Category Archives: Business

UPDATED (7/9/018): Non-‘Shithole’ Countries Seem To Recover Quickly From Disasters, Natural Or Man-Made

Business, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Human Accomplishment, IMMIGRATION, Intelligence, Technology

In 2008, Iceland collapsed under the weight of its banking industry’s federal-reserve like excesses.

In 2018, Iceland’s is a red hot economy. The highly able population has shifted from finance to technology and tourism. No bailout—allowing the banks to collapse and a natural recovery take place—has a lot to do with it.

“… rather than stepping in with taxpayers’ money like the British and Americans did, the Icelandic government let its banks go bust.”

Likewise did Chile cope reasonably well with what was “one of the most powerful earthquakes in history.” We hear nothing of Chile’s struggles to recover.

Not so Haiti, the Africa of the Western Hemisphere.

Haiti is forever convulsed by political and natural disasters. It remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where four out of five people live in poverty and more than half in abject poverty (NYT).

It’s nearly two decades since a pair of earthquakes struck El Salvador in 2001. The US government granted Salvadorians a generous grant of privilege in the late 1990s, in the form of a temporary protected status (TPS) for nearly 200,000.

Ditto the “Haitians who were stranded after an earthquake in 2010.”

To the din of protest, “the United States’ Department of Homeland Security had only recently revoked the so-called temporary protection (it lasted nearly 2 decades).

“Shithole countries,” a Trump coinage, don’t seem to recover very well from disasters, natural or man-made, do they?

SEE RELATED READING:

“Trump’s ‘Shithole’ Controversy Deconstructed (Part 1)”
“Why Trump Pooh-Poohed ‘S-ithole’ Countries (Part 2)”

UPDATE (7/9/018):

Meanwhile in Haiti ...

As riots erupt in Haiti, never forget that the country's extreme poverty and problems were caused by white people: https://t.co/M8PUTNHjPj pic.twitter.com/wHI5c8qRtE

— The Root (@TheRoot) July 9, 2018

NEW COLUMN: UPDATE II (6/8): The Demonization Of Whites By Mrs. Bill Gates & Other Dangerous Idiots

Affirmative Action, Business, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Race, Racism, Terrorism

“The Demonization Of Whites By Mrs. Bill Gates & Other Dangerous Idiots” is the current column, now on WND.com and Unz Review. An excerpt:

Melinda Gates, a silly woman with an enormously wealthy husband, has decided to reinvent herself as a venture capitalist. With a difference.

With her husband’s billions, Mrs. Gates announced her intention to venture into funding start-up companies that are likely to fail.

In an interview with Fortune Magazine, Gates “bashed ‘white guys,’” and vowed to favor women and people of color in her investment choices.

Using pigment and gender as criteria in allocating her abundant resources is hardly a prudent investment strategy.

But Mrs. Gates can afford to lose money. Her husband is Bill Gates, a lily-white billionaire (with lots of liver spots).

From the vertiginous heights of ignorance, Mrs. Bill Gates has scolded the venture-capital industry:

“Enough with your love for ‘the white guy in a hoodie’” (whatever that means).

Thanks to her husband’s vast riches, Melinda’s son, Rory John Gates, will remain insulated from discrimination visited on white men, by vindictive women like Mommy Dearest, in the name of “white privilege” (whatever that means).

“White men must be stopped: The very future of mankind depends on it”: While the article is from 2015, Salon and other influential leftist news sites have furnished sequels to the “salutary” warning, issued by the magazine in time for Christmas.

“White men must be stopped”? What precisely does that mean?

In the postmodern tradition, the pseudo-academics behind the concept of white privilege have invented for themselves an artificial, political construct.

Political constructs confer power on those who dream them up. For politics is the predatory process through which the figment of sick minds is weaponized. …

READ THE REST. “The Demonization Of Whites By Mrs. Bill Gates & Other Dangerous Idiots” is now on WND.com and Unz Review.

UPDATE (6/8):

Another neat letter:

—–Original Message—–
From:
Sent: Thursday, June 7, 2018 6:10 PM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: White Privilege

Ms. Mercer,

Love your article (as sad as it is) regarding “The White Problem.” I’ve always said that calling for an “end” to “white privilege” really means an *end* to *white people*. And it is no different from Germans already talking about a “Jewish problem” as early as the mid-18th century.

Unfortunately, America will go the way that white South Africa went. Truly a tragedy. And the irony is that it is white people who are to blame due to their idiotic “white guilt.”

Thanks for being so honest and truthful – unlike the faux “con-servatives” who pooh-pooh Afrosupremacim and Europhobia.

P.S. “Vertiginous”? Had to look it up. Great word!

P.P.S. Would you mind letting me know who is the “lightweight” idiot on FOX who called it “goofy”?

UPDATE II: Interesting thread on Jack Kerwick’s Facebook page:

Ilana Mercer But Jack Kerwick, it’s much bigger than that: Civilization was practically built by white men. Is there anything in your house that hasn’t been invented by this much-maligned cohort? Do a little exercise. I do it. I can be watching anything from the detailed investigation of an aviation accident to a piece of great music (say Bach), to the history of the 747. I say to myself, “Thanks G-d for Africa, where this stuff was invented.” Reality check.

PLASTIC POLLUTION: Bans vs. Recycling Solutions

Business, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Regulation

Independent Institute: | www.independent.org

… One need only compare Disneyland, for example, with a
national park or a public beach to see the environmental
benefits of privatization.

EPS (expanded polystyren) producers themselves have little incentive
to invest in recycling technologies, since creating
new EPS is cheaper than recycling it. Foam takeout
packaging is cheaper than most paper alternatives,
making it appealing to food vendors (particularly
small vendors).

Governments that already manage waste disposal have some incentive to try to control
the problem, but they may not be best equipped
to do so, or the most efficient at handling the
problem. As mentioned above, blanket bans of EPS
products in food service can generate economic
and environmental costs, and thus it may not be an
effective solution to pollution.
Private Action

Private recyclers and companies have made progress
in reducing the impact of EPS pollution. Some private
companies are making decisions to move away from
EPS of their own accord. Other private companies
are looking at making recycling more efficient and
more accessible.

Several large retail companies—Dunkin’ Donuts,
Target, McDonald’s, Crate and Barrel, and others—
have announced or implemented plans to phase out EPS
packaging in favor of paper and more easily recyclable
plastic options. Dunkin’ Donuts says that the shift is
“part of its commitment to serve both people and the
planet responsibly,” which echoes the sentiments of other
companies moving away from EPS.

Starbucks® recently announced a $10 million grant to encourage development
of a new, more environmentally friendly coffee cup.

Larger companies that can afford to shift away from
EPS products to more expensive alternatives may do so
in response to public pressure and in an attempt to be
better corporate citizens. If local governments are intent on
implementing EPS bans, they would do better to focus on
large companies that can afford to make the change, rather
than small, local businesses that get hit hard by EPS bans.

Other private groups are working to advance EPS
recycling efforts. Since most municipal recyclers do not
recycle EPS, most of the material ends up in landfills
or wherever the wind takes it. Some private companies
will pick up used, clean EPS and recycle it for a small
price. Unfortunately, most of those recyclers accept only
uncontaminated EPS and, even then, frequently operate
at a loss. Sedona Recycles, a nonprofit recycler in Sedona,
Arizona, says that recycling EPS costs them $725.85 per
pallet.

They continue to recycle, using donations, and
try to reduce EPS pollution with every pallet they process …

READ THE REST: “PLASTIC POLLUTION: Bans vs. Recycling Solutions.”

1 Reason The State Department Turned On #RexTillerson: He Tried Trimming Budgets & Getting Rid Of Deadwood

Business, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Free Markets, Government, Political Economy, Taxation, The State

The Economist notes that Rex Tillerson was a poor secretary of state—but not for the reasons I would advance.

One reason for their opinion is that, “Disastrously for morale, he declined to defend his own department when the White House proposed cutting its budget by 25% or more … Mr Tillerson squandered goodwill with a corporate restructuring that felt to many staff like an invitation to resign. At one point, outside consultants sent round a questionnaire asking: “To optimally support the future mission of the Department, what one or two things should your work unit totally stop doing or providing?” (“Trump Unbound: In foreign affairs, America just moved closer to one-man rule,” March 17, 2018.)

TILLESRSON TRIED TO CUT GOVERNMENT! Defending your employees, The Economist here equates with increasing or maintaining the budget for the department, it diplomats, envoys and other career and or deadwood staff.

State institutions are self-reinforcing and not amenable to reform; they grow through failure.

So while it would be nice if state institutions were able to reform, because of the structure of incentives, the state cannot be corrected. The incentive structure underlying state institutions is antithetical to reform.

To correct processes that may be killing people—affirmative action, when the subject of special privileges isn’t qualified—you have to cut budgets in the billions. This likely will never happen, in state institutions, because they don’t abide by the profit motive. So to express belief in this is to express belief in the possibility of the state fixing itself.

The libertarian grasps that the state grows through inefficiency. The more it bungles—the greater its budget will be. Economically, the state’s incentives are inverted. A private company, on the other hand, grows through economic and performative efficiencies; by singles the customer. The state is the opposite. As a monopoly, it need please nobody. For example, the education system is a giant failure. Will it be scrapped? Of course not. The system will reward itself with MORE, not less, funds to fix the problem.

This is a structural fact of the state.

Why can the state grow and prosper through inefficiency? Because it has access to the funds of an indentured third party, taxpayers, and has the promiscuous use of the printing press.

A private institution can come back from the abyss, because, economically, it will go bust if it doesn’t start pleasing customers. However, if, like the Florida bridge collapse, a private enterprise is working in tandem with the state, then taxpayers bail it out.

Profit is privatized, loss is socialized.

Most people no longer read or understand the economics of the state. Ten years ago, I had readers who had at least read Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.