Neo-Whigs Celebrate In Up-State New York

American Whigs have joyfully engineered an $825 million infusion of enpixelated federal funds to establish the Albany Nano Tech complex in the upstate New York capital. Research at the location is to include the further development of  extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, lithography, a component of advanced semiconductor technology. 

 

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Two other similar research and development centers are to be established in as yet to be disclosed locations. The Biden/Harris administration's 2022 Chips and Science Act is the legal structure used to enable the investment. Ostensibly, the legislation is meant to counter advances in AI technology by unfriendly nations, mostly China, but also includes a hodgepodge of other issues related to AGW, space operations and other current crises. 

This follows the successful pressure the US government has put on the Dutch government and leading chip tool manufacturer ASML of the Netherlands to cease exporting the most advanced production tools to Chinese entities.

The justification for these moves is, of course, national security. While no one really knows if artificial intelligence or large language models can even be a significant factor in a military environment and make one nation more dangerous than another, the Whigs can be counted on to explore the issue and distribute  large sums of money. 

In the dim Yankee past the ingredients of national security were made up of simple technologies like the repeating rifle, the steam ship, and mobile artillery, the tank. Now AI systems will evidently direct serious disagreements between armed adversaries. Perhaps AI will at some point be able to convince political leaders that the time is right to unleash devastating force on perceived enemies or even economic competitors. Will it be possible that AI might recommend surrender? If it does will the leaders inform the population?

Isn't it a fact that rather than fear of a Han invasion the US worries that the Chinese will conquer in an economic sense, perhaps negating the advantages of US hyper-capitalism? Is that the national security this activity is meant to insure?

A similar situation existed in the late seventeenth century between the British and the Dutch, each seeking hegemony in the colonial era. The affair was settled diplomatically by the Treaty of Breda in 1667.

 

    

Central Bank Digital Currency

 "Many individuals throughout the world have no access to bank accounts, so a CBDC would give them a way to be paid, hold their money, and pay bills. CBDCs could also decrease the maintenance a complex financial system requires, reduce cross-border transaction costs, and give people who use alternative money-transfer methods lower-cost options."

The above quote is from an Investopedia on-line article on Central Bank Digital Currency. Already adopted in vibrant commercial centers the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria, no doubt to satisfy the demands of the locals, it's probably just a matter of time before the existing digital currency in other localities is replaced by an even better one. Of course adoption of the CBDC will give those without bank accounts the ability to be paid, hold money and pay bills that they haven't had for the last 5000 years or so. While the CBDC may reduce costs throughout the financial system there will surely be some costs. After all, the construction of the giant and complex AI data centers isn't a charity, somebody is looking to make big bucks with an immense digital filing system. The same would be the case with CBDC. 

Most important, any CBDC, as with the digital funds now in use, is completely reliant on reliable electricity. Without power an ATM, which dispenses printed fiat money, is useless. The locals will absolutely need a smart phone to participate in the economy at all but the most primitive level. Depending on the vagaries of wind or sunshine for access to one's money is another problem for which the Net Zero fanatics have yet to consider or provide a solution.

It will be interesting to see if the adoption of a CBDC in the enlightened West will be dependent on a real democratic process or the faux democracy that presently exists where important government decisions are made at the direction of elites, in this case no doubt those of Wall Street.

 

  

AdF Doesn't Like Bauhaus

Bauhaus, the architectural design school created in Germany in 1919 and for some odd reason still influential in many parts of the world, is a contentious subject in East Germany, according to Reuters. 

Bauhaus itself isn't the issue. It's those who object to boxy, ugly brutalist buildings replacing traditional structures. Those objectors are attempting to make a point that was also that of 1930's Nazis. That makes them the heirs of the Nazi culture. 

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Members of the Alternative for Deutschland., invariably designated in the press, both locally and internationally, as "far right wing", aren't in favor of new construction following Bauhaus ideas so they are Nazis. It's important not to continue or resurrect atavistic Nazi concepts. But current Germans and in fact people all over the world drink beer, eat sausages,  and brush their teeth just as the Hitlerites did. But they are not labelled as Nazis.

What makes the AdF neo-nazis is their refusal to accept as normal idiotic government policies. They oppose what has become unlimited immigration and government subsidies for the invaders, similar to what is occurring in the US. They also oppose involvement in the Ukraine-Russia fiasco and favor diplomacy being used to settle an issue with the potential of destroying modern civilization. The AdF finds the efforts to eliminate climate change as futile and destructive of the German economy, both for business and ordinary citizens. Apparently that makes them Nazis, at least in the eyes of their political adversaries. It's similar to what is occurring in the US where politicians label their electoral opponents as fascists or commies. It's just easier that way.       

Jake Sullivan Defends Tariffs On Chinese Imports

 

The SCMP keeps track of US China policy for us, kind of. In an article about the administration's ideas on tariffs on Chinese imports as expressed by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at an event at the Brookings Institution he informs us that  Biden’s approach on China represented a return to “a tradition” of American foreign policy based on the concept of “self-interest rightly understood”.

In 2023 the US imported, mostly from Canada and Mexico, USD 210.3 billion in automobiles from 87 countries. Manufacturers in mainland China shipped $2.5 billion in cars or about 1.2% of US imports.

 

 

Lowest Sea Level Ever Recorded

On Saturday, Oct. 12 the sea level dropped 7.9 feet below the low tide line, the lowest ever recorded at Nome, Alaska. If this sort of thing continues, no doubt due to climate change, bad things will happen in the Bering Sea, whales and walrus might starve or be eaten by polar bears. Seals will head south. Ducks and geese will get out of town for sure.

                                                photo by Anna Leotis  Nome Nugget

 

 

Haitian Rice and Firearms

Spanish English-language on-line news portal El Pais carries an opinion piece on the travails in Haiti, a place well known for unpleasant disasters for the population. This comes because rumors have been going around about Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio eating the local's pets. The article goes on to describe the verifiable problems of the country.

To begin with no mention is made of the fact that Haiti, an island country, shares the island with the Dominican Republic. Certainly through the years the Dominican Republic has had its own share of problems but nothing on the scale of Haiti. The Dominican Republic frequently gets in the news because it's a primary source of US major league baseball stars, not for overpowering social problems.

 

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The satellite photo shows two very divergent landscapes on the same island, one green and healthy, the other barren. Come to your own conclusion.

The writer makes two salient observations: 1. That the endemic violence of Haiti is caused by illegal arms importation Florida gun runners. 2. The domestic rice production of Haiti was destroyed by US President Clinton forcing them to abandon a rice tariff meant to improve the agricultural economy of Arkansas.

In regard to claim #1, arms dealing is meant to be a profitable enterprise for the dealer, who expects to make money on the transaction. In this case, from where do the funds for arms purchases come in a place noted for its poverty? Furthermore, in order for a gun of any kind to be effective ammunition is required. No ammunition is manufactured on Haiti either. It must be purchased, at a premium, from Florida gun gangsters.

Statement #2 makes the point that  a tariff on imported rice was beneficial to Haitian rice growers and its termination meant that rice was no longer grown on the island. This is a common misconception of what tariffs are meant to accomplish and the actual result. In this case, as in all other tariff situations, it raised the price of rice for consumers. Clinton's economic diplomacy meant that without the tariff rice became cheaper. Perhaps that made more funds available for arms purchases.

In any event, neither of the two issues addresses the high level of violence in Haiti. It's apparently deeper than lots of guns and cheap rice.   

 

 

Bill Clinton and Chuck Schumer Both Advocate Increased Immigration

 

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Former Rhodes Scholar and US President Bill Clinton maintained in a speech at a fish fry that immigration was necessary to maintain the economic growth that makes the US such a nifty place because US women are refusing to reproduce. Oswald Spengler predicted and explained this phenomenon years ago in his classic "The Decline of the West".

As many Yankees are coming to realize, increasing amounts of immigration won't produce a dynamic US economy but instead will result in a different national entity as time goes by. Just as the invasion by Europeans eliminated the native cultures and populations in and after the dawn of the 16th century, immigration to Europe and North America will eventually mean the birth of a new culture. All the riches that were showered on the military-industrial complex to prevent the Bolsheviks from changing Texas to a warmer and more Baptist Siberia will have been wasted.

The elites of the West apparently believe that they and their maybe descendants will be insulated from such a development, the current proles just being replaced by a more exotic harmless version. The Ivy League alumni will still be the decision makers.

We regularly hear about the impending doom of Japan from a diminishing birth rate. In fact, we've been hearing about it for many years. But Japan is still around, doing odd Japanese things that are authorized or ignored by the US, who is using the island chain as an advance aircraft carrier in the western Pacific.

The concern over a falling US birth rate has nothing to do with preserving the country as a society or culture. If it did, obviously the educational system and other cultural influences would talk females out of aborting their unborn. This they have not attempted to do. So replacing the deceased isn't about continuity, or sustainability, currently a favorite word, but instead, like everything else, an issue of wealth.

The fertility rate doesn't need to drop very much before the financial mavens worry about the most serious problem, consequent declines in asset values. Most concrete assets decrease in value when the surrounding population falls, except perhaps senior living facilities. Most of the time assets are purchased with the expectation that they will either produce income or increase in value. Homes on the fruited plain aren't just places to live. The idea that they will increase in value makes them an investment, a source of funds for tuition at the senior living facility. For business, real estate is the best security for loans, as long as it increases in value.

A trip through rural America demonstrates how it works. Small towns are, for lack of population, shuttering their operations. Agriculture, the most important industry in the world, now needs a fraction of the work force it once did. The farm land prices are rising but the homes and businesses in the villages are closing up. A decline in fertility will spread this affliction everywhere if immigrants aren't allowed to replace Americans. Someone must pay the rent on the many thousands of new apartments still being built in the suburbs or the banks may be offended.