By Warren Court, Warren’s SpaceMay 22, 2024.
excerpt:
The recent attacks and counterattacks are a continuation of 70 years of unresolved relations between the Palestinian and Jewish residents. Prime Minister Netanyahu is adamantly opposed to revising the future of the two-state solution (the Oslo Accords), as is Saudi Arabia. Ireland, Norway and Spain will formally recognize Palestine as a state starting next week, and other countries are expected to follow suit.
The challenges that have been insurmountable so far are not the result of the concentration of Jews in what is now Israel, but the determination to make the country a democratic Jewish state. A religious state like Iran is always going to have problems. For Israel to become a democratic Jewish state, it would have to somehow get rid of the Palestinian majority. America’s founding fathers were wise enough to forbid that by including separation of church and state in the Constitution.
If Israel were to renounce its Jewish statehood, it could remain a democratic state, annexing its entire territory from the river to the sea, with all its inhabitants enjoying equal rights and equal protection of the law, and consider a federal system with small districts with local government bodies and Muslim and Jewish majorities. https://wcoats.blog/2024/01/19/one-state-solution-for-palestine-israel/
By David J. Beer Cato of FreedomMay 24, 2024.
excerpt:
The third creation came on May 24, 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge signed the Nationality Quota Act, imposing the first permanent cap on legal immigration. Prior to the 1924 law, all would-be immigrants were considered eligible unless the government had evidence showing they were ineligible. The 1924 law replaced this system with today’s Soviet-style quota system, which makes people guilty until proven innocent.
No other law has so fundamentally altered the population, economy, politics, and freedoms of America and the world. This law drastically reduced America’s population growth from immigrants and their descendants, which numbered in the hundreds of millions, slowed economic growth, and limited the power and influence of our nation. Post-1924 Americans could no longer freely interact, contract, or trade with people around the world as they had done before.
Due to legal regulations, A huge and nearly impenetrable bureaucracy There are restrictions between Americans and their relatives, spouses, children, employees, friends, business associates, customers, employers, religious leaders, artists, and other peaceful people who can contribute to our lives. These restrictions make the world a much poorer and less free place for Americans and people around the world, and require the creation of massive law enforcement agencies to enforce these restrictions.
My additional thoughts:
People often say that if we get more immigrants, they’ll vote our system out. Indeed, that was my only big concern until I saw the evidence. But look at the evidence here: The United States closed off most immigration in 1924. We reopened it some in 1965. So when did the federal government expand the most? Nearly 40 years ago.
Dave DeCamp, antiwar.com, May 23, 2024.
excerpt:
Russian President Vladimir Putin The decree was signed on Thursday. This would allow the United States to seize U.S. assets in Russia to compensate for Russian assets it has seized.
The order, which could apply to any US person or company with assets in Russia, came after President Biden signed legislation giving him the power to seize Russian assets and use them to pay aid to Ukraine.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States and its allies froze about $300 billion in assets in the Russian central bank. Associated Press, There is approximately $5 billion in Russian sovereign assets that the United States could confiscate and transfer to Ukraine.
Putin’s decree will allow the Russian central bank and companies that have lost assets in the United States to file lawsuits in Russian courts “to prove that their property rights have been unjustly deprived by decisions of U.S. state or judicial authorities and to seek compensation for those losses.”
In essence, Putin is saying, “I understand your collective guilt, and I will nurture you.”
By Lee Ohanian California in MindMay 21, 2024.
excerpt:
California’s budget has gone from a projected $98 billion surplus to a projected $73 billion deficit in just over two years, thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom having enough money to give randomly selected individuals $50,000 for COVID-19 vaccinations.
Much of this could have been avoided if California had not made clearly highly unrealistic future revenue assumptions in 2022 that painted an overly optimistic picture of the state’s finances. In a nutshell, here’s what happened: State tax revenues for fiscal year 2021-22 increased by about 55% over the previous fiscal year, or about $70 billion. This surge in tax revenues largely reflected capital gains realized by taxpayers, particularly higher-income taxpayers who faced a marginal tax rate of 13.3% at the time.
Author: David D. Friedman, daviddfriedman.substack.com, May 23, 2024.
excerpt:
His attitude of treating children as if they were on the same intellectual level as himself also applied more generally. He would argue with anyone. I remember him getting into an argument with the owner of a garage in New Hampshire where I had my car repaired. The owner argued that big companies could always sell what they produced if they spent enough money on advertising. The example he gave was a new car that Ford had just released called the Edsel.
One of my father’s projects was an economics education experiment where he debated with New York City taxi drivers. New York had a taxi medallion system, which still exists today. Under this system, a certain number of medallions were issued, and each medallion gave the owner the right to operate one taxi. Each taxi company must own as many medallions as the number of taxis it operates. Medallions are transferable; if you own one, you can sell it to someone else, and then you have the right to legally operate a taxi. A medallion costs over $100,000 today, and probably did back then.
I had a similar experience when I was 19. In the summer of 1970, I was hitchhiking with my friend Don Redekop. It was a Sunday morning and we were hitchhiking back to one of my favorite lakes, near the Manitoba-Ontario border. A kind man, a typewriter salesman, picked us up. We were still 100 miles away, but somehow the topic of imports came up. He was arguing that the Canadian government should restrict the import of foreign-made typewriters. I, of course, told him that they shouldn’t. He wasn’t hostile, he seemed curious, and he asked me why. So I explained comparative advantage, without using numbers. He resisted, and I explained. Resisted, and explained. As we neared the end of the 100 miles, he admitted that I was right, but he wanted to restrict imports to protect his jobs. We parted ways on friendly terms. (I don’t remember if I made the argument that without import restrictions, the demand for typewriter salesmen would increase rather than decrease. Given my knowledge of economics at the time, I probably wouldn’t have done so.)
