Where Liberals Screwed Up
On Sunday, I said the following regarding the likely market consequences of UK PM Theresa May's decision (communicated in a speech delivered on Tuesday) to pursue what she calls a "clean and hard" split with the EU:
You can argue for protectionism and against progressivism and multiculturalism all you want, but what you can’t do is stop the market from rendering its own judgement. In this case, the verdict appears to be “guilty as charged.”
The title of that piece was "'Expect A Correctio
Surely, you’re going to need a whole series for this topic? lol
Also, don’t discount an alternate force/philosophy playing into this going forward. It’s not a binary battle between progressive statists and populist nationalists. Hell, the “populist wave” is probably given more credit than it truly deserves because it masks a large cohort of non-populists that are sympathetic to their primary grievances.
The whole other side of the coin (individualism/capitalism/classic liberalism) is waiting opportunistically while it reluctantly rides a runaway Trump train to get closer to the levers of power. This group shares non of the same protectionist views that worry TH.
The individual/collective battle has been clouded by populism, but it will continue to rage as it has through out history.
One also needs to consider the ways in which elites of all stripes — political, intellectual, financial, corporate — have squandered their elite standing and moral authority over the decades as they have overseen rising inequalities throughout “the system.” The result is a repudiation of expertise, even when come by honestly. Liberal elites are no less at fault than their conservative counterparts.
Here in my own liberal town of Portland, Oregon, for example, it is impossible to get voters to accept the verdicts of dentists, doctors, and public health experts that fluoridated water is beneficial to long-term oral health. Likewise, this state with its strong libertarian streak has one of the highest rates of school-age children without vaccines.
And don’t forget climate change warnings and Brexit, areas where expert opinion has to backfired in the political arena. The US president-elect was surely the beneficiary of a frightened electorate taking refuge in this same Know-Nothingism. In language the Christian Right can appreciate, however, we will surely reap what we sow.
My thought is the libs are tickled to hand this mess off, knowing that this latest round of fiat money system is coming very near to its end,they can proclaim ! It was not us!