Effects of Cheap Interest

The Paradox of the Outraged

Mises Daily: Monday, October 17, 2011 by Axel Kaiser

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A wave of social upheaval is shaking the world. In the West, the press has called the protesters "the outraged." The name is taken from the pamphlet Time for Outrage! (Indignez-vous!) by French intellectual Stéphane Hessel. The outrage by the political and economic situation in the Western world is justified. In Europe and the United States, the gap between financial elites and the rest has widened, while politicians have become a sort of modern nobility completely detached from the realities of the ordinary man. Democracies have failed to guarantee fair play among the different social actors, thus endangering their own existence.

The perception that something is fundamentally wrong in Western societies explains why Hessel has sold millions of copies of his brief and provocative pamphlet, triggering social movements in France and Spain. It also explains the emergence of Occupy Wall Street in the United States, a movement that officially declares itself to be inspired by the Spanish acampadas ("camper-protestors"). The galvanization effect of Hessel's pamphlet has reminded us that intellectuals and opinion leaders, as Karl Popper insisted, have to be particularly careful and responsible with the ideas they proliferate. One should never forget Isaiah Berlin's warning that "when ideas are neglected by those who ought to attend to them — that is to say, those who have been trained to think critically about ideas — they sometimes acquire an unchecked momentum and an irresistible power over multitudes of men that may grow too violent to be affected by rational criticism."[1]This is a lesson of the history of Marxism and National Socialism that we cannot forget.

Dangerously, Hessel has failed to recognize that he is endorsing the same attitude that ended up in Nazism and Communism: collectivism. Indeed, both National Socialism and socialism were derived from a rejection of the individualistic philosophy that laid the foundations of Western civilization.

Individualism means, in this context, that each person is considered unique, an end in himself as Kant would say, and must therefore be free to pursue his own goals. Accordingly, he is free insofar as he is not coerced by others to pursue alien ends. Liberty is thus, as John Locke famously put it, "to be free from restraint and violence from others."[2] This idea of freedom as the absence of coercion is the cornerstone of any prosperous and open society. Only where individuals are free to pursue their own ends by making the best possible use of the knowledge they possess can a civilized order of voluntary and peaceful cooperation exist. And only where coercion has been replaced by the voluntary arrangements of individuals can progress flourish. It is not an accident that the greatest achievements in history have been the product of freedom to pursue individual ends: no opera or major technological invention has ever been created under coercion.

The idea that men have to enjoy the freedom necessary to pursue their own ends is exactly what collectivism rejects. For the collectivist mind, individual interest has to be subordinated to the abstraction of the common good. Hessel's call for "a rational economic order in which the individual interest is subordinated to the general interest" perfectly summarizes the collectivist attitude. Once this idea is accepted there is no limit to government intervention. From then on, government can force individuals to follow predetermined courses of action, which are not their own, under the pretext of serving the common good, thereby undermining freedom and progress.

The Fiction of Government

The tragedy of honest left-wing intellectuals who encourage movements such as Occupy Wall Street is that, without realizing it, they are outraged by what is to a large extent the creature of their own thinking. The best example is Hessel himself. He argues that fundamental principles of a free, humanitarian, and democratic society have been replaced by a system in which maximization and uncontrolled financial capitalism prevail. A much better world, he insists, would be one in which individual interest is subordinated to the general interest. This can be best achieved if government plays a larger role in the economy.

One should first ask if there is any reason to believe that government really cares about the common good. Are bureaucrats and politicians not people like everyone else? Was Lord Acton wrong when he said that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? And if he was right, is it reasonable to think that those who are in power — and therefore already corrupted — would put their own interest aside in order to serve an abstract ideal called the "common good"?

Hayek versus Keynesian

http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods125.html

Warren Harding and the Forgotten Depression of 1920

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Recently by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.: The Federal Reserve's Death Rattle?

It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones — and often deliberately so. Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That's what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as “unpredictable.”
For this reason, we should not be surprised that our political leaders have made such transparently ideological use of the past in the wake of the financial crisis that hit the United States in late 2007. According to the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom, the Great Depression of the 1930s was the result of capitalism run riot, and only the wise interventions of progressive politicians restored prosperity. Many of those who concede that the New Deal programs alone did not succeed in lifting the country out of depression nevertheless go on to suggest that the massive government spending during World War II is what did it.¹ (Even some nominal free-marketeers make the latter claim, which hands the entire theoretical argument to supporters of fiscal stimulus.)
The connection between this version of history and the events of today is obvious enough: once again, it is claimed, wildcat capitalism has created a terrific mess, and once again, only a combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus can save us.
In order to make sure that this version of events sticks, little, if any, public mention is ever made of the depression of 1920—21. And no wonder: that historical experience deflates the ambitions of those who promise us political solutions to the real imbalances at the heart of economic busts. The conventional wisdom holds that in the absence of government countercyclical policy, whether fiscal or monetary (or both), we cannot expect economic recovery — at least, not without an intolerably long delay. Yet the very opposite policies were followed during the depression of 1920—21, and recovery was in fact not long in coming.
The economic situation in 1920 was grim. By that year unemployment had jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 percent, and GNP declined 17 percent. No wonder, then, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover — falsely characterized as a supporter of laissez-faire economics — urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover was ignored.
Instead of “fiscal stimulus,” Harding cut the government's budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding's approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third. The Federal Reserve's activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, “Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction.”² By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and was only 2.4 percent by 1923.
It is instructive to compare the American response in this period to that of Japan. In 1920, the Japanese government introduced the fundamentals of a planned economy, with the aim of keeping prices artificially high. According to economist Benjamin Anderson, “The great banks, the concentrated industries, and the government got together, destroyed the freedom of the markets, arrested the decline in commodity prices, and held the Japanese price level high above the receding world level for seven years. During these years Japan endured chronic industrial stagnation and at the end, in 1927, she had a banking crisis of such severity that many great branch bank systems went down, as well as many industries. It was a stupid policy. In the effort to avert losses on inventory representing one year's production, Japan lost seven years.”³
The U.S., by contrast, allowed its economy to readjust. “In 1920—21,” writes Anderson, “we took our losses, we readjusted our financial structure, we endured our depression, and in August 1921 we started up again. . . . The rally in business production and employment that started in August 1921 was soundly based on a drastic cleaning up of credit weakness, a drastic reduction in the costs of production, and on the free play of private enterprise. It was not based on governmental policy designed to make business good.” The federal government did not do what Keynesian economists ever since have urged it to do: run unbalanced budgets and prime the pump through increased expenditures. Rather, there prevailed the old-fashioned view that government should keep spending and taxation low and reduce the public debt.⁴
Those were the economic themes of Warren Harding's presidency. Few presidents have been subjected to the degree of outright ridicule that Warren Harding endured during his lifetime and continues to receive long after his death. But the conventional wisdom about Harding is wrong to the point of absurdity: even the alleged “corruption” of his administration was laughably minor compared to the presidential transgressions we have since come to take for granted.

Understanding Islam

How does Islam Work
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-does-islam-work.html#more

Manfred Kleine-Hartlage is a German blogger who posts at Korrektheiten andGerman Views. He is also the author of Das Dschihadsystem: Wie der Islam funktioniert (“The Jihad System: How Islam Works”), and co-editor of Fjordman’sEuropa verteidigen (“Defending Europe”), which will be issued in German on October 30, 2011. He has appeared previously at Gates of Vienna.

Manfred Kleine-Hartlage was interviewed last February by the German weekly Junge Freiheit. The translation below was made by Mr. Kleine-Hartlage himself.



“How does Islam work?” This question is asked of Manfred Kleine-Hartlage. For the first time a social scientist dissects the deep structure of Islamic culture.

Interviewer: Moritz Schwarz

Mr. Kleine-Hartlage, how does Islam work?

Kleine-Hartlage: It is a comprehensive system regulating all areas of life. There is no separation between religion here, politics there, law there — therefore none between Islam and Islamism, either. Islamism is not an abuse of Islam, because Islam is different from our worldview.

Which means?

Kleine-Hartlage: It is striking that in the Islamic world up to now there have never been serious crises of faith, as we know them here in Europe, and that there are virtually no atheists. The reason for this is that the role of religion in the social fabric of Islamic societies is quite different from that of Christianity in ours. Islam does not only relate humans to the hereafter, like all religions do, and determine what is good and evil, but it also defines what is legal or illegal in a juridical sense, legitimate and illegitimate in a political sense, true and untrue in an empirical sense. Islam is, so to speak, the DNA of its societies: not only a religion but a social system.

So you can not get rid of Islam without risking the collapse of society?

Kleine-Hartlage: So it is, the Islamic norms and values system regulates the living together in Muslim societies far beyond the religious realm in the narrow sense of the word: without Islam they could not work at all. And that’s what makes Islam so stable and so successful.

However, you are not an Islamic scientist, but a social scientist.

Kleine-Hartlage: That’s true, but sociological analysis is generally characterized by a particular approach that differs from those of the respective disciplines. You needn’t be an economist for economic sociology, or a lawyer for the sociology of law. And in the same sense, you needn’t be an Islamic scientist to analyze the sociology of Islam.

You say that we do not understand Islam. Why?

Kleine-Hartlage: Because we think in terms that do not meet it. We use a certain terminology fit for describing our own culture, but not fit for that of Islam. Studying Islam makes the unconscious assumptions of one’s thinking conscious, because these assumptions are not just shared in Islam. To some extent, Islam works like a mirror that makes us better understand ourselves. This made it so exciting for me to study Islam with the tools of the social scientist.

What result did you get?

Kleine-Hartlage: Religions shapes the system of culturally valid and (by socialization) internalized pre-assumptions about issues such as truth, justice, morality, ethics, society, or violence; i.e. all the assumptions that precede actual political thinking. In Islam, one of these cultural matters of course is its all-encompassing claim to validity. Certainly these Islamic norms and values are not internalized by everyone to the same extent or in the same depth, but they characterize the mutual expectations of people and must therefore be taken into consideration even by those Muslims who are individually rather irreligious — while a “less devout” Muslim is usually still a stronger believer than most nominal Christians.

What are the consequences?

Kleine-Hartlage: The consequence is that the widespread assumption in this country under which we perceive Islam — that all religions are equal or “want the same thing” — is misleading. Let me give you an example: Islam does not generally outlaw violence, not even in a strictly moral sense. It is a legal system that he controls violence: Whether violence is acceptable or even required depends, not only in the legal, but also in the moral sense on the who, whom, why, and how. Christian culture with outright condemnation of violence tends to the elimination of private violence and is therefore dependent on the state and its monopoly on violence. Islam isn’t. On the contrary, violence has prestige value.

Why?

Kleine-Hartlage: Because the Prophet’s example, made a permanent feature in the Quran, teaches that the ability to use force a sign of divine election. Thus, the meaning of violence is similar to that of material wealth in Calvinism. Violence in Islam has a structuring function: it makes a difference between above and below, i.e. master and slave, men and women, believers and unbelievers. Islam doesn’t define peace as a universal principle.

But? After all, “Islam” means “peace”.

Kleine-Hartlage: No, “Islam” means, in friendly translation, “devotion” and less friendly, “submission”. The word is derived from the same word-root as “Salam” (peace), but it is not a synonym. The Islamic concept of society is based on the division of humanity into “believers” and “infidels” — and Islam leaves no doubt that the “infidels” sooner or later have to disappear in history. “Good” in the ethical sense, is what is good for the spread of Islam; “evil” is any opposition to it. Islam rejects the notion of a universal ethics by which all people have equal rights, no matter what religion they belong to, or peace as a matter of principle. Such views contradict not only the teachings of Islam, but its basic structure.

However, most Muslims are peaceful and not violent.

Kleine-Hartlage: That’s correct, but is not the point. Firstly, Islam established a system of cultural matters of course, that by itself makes sure that in any case of conflict there are always plenty of “extremists” and violent offenders. It does not matter how large are the masses, but only that their number is sufficient to produce an ever-present threat. And secondly, it creates a tacit social acceptance of violence, provided it is directed against the “infidels”, even among those Muslims who are not individually violent. It is this social endorsement that makes violence an available option at any given moment — and for all “infidels” a constant threat, at least suggesting resilience.

Your book is titled “Das Dschihadsystem”, The Jihad System. Why do you subsume Islam under this term? After all, the holy war is only one aspect of the Koran?

Kleine-Hartlage: Jihad is not just war. It includes anything Muslims do to bring the world under the law of Allah. All Islamic norms, not just the military, have as their common vanishing point to consolidate the Islamic societies and to displace non-Islamic societies. This is the immanent logic, the central idea that gives the Islamic norms and values its internal coherence. Therefore, I conceive Islam as a Jihad System.

The Holy War, however, is merely the “lesser jihad” while the “greater jihad” means the personal perfection of man as a good Muslim.

Kleine-Hartlage: The use of these adjectives (lesser and greater) seems to suggest one is important, the other unimportant. In fact, the emphasis in the Koran is exactly reversed. I counted and analyzed statistically the corresponding suras: the Koran refers in the latest, the Medinan suras — which are in any doubt, the decisive — relatively little to the “greater” jihad, the struggle for one’s own faith, compared with the struggle against the “infidels”, the so-called “lesser” jihad which is crucial in these suras.

Could it be that the aspect of the lesser Jihad became dominant as a result of historical developments that gave him an inadequate importance?

Kleine-Hartlage: This can be seen that way, but this historical development has been promoted by the founder of the religion himself, and it is reflected in the Koran. And that didn’t happen just by accident, but represents a development that results naturally from the theological premises of Islam. It is known that the Prophet from the start demanded fighting the “infidels” and practiced it himself: He led 27 military expeditions, wiped out a Jewish tribe, displaced several others, and murdered critics. Blaise Pascal once said. “Jesus let himself be killed, Muhammad himself killed”. And of course the Muslims not only follow the Koran, but equally the example of the Prophet. Never say to a Muslim this man wasn’t the epitome of human perfection.

Islamism, as you initially hinted, is primarily a manifestation of Islam and does not spring originally the sphere of extremism?

Kleine-Hartlage: Islamism is only the political side of Islam, that is, in fact, no degeneration, but a part of this religion. The Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has said quite rightly that there is no radical and no moderate Islam, but only Islam. Sharia is not law as we define it, consisting of “acts” by men, but a law given by Allah himself. So something that cannot be altered, not even by a majority vote; you can just obey or not. The idea of an Islam without Sharia law is absurd, that would be — not like soup without salt, but like soup without water. Therefore, Islamists are quite correct when claiming to be in harmony with the Prophet and the Koran. And consequently these Islamists are not socially isolated, but very respected for their strong faith and respected members of the Islamic community.

Is Islam as a religion?

Kleine-Hartlage: Yeah sure, just not a religion how we imagine a religion ought to be, namely something focusing on a kingdom “not of this world.” It is a religion that wants to be socially realized and also depends on being a social reality.

Couldn’t there be an Islamic Enlightenment and thus a more moderate Euro-Islam?

Kleine-Hartlage: Firstly, I repeat: That would undermine the basis of Islamic societies. Therefore, there is enormous social pressure which prevents this. Secondly, Islam itself is already in some ways a kind of “enlightenment” as Islam has questioned anything in Christianity that is paradoxical and dialectical, sometimes incomprehensible, and to bring it to a simple formula: for example no Trinity, but only one God and absolute transcendence. No original sin that implies that man must fail to be truly good in the Christian sense. Instead, clear rules on how to behave in order to please God. In a sense, Islam is a very rationalist religion that may not even need “enlightenment”.

Wouldn’t you at least concede that a kind of Reformation could moderate Islam?

Kleine-Hartlage: First, was our Reformation something moderate? Secondly, there have been reformations in Islam, just like in Christianity, that claimed to lead religion “back to the roots”. But while this “back” in Christianity meant the inner life, the faith, to emphasize the grace of God, reformation in Islam, as a “back to the roots”, means just the opposite, emphasizing the validity of the political model of the original community of the Prophet, whose political profile I’ve already described.

Now there is obviously in many Islamic countries the spark of democratic revolution. Does not this contradict your analysis blatantly?

Kleine-Hartlage: No, I would like to remind you that these events are only a few weeks old, and that there are already first indications of an Islamist turn of these revolutions, as we see in the murder of the Polish priest Marek Rybinski in Tunisia. In Turkey, incidentally, for eighty years there has been an attempt to westernize, and yet we have witnessed for years a rapid re-Islamization. Nobody can say today what will follow from the current insurgency in the Arab world. Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan once said: Democracy is a tram that brings us to the destination — and then we get out.

UN rights

The UN…….
Democracies have been a minority within the UN since 1958.
The UN is controlled by a bunch of failed, corrupt, racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, dictatorial states.
The block of 57 OIC countries comes to mind.
These 57 countries, have their own official ‘ declaration of human rights’, are actively involved in suppressing the right of free speech and have only signed several other UN declarations with reservations as they contradict with Islamic Sharia law.
Several of these countries that repress women, homosexuals, ethnic and religious minorities are members of the UN Human Rights Commission. Syria, Sudan, Libya, and especially Saudi Arabia, together with China and Cuba are countries that oppose and reject the concept of universal human rights, have an appalling record of human right abuse and they happily criticise New Zealand.
It is a sad state of affairs.
Last year……
Libya had a chair on the Human Rights Council.
China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Cameroon all had seats on the Human Rights Council.
North Korea had the presidency of the UN Conference on Disarmament
Iran had a seat on the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women.
Pakistan served as acting head of a U.N. body called the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force.

Free Speech

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/09/steyn_on_free_speech.html#comments
tom hunter (2,313) Says:
September 15th, 2011 at 1:12 pm

I think another Steyn piece may be better because it avoids the whole Islamic thing that has the left reaching for their Godwin shields.



This one was published in National Review back in June of this year – Criminal Comedy. He starts off with this:

I read The Joke, Milan Kundera’s first novel, when I was a schoolboy. Bit above my level, but, even as a teenager, I liked the premise. Ludvik is a young man in post-war, newly Communist Czechoslovakia. He’s a smart, witty guy, a loyal Party member with a great future ahead of him. His girlfriend, though, is a bit serious. So when she writes to him from her two-week Party training course enthusing about the early-morning calisthenics and the “healthy atmosphere,” he scribbles off a droll postcard:

Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky! Ludvik.

A few weeks later, he’s called before a committee of the District Party Secretariat. He tries to explain he was making a joke. Immediately they remove him from his position at the Students Union; then they expel him from the Party, and the university; and shortly thereafter he’s sent to work in the mines.

Funny in it’s absurdity no? Try today’s reality:

… immediately after my trial they ensnared a minor stand-up comic, Guy Earle, who had committed the crime of putting down two drunken hecklers. Alas for him, they were of the lesbian persuasion. Last month, he was convicted of putting down hecklers homophobically and fined $15,000.

Mr. Earle did not testify at his trial, nor attend it. He lives on the other side of the country, and could afford neither flight nor accommodation. Rather touchingly, he offered to pay for his trip by performing at various comedy clubs while in town, before he eventually realized that no Vancouver impresario was going to return his calls ever again.

Steyn thinks that Ludvik would have recognised that last point also:

Comrade Zemanek, the chairman of the plenary meeting that decides his fate, participated with him in earlier jests with the same girl, but he makes a brilliant speech explaining why Ludvik has to be punished, and everyone else agrees:

No one spoke on my behalf, and finally everyone present (and there were about a hundred of them, including my teachers and my closest friends), yes, every last one of them raised his hand to approve my expulsion.

And so it went for Guy Earle, hung out to dry by his comrades at the plenary session of the Canadian Collective of Edgy Transgressive Comedians.

Steyn also refers to the US case of a doctor who made a subtle joke in Surgery News and got done over outside of any court system. But I find Guy Earle’s case far more chilling than either that or Steyn’s own. Earle, like many stand-up comedians and unlike Steyn, probably does not have two dimes to rub together and is an unknown: hence easily crucified. Perhaps he needed a lawyer deeply concerned with free speech – someone like Andrew Geddis, assuming Andrew would have been willing to represent him.

Who would have thought all the old absurdist gags of Eastern Europe circa 1948 would transplant themselves to the heart of the West so effortlessly? Indeed, a latter-day Kundera would surely reject as far too obvious a scenario in which lesbians and feminists lean on eunuch males to destroy a man for disrespecting the vascularized vagina by suggesting that semen might have restorative properties.

“Give it to me straight, doc. I can take it”? Not anymore. Kundera’s Joke is now on us.

Take or Create Wealth, Or Collusion

A very interesting essay and well worth the read in full, so follow the link.
http://paulgraham.com/gap.html
Another link for the reverse thought
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-rich-is-too-rich/  and on his site he has a following post of how he was attacked and his answers back. Pity he had no comment section
And the collusion well explained by Sarah Palin
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/us/10iht-currents10.html?_r=1

May 2004
Paul Graham
When people care enough about something to do it well, those who do it best tend to be far better than everyone else. There's a huge gap between Leonardo and second-rate contemporaries like Borgognone. You see the same gap between Raymond Chandler and the average writer of detective novels. A top-ranked professional chess player could play ten thousand games against an ordinary club player without losing once.

Like chess or painting or writing novels, making money is a very specialized skill. But for some reason we treat this skill differently. No one complains when a few people surpass all the rest at playing chess or writing novels, but when a few people make more money than the rest, we get editorials saying this is wrong.

Why? The pattern of variation seems no different than for any other skill. What causes people to react so strongly when the skill is making money?

I think there are three reasons we treat making money as different: the misleading model of wealth we learn as children; the disreputable way in which, till recently, most fortunes were accumulated; and the worry that great variations in income are somehow bad for society. As far as I can tell, the first is mistaken, the second outdated, and the third empirically false. Could it be that, in a modern democracy, variation in income is actually a sign of health?

The Daddy Model of Wealth
When I was five I thought electricity was created by electric sockets. I didn't realize there were power plants out there generating it. Likewise, it doesn't occur to most kids that wealth is something that has to be generated. It seems to be something that flows from parents.

Because of the circumstances in which they encounter it, children tend to misunderstand wealth. They confuse it with money. They think that there is a fixed amount of it. And they think of it as something that's distributed by authorities (and so should be distributed equally), rather than something that has to be created (and might be created unequally).

In fact, wealth is not money. Money is just a convenient way of trading one form of wealth for another. Wealth is the underlying stuff—the goods and services we buy. When you travel to a rich or poor country, you don't have to look at people's bank accounts to tell which kind you're in. You can see wealth—in buildings and streets, in the clothes and the health of the people.

Where does wealth come from? People make it. This was easier to grasp when most people lived on farms, and made many of the things they wanted with their own hands. Then you could see in the house, the herds, and the granary the wealth that each family created. It was obvious then too that the wealth of the world was not a fixed quantity that had to be shared out, like slices of a pie. If you wanted more wealth, you could make it.

This is just as true today, though few of us create wealth directly for ourselves (except for a few vestigial domestic tasks). Mostly we create wealth for other people in exchange for money, which we then trade for the forms of wealth we want. [1]

Because kids are unable to create wealth, whatever they have has to be given to them. And when wealth is something you're given, then of course it seems that it should be distributed equally. [2] As in most families it is. The kids see to that. "Unfair," they cry, when one sibling gets more than another.

In the real world, you can't keep living off your parents. If you want something, you either have to make it, or do something of equivalent value for someone else, in order to get them to give you enough money to buy it. In the real world, wealth is (except for a few specialists like thieves and speculators) something you have to create, not something that's distributed by Daddy. And since the ability and desire to create it vary from person to person, it's not made equally.

You get paid by doing or making something people want, and those who make more money are often simply better at doing what people want. Top actors make a lot more money than B-list actors. The B-list actors might be almost as charismatic, but when people go to the theater and look at the list of movies playing, they want that extra oomph that the big stars have.

to continue on the same above link
http://paulgraham.com/gap.html

No Go Areas Expanding

http://www.jihadwatch.org/
"Occupation without tanks or soldiers": "No-go" zones for non-Muslims proliferating in Europe


Of course, this topic is largely off-limits for discussion for fear of the appearance of "Islamophobia," on one hand, and for fear of sparking riots in the afflicted areas of European cities on the other. "European 'No-Go' Zones for Non-Muslims Proliferating," by Soeren Kern for Hudson New York, August 22 (thanks to RK):

Islamic extremists are stepping up the creation of "no-go" areas in European cities that are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Many of the "no-go" zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law. Host-country authorities effectively have lost control in these areas and in many instances are unable to provide even basic public aid such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services.

The "no-go" areas are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated rather than become integrated into their European host nations.

In Britain, for example, a Muslim group called Muslims Against the Crusades has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls "Londonistan" – into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.

The Islamic Emirates Project names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.

In the Tower Hamlets area of East London (also known as the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets), for example, extremist Muslim preachers, called the Tower Hamlets Taliban, regularly issue death threats to women who refuse to wear Islamic veils. Neighborhood streets have been plastered with posters declaring "You are entering a Sharia controlled zone: Islamic rules enforced." And street advertising deemed offensive to Muslims is regularly vandalized or blacked out with spray paint.

In the Bury Park area of Luton, Muslims have been accused of "ethnic cleansing" by harassing non-Muslims to the point that many of them move out of Muslim neighborhoods. In the West Midlands, two Christian preachers have been accused of "hate crimes" for handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. In Leytonstone in east London, the Muslim extremist Abu Izzadeen heckled the former Home Secretary John Reid by saying: "How dare you come to a Muslim area."

French government map link and this was in 2006
http://sig.ville.gouv.fr/Atlas/ZUS/
In France, large swaths of Muslim neighborhoods are now considered "no-go" zones by French police. At last count, there are 751 Sensitive Urban Zones (Zones Urbaines Sensibles, ZUS), as they are euphemistically called. A complete list of the ZUS can be found on a French government website, complete with satellite maps and precise street demarcations. An estimated 5 million Muslims live in the ZUS, parts of France over which the French state has lost control.

Muslim immigrants are taking control of other parts of France too. In Paris and other French cities with high Muslim populations, such as Lyons, Marseilles and Toulouse, thousands of Muslims are closing off streets and sidewalks (and by extension, are closing down local businesses and trapping non-Muslim residents in their homes and offices) to accommodate overflowing crowds for Friday prayers. Some mosques have also begun broadcasting sermons and chants of "Allahu Akbar" via loudspeakers into the streets.

The weekly spectacles, which have been documented by dozens of videos posted on Youtube.com [links at the Hudson NY site above], and which have been denounced as an "occupation without tanks or soldiers," have provoked anger and disbelief. But despite many public complaints, local authorities have declined to intervene because they are afraid of sparking riots.

In the Belgian capital of Brussels (which is 20% Muslim), several immigrant neighborhoods have become "no-go" zones for police officers, who frequently are pelted with rocks by Muslim youth. In the Kuregem district of Brussels, which often resembles an urban war zone, police are forced to patrol the area with two police cars: one car to carry out the patrols and another car to prevent the first car from being attacked. In the Molenbeek district of Brussels, police have been ordered not to drink coffee or eat a sandwich in public during the Islamic month of Ramadan.

In Germany, Chief Police Commissioner Bernhard Witthaut, in an August 1 interview with the newspaper Der Westen, revealed that Muslim immigrants are imposing "no-go" zones in cities across Germany at an alarming rate.

The interviewer asked Witthaut: "Are there urban areas – for example in the Ruhr – districts and housing blocks that are "no-go areas," meaning that they can no longer be secured by the police?" Witthaut replied: "Every police commissioner and interior minister will deny it. But of course we know where we can go with the police car and where, even initially, only with the personnel carrier. The reason is that our colleagues can no longer feel safe there in twos, and have to fear becoming the victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas exist. Even worse: in these areas crimes no longer result in charges. They are left 'to themselves.' Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture."

In Italy, Muslims have been commandeering the Piazza Venezia in Rome for public prayers. In Bologna, Muslims repeatedly have threatened to bomb the San Petronio cathedral because it contains a 600-year-old fresco inspired by Dante's Inferno which depicts Mohammed being tormented in hell.

In the Netherlands, a Dutch court ordered the government to release to the public a politically incorrect list of 40 "no-go" zones in Holland. The top five Muslim problem neighborhoods are in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. The Kolenkit area in Amsterdam is the number one Muslim "problem district" in the country. The next three districts are in Rotterdam – Pendrecht, het Oude Noorden and Bloemhof. The Ondiep district in Utrecht is in the fifth position, followed by Rivierenwijk (Deventer), Spangen (Rotterdam), Oude Westen (Rotterdam), Heechterp/ Schieringen (Leeuwarden) and Noord-Oost (Maastricht).

In Sweden, which has some of the most liberal immigration laws in Europe, large swaths of the southern city of Malmö – which is more than 25% Muslim – are "no-go" zones for non-Muslims. Fire and emergency workers, for example, refuse to enter Malmö's mostly Muslim Rosengaard district without police escorts. The male unemployment rate in Rosengaard is estimated to be above 80%. When fire fighters attempted to put out a fire at Malmö's main mosque, they were attacked by stone throwers.

In the Swedish city of Gothenburg, Muslim youth have been hurling petrol bombs at police cars. In the city's Angered district [how appropriate - ed.], where more than 15 police cars have been destroyed, teenagers have also been pointing green lasers at the eyes of police officers, some of whom have been temporarily blinded.

In Gothenburg's Backa district, youth have been throwing stones at patrolling officers. Gothenburg police have also been struggling to deal with the problem of Muslim teenagers burning cars and attacking emergency services in several areas of the city.

According to the Malmö-based Imam Adly Abu Hajar: "Sweden is the best Islamic state."

claims to reality

http://asiancorrespondent.com/62435/a-short-history-of-climate-science-hysteria/
A short history of climate science hysteria


By Gavin Atkins Aug 15, 2011 5:35AM UTC

72 Comments and 17 Reactions

Tim Blair recently posted this list of things that the media have trumpeted as being the “first casualties of climate change”.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to check the veracity of each story – but what I was not expecting is that every story up until 2010 (after which some of the claims are too recent to verify one way or another) has either been completely debunked, or has since had some serious doubts placed on it.

So the following examples have not been cherry picked – it’s a quick analysis of every claim made about “the first casualty of global warming” up until 2010.

Here are the stories that Tim gathered together, followed by the latest information about them:


The claim:

The golden toad was the first casualty of global warming

The reality:

“There is no evidence of a trend associated with global warming. Rather, the extinction of the Monteverde golden toad (Bufo periglenes) appears to have coincided with an exceptionally dry interval caused by the 1986–1987 El Niño event.”



The claim:

Tuvalu: Global Warming’s first casualty. Ten thousand people, Tuvalu’s entire population, are packing their bags as their homes among nine low level atolls are being swallowed by the rising sea.

The reality:

The last census shows that Tuvalu’s population continues to grow.



The claim:

Polar bears are set to become the first casualty of global warming.

The reality:

The total number of the world’s polar bear population is still thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000.



The claim:

The first casualty of global warming is India’s mangrove island on the Bay of Bengal, Lochachara ~ it is now gone.

The reality:

The loss of the island was almost certainly caused as part of the natural erosion of an island in a delta.


The claim:

The Maldives are the likely first casualty in any serious increase in global warming.

The reality:

The Maldives population continues to increase.



The claim:

Water could be the first casualty of global warming.

The reality:

Not in Australia it ain’t. Also, the argument that smaller glaciers means less water is pure illogical claptrap as explained eloquently by Jennifer Marohasy.


The claim:

Australia Could Become First Major Casualty Due To Global Warming.

The reality:

People in Sydney and Melbourne have wasted millions on desalination plants because of false predictions about water shortages.



The claim:

Losing winter: as climate change takes hold, North America’s coldest season is the first casualty.

The reality:

North America has experienced some of its biggest snow seasons on record.



The claim:

First Casualty of Global Warming? Rare breed of possum may be extinct.

The reality:

Live possums were discovered four months later.



The claim:

The Alaskan village of Newtok is the first casualty of climate change.

The reality:

The town of Newtok is still exactly where it always has been.



The claim:

UNEP had also recently declared that coral reefs, which support the majority of marine life, will be the first casualty of climate change.

The reality:

The reefs are doing fine.



The claim:

Brunt of climate change perceived in India; small Himalayan glaciers first casualty.

The reality:

UN climate chief admits mistake on Himalayan glaciers warning



The claim:

In India … agriculture is the first casualty of climate change.

The reality:

India produces record wheat and pulses crop.