America’s debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)
The Eurozone is larger than the United States, so America’s debt per capita also exceeds the Eurozone’s. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has a population of 313 million, whereas the Eurozone has a population in excess of 331 million.
Nary a mentioned was made of this apparently minor fact on Fox Business, while the Fox Business anchors discussed Christine Lagarde’s demands for more billions in bailouts from the US to the EU. “More firepower” is how the managing director of the International Monetary Fund described her agency’s requirements.
It’s Lagarde’s prerogative to ask for money to increase her bureaucracy’s sphere of influence. It’s the obligation of the ass with ears who leads the USA to turn her down.
So, it’s not Lagarde’s asking that ought to worry; it’s the fact that, according to Fox News, she expressed confidence that the US would do the “right” thing by her.
It is impossible to distinguish the conservative from the liberal perspective on the gender issue. This was the theme of “The Tarts and ‘Tards’ of Hollywood.” Duly, Fox Businesshammers away today at the glass ceiling fallacy, this time “the ceiling keeping women out of the C-Suite” is said to still “hover over the sharp-elbowed world of Wall Street.”
As with alleged racism, this is the post hoc, backward reasoning error in thinking, whereby discrimination or disadvantage is inferred from the absence of women—or any other group with grievances—from a certain sector.
Recall that, “Another of Obama’s economic prescriptions for a deepening depression was to sign a pay equity act, during which he carped that women still earn just ’78 cents for every dollar men earn?women of color even less.’ Such false assertions rely on comparisons of ‘the average wage of all women working fulltime with the average wage of all men working full time.'”
From “Barack Against The Boys”: “Scholarly reams have been written disputing this phony calculus, as it omits vital variables: How long the woman has been in the work force, her age, experience and education; or whether her career has been put on hold to marry and mother. Just as women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory, so too are they more inclined to enter lower-paying professions: education instead of engineering, for example.”
“Nonetheless, allow me to dispel distaff America’s claims of disadvantage with a decisive argument:
“If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. The fact that the wily entrepreneur doesn’t ditch men in favor of women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.”
The putative attorneys for George Zimmerman (Treyvon Martin’s shooter) demonstrated their professional bona fides by holding a press conference in which these publicity whores—these legal low-lives—impugned a client they have yet to meet in person, and announced to the world they would no longer represent a man who, rumor says, has yet to hire them.
Never seek the services of Hal Uhrig and Craig Sonner; they’re unethical and should probably be disbarred.
“These attorneys continue to make irresponsible statement to the media,’ [and] “now they have throw their own client, George Zimmerman, under the bus by alluding to his possible flight from justice.”
Increasingly—and where they see the opportunity—members of the legal system put media appearances and promotion before the case and the client.
Now it is indeed possible that charging George Zimmerman (will it be man slaughter?), as Corey intends to, in the killing of Treyvon Martin is the right thing to do. Still and all, when the Special prosecutor Corey dismissed the Grand-Jury option, yesterday, it occurred to me then that, like her colleagues discussed in the post above—who’re dancing on a defendant’s grave—we were witnessing a publicity stunt. Or a political move, since state attorneys are always looking for a leg up to the Beltway.
Mr. John Derbyshire, the man whose blurb appears on your book, has been unceremoniously sacked by the eunuchs at NRO.
What an apt appellation for that castrate, Rich Lowry.
Adds Peter Brimelow of VDARE.COM:
“[T]o appease a Left-wing lynch mob, John Derbyshire has just been fired from the new, Politically Correct National Review—despite (or perhaps because of) his unmatched brilliance there, to say nothing of his cancer and his years of loyal service.”
National Review has been PC—and worse, boring—for as long as I can remember.
John, who, as Aditya mentioned, had endorsed my book without flinching, was fired by the intellectual pygmies of NRO, for a tract titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version,“ published at Taki’s Magazine.
UPDATE I: NRO did at least employ John for a long time. They have never considered my work and have never replied to submissions.
UPDATE II: When you read Amy Davidson’s inane histrionic piffle, published in an elite magazine, you realize that ousting John for his views is more about enforcing mediocrity than enforcing conformity.
Americans cannot abide enormous talent, unless it is in a mindless or uncontroversial field such as sport or hard science. You have to be mediocre in writing and thinking and echo one of two party lines. I lived in Canada (I’m a Canadian) where my stuff appeared in the national press, no less. That could never happen in the US.
UPDATE III: Richard Spencer: “… it’s hard to mistake the trajectory of official ‘Conservatism’ as anything other than a gradual degeneration and dumbing-down. NR has gone from James Burnham and Russell Kirk to Kathryn Jean Lopez and various man-children spouting human-rights doctrines. … the mainstream Right [is] much stupider…more defined by the Goldbergs, Ponnurus, Lowrys, and Lopezes of the world…and more obviously a racket and dead-end. …”
UPDATE IV (April 10): In reply to the Facebook thread. Aditya, AMM, and others: To me, the Derb issue is never about whether you agree or disagree with his article, as Richard Spencer does (on FB, I quoted a slice of Spencer’s piece with which I agree). This perennial Soviet-style purging is never about “agreement,” to me. I do not know why people think that if you want to see a lot of well-written, wickedly witty, controversial writing in print (pixels or paper), as I do—you necessarily endorse all of it.
NONSENSE.
During the Iraq war, when the likes of Paul Craig Roberts, myself and other non-Beltway libertarians and paleos were writing up a storm against Bush’s barbarity–and being ousted and banished for it—Roberts noted that readers wanted to see a mirror of their opinions in his writing. This is so true. Readers judge me not in terms of style, thinking; quality of writing, a challenge to consensus, etc., but in accordance with how much I reflect their opinions; do they agree with me.
Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about.
The narrowing of the American mind is not the fault of corporations; its The People’s fault, for heaven’s sake. Corporations would not survive if they ceased to cater to The People, who are tyrants in their own right. This leftist argument misconstrues the direction of the dumbing of America.
I am on record as saying that I am not comfortable with the racialist right’s tack. (To quote: “I think I reflect Western man’s disdain for race as an organizing principle, and for broad generalizations. Good luck with organizing modern westerners around race. I prefer to beat back the state so that individuals regain freedom of association, dominion over property, the absolute right of self-defense; the right to hire, fire, and, generally, associate at will. That’s the route to freedom.”)
But I simply love—and think it is necessary to a free society—to see all well-expressed, eloquent opinion and argument in print, at the pleasure of that print’s owners.
Of course, self-interest plays a role in wanting to see Derb and his work prevail. Derb is one of many canaries in this minefield of our own making.
UPDATE V: Maureen O’Connor of Gawker.com has actually done the job of a journalist in interviewing Derb. I hope he gets a book deal or makes a ton of money out of this shameful episode in the annals of NR.
UPDATE VI: “The first pessimists were the Old Testament prophets.” I love the Prophets, Jeremiah being my favorite. John Derbyshire on The B.S. of A. with Brian Sack (Full)
