it was the left that pursued them. Thus we see the left swing from minority eugenics and extermination policies 80 to 100 years ago, to the exact opposite today, of placing minorities above the majority. Yet it will swing back again, and the backlash is beginning. The right will play the same role as it did then and it does today, opposing the extremes of the left, but the difference is that the center of power will shift. Instead of being on the margin of society today, the right will take hold of the center because peaceful people will recognize it is the only way to avoid a bloodbath as the progressive utopia collapses upon itself.

Euro bulls turn tail on short lived rally

Quebec goes nationalist

Quebec’s Bill 14 is a pathological attack on the sin of speaking English

Bill 14 contains 155 proposed amendments to the Charter of the French Language. The government considers them necessary because the French language “constitutes a stronger vector for social cohesion…and maintaining harmonious relations.” What Bill 14 is essentially designed for is to elevate the wish of francophones never to speak a language other than French — even the other official language of Canada — to a human right on the same level as the right to medical care.

Quebecois are in control and if they don't have independence, they can still rule their province with an iron fist. The law pretty much outlaws the use of English, except perhaps in the home and in private conversations. Otherwise, everything will be conducted in French.

GOP Civil War continues

Mark Levin: "The Republican Party Is Going To Split, And There's Going To Be Two Parties"

February, 1, 2013, Gallup did another poll of the individual states. Which ideology outnumbers which ideology in the states? Conservatives outnumber liberals in 47 out of the 50 states. So what's the problem here? Well, the word conservative can be a little ambiguous. But what's the real problem here? If you're going into elections and your political party, where every survey and poll shows that Americans identify themselves more as conservatives than liberals, and you can't beat Barack Obama, what's the problem here?

The problem is execution. The problem is your being outworked, you're being outsmarted. The problem is you're not standing on "conservative principles." You're not believable. You're not an alternative to Obama. You're not an alternative to Pelosi and Reid. Less and less people view you that way. I mean, I'm amazed by this. When we look at the last thirty years, who was the most successful Republican president electorally? Ronald Reagan. Of course the times have changed, but the principles haven't. Just apply them, wisely.

That's like saying, 'the times have changed, so our Constitution needs to be living and breathing.' No it doesn't! These principles are invaluable. These rights are inalienable. The fact that the modern politician in the Republican party is incapable of articulating them and applying them to modern society is the problem with that politician. The fact that the chairman of the Republican National Committee can't do it and the Speaker can't do is a problem with the Republican party and it's leadership. And damn it, if it's not changed, if these people aren't thrown out, we're going to lose. And the Republican party is going to split, and there's going to be two parties.

The GOP may yet reform, but there is a real opportunity for a populist leader to emerge, just like in Italy. If the GOP splits, the new "Tea Party" would likely be anti-Wall Street and anti-immigration, two stances that have big majorities among the American people. It would tap the same sentiment that launched Beppe Grillo in Italy, UKIP in the UK and Golden Dawn in Greece, to name a few parties with widely varying ideologies.

5 Star Movement gained 5% as of March 15

And Now ... A Poll From Italy That Should Terrify All Of Europe

A new poll (Tweeted by Fabrizio Goria) shows surging support for Grillo. The election only added to his momentum, and he's now at 30 percent. Almost as worrisome for Europe: Berlusconi's PDL has also gained since the election.

Here is Beppe Grillo's comments on Cyprus:

"Gentlemen, terrible news out of Cyprus. The IMF, with the complicity of the EU, will forcibly take 10 percent from every bank account. This should be front page news on every newspaper and instead, although I could be mistaken, I haven't seen it anywhere. Are we really certain that this is the Europe we want? People living thousands of kilometers away making decisions this important without consulting the citizens?"

Political impact from Cyprus depositor tax

Earlier this week in Hungary continues moving right, I looked at Hungary's latest political developments and criticism from the EU. Hungary's right-wing government can now point a finger right back at the EU, as this bailout in Cyprus in undemocratic.

All euro-skeptic parties are big winners, from UKIP to Finns to Beppe Grillo's 5-Star Movement. Social mood also favors political breakups and here's the latest from Belgium: Flemish nationalists aim for autonomy from 2014

Belgium's main Flemish separatist party New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) warned Saturday that it wanted complete autonomy for the Flanders region if it wins legislative elections slated for May 2014.

Victory by the N-VA would mean that "Francophone parties will have to take our conclusions into account," Geert Bourgeois, one of the party's founders and the deputy leader of the Flanders regional government, told the Dutch-language paper De Standaard.

"It is what happens in a marriage. If one partner says 'I want that' and the other says 'no', then it is over," he said.

The capital of the EU, Brussels, is in Belgium, in a mostly French speaking city in Flanders. The EU's core problem of nationalism is manifesting at the core of the EU.

Is this the Oesterreichische-Kredit-Anstalt moment? Who gains from Cyprus?

In Similarities Between the Great Depression and Today, last updated in August 2011, I compared many bank failures and sovereign debt crises to Kredit-Anstalt, the bank failure in 1931 that unleashed the second leg of the depression by forcing Austria off the gold standard, and later the rest of Europe.

The usual suspects who are already upset about bank policies across the West and calling the Cyprus depositor tax a crossing of the financial Rubicon. However, Cyprus may decide to reject the plan and pushed back a vote to Monday.

To use a social mood example: almost everyone getting upset about the plan is already upset. Their mood is already negative towards the banks. If events in Cyprus trigger the tipping point that ushers in the next major decline in mood, it will be based upon whether the people on the margin swing to negative mood or consider this a different form of what has already been done to Ireland and Greece.

Updated: Cypriot depositor tax (haircut) roundup; IMF wanted 40%!

First, read this post at FTAlphaville on the Cyprus depositor tax: A stupid idea whose time had come

Then see, from March 4: Money-Laundering Suspicion Stalls Europe's Latest Bailout

"We will not secure deposits of Russian black money in Cypriot banks with German taxpayer money," said Carsten Schneider, of the leading SPD opposition party, last month

Then this: Sinclair - One Of The Most Important Events In History & Gold

“The wire reports on the Cyprus situation are working overtime to try to make the case that 80% of the deposits belong to the people of Cyprus, and only 20% of the deposits belong to the Russians. That’s absolutely false. After 1985, when the ‘Robber Barrons’ of Russia took over the general economics of Russia, that was the transformation from the KGB to private business. The primary place for exported Russian funds was Cyprus.

Now, there is one leader in the world that would be very dangerous to challenge and that is Putin of Russia....

“What’s just happened is the IMF has backed up, lauded, supported, and publicized, as if it were a victory, the taking of 10% of what really turns out to be 80% of Russian ‘black money.’ Russian ‘black money’ is KGB money, now in business. The leader of Russia (Putin) was a former KGB official. Whose money do you think they have taken? This is the biggest mistake the IMF could possibly have ever made.”

And then there are the myriad people expecting increased outflows from European banks, such as this one from Mish: Contagion-Begging Actions; Expect Bank Runs Following Cyprus Idiocy; Have Money in a Spanish Bank? Take It Out Now!

Update: From ZeroHedge, Germany And IMF's Initial Deposit Haircut Demand: 40% Of Total.

What a fracking mess

The Fracked-up USA Shale Gas Bubble

Why have we just now seen the boom in fracking shale rock to get gas and oil? Thank then-Vice president Dick Cheney and friends. The real reason for the recent explosion of fracking in the United States was passage of legislation in 2005 by the US Congress that exempted the oil industry’s hydraulic fracking, astonishing as it sounds, from any regulatory supervision by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials – unchecked – directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies.[8]

The 2005 law is known as the “Halliburton Loophole.” That’s because it was introduced on massive lobbying pressure from the company that produces the lion’s share of chemical hydraulic fracking fluids – Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton. When he became Vice President under George W. Bush in early 2001, Cheney immediately got Presidential responsibility for a major Energy Task Force to make a comprehensive national energy strategy. Aside from looking at Iraq oil potentials as documents later revealed, the energy task force used Cheney’s considerable political muscle and industry lobbying money to win exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Environmental risks have been known, as have the economic risks:

In a sobering report, Arthur Berman, a veteran petroleum geologist specialized in well assessment, using existing well extraction data for major shale gas regions in the US since the boom started, reached sobering conclusions. His findings point to a new Ponzi scheme which well might play out in a colossal gas bust over the next months or at best, the next two or three years. Shale gas is anything but the “energy revolution” that will give US consumers or the world gas for 100 years as President Obama was told.

Berman wrote already in 2011, “Facts indicate that most wells are not commercial at current gas prices and require prices at least in the range of $8.00 to $9.00/mcf to break even on full-cycle prices, and $5.00 to $6.00/mcf on point-forward prices. Our price forecasts ($4.00-4.55/mcf average through 2012) are below $8.00/mcf for the next 18 months. It is, therefore, possible that some producers will be unable to maintain present drilling levels from cash flow, joint ventures, asset sales and stock offerings.”

The article is long and extensively footnoted. Well worth a read.

Hungary continues moving right

Europe's rightward swing continues apace.

Hungary Lawmakers Rebuff EU, U.S.

Hungarian lawmakers on Monday passed amendments to the country's constitution, despite warnings from the European Union and the U.S. that the measures could threaten the rule of law and weaken democratic checks and balances.

Parliament, controlled by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's right-leaning Fidesz alliance, approved the changes—including provisions that allow the court system's top administrator and prosecutors to choose which judges hear legal cases—in a party-line vote.

The EU and U.S. are the seat of leftism in the world, with growing Russian resistance coming from the right. Within Europe, right-wing parties are growing in number and support, though they are scattered across the current political spectrum. Thus there are the fascist throwbacks in Greece (Golden Dawn), left-wing economic nationalists (Finns) and national independence parties with a libertarian outlook (UKIP).

Critics' main focus has been on changes they say undermine the country's judiciary, such as one barring the Constitutional Court from considering the legality of constitutional amendments and from applying case law and legal precedents predating the new Basic Law, which took effect in 2012.

Mr. Orban's relations with the country's judiciary have at times been contentious. On Monday, he lashed out at a court ruling against state-imposed cuts to natural-gas companies' prices, calling it "scandalous," and saying the government would ask Parliament to approve even bigger reductions.

Civil-rights groups have also complained about amendments that define "family" as a married man and woman and their children, outlaw some kinds of political advertising, and allow the government to prohibit homeless people from living on city streets.

Not even the U.S. Supreme Court can consider the legality of a constitutional amendment. By definition, a constitutional amendment is legal......and the definition of family is well within cultural norms. There are other issues with the judiciary, but as the criticism shows, this is more about right-left political splits. For example, the price cuts to natural gas prices is dumb economics, but no more stupid than what is being implemented in France. Expect more fighting in Europe as the dream of a united left-wing Europe comes apart as nationalism makes a comeback.

Secession in Georgia, USA

SUBURBS SECEDE FROM ATLANTA

As a result of the unsavory politics in urban Atlanta, northern suburban communities acted to distance themselves. Beginning in 2005, many communities began the process of incorporating into cities.

...While incorporation has been popular with residents of the new cities, not all of Atlanta is as satisfied. The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit in 2011 to dissolve the new cities, claiming they were a “super-white majority” and diluting the voting power of minorities.

...In 2011, the Georgia legislature essentially gave the governor authority to remove board of education members when a district was placed on probation by the accreditation agency. Last December, DeKalb was placed on probation. Then, in January, the governor of Georgia used his new authority and removed six members of the nine-member DeKalb Board of Education.

This year, well after the accreditation issue broke open, DeKalb school board elections were held. Four of nine board members were up for reelection. Voters in one of the four districts returned their incumbent board member for another term, despite knowing that accreditation was at risk.

...Instead of being treated as a story about rampant, inexcusable corruption, the school board fiasco has morphed into a civil rights issue. Atlanta’s NBC affiliate reports that the Georgia NAACP “accused Republican Governor Nathan Deal of being part of an alleged conspiracy to get rid of black office holders and deprive black voters of their rights.”

State Rep. Tyrone Books pointed out that criticism of the governor needed to include a word about black politicians who supported the governor’s removal authority.

“How can we complain about him when we have black folks standing there embracing the removal of black officials?” asked Brooks, D-Atlanta.

...DeKalb has changed from majority white to majority black over the last several decades. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution gingerly put it: “The county’s transition from majority white to majority minority was politically rocky .”

We saw several cities in Michigan, including Detroit, taken over by the state. Now the same thing is happening in Georgia. Although not every case involves minorities, many black cities are losing democratic control as they descend into corruption and chaos. In terms of social mood, it is a no-win. Although as the article points out, blacks within the city are happy to see corrupt and incompetent officials removed, nationally the story is spun as racist.

German Elite Turn on the Euro

Germany's New Anti-Euro Party

Named Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany), the group has a clear goal: "the dissolution of the euro in favor of national currencies or smaller currency unions." The party also demands an end to aid payments and the dismantling of the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund.

"Democracy is eroding," reads a statement on its website (German only). "The will of the people regarding (decisions relating to the euro) is never queried and is not represented in parliament. The government is depriving voters of a voice through disinformation, is pressuring constitutional organs, like parliament and the Constitutional Court, and is making far-reaching decisions in committees that have no democratic legitimacy."

...Alternative for Germany appears to be different, though it has yet to produce a party manifesto. Its impressive list of prominent supporters includes a large number of conservative and economically liberal university professors. The most notable name on the list is Hans-Olaf Henkel, the former president of the Federation of German Industries, but it also includes such economists as Joachim Starbatty and Wilhelm Hankel, who were part of the group that challenged Greek bailout aid at Germany's Constitutional Court.

Main initiator Bernd Lucke, a professor of macro-economics from Hamburg, was a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats for 33 years before leaving the party in 2011 as a result of euro bailout efforts. "The current, so-called rescue policies are exclusively focused on short-term interests, primarily those of the banks," Lucke told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week.

Alternative for Germany has not yet formally become a political party, though it reportedly plans to do so in the middle of April. Even then, however, it is not yet certain that the party will be able to collect the requisite number of signatures in time to be included on the ballot in general elections this autumn -- a minimum of 2,000 in each of Germany's 16 states or 0.1 percent of each state's population, whichever is lower. "We will make that decision based on the support we receive," Lucke told the FAZ. "But we have been overwhelmed by the public's reaction thus far."

Even though they may never win a single seat, it is the list of supporters that makes this an important development. I would be surprised if they were unable to collect the requisite number of signatures, as it is simply a matter of logistics, but incompetence and politics are not strange bedfellows.

The downside of diversity: all against all

One constant theme since the 2012 election is how the Republican party needs to change to adapt to the changing demographics of America. But as this op-ed in the WaPo reports, it's the Democrats who face the bigger challenge because society will not only fracture only white/non-white lines, but across all racial and ethnic divides.

How the demographic shift could hurt Democrats, too

The results were clear. After coming into contact, for just minutes each day, with two more Latinos than they would otherwise see or interact with, the riders, who were mostly white and liberal, were sharply more opposed to allowing more immigrants into the country and favored returning the children of illegal immigrants to their parents’ home country. It was a stark shift from their pre-experiment interviews, during which they expressed more neutral attitudes.

Why is the Northeast and upper Midwest white, yet vote for Democrats? They have far lower levels of immigrants and minorities: they are some of the whitest states in America.

In a more recent example, the city of Chicago began a massive effort in 2000 to overhaul its public housing. Large and notorious housing projects, such as Cabrini-Green, were demolished, and their residents were relocated. More than 99 percent of the relocated residents were African American. The outcome of the effort was the reverse of my experiment in Boston — rather than coming into contact, groups were separated.

Did that separation result in more liberal political views? Voting patterns among white residents living near these projects before and after their demolition showed that it did. After their African American neighbors left, fewer white residents turned out to vote, and voters became less likely to choose Republican candidates, whom they had previously supported at higher levels than had residents in other parts of the city. It seems that the contact with African Americans had politically mobilized whites in Chicago, similar to how Southern whites were mobilized in the 1930s.

There's evidence going both ways: culturally different newcomers move in and the natives organize politically and become more politically uniform in their voting. Culturally different groups move out (the area becomes homogeneous) and voting patterns become more diverse.

To explore whether there was a similar effect among minority voters, in 2008 I conducted an experiment in which I sent a letter to African American voters just before an election in Los Angeles. The content of the letter was simple: It reminded people to vote and included a map noting how often people on their block voted compared with a nearby block. In some randomly selected cases, the comparison block consisted of African American residents; in others, it was largely Latino. When the letter pointed to a majority-Latino block, African Americans were significantly more likely to vote, suggesting that they were concerned about political competition with Latinos — even though both groups vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

In that same year, I examined the voting of Latinos in Los Angeles and found that those who lived near predominantly African American neighborhoods were far less likely to vote for Obama than Latinos who lived farther away — suggesting that contact with their African American neighbors may have prompted them to vote against an African American candidate.

As different groups come

How will this all play out during periods of increasingly negative social mood? Not well. This is why the media and political left in America are determined to promote an anti-white agenda, with an anti-white media blitz. If they can keep the hate united along Democrat/Republican lines, they can continue to win easy political victories. If it break out, as social mood suggests, then there will be a major split among the Democratic party. It may not result in political losses, but it could make the country impossible to govern.

Latest Z1 Report out; changing credit market in pictures

Here's the changing makeup of the U.S. credit market.

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

The Slow Death of Democracy

Spain fights Catalan push for secession

The government said it would ask Spain’s constitutional court to nullify the Catalan parliament’s January declaration, which stated that the “people of Catalonia have, for reasons of democratic legitimacy, the nature of a sovereign political and legal subject”.

The resolution is intended to pave the way for a regional referendum on independence, and reflects the recent surge in separatist sentiment in Spain’s most important economic region.

In America, elected results are being overturned after local governments create financial crises that require state level bailouts.




This is part of the rightward swing of the pendulum that I have discussed previously. Not right-left as expressed by political parties today, but the right-left in terms of 1700-2000, of monarchy versus democracy. The logical end to the democratic impulse is either the tyranny of the majority (expressed by the Soviet Union) or the splintering of government into thousands of nations (Wilsonian democracy/self-determination). We see the latter in the secession movements we see in Spain, Scotland, Belgium and Italy, but also taking place at the state and local levels in the United States as cities and counties break apart. Now, in the U.S. there is a state level government (Michigan) stepping in and nullifying the elected local government due to financial crisis, essentially saying the locals are incapable of democracy.

Gold miners are the canary in the....gold mine?

In the previous post I linked to a conversation about gold mining shares. I want to clarify my position, as of today, March 1, 2013.

I remain a long-term bull on gold mining shares, but today, I believe they are the canary in the coal mine, warning of a potentially major market sell-off. Global X Gold Explorers (GLDX) is down 70% since inception in November 2010. The S&P 500 Index is up about 15% over the same period.

Many stock market bulls believe the fall in gold is related to the exit of fear from the stock market. Bullishness is high as stocks reach new heights. However, look at the fear in gold mining shares. That is nearly total panic, and the price of gold remains near weighted highs (it is down from the $1900 high, but that was a price spike that quickly reversed). This is evidence of the fear lurking off stage. Gold miners aren't suffering from some unique and extremely dire problem (if gold was around $1200 it'd be a different story); they are showing the first signs of fear returning to this market.

In 2008, emerging markets, gold miners and commodity shares bottomed, while the broader U.S. and European markets bottomed in 2009. I expect we will see the same as the selling in gold mining shares will exhaust itself much sooner, seeing as how it has already begun with gusto. In 2008, it was the same: oil prices were in freefall by July, but stocks didn't implode until September.

If GLDX falls another 50%, the total loss only grows about 15%, to 85%. Therefore, when I say much of the selling is done, there are still potentially huge losses coming. That said, a further 50% drop in GLDX will likely match the fall in the S&P 500 Index, thus in relative terms, the junior gold mining shares are not unattractive today.

While I may hold some key shares, I will take short positions if I see the market turn and will not be long-only. You will know the correctness of hanging on to gold shares by the price of gold. It should outpeform global stock markets by a substantial amount, as it did in 2008. If it does, miners will have high product prices, with strong demand for their product, a midst plunging costs. They will rebound with a vengeance. Other shares will also be bargains, thus investors would be wise to have some cash and a shopping list.

Full disclosure: I have incorrectly anticipated at least 3 or 4 market tops since 2009. I feel less emotionally confident about this call though, which is why I think it may be a stronger one.