Congratulations British Brethren and Sisters--You Stood Up For Yourselves And Your Children, And For Freedom

OS and The Wonderful Lovely Mrs. OS stayed up late into the evening watching the results from the Brexit vote. We get the BBC News channel on satellite, and those guys were completely flummoxed.

Fox Business did a fine job--they were expecting the vote to go the other way, and had to regroup a bit, which they did with broad grins on their Murdochian faces.

The Sky News coverage, streamed via Drudge, won the night. They were on top of it!

We knew the Remain goose was well and truly cooked when the results arrived from Birmingham (Leave), Wales (Leave), and Cameron's own constituency (Remain, but not that wide a margin). The Leave margins were always wider than the Remain margins, except in places like Cambridge, which live in their own academic/business/banker bubble, immunized from reality.

The next couple of days of market selloff and GBP selloff were to be expected, and may continue. So be it. Equilibrium will return, when it is located. OS and the Mrs are looking forward to some travel to The Green and Pleasant Land while on the strong dollar!

This morning was priceless, when Nigel Farage showed back up in Brussels to give-em-hell. 

Ya'll just gotta take a few minutes to enjoy it.

So, congratulations. Don't gloat too long, and be kind to your neighbors who voted the other way. They are genuinely anxious about the future, and your positive attitude and good cheer will help pave the way for them. Remember what it felt like when a vote you passionately believed in didn't go your way, and act with compassion.

DanHan: Comes A Point When You Run Out Of Track...

OS watched in horror a few years ago as Clarkson and the boys undertook their ill-advised journey through Florida, across the Gulf Coast, terminating their travels in NawLeenz. It got so ugly, so quickly.

There was, however, a truly funny moment when the boys were told they were to engage in the classic timed quarter-mile straight sprint in their junker cars, on a track that was only a quarter-mile plus about fifty yards. At yard fifty-one lay the ditch full of alligators.

Fahr-'em-up boyz!! And off they went, with brakes that were definitely not up to the task. No one was injured, blessedly, but things ended badly for one of the cars, if memory serves.

This episode is not unlike what we now see happening in both the United States and Europe. February 2012 was the highest monthly deficit this nation has ever recorded, in over two hundred years since the Constitution was ratified. The Senate will not pass a budget. The White House is a runaway freight train.

This can only end badly, and OS, in his darker moments, wonders if perhaps folks in the White House have some sort of train-over-the-cliff moment in mind for us all. It explains their behavior, when nothing else will.

Meanwhile, DanHan (as always) states the case succinctly. OS does wish we could lease this gent for a couple of decades. Sort of a reverse Lend-Lease back to Great Britain. We'll even give them Puerto Rico in the bargain, since we took some islands from them in the 1940's.

Nigel Farage: 'We Now Live In A German-Dominated Europe' (And That's Just The Polite Part Of His Speech!)

Farage lets fly, and the cameras record the smirks of the targets of his words. Their shamelessness and amusement say as much as he does about our situation. They as much as admit that Farage speaks the truth, but what does truth matter when one has accumulated that sort of power? It reminds OS of Nancy Pelosi's dismissiveness toward any who dared object to the Obama spending orgy of 2009, or the health care debacle of 2010. It reminds OS of George Bush's slimy deal with Teddy Kennedy to ram through a huge immigration bill in the dead of night just before Memorial Day 2007, voters be damned, all those people who voted for him, contributed to him, worked for him, endured abuse for him--screw 'em all.

Power trumps truth. Mammon reigns.



Cranmer adds his thoughts to this speech, which may be a watershed moment.

It was encouraging to hear other delegates cheer Farage on, in contrast to the calm smirks of the New Lords Of Europe.

Number 438 (Daniel Hannan) Gives Voice To What The EU Refuses To Hear--'You're About To Find Out'

Need to create a football cheer here, ya'll:

Gimme a big 4! FOOOUR!

Gimme a big 3! THREEEEE!

Gimme a big 8! EEEEIIIIIGGGHHHHT!

Wha'duz'THAT spell?

TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH!




Go, Dan! Go, Dan! Go, Dan!

Daniel Hannan: The EU As Homer Simpson

If we could just amend the Constitution to allow us to lease DanHan for eight years...

His analogy of Homer to the GreatAndGood of Europe is priceless. It applies to the GreatAndGood on this side of the pond as well.

Enjoy--only about a minute long.

The European Bailout Trip Through The Twilight Zone

From NPR's Planet Money, this morning.

(If hard-core libs like the NPR folks have figured out the math doesn't work, then it's gotta be problematic.)

December 3, 2010 - STEVE INSKEEP, host:

For a long time, people in the financial industry seemed to be following a don't ask, don't tell policy when it came to financial risks. Ireland is the latest country being forced to change that. Like its other European neighbors, it's been spending a lot of money it doesn't have. And it wound up in the situation that debt-ridden countries fear - unable to borrow, at least not at a reasonable rate.

This week, Europe agreed to lend Ireland the money that nobody else will. Alex Blumberg and Chana Joffe-Walt of our Planet Money team report that the money to bail out Ireland comes from a surprising place.

CHANA JOFFE-WALT: The bailout sounds very serious and very substantial.

Mr. SATYAJIT DAS (Financial risk consultant): The European Financial stability fund. This is a 750 billion euro, so it's pretty close to a trillion dollar facility.

ALEX BLUMBERG: Satyajit Das is an author and financial risk consultant. And he says two things. One, that trillion dollars, it's not all for Ireland. Two, that trillion dollars doesnt actually exist. In fact, the stabilization fund currently has no money in it at all.

JOFFE-WALT: The trillion dollars, its more aspirational - a trillion dollars that could be there, if needed.

BLUMBERG: If needed, the Stabilization Fund could borrow money and then lend that money to Ireland. And maybe in the future, other European countries that are having trouble borrowing, like Portugal and Spain.

JOFFE-WALT: But that's confusing, because if people are scared of loaning money to Ireland, Portugal and Spain, why would they loan money to a fund, whose sole function is to loan money to Ireland, Portugal and Spain?

BLUMBERG: Ah, because the fund is safer, it's backed by 14 different European countries who all guarantee your money back.

JOFFE-WALT: Wait. But don't those European countries include Spain and Portugal?

BLUMBERG: Well, yes. They do.

Mr. DAS: Portugal, who can't borrow is guaranteeing this. So you've got basically, people who are being lent to who can't pay you back, and the guarantors aren't solvent either. So exactly, what are you doing?


Does one get the sinking feeling that we'll be called upon to 'contribute' to this venture? Or that the Chinese and Indians will be ponying up money, and extracting interest in some interesting ways besides cash payments?

OS says it again. The Euro is not a currency. It is a ball and chain, shackled to the feet of every child in Europe.

Clarke and Daw, the Australian comedy team, sum it all up best.

Man Bites Dog: Switzerland Cancels Bond Sales, Because They Are Running Surpluses

Hmmm....amazing what happens when the voters force the government to live within its means.

From Bloomberg(with bold added by OldSouth):
Swiss officials are making decisions their peers in Greece or Portugal envy: Canceling bond sales as a budget surplus reduces the nation’s borrowing needs. Soaring public debt in the 1990s prompted Swiss voters to approve a constitutional amendment requiring that revenue and expenses must balance over an entire economic cycle, though the government may run annual deficits. 

That restraint has paid off, pushing Switzerland’s borrowing costs to the lowest in Europe as investors rush to the safest investments. Switzerland called off bond sales in November and December, saying it didn’t need additional funds to finance the budget. The benchmark 10-year note yields 1.80 percent, compared with Portugal’s 5.48 percent and Greece’s 9.06 percent. 

Let's read that bit again:

Soaring public debt in the 1990s prompted Swiss voters to approve a constitutional amendment requiring that revenue and expenses must balance..

Let's focus in a bit more, for that reader in Washington DC who keeps checking in:

a constitutional amendment requiring that revenue and expenses must balance...

Ya' gotta speak slowly, short sentences composed of short words, when dealing with our friends in Washington. So, let's explain it in terms they can understand. Again.

The Swiss voters said NO to the guv'mint spending more than guv'mint takes in.

'Surplus' means the guv'mint takes in more than it spends.

When the guv'mint stops spending more than it takes in, it has money left over, and the whole country prospers.

Damn! Why didn't we think of that?

And, they retained their national sovereignity by retaining the integrity of their currency.

Greece is, therefore, not their problem.

Damn! Why didn't we think of that?

Damn!

Three Cheers For #365: Daniel Hannan, Keynes, And St. Matthew In The European Parliament

Well, maybe pigs do sprout wings! Dan Hannan speaks kind words about Keynes, which draws a chuckle from the chair, and then proceeds to teach basic economic and political realities from the pages of Holy Scripture, which draws more of a chuckle from the chair--applause and smiles from the folks around him.

Of course, he quoted from the Authorized Version, and referred to Jesus of Nazareth as 'Our Lord', and cheerily assumed the chair knew the story of Jesus being questioned about taxation.

It's a wonderful performance, a classic. You can feel him twist the intellectual knife into the ribs of the Euro, using the eternal truth of the Savior's words.

Priceless.

Hot-damn! If only we could rent this guy out for a couple of decades. He would set us straight, or at least remind us how to be brave in public again, and how to use truth set to words to skewer the socialists.

Words for Our Times, and All Places, from Daniel Hannan

Like so many millions around the world, I was mesmerized by Daniel Hannan's public disembowlment of Gordon Brown in front of the European Parliament this week.

The God of Providence smiled upon us again, as this week one brave man stood up and said the things that needed saying, at just the right time and place, and those words were heard around the world.

They are words that merit repetition in every workplace, restaurant, church, civic club, golf course, and school athletic event in these United States. And every soul in any position of authority, be it in government, academia, business or the ecclesia, needs to hear them repeatedly, from all quarters.

These words from last week aren't the only moment of eloquence from Mr. Hannan. I've taken the liberty of transcribing his ninety seconds of truth-telling at the European Parliament on March 11, 2009.

I hope Mr. Hannan doesn't object--they are his words, after all, and he owns them. I've taken care to transcribe accurately, and I urge you to follow the link to his YouTube posting, and hear him speak them as well.


His words carry weight whether read or spoken--the true sign of a wordsmith. His poetical references are derived from Richard II.

Hannan's words now follow:

Once again, Madame President, we are indulging the fantasy that you can spend your way of out debt and legislate against recessions.

At best, we are engaging in self-deceit; at worst, we are deliberately perpetrating a deceit against our electorate.

The truth is that nothing can stop this correction. Interest rates were held too low for too long, and now that the air has been pumped into the balloon, it's going to come out again.

We could try and rescue some of the victims, but instead we engage in this pretense that we can stop the thing happening;
and the debt will paid by our children yet unborn and unbegot;
and nowhere more than in my country, where every child is now born with a debt of thirty thousand pounds,
because the incompetence and incontinence of its government.

As our national poet says:

This land of such dear souls
This dear, dear land is now leased out
(I die pronouncing it) like to a tenement or a pelting farm.

And now on top on that national debt, we are expected to
contribute to these European recovery programmes!

I close again with the words of our national poet:

Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so;
lest child, child's children cry against you 'Woe'.

[end transcription]