If you’re not already suffering from Brexit fatigue by now, this John Gray piece in the New Statesmen has more than enough pith and insight to make it worth your time.
A lesson of the past few days is the danger of groupthink. Along with the major international institutions, the assembled might of establishment opinion – in the CBI and TUC, massed legions of economists and a partisan Bank of England – was confident that the existing order here and in Europe would be preserved by promises of unspecified reforms. Until around 2am on the morning of Friday 24 May, the bookies and currency traders followed the playbook that had been given them by the authorities and the pollsters. Then, in a succession of events of a kind that is becoming increasingly common, the script was abruptly torn up. A clear majority of voters had reached to the heart of the situation. Realising that the promises of European reform that had been made were empty, they opted for a sharp shift in direction. The consequences can already be observed: rapid political change in Britain and an accelerating process of unravelling in the European Union. The worldwide impact on markets and geopolitics will be long-lasting and profound.
There are sure to be concerted efforts to resist the referendum’s message. The rise of the hydra-headed monster of populism; the diabolical machinations of tabloid newspapers; conflicts of interest between baby boomers and millennials; divisions between the English provinces and Wales on the one hand and Scotland, London and Northern Ireland on the other; Jeremy Corbyn’s lukewarm support for the Remain cause; the buyer’s remorse that has supposedly set in after Remain’s defeat – these already commonplace tales will be recycled incessantly during the coming weeks and months. None of them captures the magnitude of the upheaval that has occurred. When voters inflicted the biggest shock on the establishment since Churchill was ousted in 1945 they signalled the end of an era.
Predictably, there is speculation that Brexit will not happen. If Britain can vote for Brexit, it is being argued, surely anything is possible. But those who think the vote can be overturned or ignored are telling us more about their own state of mind than developments in the real world. Like bedraggled courtiers fleeing Versailles after the French Revolution, they are unable to process the reversal that has occurred. Locked in a psychology of despair, anger and denial, they cannot help believing there will be a restoration of an order they believed was unshakeable.
Snip.
As it is being used today, “populism” is a term of abuse applied by establishment thinkers to people whose lives they have not troubled to understand. A revolt of the masses is under way, but it is one in which those who have shaped policies over the past twenty years are more remote from reality than the ordinary men and women at whom they like to sneer. The interaction of a dysfunctional single currency and destructive austerity policies with the financial crisis has left most of Europe economically stagnant and parts of it blighted with unemployment on a scale unknown since the Thirties. At the same time European institutions have been paralysed by the migrant crisis. Floundering under the weight of problems it cannot solve or that it has even created, the EU has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it lacks the capacity for effective action and is incapable of reform. As I suggested in this magazine in last year (“The neo-Georgian prime minister”, 23 October 2015), Europe’s image as a safe option has given way to the realisation that it is a failed experiment. A majority of British voters grasped this fact, which none of our establishments has yet understood.
Skip if you must Gray’s description of leadership fights among the Tories and Labourites, but his summation of the problem facing Labour is admirably succinct:
Leading Labour figures have denied adamantly that the party’s stance on immigration is central to the collapse of its working-class base. It was a complex of issues to do with de-industrialisation, they repeat, that led to mass desertion by Labour voters. There is some force in this, but it is essentially a way of evading an inconvenient truth.
Free movement of labour between countries with vastly different wage levels, working conditions and welfare benefits is a systemic threat to the job opportunities and living standards of Labour’s core supporters. Labour cannot admit this, because that would mean the EU is structured to make social democracy impossible.
Also this:
Corbyn is not alone in passing over this conflict. So do his opponents, and this is one reason why it will be extremely difficult to reverse Labour’s slide. If Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham or David Miliband had been leader, the referendum would still have ended badly for Labour. No doubt the campaign would have been handled better. But the message would have been the same – promises of European reform that European institutions have shown to be worthless. Labour’s heartlands were already melting away. A rerun in the north and Midlands of Labour’s collapse in Scotland is now a distinct possibility. Fear of this disaster is one reason Labour is unlikely to split. With over 40 per cent of the party’s voters opting for Leave, anyone who joined a new “modernising” party would be on a fast lane to oblivion. Only a radical shift from progressive orthodoxies on immigration and the EU can save Labour from swift and terminal decline. It is doubtful whether any future leader could enforce such a shift, as it would be opposed by most Labour MPs and by activists. Yet it is plainly what millions of Labour voters want.
And this:
The contradictions of the world-view shared by progressive thinkers and established elites are becoming acutely evident. There is constant talk about being in a time of unprecedented change. Globalisation is connecting the world as never before; our lives are being continuously transformed by disruptive technologies; old ways of life and hierarchies in society are fast dissolving . . . these are the ruling clichés of the age. What is striking is that they are deployed to prop up a failing ancien régime. Not only in Britain and continental Europe but also in the Unite States, the human costs of a broken form of capitalism have fuelled popular revulsion – a revolt that has produced a mood of hysteria and something like blind panic among bien-pensants who pride themselves on their judicious rationality. Brexit will be followed by the end of Western civilisation, they foam, while a Trump presidency would be a planetary catastrophe. A paranoid style of liberalism has emerged that sees disaster and demonic evil at every turn.
And this:
“The new tolerance of anti-Semitism by sections of the left in Britain is an elite pathology: a disorder of the gibbering classes not the masses.”
I held off on analysis of the FBI non-indictment of Hillary Clinton because I knew there would be many piquant opinions to be harvested from around the Internet, and indeed there are:
“It’s not every day that an F.B.I. director makes up a legal standard to justify refusing to recommend prosecuting a presidential candidate.”
“At one level, it seems like the people in charge are rubbing our noses in the fact they are beyond the reach of the public. They are no longer going to pretend to be citizens of a republic, beholden to the voters. They are above the law and the proof of that is one of their own has committed hundreds of crimes and will not be required to step aside, much less be prosecuted. The law is for the Dirt People and it will be enforced by the Cloud People, but, the Cloud People will do as they please.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Like the IRS and the Secret Service, more and more of the federal government is no longer trustworthy or competent….We used to try to do better in the United States, but lately the powers that be seem to be rubbing our noses in their untrustworthiness and their ability to avoid the consequences.”
The FBI report confirms what all non-shills have known for quite some time: Hillary lied under oath.
“Bernie Sanders supporters should be furious over emailgate. “If Hillary Clinton hadn’t lied her way through the primary, would she be the presumptive Democratic nominee?”
In other Clinton Corruption news:
An updated Clinton scandal primer. As with previous versions, he soft-peddles or omits several Clinton scandals…
Yesterday’s Brexit roundup mentioned that Italian banks account for nearly half the bad loans for the entire Eurozone.
Italy is now the heads-on favorite as the most likely instigator of the next global economic crisis. Some analysts are calling it a perfect storm:
Italy’s bank bailout fund might not be enough to beat back the Brexit. More key Italian financial services firms are under pressure and face the potential need to raise capital, leaving Italian government officials and its banking system trying to steer clear of a crisis.
As Italian bank bonds and share prices are seeing their value slammed in the face of rising uncertainty, banks with substantial bad loans are facing greater pressure, with rates around the world slipping into negative territory.
And, of course, they’re blaming Brexit rather than all the myriad problems with the EU that caused the Brexit.
Italy’s bank bailout fund might not be enough to beat back the Brexit. More key Italian financial services firms are under pressure and face the potential need to raise capital, leaving Italian government officials and its banking system trying to steer clear of a crisis.
As Italian bank bonds and share prices are seeing their value slammed in the face of rising uncertainty, banks with substantial bad loans are facing greater pressure, with rates around the world slipping into negative territory. It’s an anxiety some in Italy and throughout the European Union may have been hoping would be eased by the Brexit vote last month — but then the U.K. referendum delivered the opposite outcome from the one they had sought.
“Market volatility following the U.K.’s EU referendum result hit the Italian bank sector particularly hard because it is one of Europe’s weakest,” Fitch Ratings analysts said in a July 4 report. “Asset quality pressure is a main driver for the negative outlooks on several large and medium-sized Italian banks.”
The Brexit vote, which calls for the United Kingdom to abandon a European Union that has careened for years from one crisis to another, could hasten weak Italian banks’ downfall. It was widely expected that European and U.K. banks will suffer the brunt of the vote in late June, and while British banks have been hard hit by the news — which brings with it tremendous regulatory uncertainty — EU banks have suffered as well.
Many banks in Italy, including its largest, UniCredit SpA, have seen share prices pounded; its stock is down more than 60 percent so far this year. A staffer at UniCredit could not provide comment when contacted.
Already, Italian officials and executives appear to be pulling out all the stops to stave off banking sector contagion. The lingering question for banks is whether they can continue to support lending operations at a time when creditors face potential losses and as some of the country’s leading financial services firms could be subject to shotgun M&A marriages by regulators.
Italian financial services firms earlier this year established a multi-billion dollar fund called Atlante to buy non-performing bank loans. But the fund, which is in the 4-billion euro to 6-billion euro range ($4.43 billion to $6.65 billion), one analyst said, is far too small to cover all the non-performing loans held by major Italian banks. However, the fund could still be leveraged in order to support loan purchases.
“The authorities need to get banks to remove a large portion of soured loans from their books so they can loan more,” said Julien Jarmoszko, senior research manager at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “If investors fear more Italian banks, this will raise their cost of capital and reduce lending as a result.”
Look for some sort of holding action for temporary recapitalization (including a “bail in” or some sort of ECB scheme) to let all the insiders dump their bad debts onto the European taxpayer, which was the real point of prolonging the Greek farce.
More news on that front:
Atlante already took control of Veneto Banca after “a €1bn capital increase demanded by EU bank regulators attracted zero interest.” And Atlante may have to tap pension funs for further recapitalization.
Italy has also banned short-selling of imploding Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA. That’s never a good sign, and it never works for long.
“It’s bad – non-performing bank loans have risen to 18%. At 10%, most banks are technically bankrupt. That’s the percentage of capital and pledged deposits they have against bad loans. Our pledged deposits, not theirs. At 18%, they’re no longer “technically” bankrupt. They ARE bankrupt! Greece still has bad or non-performing bank loans of 34%, Ireland 19% and Portugal 12%. And we haven’t seen the next serious financial crisis yet.”
And bank bailouts could hit Italian sovereign debt right in the bond ratings. “Italian ratings are already at BBB- for S&P, though we must also add that DBRS still ranks the country at AL. Still, if these ratings start to come under pressure from the agencies, this could lead to speculation that Italy may eventually fall out of the investment grade bucket. This would have a major impact – in the first place in terms of the eligibility of Italian bonds for the PSPP.” That’s the European Central Bank’s public sector purchase program.
Of course, when push comes to shove, we’re likely to see all sorts of banking rules get thrown out the window…
As several commentators, from Megan McArdle in The Atlantic to Rupert Darwall in National Review, have noticed, many liberal journalists, representing elites throughout the advanced world, have reacted with indignation to the fact that 52 percent of U.K. voters (many without degrees) have rejected the EU system of supranational government of which the elites approve. Naturally, these journalistic spokesmen argue, the common people could not possibly have good reasons for such an act of multinational vandalism. So they must be inspired by, er, racism, xenophobia, fear of globalization, and related other thought-crimes.
That account doubtless condenses and oversimplifies the elites’ response to the Brexit shock, which is just one small skirmish in a new class war in advanced societies between geographically mobile, liberal, skilled, high-earning professionals and more rooted, communitarian, particularist, and patriotic citizens (or what British journalist David Goodhart calls “nowhere” people and “somewhere” people). “Nowhere” people simply didn’t grasp the outlook of “somewhere people” in the referendum, not seeing that many decent people who voted for Brexit had such respectable anxieties as loss of community or, one step up, the transformation of their country as motives for casting their votes. So the elites thought the worst. They were still making the same mistake in their television and columnar explanations of the result on Friday morning. But what was remarkable was the Darwall-McArdle thesis that in other countries the elites reacted to the Brexit shock as if personally or spiritually affronted in their own lives. Alarmed, they asked: Why weren’t we told that they might vote for Brexit?
It’s a hard question to answer.
One aspect of it, however, is ideologically fascinating. Among the central arguments of those favoring Brexit was that the Brussels system was dangerously undemocratic and that British voters and MPs had lost the power to propose, amend, or repeal failed or oppressive laws. This was a passionate concern among English people who had grown up in a self-governing democracy, who may have fought for it in wars, and who simply couldn’t understand why the loss of their democratic rights didn’t worry their opponents. Yet again and again liberal journalists treated this passionate belief as either abstract or a cover for more primitive emotions and bigotries. Democracy as such was rarely given weight in Remain or liberal debates on the cost/benefit analysis of Brexit. They treat multinational political institutions as such unalloyed goods that it would be impolite to raise questions about such defects as a democratic deficit. Has the knowledge class/meritocracy/cognitive elite/nowhere people/etc., etc. developed not only an intellectual snobbery towards the rest of society, but even an impatient, dismissive contempt for democracy that cannot be openly avowed but that does influence its other political attitudes?
“Bigotry! Nativism! Racism! That’s what elites in Britain, Europe and here have been howling, explanations for why 52 percent of a higher-than-general-election turnout of British voters voted for their nation to leave the European Union. But there is plenty of bigotry, condescension and snobbery in the accusations and the people making them. And it’s incoherent to claim, as some do, that it’s undemocratic for voters to decide. That amounts to saying that ordinary people should be content to be ruled by their betters.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“I think it’s shocking and appalling to assume because I voted to leave the EU that I’m racist.”
Even countries that aren’t contemplating leaving the EU (like France) are demanding changes to EU policies…and threatening to simply stop obeying them. There’s also this tidbit: “Italy’s banks are saddled with 360 billion euros ($401.18 billion) in bad loans.”
More on the same subject. “In Italy, 17% of banks’ loans are sour. That is nearly 10 times the level in the U.S., where, even at the worst of the 2008-09 financial crisis, it was only 5%. Among publicly traded banks in the eurozone, Italian lenders account for nearly half of total bad loans.”
If the UK can leave the EU. why can’t we leave the UN?
Happy Independence Day weekend! (That’s America’s Independence Day, not the newfangled UK version.) Enjoy a LinkSwarm to tide you over for the weekend:
Kevin Williamson explains why firearms ownership is a civil right. “It is a measure of the corruption of the Democratic party and its ability to inspire corruption in others that John Lewis, once a civil-rights leader, is today leading a movement to strip Americans of their civil rights based on secret lists of subversives compiled by police agencies and the military…The Democrats have lynching in their political DNA, and they seem to be unable to evolve past it.”
This lengthy article in the New York Times talks about how a new Panama Canal expansion designed to handle bigger ships (and which is on the edge of opening) has numerous possible debacles due to radical underbidding by the primary contractor. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Bill de Blasio cronies are being arrested right and left. Or, keeping in mind this is de Blasio we’re talking about, left and left…
“An Arizona Democratic lawmaker was indicted on felony charges for allegedly falsifying her application when applying for food stamps.”
It’s a big story, and the reverberations continue to sound around the world:
Boris Johnson withdraws from Tory PM race in favor of fellow Leave campaigner Michael Gove, who is expected to face-off against Remain backer Theresa May, “the no-nonsense domestic security chief.” Evidently the Washington Post doesn’t trust their readers to know what the Home Secretary (her actual title) does in the UK…
It sounds like the UK got out of the EU just in time: “Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault today presented a proposal for closer EU integration based on three key areas – internal and external security, the migrant crisis, and economic cooperation. But the plans have been described as an ‘ultimatum’ in Poland, with claims it would mean countries transfer their armies, economic systems and border controls to the EU.”
Brexit has caused such panic among our political elites that they’ve openly opposing democracy since it continues to thwart their will to power.
Marine Le Pen: “Do we want an undemocratic authority ruling our lives, or would we rather regain control over our destiny?” The usual Le Pen caveats apply, but she’s not wrong here. (Hat tip: Zero hedge.)
The utter incomprehension of some colleagues at the result would be comical were it not so injurious to the sub-constitutional role played by the Fourth Estate.
There is a sense of indignation that a majority of voters did not cleave to the group-think. The whiff of class-hatred hangs heavy in the air. This morning I risked pariah-status in the canteen queue by suggesting it was patronising to ascribe the working class with prejudices we could neither test nor vouch for. Dismissing their opinions as motivated by xenophobia precludes any notion that those uneducated poor folk might actually have a coherent view on sovereignty or national self-determination.
This democratic deficit has been well ventilated over the weekend. Janice Turner, in particular, wrote beautifully and wisely in Saturday’s Times about the folly of denigrating “retired miners who now drive taxi cabs”. It is no surprise that contrarians like the brilliant Julie Birchill, who has written at length about the demonisation of white-working class ‘chavs’, came out for Brexit.
Part of the seething fury felt by some of my co-workers lies in that feeling of being hoodwinked, of not being as smart, as omniscient as they, hitherto, imagined. Their self-esteem is bruised. Nobody likes to find out that the world they thought existed turns out to have been built on miopia and wishful thinking.
There’s a growing sense, not only in Great Britain, but in the US as well, that the elites, or the political class, or whatever you’d like to call them, are incompetent and have been leading us astray. And the response from elites is to call those criticisms illegitimate. Those doing the carping are assumed to be racists or nationalists, both of which, of course, are unpleasant, dirty types of people. Both the UK’s Leavers and the US’s Trumpers share some commonalities. Among them are skepticism over free trade and free immigration; concerns that elites dismiss as foolish and uneducated. And, of course racist.
Snip.
I think we’re about to watch the elites start paying a price for their incompetence, inattention and contempt. Euroskepticism is on the rise elsewhere in Europe. If EU membership were put to a popular vote in the Netherlands, Spain, or Sweden, there is a good chance that Leave would win there, too. Indeed, it’s possible that a vote to leave the EU might even win in France, the nation for whom creating and strengthening the EU has been the primary policy goal for 60 years.
Perhaps the “Vote Remain, you virulent racist!” PR campaign for staying in the EU needs a bit more thought.
After Brexit’s passage, Labour MPs decided to take their frustrations out on their own leader:
A motion of no confidence in Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been passed by the party’s MPs.
The 172-40 vote, which is not binding, follows resignations from the shadow cabinet and calls on Mr Corbyn to quit.
Mr Corbyn said the ballot had “no constitutional legitimacy” and said he would not “betray” the members who voted for him by resigning.
So the purpose of the vote was, what, essentially? To shame him into resigning? To push him out without having their fingerprints on the knife in his back?
“Dave Sparks, a councillor in Dudley and a former chair of the Local Government Association, warned that if Mr Corbyn stays, Labour will be wiped out.”
Maybe so, but barring a Tory no confidence vote (which, with Cameron’s resignation and an absolute parliamentary majority, would not be in the Tories’ interests) the next general election will not be until 2020, by which standard this leadership move is about three years premature.
It seems to have been a dry run for an actual leadership challenge, but I suspect that Corbyn, in all his loony left glory, is far more popular with Labour voters than anyone the MPs could replace him with.
“The [Scottish National Party], meanwhile, is to ask the Speaker to declare it the official opposition at Westminster, claiming their Westminster leader Angus Robertson has more support than Mr Corbyn.”
In essence, Corbyn is the victim of three things:
Labour’s rage at losing the Brexit vote. It seems that Corbyn is being penalized for not clapping loud enough to keep Tinkerbell alive.
Long-simmering resentment of Corbyn being elected head by the party’s Tony Blair faction. (Some have suggested that it’s meant to distract from the imminent release of the Chilcot Report on the Iraq War. Which would make Corbyn’s attempted ouster an odd “distraction” to launch an entire week before…)
Corbyn has always been more popular with the party’s rank and file than with their MPs.
As disorienting as it is for me to sound like I’m actually defending Corbyn, he isn’t the source of Labour’s ills, and booting him isn’t going to solve them.
“California’s skyrocketing housing costs, taxes prompt exodus of residents.” “During the 12 months ending June 30, the number of people leaving California for another state exceeded by 61,100 the number who moved here from elsewhere in the U.S.” Plus this: “The majority of the people we are seeing are moving to states that don’t have state income taxes.” And this “My husband’s salary would be in the six figures, but six figures is not enough to cover the rent, day care (and) food prices.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“A survey of 45 cities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties shows the average full-time city worker received $127,730 in pay and benefits last year.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“Jacobs Engineering Group, one of the world’s largest engineering companies, is preparing to move employees from its Pasadena [CA] headquarters to Dallas, becoming the latest major corporation to relocate significant operations from California to Texas.”
“A California-based orthopedic goods manufacturer and distributor has decided to move its Ohio-based distribution hub to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which will give the company a place to significantly expand operations and possibly relocate its West Coast headquarters. The company, Santa Paula, California-based Hely & Weber, has signed a lease totaling nearly 40,000 square feet of space at 755 Regent Blvd. in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.”
Marin County pension reformer launches GoFundMe campaign to sue the county over pension increases. Though his $198,000 request strikes me as excessively optimistic…
Once again, California leads the nation…in car thefts.
Which lead to this: “More than 71 percent of all recovered stolen cars in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California were stolen by illegal aliens or by ‘transport coyotes,’ those who bring in illegals across the Mexican border.”
“Paul Tanaka, once one of the most powerful law enforcement officials in Los Angeles County, was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison for interfering with an FBI investigation into jail abuses by sheriff’s deputies.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
And the guy Oakland found to replace him? He lasted…five days.
Bay Area law enforcement agencies have lost 944 guns since 2010. Maybe that’s the “gun control” Democrats should be focusing on… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
You could count this Silicon Valley robot pizza technology startup as a win for California, but the subtext here as that many human California pizza workers will never work a day under that new $15 minimum wage…