European Alchemists Produce Miracles

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Eureka!
So the Greeks are headed back to the polls. They just can not come to terms with the treatment for their addiction to a state-sponsored easy life. Their methadone is called austerity. Austerity is the long, painful cure for many years of socialized, nanny-state welfare that the government ladled out so generously.

Why suffer the pain of withdrawal when Greek socialist parties promise to reject austerity, they ask. But like every addict who craves one last fix, another day of pleasure accelerates the arrival of the day when the piper must be paid.

If the Eurozone declines further bailouts, the Greek government (assuming the politicians can actually agree on who is going to govern) will eventually have to slam and lock the lid on empty state coffers. And then what?

Monsieur Goldfinger
Meanwhile, the French seem blinkered to the world around them. They just elected a new president, Francois Hollande, on a ticket rejecting austerity in favour of growth through higher taxation. C’est formidable, Monsieur Hollande. And for your next trick can you transmute base metals into gold?

Make the Rich Pay Their Fair Share!

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How about this for fairness? Make the rich pay no taxes at all.

I can just picture the reaction of the mandarins and activists of the labour movement. Apoplectic barely begins to describe how they might receive such an idea. Bulging neck veins, purple faces, explosions of outrage.

What a splendid incentive for the entrepreneurial spirit. Make lots of money and you can keep it! But surely that would be unfair to the great unwashed masses wouldn’t it? Well, based on the old adage that if you feed a stallion enough oats, some will pass right through its system to feed the sparrows, no.

So everybody would have the same incentive. The stallions would bite down on the bit and gallop into the fray; the sparrows would sit around chirping dissent until distracted by the sight of discarded stallion oats.

So how would it work in practise? The left might have us believe the stallions would squirrel all their ill-gotten gains into overseas investments; but why would they? If their wealth is untaxed they have every incentive to splash it about in their own backyard.

Remember when the US imposed a wealth redistribution tax on luxury yachts? The stallions stopped buying luxury yachts and thousands of sparrows employed by yacht builders lost their jobs.

Want to guarantee employment for sparrows? Subsidize luxury yachts for the rich!

Let’s face it; there will always be stallions and there will always be sparrows. Sparrows are poor because, well, that is their self-perception. Stallions are rich because, in the main, they have a vision that they pursue through thick and thin.

Dangle a carrot in front of a stallion and you had better step aside quickly or be caught in the stampede. Dangle a carrot in front of a sparrow and he will complain his carrot isn’t big enough.

So let’s put incentives where they are are going to get the loudest bang from the gong – that’s fair.

It’s True – the Arctic is Melting!

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Frozen Northwest Passage in Mid-Summer

The Frozen Northwest Passage in Mid-Summer

So, the famous Northwest Passage is becoming increasingly navigable due to the rapid retreat of arctic ice caused by climate change?  Who can challenge that? We have all seen the dramatic video clips of rapid ice melt. Can it be true? Well yes, fellow evil deniers, it’s all true. Well, sort of.

Of course, the more questions we ask the more we learn. I always suspected the warm-mongers had chosen the Arctic for their worst prognostications on the premise that very few people ever go there. I am one of the few and I ask a lot of questions.

I spent a few “days” in the Canadian hamlet of Resolute Bay, Nunavut in the summer of 1999. The Sun made lazy circles in the sky in 24 hour cycles. The beach at Resolute Bay meets the Northwest Passage, which was so well-covered in ice that I walked on the warm-mongers water on midsummer’s day.

So, in what way are the warm-mongers right?

I asked an awful lot of questions while I was in “Res”. The ice breaks up for a few weeks around August each year. At that time the supply ships can get into the bay. Yes, the Northwest Passage becomes navigable and the ice melts. However, the respite from eternal winter lasts only a few short weeks before the bay refreezes.

So, if you take a snapshot of the Arctic during the summer thaw, all the evidence is there to support the worst assertions of Gore et al.

Spain Discovers Miracle Cure for Unemployment

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Spanish trade unions are spitting mad. That is usually a good sign for capitalism. Whatever incurs the wrath of the left is usually a positive sign for the economy.

Faced with record unemployment, the Spanish government has relaxed employment standards in a bid to entice employers to hire more workers. One might have expected union bosses to weigh the relative merits of unemployment against marginal compensation losses for their members. But no; the fat cats of the organized labour movement prefer to rule over a world where pain and suffering is dished out equally to all – except, perhaps, themselves.

But what a splendid revelation on behalf of the Spanish government. I wonder if other western leaders are watching and listening. Instead of pandering to organized labour by erecting ever higher barriers to employment, the mandarins in Madrid have resorted to common sense. Let us hope the idea spreads around the rest of the world.