How Do You Change the Future?

Me, I'm a climate denier. I deny that climate change is an existential problem. But obviously all the smart people think climate change and fossil fuels are a problem and they are all agreed to Do Something about it. On top of that I suspect that, even if climate change were a problem, the current top-down set of climate programs, from renewable energy to electric cars, is probably making things worse.

I think the big-government administrative state of the last century is a big mistake, partly because every top-down program is a bad mistake. 

Why? Because the whole point of top-down is that it doesn't respond to the bottom-up experience on the firing line. 

And partly because Letting George Do It has the result of infantilizing the broad middle of society, for people need responsibility, for their lives and for the lives of those around them. 

And partly because all government programs are basically handing out swag to regime supporters and that ain't good.

I think that the current conceit of the rulers, that ordinary people are helpless racist-sexist-homophobes, is a monstrous injustice.

But how do we change things? Suppose we agree that all these things are a problem, how do we change the world without destroying it?

Short of revolution, which I don't think is a good idea.

See, I think that the only way things change is in the wake of disaster.

I think that the best possibility for stopping the climate change movement is for widespread failure of the electric system, crazy high gas prices. Lots of electric-car fires. As we saw with the COVID experience, the ruling class can silence its opposition pretty effectively, as disinformation or as armed insurrection. The rulers aren't going to change their policy as a result of a free and balanced discussion of the issues.

I think that the best possibility for reforming the administrative state is for it to run out of money and cause unimaginable hardship among the people that rely on it for jobs, for subsidies, and pensions. Which means all of us.

As for the whole wokey racist-sexist-homophobe thing, it's probably the easiest to fix. But who will be the one to bell the cat?

But I don't see any likelihood of revolution. Looking back at the Age of Revolution, from the Protestants and the 17th century religious wars, and the American and French and Bolshevik revolutions, I'd say they all depended on the rising bourgeoisie and most of all its educated class who were good narrative generators. Today, of course, all the  narrative generators are bought and paid for by the ruling class.

Mind you, I think all the rulers are fools. If you ask me, your rulers-for-life like Putin and Xi are setting up the Napoleonic problem of après moi, le déluge. Yes, geniuses, have you thought about what comes after you exit the stage and your yes-men inherit the throne? Whatabout the neo-kulaks in Ukraine? What is Ukraine good for after you've humiliated and routed them, Vlad? And the deep-state-forever is more stupidity: a good ruling class needs to refresh itself with the energy of newcomers from the lower-classes.

How's this for a possible future.

The populist rebellion just keeps on keeping on. 

Yep, the ruling class kicked Richard Nixon -- leader of the Silent Majority -- outta here.

The ruling class tried to kick Ronald Reagan -- leader of the Reagan Democrats -- outta here, but didn't quite succeed.

The ruling class kicked Donald Trump -- leader of the deplorables -- into the next room, but stay tuned.

Maybe that's how the world changes. With the ordinary middle class just patiently coming back, decade after decade, undaunted, unruffled, just patiently electing men that represent their interests, and suggesting that the ruling class treats them with respect.

Because we ain't going away.

Yes, How Do We Best Help the Poor?

When I drive to the gym in Seattle's Ballard / Ship Canal commercial neighborhood, I notice that many of the businesses have blocked off the street parking with concrete Jersey Barriers. The Jersey Barriers are put there to discourage the homeless from camping there.

Yes. The homeless. What Do We Do about the homeless?

And whatabout the drug epidemic, in general: fentanyl, etc.?

And is the current Democratic plan -- headlined by President Biden in his SOTU March 1, 2022 -- for more government assistance for child-care, pre-K, and health care a good idea?

I mean by this, do these kinds of services benefit Americans in the long term?

Then, I read, the 20,000 aides and staffers in Congress are thinking of forming a labor union. Yes, how has gubmint employee unions worked out so far, sports fans?

And let us leave the question of private-sector labor unions alone, even though my feeling is that labor unions typically thrive in an economic downturn when workers resist pay-cuts from their employers that are, of course, desperately trying to keep their businesses afloat.

See, I think that, probably, the huge amount of monies collected and handed out by government is a terrible idea.

Oh yes, partly because all government spending is a flat out distribution of loot and plunder to regime supporters.

But also because We the People should be doing most of the stuff that government does, on our own time and out of our own pockets, from education, to helping the poor, to dealing with the homeless.

And health care! Supposing health care was run by a combination of Amazon and church ladies?

Or. Suppose health care was organized the same way as auto repair?

And unions. See, I think that unions give people the idea that they have lifetime jobs. Sorry: ain't no such thing. That's what happened to the white working class. They had Good Jobs at Good Wages until all of a sudden, they didn't. Part of that was that government-regulated employer-worker relationships had helped unions bid labor rates way above market. Part of that was that workers comfortably fluffed up in a union job don't feel the need to keep their skills up to date.

Education? I don't know what kids should be learning today, and how they should be doing it, but I do know that when the government schools are all invested in renaming schools and critical race theory training, then Houston We Have a Problem.

Oh yes. Then there's the Science™. All the fashionable people know that the latest thing is "emergence." The world doesn't work by top-down administration but by creative "emergence" of new ideas and techniques and social and economic relationships.

But when so many things are administered as government programs, there is no opportunity for "emergence" to emerge. Did I mention my Four Laws?

Socialism cannot work because it cannot compute prices (Mises). 

The administrative state cannot work because the Man in Washington does not have the bandwidth to run the economy (Hayek). 

Regulation does not work because “regulatory capture” (Stigler). 

Government programs cannot work because you can never reform them (Chantrill).

This is not rocket science. 

Here in America we have the white working class dying of despair. We have black "aspiring rappers" stealing and shooting each other and spongeing off baby-mamas. We have the educated elite swanking around in credentialed sinecures. And we have government with a debt of way over 100 percent of GDP.

Something's got to give.

Biden SOTU: Wokeyness to the Tune of FDR

I watched the SOTU last night, although I didn't hear much of the Ukraine part, because I was cooking dinner. The impression I got was that President Biden was achieving miracles with moral support for Ukraine.

But whatabout the rest of it? It was weird, when you think about it. Because it was the usual glorious handout of loot and plunder to the supporters, rendered with Biden's shtick that he's just good old Lunchpail Joe from Delaware.

Only, the Dems aren't the party of the lunchpail set any more.

And the handouts were, first, the pre-K and child-care and abortion and health care proposals. Plus a shoutout to LBGTQ and good old Joe having the backs of the Trans people. And, of course, 500,000 charging stations.

So really, the supporters of the Democrats are single mothers and LGBT activists and greenies.

I know. We already knew that.

OK. So there was a lot of misdirection on the inflation front, with Joe telling us that he is fighting for lower costs. On insulin and prescription drugs. And the outrage of shippers raising their prices! OMG!

Then I was having coffee with a retired friend who really still cannot figure out where Trump came from. I rehearsed the whole populist thing from Nixon and the Silent Majority to today's MAGA and trucker protests.

But the thing is that if you are an ordinary educated person in the US you will know nothing about this, because the MSM -- regime media -- is clueless about it too.

Seriously. To me, if you are the ruling class, you need to know exactly what the peasants are up to, and why. Instead, it seems to me, our rulers are blindsided by the populist rebellion. With Trudeau at the Battle of the Bouncy Castle fighting against Nazis. And our rulers blathering on about "armed insurrectionists."

It is easy for us armed insurrectionists to attribute evil intent to our rulers. But if you apply Hanlon's Razor, and

never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,

then the likelihood is that the Dems really don't get it. They live inside their DC and regime-media bubble and the Tea Party, the deplorables, the Trump effect, the trucker convoys are basically inexplicable.

Remember, our rulers today have a universal explanation for everything. It's racism-sexism-homophobia. Always. Everywhere.

Hey rulers! Do you think that maybe the natives are restless because your economic policy and your race policy and your energy policy and your border policy and your policing policy and your mandate policy area all really hitting ordinary people right in the solar plexus?

But they don't get it, and neither do their supporters. We had some liberal friends over for dinner a couple nights ago, and one of the women breathed something about "disinformation." And today I read that in California Democrats are pushing legislation to crack down on "disinformation."

These people have no idea that all governments everywhere are stupid and incompetent, lie about everything, and then insist that anyone that disagrees is an enemy of the people.

Well, on to November.

Hey Vlad: Otto von Bismarck Here

I get it, that Vladimir Putin wants to restore the glory of the Great Russian Rus. But I wonder if he is going about it the right way.

See back in the day, Otto von Bismarck had a similar problem. The German speaking world was all divided up into numerous cities and states and principalities. It was all called the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation,headed by a Holy Roman Emperor, but so what?

Of course, Bismarck had the example of Frederick the Great of Prussia who snitched Silesia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1740s. But that didn't create a German nation. It was just the monarchs of Central Europe diddling with border provinces.

Bismark's genius was to understand how to create a nation. You must unite all the parts of the nation by getting them all to fight a war against someone else.

So first, in 1862 Bismarck fought and won a war against the Danes (!). Just to show that he could do it.

Then in 1866 Bismarck defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian war. After the war he created a North German Confederation out of 21 northern German states.

Then in 1870 Bismarck defeated France in the Franco-Prussian war. After the war he created a united Germany by persuading the southern German states that had fought against France to join the Reich.

Of course, after Bismarck came Kaiser Bill, Wilhelm II, and he was a complete fool that threw away all that Bismarck had built up.

Do you see, Vlad, how your attempt to create a united Russia by humiliating and conquering Ukraine is the complete opposite of what Bismarck did?

Do you note, Vlad, how Bismark's war with Austria meant that Austria ended up outside the German Reich that he created in his three wars. So, do you think that, maybe, defeating Ukraine is perhaps not the way to unite a glorious new Russia?

Now, I don't pretend to know how to unite all the states of the former Soviet Union into a new united Russia. And I don't know what country you would invade to unite all the divided Russians into one nation. That's above my pay grade.

I'm just noting that you are not going about Russian reunification the way that Bismarck did. And Bismarck was perhaps the smartest politician of the 19th century.

There is another possibility. Back in the day, you could certainly say that there was a good argument for uniting the German people. Your Russkies and your Frogs -- and even the Swedes -- had been marching all over the German lands for centuries.

But Russia? Why, we know that Rule One is Don't Invade Russia, signed Napoleon and Hitler. So I would say that the various Russian and Russian-related republics could live perfectly happily forever after without having to unify. Because who wants to invade Russia from the north, south, or west? Nobody.

Now, there is an argument that down the road the Chinese might decide that they have an ancient and sacred right to occupy and rule eastern Siberia. In that case, Vlad, you might need some friends from the west. 

Just sayin'.

Ukraine: I Don't Know Nuffink

Everyone has a lot to say about Ukraine and the Russian invasion. I have to say that I don't believe anything I read and I don't know what's really going on.

I just have questions:

Whatabout Color Revolutions? La Wik calls them innocent risings of the people. But Russia and China call them US-inspired meddling.

Is Ukraine a US puppet? I'd say a big "tell" is how President Biden was boasting back in the day about withholding $1 billion in aid. And how Hunter Biden has been involved in Ukraine energy companies like Burisma. Ukraine would give a dime to Hunter Biden if there weren't some sort of quid-pro-quo involved.

Is Russia winning, is Ukraine resisting? I feel that nothing I read about the war tells me anything. Wake me when it's over.

Whatabout NATO and the EU? Funny, we haven't heard much from NATO. But the EU seems to be getting involved. And the Germans seem to be waking up from a long slumber. And there seems to be popular support for helping Ukraine, in Europe and in North America: what's that all about?

Whatabout energy? I just don't get the disconnect between renewable energy and buying natural gas from Russia.

How powerful is Russia anyway? Here's the GDP table of estimates for 2022.

Country	GDP per capita nominal	GDP per capita PPP
United States	$74,725	$74,725
Germany	$51,860	$56,956
Poland	$19,056	$40,341
Lithuania	$22,412	$41,288
Russia	$11,654	$29,485
Ukraine	$4,958	$15,124

I mean. Russia and Ukraine are not exactly economic powerhouses. Even ex-Soviet satellites Poland and Lithuania are way ahead in the GDP game. So what's that all about?

Then there's China:

Country	GDP per capita nominal	GDP per capita PPP
Taiwan	$32,123	$56,959
China	$12,990	$20,667

Just for comparison. Interesting how Russia and China are both in the same GDP ballpark. And Taiwan is more or less in the Germany ballpark.

So what happens next?

Really, I have no idea, although I do expect our western leaders to exhibit a fair amount of stupidity.

But here's my idea. Suppose that the US backed out of NATO and ended the military occupation of Germany. Don't you think that Germany and Poland could do a pretty good job of keeping Russia at home?

And whatabout Nikole Hannah Jones:

What if I told you Europe is not a continent by defintion, but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia and so the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us.

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) February 27, 2022

You know. I think she has a point. We are outraged at Russia beating up the Ukrainians. But don't care so much when the US Imperial Forces beat up on rag heads and fuzzie-wuzzies.

I Know, How About a Great Reset on US Foreign Policy

One thing about ruling classes and the governments they work for: they ain't that smart.

And part of that comes from living in a court or working in a bureaucracy. Both kinds of institutions are go-along-to-get-along shops. Indeed, I've heard it said that the normal arc of a bureaucracy is to do less and less for more and more until the operation is nothing more than bureaucrats sitting around getting their paychecks and discussing their pensions.

So, if you are the president or the monarch it is very difficult to change policy. Because the bureaucrats and their jobs are all aligned with the same-old-same-old.

Such as NATO.

The whole point of NATO was to be an alliance of brothers that stood shoulder to shoulder against the Soviets. Because Stalin, because all the Commie eastern European puppet governments. Yay!

And then, just to prove we were right, the Soviets organized their puppet governments into a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. Yay!

But then the Soviet Union -- an empire as a bureaucracy -- fell apart and the Eastern European puppet governments all became normal corrupt democracies like ours.

So, with the Soviet threat ended, our wise and worthy leaders...

They kept NATO going, and enrolled most of the Eastern European countries into NATO, and even invited Ukraine to be a part of NATO.

So, if you were the President of Russia, what would you think? Would you think that the eevil American empire had it in for you? Or would you just go about your business whistling a happy tune from Boris Godunov?

So here is my fearless forecast of the future, with help from one of my grandsons.

2021 - We lost Afghanistan

2022 - We lose Ukraine

2023 - We lose Taiwan

2024 - We lose Biden

Somewhere in there is losing COVID and losing on inflation. But that would make the message too complicated.

Yes, Democrats and Deep State and 17 intelligence agencies: how can you expect to win an election after you have lost three wars on your watch -- even if they are mostly phoney wars?

And then President Trump or DeSantis -- or whoever -- will have the mandate to completely cut the US Imperial Forces down to size. Then we

Cancel our membership in NATO.

Remove the occupation force in Germany.

Close 97.2 percent of US bases overseas.

It is essential to do this right away while the accusation of "He lost Afghanistan; He lost Ukraine, etc." made in the 2024 campaign is still echoing through the corridors of power, and before the deep state has a chance to organize and push back against the new president and his operatives.

Curtis Yarvin recommends that we give the retired bureaucrats full pensions. Because that's all they care about anyway. But I also think they should each get a medal.

Now, I don't really blame our Democratic friends for this total cock-up on the foreign policy front. All this is normal. It is what you expect from government. Governments keep doing same-old-same-old until the day that the whole thing falls apart. You got something you don't want to change? Turn it into a government program.

You want a society that responds flexibly and creatively to the inevitable storm and stress of life on this planet? Then keep government down to the absolute minimum.

Our globalist friends have been talking a big line in recent years about The Great Reset, by which they mean a whole raft of new government programs from climate change to Social Credit ID. The fact that they think that such a thing, pushed by the ruling class, is a good idea just tells you how little they know.

But I think it would be a good idea for the next president to steal the notion of the Great Reset, and call his revolution in foreign policy a Great Reset. 

Just to confuse things and throw dust in the eyes of the current ruling class.

Truckers are not Revolutionaries

My pal Curtis Yarvin is sneering at the Canadian truck parade as a failed revolution. And he has a point: if the truckers were trying to overthrow the Canadian government they were a pathetic zero. Successful revolutionaries look and act like The French Revolution's Saint Just and our own Lenin and Mao.

It is understandable that Yarvin would look at the truckers that way; his thing is "the next regime" and his ideal is a revolution where the present ruling class just walks out the door, accepting that its time is over.

But the truckers weren't trying to take over the government of Canada; they were just looking for some R-E-S-P-E-C-T. As the song goes. They were just saying, please stop messing with our lives and our jobs.

Hey, Canadian ruling class! How hard is that, to listen to the truckers and say, yes, you guys have a point? And then ignore them, as the ruling class generally does with jumped-up peasants? Or maybe concede some ridiculously small issue, patting the peasants on the back, and laughing to each other as the peasants  touch their forelocks before going back to the farm.

Anyway, now the whole thing is over, because all of a sudden on February 24, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the end of the emergency, just two days after the House of Commons voted in favor of a 30-day extension. Was the sudden change because the emergency was going to be defeated in the Canadian Senate? Or because Canadian banks were experiencing a run on accounts that could be frozen at any moment for any reason?

So I would say that the Canadian government made a ridiculous overreaction to the trucker protest. Hey, geniuses, you think that after two years of government ukases and mandates that the natives would be getting a bit restless? What? You never thought of that?

Remember back in the day when the Brit imperialists would report that "the natives are restless?" The point to understand is that the Brit imperial colonialists understood that they were governing a people that they didn't really understand. So when the natives got restless they understood "Houston we have a problem."

They did not spew out a paragraph of pejoratives, as Trudeau did, calling the truck protesters out for "antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia."

OK, let us understand, as economist Ludwig von Mises did when dealing with Austrian government officials in the 1910s to 1920s, that the vast majority of them are startlingly ignorant. As Joseph Schumpeter wrote in his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, the trade of the politician is re-election. That he should do anything effective on the governing front is remarkable.

What Justin Trudeau is teaching us is that he really believes the political formula of today's educated class, that they are allies of the oppressed classes against white oppressors. And that the white oppressors are the enemy, and that the average white middle-class person is the enemy.

I suppose that it is a danger for any ruling class, that its functionaries actually come to believe the narrative and the lies that support it.

And the narrative of every ruling class is a farrago of lies, whether it is the feudal lords plundering their peasants, or the American revolutionaries that didn't want to pay for the French-Indian War, or the Progressives that gave us our administrative state and its entitlement programs and regulations, or the current woke elite that is desperately blaming the ordinary middle class for the failure of all the welfare-state programs from education to welfare, or the Trumpian nonsense about Making America Great Again.

What a wise ruling class understands is that over there in flyover land, the peasants see things differently than the rulers, and that this is normal. And a wise ruling class understands that everything it does takes monies away from A and gives it to B, and that A tends not to like that. This truth is inscribed in the First Amendment, which speaks about "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The First Amendment, in its wisdom, understands that there will always be this group or that group that gets all riled up and reckons that "we was robbed" and wants to do something about it.

And yes, all assemblies, and demonstrations, and protests are really a show of strength, to communicate to the government that here is a bunch of people that are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more, to threaten, by their very presence and numbers, that they could turn the show of force into actual violence. But all such shows of force are better than an actual deployment of force.

And by the way, elections are another show of force, for when you win an election by getting the most votes, you are basically saying that we have the biggest army.

So I think that the Trudeau policy of actually representing the truckers as regime opponents is a strategic mistake. Just as I believe that the whole January 6 narrative of the Democrats is a strategic mistake.

Instead, I would recommend a National Committee to Review Cross-Border Trucking Regulations for our Canadian friends. And a National Commission to Investigate 2020 Election Irregularities for our Democratic friends.

I mean, there's nothing to worry about, right? The trucking regulations are as right as right could be, and a National Committee would soon confirm that. The 2020 presidential election was completely on the up-and-up, and an in-depth Commission would merely confirm it.

Exactly. So why are Canada's Liberals and US Democrats so touchy about all this? Surely, there is no possibility that where there is smoke there is fire?

I tell you, as I write this piece, I am thinking to myself: what is the problem with our ruling classes? How come they are so touchy? How come they are deploying pejoratives left, right and center?

Could it be that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark?