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Posts Tagged ‘EU’

Scandinavian Governments Announce “Covid Is Over,” Israel Announces the Vaccine Doesn’t Protect – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on September 28, 2021

Why are the US, UK, EU, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand governments conducting a Holocaust policy against their own people?

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/09/27/scandinavian-governments-announce-covid-is-over-israel-announces-the-vaccine-doesnt-protect/

Paul Craig Roberts

I have had confirmation of my report last Saturday that Norway has terminated all Covid restrictions ( https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/09/25/norway-has-the-opposite-covid-policy-to-the-us-uk-and-eu/ ).  I am uncertain whether it is an immediate termination or the beginning of a phase out.  Norway’s equivalent to the CDC has downgraded Covid-19 to a strong flu. There will be no Covid passport.  In Sweden Covid restrictions are scheduled to end this Wednesday September 29. The Danish government decided two weeks ago to end Covid restrictions.  The President of  Croatia has also declared: “We will not be vaccinated anymore.”  ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXTGgup_Yto )  Have you heard any of this on CNN, NPR, MSNBC or read it in The NY Times?

How do we explain Scandinavia  and Croatia going the opposite direction to the EU?

It is a known fact the the EU government is authoritarian, not democratic.  Power rests in an unelected Commission.  As Covid restrictions are a boon to authoritarianism, perhaps the Scandinavian governments have decided against that direction.

The Scandinavian position is also totally different from the US one where the CNN-NPR-MSNBC-NY Times lie machine and Big Pharma shills such as Fauci, Walensky, and the White House Idiot continue to push for mask mandates, vaccination of children, booster shots, and firings and lockdowns if there is public resistance to any more inoculation.

The lie machine keeps turning out propaganda that adverse reactions to the vaccine are new Covid cases among the unvaccinated, that the vaccine protects despite requiring endless boosters and that if it doesn’t protect it still reduces Covid mortality, that 1,000,000 American children have Covid, and every other lie they can concoct to drive people into more injections. Is profit the only motive?  Probably not. Elite Americans are the largest audience at the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” indoctrinations.

If Scandinavia can recover from the Covid brainwashing, why cannot the US, UK, and EU?

And what is wrong with Israel?  Jews are supposed to be intelligent.  Yet Israel continues a self-defeating policy in the face of Israeli mainstream media broadcasts that the vaccination policy is a total failure—https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/israeli-tv-drops-bombshell-vaccine-seems-useless.  If the English translation of the news broadcast is correct, of the previous day’s new 279 Covid cases in Israel, 259 were “fully vaccinated.”  Only 29 were “unvaccinated.” In other words 90% of the new Israeli Covid cases were fully vaccinated people.

The Israeli news broadcast goes on to report that the US CDC has admitted that people infected with the “Delta variant” have the same viral load whether or not they are fully vaccinated. In other words, vaccinated people can spread the virus as easily as the unvaccinated and thus the policy of excluding vaccinated Covid patients from quarantine is nonsensical. The news announcer says such questions are not discussed because of concern that people will not bother to take the vaccine. The only remaining reason the news announcer can find for taking the vaccine is the unverified, and almost certainly false, claim that whereas you have no protection from the vaccine against catching Covid, you have a smaller chance of dying from the virus if you are vaccinated.  This conclusion leaves out the known injuries and deaths from the vaccine itself, but there is probably a limit to what the news organization can report.

So there you have it.  The only remaining justification for being vaccinated is the unverified claim that although the vaccine will not reduce your chance of catching Covid, it will reduce your chance of dying from Covid as long as you ignore the chance of serious health injury or death from the vaccine itself.

Obviously, Israel should turn an eye to India, Japan, and Africa where Ivermectin is in widespread use and has shut down Covid.  This policy is far more safe, efficient, and much less costly than the mRNA vaccines.  Why is the Israeli government ignoring the obvious solution and instead conducting a Holocaust policy against Israeli Jews?

Why are the US, UK, EU, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand governments conducting a Holocaust policy against their own people?

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I thought Italy would be next to leave the EU; now I’m convinced it will be Hungary because it looks like Brexit all over again — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2021

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/533124-hungary-leaves-eu-orban-huxit/

Paul A. Nuttall is a historian, author and a former politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2019 and was a prominent campaigner for Brexit. I believe Viktor Orban could be readying his country for ‘Huxit’. If he is not, then he is playing a high-stakes game of poker with the overlords in Brussels.

Earlier this week, Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian Nation) ran a headline saying, “it is time to talk about Huxit.” This is a huge development because the newspaper is considered to be the unofficial mouthpiece of Orban’s government.  

Last month, the newspaper announced that “the time has come, now in July 2021, to seriously consider the possibility of our withdrawal from a union of states with a thousand bleeding wounds, showing imperial symptoms, and treating the eastern and central European countries incredibly arrogantly.

The newspaper also stated that there is a culture clash between Western and Eastern European values, something I argued on RT.com last month. Similarly, Magyar Nemzetopined that “our paths have diverged as the West now consciously… breaks from Christian morality and values. Instead, they aim to build a cosmopolitan, faceless world society based on the unbridled self-enjoyment and self-destruction of the individual… we Hungarians, Poles and central and eastern European people hold on to our cultural and religious foundations.”

Reading this came like a welcome dose of déjà vu to an old Brexiteer like myself. All the way back in November 2010, the Daily Express, became the first mainstream British newspaper to come out in favour of the UK leaving the European Union.

The Daily Express announced that “from this day forth our energies will be directed to furthering the cause of those who believe Britain is Better Off Out.” And continued, “after far too many years as the victims of Brussels larceny, bullying, over-regulation and all-round interference, the time has come for the British people to win back their country and restore legitimacy and accountability to their political process.”

See the rest here

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Spain Complains To EU Over Soaring Cost Of Electricity; But Guess What… | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on August 5, 2021

What you are never and it is the same for all corporate taxes: “Utility companies pass on the cost of that tax to their customers.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/spain-complains-eu-over-soaring-cost-electricity-guess-what

Tyler Durden's Photoby Tyler Durden

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Record High Prices 

The Independent reports Record-High Electricity Bills Draw Criticism to Spain’s Gov’t.

The government says that the latest hikes in electricity bills are driven by spiraling prices of so-called carbon certificates, which give companies the right to release carbon dioxide, gas imports that Spain needs to complete its energy mix, and the surging power demand of the summer months.

In the latest effort to rein in prices, lawmakers were voting Wednesday on whether to uphold the government’s move last month to cut the value-added tax on most households’ electricity bills from 21% to 10% until the end of this year and to scrap a 7% tax on power generation for at least three months. Utility companies pass on the cost of that tax to their customers.

Facua, one of Spain’s biggest consumer rights platforms, said that Spaniards will see on average a 35% hike on their July electricity bill compared to the same month in 2020. The increase comes at a time when many households are grappling with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Environment Minister Teresa Ribera said that she had written a letter to the EU’s executive branch stressing the need to reform the bloc’s electricity market, but warned that the upward trend in prices was likely to continue in the coming months.

Spain Urges EU to Act on Soaring Energy Prices

The Financial Times reports Spain Urges EU to Act on Soaring Energy Prices.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Teresa Ribera, Spain’s deputy prime minister for the environment, suggested that high prices and charges could provoke a backlash against carbon-cutting initiatives, with Spain in the “eye of the hurricane”. 

Please Iron at at 2:00AM

In addition to complaining to the EU the Energy Department Has Suggestions like iron and cook at night.

The Facua-Consumers in Action organization claims that asking customers to use their appliances at night is “degrading” for the most vulnerable consumers.

“You can’t make the consumer responsible for their bill being high just because they haven’t done the ironing or put their appliances on during the cheapest periods,” Facua states.

“These times coincide with when people should be getting some rest.”

Why Are Spain’s Bills the Highest in the EU?

Spain currently counts on renewable energy sources for nearly 50% of its supply. 

Guess what happens when you depend on unreliable sources? 

Greens Demand More Clean Energy 

But hey, the EU wants more clean energy. 

Specifically, the EU seeks an energy tax that would drive up the costs of basically everything. 

Sink America Plan

The Socialists and Greens in the US latched on to that idea. 

On July 15, I commented The Greens Hijack Biden’s $3.5 Trillion Budget Proposal 

On July 30, Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema expressed concerns over the plan to which AOC said “No Climate, No Deal”

That is the preferred outcome of those with an ounce of common sense.

Previously, I proposed labeling the plan the Stagflation Guarantee Act of 2021.

However, that name is not catchy enough.

“Sink America Plan” is a better name for this proposed boondoggle.

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Decentralization: Why the EU May Be Better Than the US | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on May 30, 2021

But, however strong Europhiles’ calls are for political unity, old habits die hard. Many Europeans still aren’t willing to turn their national legislatures into mere adjuncts of a central government that will rule from Brussels. 

Americans, on the other hand, have historically had no such qualms about empowering a central state to a level that would delight any Europhile bureaucrat. It’s too late for American member states to assert independence from the central government without facing an avalanche of legal, political, and even military opposition. Europeans would be wise to not put themselves in a similar position.

https://mises.org/wire/decentralization-why-eu-may-be-better-us

Ryan McMaken

Over the years, I’ve been pretty hard on the European Union. Both as an editor and a writer, I’ve published articles criticizing its central bank and its unelected, bureaucratic central government. Especially objectionable is the EU ruling class’s propensity for cynical politics built around threatening and intimidating voters and national governments who don’t conform to Brussels’s wishes.

Recall, for example, how the EU threatened the United Kingdom with retaliatory tariffs and legal action to dissuade the British from voting to pull the UK out of the EU.

Many within the EU continue to push petty anti-British policies to this day.

Moreover, the Brussels government has taken steps to force into line various EU member states that don’t conform to EU edicts on immigration or internal politics. For example, over the past year, Brussels has launched legal proceedings against Poland because of steps taken by Poland’s elected government to reform the regime’s judicial system. The EU has also taken legal action against Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic over immigration policy.

Even worse, many within the bloc continue to push for a so-called United States of Europe, which will presumably drive the bloc toward far more political unity and control by the Brussels regime.

Simply put, the EU is a force for political centralization which threatens to further abolish what remains of more localized autonomy in Europe.

The United States Is Even Worse

Yet, for all of the EU’s insistence on moving in the wrong direction—that is, the direction of political centralization—the EU remains remarkably decentralized by American standards. Indeed, when it comes to its degree of centralization, and the degree to which the central bureaucracy exercises control over member states, the EU is far superior to the United States.

This is evident in several ways. When it comes to border control, welfare programs, and control over each member state’s political institutions, the EU is clearly far more decentralized than the United States. Best of all, it is still possible for EU member states to actually leave the union, as demonstrated by Brexit.

Indeed, for those of us who favor greater political decentralization in the United States, a step toward the EU’s current situation would be a move in the right direction for the US—at least in terms of its political structure—even if the EU itself is presently trending in the wrong direction. 

The European Welfare State IsMore Decentralized

One key area in which Europe is more decentralized than the US is its welfare state. European member states are fortunate in that their welfare programs remain decentralized, and that the bloc does not have any social benefits program comparable to the US’s Social Security program.

This isn’t to say the EU doesn’t have any social-spending programs administered in Brussels. The EU bureaucracy takes in tax revenues from member states and then redistributes those funds around the bloc. In practice, this means wealthier EU members are net payers while poorer EU members are net receivers. Funds largely go toward “economic development” projects and agriculture.

Although transfer payments are a reality in the EU, the EU has nothing like the US’s system of a single nationwide program that directly taxes individuals and then pays that money back out directly to individuals.

For example, with Social Security and Medicare, individual workers in the US are directly taxed by the central government and then those funds are transferred by the central government from wage earners to retirees. Other similar programs include food stamps and Medicaid.

This means millions upon millions of Americans look directly to the federal government for a “check in the mail.” Although all US states have their own welfare programs of various sorts, these tend to be very small compared to the federal welfare apparatus. Naturally, this tends to give the federal government far more control over the lives and personal budgets of Americans than if the welfare system were funded and administered at the state or municipal level.

In Europe, by contrast, the welfare state is administered and funded overwhelmingly at the level of the member country. Britain’s National Health Service—even when the UK was part of the EU—has always been a British program. The same is true of the UK’s pension programs.

Other member states function in a similar fashion. France, for example, has an immense welfare state, but those who receive transfer payments through the French system do not ultimately depend on the Brussels government for these payments.

The political implications of this are immense. The national nature of the American welfare state acts as an enormous impediment to any effort of an American state to break away from the union. Any American state that seeks to leave the US would, for instance, likely face opposition from voters who fear the loss of benefits—especially Social Security—doled out by the central government. Indeed, were the European welfare state unified to the degree that it is in the United States, it is extremely unlikely that Brexit would have ever happened. British pensioners and recipients of “EU welfare” payments would have been too fearful of losing their benefits—just as many opponents of Scotland’s independent referendum feared the loss of transfer payments from London. It’s not a coincidence that elderly residents of Scotland (and “out-of-work benefits claimants”) lopsidedly voted against Scottish independence.

The Member States’ Legislatures Still Dominate Lawmaking in the Bloc

Government regulation in Europe is increasingly a matter for politicians in Brussels. Yet, for the most part, the administration of government continues to be dominated by the governments of the member states.

Although the tug-of-war between Brussels and the national legislatures continues, the fact is member states generally retain unilateral control over national budgets, law-and-order issues, and over social policies like abortion. There is no European equivalent of the FBI, for instance. 

Moreover, as conflicts within the bloc between east and west over migrants continues, we see that member states are both more willing and more capable of pushing back against edicts from the central government than is the case with American states.

Member states even have unilateral control over their own national borders. While most members of the EU are subject, de jure, to the Schengen Agreement and its successor agreements, member states still maintain the de facto unilateral control. This was on clear display during the early months of the covid-19 panic, when numerous member states within the EU closed down much of the travel across their borders.

Exit Is Still Possible

Nothing better illustrates the EU’s greater level of decentralization than the fact that member states can still peacefully and legally leave the bloc.

This was demonstrated when the United Kingdom finally left the EU after several years of negotiations following the national referendum on Brexit in 2016. Although the Brussels government sought to make it as difficult as possible for the UK to withdraw, it was nonetheless impossible to deny that the UK could legally do so. Moreover, in the practical sense, there was ultimately nothing the EU could do to prevent the UK from leaving, largely because the other EU members were not willing to support military action to force the UK to continue within the bloc.

We could of course contrast this with the United States. In the case of the US, anytime Americans hint at the possibility of secession, opponents of secession chortle that “the secession question was solved by the US Civil War!” Those who invoke this phrase, of course, are signaling that they believe any attempt at secession justifies military invasion and occupation.

Fortunately for the Europeans, the EU has yet to progress to the point where it can take military action against its own people with impunity. In America, on the other hand, any overture toward asserting independence from Washington brings veiled or not-so-veiled threats of violence.

What Brussels Bureaucrats Really Want

None of this is to say that the bureaucrats who run the EU in Brussels wouldn’t love to have all of the powers the US government currently enjoys. For years, the EU has been moving toward expanding its military capabilities, while calling for greater fiscal controls to expand the European Central Bank’s monetary policy. Some now call for using the covid-19 crisis as a justification for creating a “stronger EU.” 

But, however strong Europhiles’ calls are for political unity, old habits die hard. Many Europeans still aren’t willing to turn their national legislatures into mere adjuncts of a central government that will rule from Brussels. 

Americans, on the other hand, have historically had no such qualms about empowering a central state to a level that would delight any Europhile bureaucrat. It’s too late for American member states to assert independence from the central government without facing an avalanche of legal, political, and even military opposition. Europeans would be wise to not put themselves in a similar position.

Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power&Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

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“No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, No Unvaxxed” – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on May 22, 2021

When they said ‘there were no plans for ‘discriminatory’ Covid vaccine passports’, they were quietly funding at least eight different vaccine passport schemes since last year.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/05/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-unvaxxed/

Dustin Broadbery

The government is pressing ahead with its Vaccine Passport and plans for a two-tier society are afoot. The effrontery of those leading the charge beggar’s belief.

When they said ‘there were no plans for ‘discriminatory’ Covid vaccine passports’, they were quietly funding at least eight different vaccine passport schemes since last year.

And that’s just the half of it. We are midway through a Europe-wide feasibility study for the development of a common vaccine passport, launched by the European Commission in 2018.

They would have you believe – they were caught with their trousers down, their policies are proportionate to the emergency as it unfolds, and at all times they operate according to a system of informed consent.

But hang on a minute. Since the onset of SARS-CoV-2, they have played the most astonishing game of deception and manipulation. Cooking the books, fiddling the tills and distorted their official numbers.

They have deliberately plunged society into two camps – skeptics and adherents, compliant and non-conformists.

Last year established the mood for pettifogging anyone questioning the narrative, while those refusing to comply were branded narcissists and psychopaths or denounced as ‘Covid deniers’ – the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier.

This government has polarised the nation on a scale never before attempted, legitimising a particular brand of prejudice and enmity not seen in Europe since the days of the Third Reich. And once the NHS App becomes your ticket to freedom on Monday, they will finally have means to weed out and punish dissidence while rewarding blind faith in authority. No matter how injurious their compliance is to society at large, the silent majority have lost their moral compass.

But it must be understood – this principle of divide and rule is as old as the hills. It was not so long ago that signs hung in the windows of establishments in Britain that read: ‘No dogs, No Irish, No blacks’. The difference today is that it won’t be the colour of your skin, your class, gender or sexual orientation that will condemn you, it will be something far more virulent – your ideology.

That this crucial point has been entirely missed by the chattering classes is astonishing. And despite the most flagrant attempts to marginalise large segments of society, identitarians, the woke brigade and other erstwhile defenders of the most marginalised remain largely unphased. Unless it is to flap their arms in the air over higher rates of vaccine hesitancy amongst ethnic minorities. But the rest of us can go to hell.

Who cares about anyone not from a protected social group, right?

In this bizarre parochial moral imperative, discrimination is only frowned upon if you’re discriminating against someone’s authorised and rubber-stamped marks of distinction, whereas discrimination, of and by itself, is entirely permissible.

These crowd-pleasers would defend their moral high ground by telling you “the unvaccinated are selfishly putting others’ lives at risk”, or that “mask refuseniks are superspreaders”. But hold on a minute. All of this is pure conjecture which, like everything else under the post-COVID sun, has been founded on speculative science and policies pulled straight from the magician’s hat.

Other than taking the government on its word, where is the actual evidence of asymptomatic transmission? Where is the evidence of mask efficacy?

In fact, can someone point me to a single risk assessment for any of these high-risk interventions? But to deny someone entry into an establishment, to prevent them from travelling, shopping, or worse, stepping foot outside of their own bolthole is no moot point. These are very real and tangible forms of discrimination, for no other reason than you personally disagree with their choices.

These people have clearly made peace with the fact that membership to society is now the exception rather than the rule. They labour under some neotribal sense of entitlement – if you’re not with us, you’re against us. Like their neolithic ancestors they take refuge in the herd from an unseen predator threatening their hand to mouth existences. Positioning themselves in the upper echelons of this looming two-tier system, with others equally desperate to get their lives back and ready to submit to whatever ephemeral demands are made of them in return for one coveted free pass to re-enter polite society.

While the rest of us – who will not be spoken for, bribed or coerced – will risk excommunication from the social-balm in defence of our principles.

This loose association of the poorest and most marginalised, conscientious objectors, lockdown skeptics, and anyone with a shred of faith in their god-given sovereignty of being or bodily autonomy will wage a personal crusade of civil disobedience against the tyranny de jour, as Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King did before them. For them, braver men have endured far worse for much less.

But what the first group fails to realise is that they are doing the unofficial bidding of another group – the well-healed members of our political establishment to whom the rules do not apply. Who are protected by more exemptions than the rest of us are governed by regulations. And who, at the onset of the pandemic, were not caught with their pants down, as the general population was.

As this group spoke of herd immunity, they quietly struck a £119 million COVID advertising and propaganda deal with one of the world’s biggest marketing companies. Going on to become the UK’s biggest advertiser in 2020.

Just a day before the first lockdown, their Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) began work on the most criminal propaganda campaign in British history:

Extract from UK gov’t report “Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures”, read the whole thing here.

See the rest here

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Finally, Germany is talking about ‘Dexit’ – spiked

Posted by M. C. on April 20, 2021

The AfD has taken its most Eurosceptic line yet. That’s good news for democracy.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/04/19/finally-germany-is-talking-about-dexit/

Sabine Beppler-Spahl
Germany Correspondent

Could the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) be about to make history? Before the AfD’s party conference had even ended last Sunday, the term ‘Dexit’ – short for a German exit from the EU – was circulating in the press. The reason is the AfD’s programme for September’s elections: ‘We consider a withdrawal of Germany from the European Union and the establishment of a new European Economic and Interest Community necessary’, it says – a demand which has caused more than a little stir.

This is the furthest the AfD has ever gone in its opposition to the EU. Of course, its programme has other demands, but it is in the Dexit policy that many commentators see proof of an increasing influence of the far-right within the party’s ranks. The AfD is now ‘openly radical’, said Der Spiegel. Deutschlandfunk, Germany’s state radio station, reminded its listeners that before the 2019 European elections, AfD delegates had still been willing to follow the leadership’s milder Euroscepticism, only calling for Germany to leave the Euro.

Pro-EU commentators in Germany have long tried to dismiss any EU scepticism as right-wing extremism – the fact that the AfD is now campaigning for Dexit seems to confirm their point. But most are also anxiously asking themselves how many voters the AfD might win over with its new anti-EU programme. Time and again, the AfD has demonstrated a good sense of the mood in large parts of the population. And even though pundits like to pretend that party delegates were manipulated by the right-wing Björn Höcke (the leader of the notorious Flügel wing of the party), they know this is wrong.

The real reason the AfD has embraced Dexit, after long debates at the party congress, is simply that delegates believe it can help the party reach more voters. Dexit has given the AfD an important and unique selling point for the upcoming elections.

The EU is more unpopular in Germany than ever – and it isn’t just the AfD that knows it. There are many reasons: Ursula von der Leyen’s undemocratic appointment as EC president, the unresolved refugee crisis, the coronavirus vaccination disaster, and the way in which the Next Generation EU Recovery Fund is being waved through parliaments, despite its risks and uncertainties (a lawsuit against it is currently pending before the German constitutional court).

Only the most arrogant or naive Europhile could expect the electorate not to notice any of this. And it would be absurd to believe that no party would try to capitalise on voters’ rising sense of frustration. And since the Left Party (Die Linke) abandoned Euroscepticism several years ago, the field has been left to the AfD.

So is it good or bad that the AfD is calling for Dexit? Of course it would be good if others, perhaps even some new parties, could develop a serious critique of the EU and offer an alternative to German voters. But it is good that Dexit has at least been brought into the election campaign. The very possibility of a critical debate emerging will put pressure on our already defensive establishment to find better arguments for the EU than ‘it’s a nice idea’ or ‘it’s good for our exports’.

Of course, only the election itself will show how successful the AfD’s campaign will be – but the party might find that it is pushing against an open door.

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‘Global Taxes – Global Stagnation’ – Ron Paul’s 12 Apr. Column

Posted by M. C. on April 13, 2021

The goal of those supporting global minimum taxes enforced by a global tax agency is to prevent countries from lowering their taxes. Lowering corporate and other taxes is one way countries are able to attract new businesses and grow their economies. For example, after Ireland lowered its corporate taxes, it moved from being one of the poorest countries in the EU to having one of the EU’s strongest economies. Also, American workers and investors benefited from the 2017 tax reform’s reduction of corporate taxes from 35 percent to 21 percent.

https://mailchi.mp/ronpaulinstitute/globaltax?e=4e0de347c8

Apr 12 – Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has proposed that governments around the world require payment of at least a uniform “global minimum corporate tax.” A motivation for Yellen’s push for a global minimum corporate tax is fear that the Biden administration’s proposed increase in the US corporate tax will cause some American corporations to flee the US for countries with lower corporate taxes.

President Biden wants to increase corporate taxes to help pay for his so-called infrastructure plan. The plan actually spends more on “progressive” priorities, including a down payment on the Green New Deal, than on infrastructure.

Much of the spending will benefit state-favored businesses. For example, the plan provides money to promote manufacturing and electric vehicles. So, the idea is to raise taxes on all corporations and then use some of the received tax payments to subsidize government-favored businesses and industries.

The only way to know the highest valued use of resources is by seeing what goods and services consumers voluntary choose to spend their money on. A system where the allocation of resources is based on the preferences of politicians and bureaucrats — who use force to get their way — will be less efficient than a system where consumers control the allocation of resources.

Thus, the greater role government plays in the economy the less prosperous the people will be — with the possible exception of the governing class and those who make their living currying favor with the rulers.

Yellen’s global corporate tax proposal will no doubt be supported by governments of many European Union (EU) countries, as well as the globalist bureaucrats at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). For years, these governments and their power-hungry OECD allies have sought to create a global tax cartel.

The goal of those supporting global minimum taxes enforced by a global tax agency is to prevent countries from lowering their taxes. Lowering corporate and other taxes is one way countries are able to attract new businesses and grow their economies. For example, after Ireland lowered its corporate taxes, it moved from being one of the poorest countries in the EU to having one of the EU’s strongest economies. Also, American workers and investors benefited from the 2017 tax reform’s reduction of corporate taxes from 35 percent to 21 percent.

Yellen and her pro-global tax counterparts deride tax competition between countries as a “race to the bottom.” In fact, tax competition is a race to the top for the countries whose economies benefit from new investments, and for the workers and consumers who benefit from new job opportunities and new products. In contrast, a global minimum corporate tax will raise prices and lower wages, while incentivizing politicians to further increase the minimum.

A global minimum corporate tax will also set a precedent for imposition of other global minimum taxes on individuals. This scheme may even advance the old Keynesian dream of a global currency. The Biden administration is already taking steps toward a global currency by asking the International Monetary Fund to issue more special drawing rights (SDRs).

Global tax and fiat currency systems will only benefit the world’s political and financial elites. In contrast, regular people across the world benefit from limited government, free markets, sound money, and reduced or eliminated taxes.



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Biden and Janet Yellen Are Pushing a Global Minimum Tax Rate. The EU Is Very Pleased. | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 8, 2021

So, for at least a decade, EU politicians have openly complained that tax competition is “a threat to the European Union.” The regimes in the west don’t like having to deal with smaller, poorer regimes that can offer lower taxes to employers, investors, and producers.

https://mises.org/wire/biden-and-janet-yellen-are-pushing-global-minimum-tax-rate-eu-very-pleased

Ryan McMaken

It has long been a dream of central planners and interventionists to set global, uniform tax rates for all regimes. These globalists know that so long as sovereign states have the ability to freely set their own tax rates, some regimes are tempted to engage in “tax competition” in order to attract capital. When this happens “tax havens” allow companies and individuals to “shop around” in terms of where to put their productive wealth.

The antidote to this “problem,” we are told, is so-called tax harmonization. Under tax harmonization schemes, all governments are forced to impose a certain minimum tax rate so that high-tax countries need not compete with low-tax countries. Noncompliance comes with sanctions.

Without tax havens, of course, regimes have more freedom to raise taxes to ever higher levels because the gap between the high-tax regimes and low-tax regimes is significantly lessened.

So, it should surprise no one that President Biden’s Treasury secretary Janet Yellen is now pushing for a global minimum corporate tax, and for an increase to the US corporate taxes:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday urged the adoption of a minimum global corporate income tax, an effort to at least partially offset any disadvantages that might arise from the Biden administration’s proposed increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate.

Citing a “30-year race to the bottom” in which countries have slashed corporate tax rates in an effort to attract multinational businesses, Yellen said the Biden administration would work with other advanced economies in the Group of 20 to set a minimum.

Naturally, such a scheme doesn’t work without a means to punish countries that don’t cooperate. According to Reuters,

The U.S. plan envisages a 21% minimum corporate tax rate, coupled with eliminating exemptions on income from countries that do not enact a minimum tax to discourage the shifting of jobs and profits overseas.

In other words, “Biden’s corporate tax measure would also penalize other countries without a minimum corporate tax by more heavily taxing their subsidiaries in the U.S.”

A Long War on Tax Competition

The US’s new attack on tax havens and tax competition comes after years of attempts by the EU and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to impose enforceable minimum tax rates. The OECD is currently in the process of negotiating what Daniel Mitchell calls a “global high tax cartel.”

Moreover, the European Commission has been complaining for many years about low-tax member states within the bloc.

In early 2019, for example, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker pushed the idea of ending the ability of EU members to veto changes in tax policy so as to make tax rates across EU countries more equal. Ireland and Hungary, which have adopted low tax rates to attract businesses, have long opposed such effortsMalta has vehemently objected as well.

In the EU, France and Germany—the largest and most powerful states in the bloc—have pushed for an EU-wide corporate tax policy for years. Germany and France have already announced plans to bilaterally pursue a common corporate tax policy, but this is just the first step. The next step is to impose minimum tax rates on the rest of Europe as well.

Europe isn’t the only place where regimes have hoped to attract capital with low tax rates. Small island nations in the Caribbean also function as tax havens and have earned the ire of the European Union’s leadership.

In many ways, the effort to achieve tax harmonization is also a war on small countries, waged by big, powerful countries.

After all, small countries have limited tools in attracting capital. All else being equal, small countries that use small-time local currencies are at a disadvantage in a world of competing fiat currencies. Small countries also potentially have less access to ready labor and other inputs necessary for production. Finally, small countries are at a disadvantage when they are physically located far from other centers of capital. This is the case for many Caribbean and eastern European countries.

East vs. West and Rich vs. Poor

One way small countries can compete is by lowering corporate tax rates. This is partly why Ireland, Malta, and Hungary have all pursued low-tax policies. In fact, in 2019, Hungary slashed its corporate tax rate to 9 percent from 19 percent. Ireland—which has long been at the periphery of Europe and was considerably poorer than the rest of Western Europe as late as the early 1990s—has now become known for its relatively low corporate tax rate, which now stands at 12.5 percent. In contrast, France’s corporate tax rate as of 2020 was 32 percent. Germany’s rate was 29.9 percent. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the old established economies of the EU—France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the Low Countries—all have higher corporate tax rates compared to the old Iron Curtain countries.

In Poland and Czechia, for example, the corporate tax rate is 19 percent. It’s 16 percent in Romania. Naturally, after the end of the Soviet Union, these countries sought to raise their standards of living and enter the global marketplace. One way to attract capital was to make their economies more attractive to foreign capitalists.

The rich west of Europe has never approved of this strategy.

So, for at least a decade, EU politicians have openly complained that tax competition is “a threat to the European Union.” The regimes in the west don’t like having to deal with smaller, poorer regimes that can offer lower taxes to employers, investors, and producers.

Now, it looks like the US is joining this effort to force smaller, poorer countries to raise their tax rates. The Trump administration threw a bit of a wrench in the EU’s plans to harmonize taxes when Trump was able to win approval of a corporate tax cut from 35 percent to 21 percent. That presented an indirect threat to the Franco-German plan to turn the industrialized world into one big high-tax bloc. But now with Biden in the White House, the US looks like its “ready to help” by raising US rates to a France-friendly 28 percent, and by also pushing for a new global tax regime. 

The high-tax regimes of the world will be more than happy to join in.  Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power&Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

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The “Unvaccinated” Question – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on March 30, 2021

https://off-guardian.org/2021/03/29/the-unvaccinated-question/

CJ Hopkins

So, the New Normals are discussing the Unvaccinated Question. What is to be done with us? No, not those who haven’t been “vaccinated” yet. Us. The “Covidiots.” The “Covid deniers.” The “science deniers.” The “reality deniers.” Those who refuse to get “vaccinated,” ever.

There is no place for us in New Normal society. The New Normals know this and so do we. To them, we are a suspicious, alien tribe of people. We do not share their ideological beliefs. We do not perform their loyalty rituals, or we do so only grudgingly, because they force us to do so.

We traffic in arcane “conspiracy theories,” like “pre-March-2020 science,” “natural herd immunity,” “population-adjusted death rates,” “Sweden,” “Florida,” and other heresies.

They do not trust us. We are strangers among them. They suspect we feel superior to them. They believe we are conspiring against them, that we want to deceive them, confuse them, cheat them, pervert their culture, abuse their children, contaminate their precious bodily fluids, and perpetrate God knows what other horrors.

So they are discussing the need to segregate us, how to segregate us, when to segregate us, in order to protect society from us. In their eyes, we are no more than criminals, or, worse, a plague, an infestation.

In the words of someone (I can’t quite recall who), “getting rid of the Unvaccinated is not a question of ideology. It is a question of cleanliness,” or something like that. (I’ll have to hunt down and fact-check that quote. I might have taken it out of context.)

In IsraelEstoniaDenmarkGermanythe USA, and other New Normal countries, they have already begun the segregation process.

In the UK, it’s just a matter of time. The WEF, WHO, EU, and other transnational entities are helping to streamline the new segregation system, which, according to the WEF,

will need to be harmonized by a normative body, such as the WHO, to ensure that is ethical.”

Here in Germany, the government is considering banning us from working outside our homesWe are already banned from flying on commercial airlines. (We can still use the trains, if we dress up like New Normals.)

In the village of Potsdam, just down the road from Wannsee (which name you might recall from your 20th-Century history lessons), we are banned from entering shops and restaurants. (I’m not sure whether we can still use the sidewalks, or whether we have to walk in the gutters.)

In Saxony, we are forbidden from attending schools. At the Berliner Ensemble (the theater founded by Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel, lifelong opponents of totalitarianism and fascism), we are banned from attending New Normal performances.

In the USA, we are being banned by universities. Our children are being banned from public schools.

In New York, the new “Excelsior Pass” will allow New Normals to attend cultural and sports events (and patronize bars and restaurants, eventually) secure in the knowledge that the Unvaccinated have been prevented from entering or segregated in an “Unvaccinated Only” section.

The pass system, designed by IBM, which, if history is any guide, is pretty good at designing such systems (OK, technically, it was Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, IBM’s Nazi-Germany subsidiary), was launched this past weekend to considerable fanfare.

And this is only the very beginning.

Israel’s “Green Pass” is the model for the future, which makes sense, in a sick, fascistic kind of way. When you’re already an apartheid state, what’s a little more apartheid? Here’s a peek at what that looks like…

OK, I know what the New Normals are thinking. They’re thinking I’m “misleading” people again. That I’m exaggerating. That this isn’t really segregation, and certainly nothing like “medical apartheid.”

After all (as the New Normals will sternly remind me), no one is forcing us to get “vaccinated.” If we choose not to, or can’t for medical reasons, all we have to do is submit to a “test” — you know, the one where they ram that 9-inch swab up into your sinus cavities — within 24 hours before we want to go out to dinner, or attend the theater or a sports event, or visit a museum, or attend a university, or take our children to school or a playground, and our test results will serve as our “vaccine passports!”

We just present them to the appropriate Covid Compliance Officer, and (assuming the results are negative, of course) we will be allowed to take part in New Normal society just as if we’d been “vaccinated.”

Either way, “vaccine” or “test,” the New Normal officials will be satisfied, because the tests and passes are really just stage props. The point is the display of mindless obedience.

Even if you take the New Normals at their word, if you are under 65 and in relatively good health, getting “vaccinated” is more or less pointless, except as a public display of compliance and belief in the official Covid-19 narrative (the foundation stone of the New Normal ideology).

Even the high priests of their “Science” confess that it doesn’t prevent you spreading the “plague.” And the PCR tests are virtually meaningless, as even the WHO finally admitted. (You can positive-PCR-test a pawpaw fruit…but you might want to be careful who you tell if you do that.)

In contrast to the “vaccine” and the “test” themselves, the forced choice between them is not at all meaningless. It is no accident that both alternatives involve the violation of our bodies, literally the penetration of our bodies. It doesn’t really matter what is in the “vaccines” or what “results” the “tests” produce. The ritual is a demonstration of power, the power of the New Normals (i.e., global capitalism’s new face) to control our bodies, to dominate them, to violate them, psychologically and physically.

Now, don’t get all excited, my “conspiracy theorist” friends. I haven’t gone full QAnon just yet. Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab are not sitting around together, sipping adrenochrome on George Soros’ yacht, dreaming up ways to rape people’s noses. This stuff is built into the structure of the system. It is a standard feature of totalitarian societies, cults, churches, self-help groups, and…well, human society, generally.

Being forced to repeat a physical action which only makes sense within a specific ideology reifies that ideology within us. There is nothing inherently diabolical about this. It is a basic socialization technology. It is how we socialize our children. It is why we conduct weddings, baptisms, and bar mitzvahs. It is how we turn young men and women into soldiers. It is how actors learn their blocking and their lines. It is why the Nazis held all those rallies. It is why our “democracies” hold elections.

It is also basic ceremonial magic…but that’s a topic for a different column.

The issue, at the moment, is the Unvaccinated Question, and the public rituals that are being performed to make the New Normal ideology “reality,” and what to do about those of us who refuse to participate in those rituals, who refuse to forswear “old normal” reality and convert to New Normalism so that we can function in society without being segregated, criminalized, or “diagnosed” as “sociopathic” or otherwise psychiatrically disordered.

For us “conspiracy-theorizing reality deniers,” there is no getting around this dilemma. This isn’t Europe in the 1930s. There isn’t anywhere to emigrate to … OK, there is, temporarily, in some of the US states that have been staging rebellions, and other such “old normal” oases, but how long do you think that will last?

They’re already rolling out the “mutant variants,” and God only knows what will happen when the long-term effects of the “vaccines” kick in.

No, for most of us denizens of the global capitalist empire, it looks like the New Normal is here to stay. So, unless we are prepared to become New Normals, we are going to have to stand and fight. It is going to get rather ugly, and personal, but there isn’t any way to avoid that.

Given that many New Normals are our friends and colleagues, or even members of our families, it is tempting to believe that they will “come to their senses,” that “this is all just a hysterical overreaction,” and that “everything will go back to normal soon.”

This would be a monumental error on our parts…very possibly a fatal error.

Totalitarian movements, when they reach this stage, do not simply stop on their own. They continue to advance toward their full expressions, ultimately transforming entire societies into monstrous mirror-images of themselves, unless they are opposed by serious resistance. There is a window at the beginning when such resistance has a chance. That window is still open, but it is closing, fast.

I can’t tell you how best to resist, but I can tell you it starts with seeing things clearly, and calling things, and people, exactly what they are.

Let’s not make the same mistake that other minorities have made throughout history when confronted with a new totalitarian ideology. See the New Normals for what they are, maybe not deep down in their hearts, but what they have collectively become a part of, because it is the movement that is in control now, not the rational individuals they used to be.

Above all, recognize where this is headed, where totalitarian movements are always headed. (See. e.g., Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45.)

No, the Unvaccinated are not the Jews and the New Normals are not flying big Swastika flags, but totalitarianism is totalitarianism, regardless of which Goebbelsian Big Lies, and ideology, and official enemies it is selling. The historical context and costumes change, but its ruthless trajectory remains the same.

Today, the New Normals are presenting us with a “choice,” (a) conform to their New Normal ideology or (b) social segregation. What do you imagine they have planned for us tomorrow?

CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

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Hard talk with Václav Klaus: “The people should say NO to all of it.”

Posted by M. C. on January 15, 2021

VK: The restrictions on basic civil rights that were introduced so swiftly and so easily demonstrate the power of the modern state, with all its new, “smart“ technologies and drastically expanded enforcement capabilities. Economists often talk about the so-called “ratchet effect”, or the limited ability of existing processes and dynamics to be reversed and to return to normal once a specific event has radically altered them. It is true of prices, of productivity and it is also true of social and political systems. Therefore, I am afraid it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to return to the pre-corona days.

https://claudiograss.ch/2020/05/hard-talk-with-vaclav-klaus-the-people-should-say-no-to-all-of-it/

As we get deeper into this crisis and we get used to our “new normal”, it’s easy to focus on the daily corona-horror stories in the media or the latest shocking unemployment numbers, and lose track of the bigger picture and of what is really, fundamentally important. Even as the lockdown measures begin to get phased out, the scale of the economic damage is unimaginable and the idea of returning to “business as usual” is no longer tenable. The last couple of months have had a severe impact not just on the economy, but on our societies and geopolitical reality too. These changes are most likely irreversible and we as citizens and as investors will have to be prepared to deal with this massive shift and all that it entails for a long time.

Amid the panic, the distractions and the hyperbole that are prevalent these days, my own daily task has been an effort to separate the signals from the noise. In order to do so, I’ve also reached out to the few people whose views and insights I have long found invaluable and who have prioritized critical thought and kept their principles intact throughout this crisis. Straight talk and direct answers are very hard to come by these days from most Western leaders and institutional figures, this is why I turned to Former President of the Czech Republic, Prof. Ing. Václav Klaus, who has long been a voice of reason and whose unique perspective is even more important now. In the interview that follows, he shares his views on the current crisis and on what’s to come, in a succinct and resolute way and with a directness that is as rare and as it is essential in times like these.

Claudio Grass (CG): The magnitude and the global scale of the lockdown and shutdown measures we’ve seen during this corona-crisis are unprecedented. How do you evaluate the response compared to the threat itself? Do you believe it is justified? 

Václav Klaus (VK): I don‘t pretend to be an expert in epidemiology, but my background in economics and statistics tells me that the threat is smaller than the consequences „organized“ by governments all over the world as a reaction to this pandemic. I would add unnecessary consequences. The authorities reacted in an exorbitant way, in a moment of fear. This is partly the result of the current „online democracy“.

CG: The “emergency measures” and the restrictions that have been imposed on civilians’ basic rights have served as a reminder of the true extent of the state’s powers. Do you find this worrying and do you see a risk that these new, extraordinary powers might not be as easy to roll back once the crisis is over? 

VK: The restrictions on basic civil rights that were introduced so swiftly and so easily demonstrate the power of the modern state, with all its new, “smart“ technologies and drastically expanded enforcement capabilities. Economists often talk about the so-called “ratchet effect”, or the limited ability of existing processes and dynamics to be reversed and to return to normal once a specific event has radically altered them. It is true of prices, of productivity and it is also true of social and political systems. Therefore, I am afraid it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to return to the pre-corona days. 

CG: On an economic level, what is your assessment of the impact of the shutdown measures? 

VK: Most, if not all, of the circulating quantitative estimates and forecasts, are wrong. The “experts” should first say how long the quarantine restrictions will last and when the economic shutdown will be fully lifted. Their economic forecasts depend on the length of the quarantine period. They should announce explicitly when they plan to end it. Until this is established and known, the current forecasts are economically meaningless. 

CG: The monetary and fiscal interventions that we’ve seen so far are as extreme and as shocking as the shutdown policies themselves. Do you think they’ll be enough to keep the economy afloat though, or is a deep and long recession simply inevitable? 

VK: The monetary and fiscal measures – unacceptable for the true democrats – may have positive short-term effects, but they will destabilize the economy and public finances for a very long period of time. They could lead to very high inflation. 

CG:  Trillions upon trillions are being injected into the system, while wild ideas like the Universal Basic Income have become mainstream. Apart from the obvious monetary and economic risks of these policies, do you also foresee political and social implications? 

VK: Those of us in the ex-communist countries were used to living in a world of something like “Universal Basic Income”. We wanted to get rid of communism because of principles like this. These principles destroyed the motivation to work, which proved to be ruinous.  

CG: Within just a few weeks we have witnessed an abrupt and absolute turn towards centralization. The free market has been brought to its knees, individual voluntary exchanges, productivity and the very right to work and to create were all suspended and replaced with central planning. Do you think this approach has any chance of being sustainable? 

VK: I would not call it “central planning” yet. I prefer Walter Eucken’s term (used for the description of the German economy in Hitler’s time), “centrally administrated economy”. It is not planning in its original meaning. It is the very heavy and visible hand of the government at work, instead of the “invisible hand” of the market. 

CG: The corona-crisis has also had some very serious geopolitical ramifications, especially vis-à-vis China. What are the main changes that you expect to see going forward in this arena? 

VK: We shouldn’t use this situation for the introduction of new dangerous foreign relations policies and to strengthen the demonization of countries such as China and Russia. To my great regret, however, we see this is already happening.

CG: What about the future of the EU? Do you think this crisis has further weakened it and what is your outlook for the bloc? 

VK: The EU will – unfortunately, in my view – survive the corona-crisis. Its exponents will use it to further weaken nation-states. They are on the defensivenow, but they will reemerge again in full strength very soon. I wish I’ll be proven wrong, but I do believe they’ll use this crisis to their advantage and I fear they’ll do so successfully.

CG: Citizens, investors and savers everywhere are justifiably scared, if not of the virus itself then certainly of financial ruin. In your view, what can we do to take back at least some control of our own future? 

VK: It’s quite simple. The people should say “NO” to all of it. Otherwise, what lies ahead is a real-life approximation of the dystopian “Brave New World” of Aldous Huxley. 

Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Schweiz

This article has been published in the Newsroom of pro aurum, the leading precious metals company in Europe with an independent subsidiary in Switzerland.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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