Stidmatt

First and foremost, this article is inspired by this piece of absolute bullshit by Senator Banks from Indiana.

Making visa overstays a crime is unnecessary. The law is fine as it is. It’s a civil infraction. That’s enough.

But the part of the article I find absolutely horrendous is he accuses the 9/11 highjackers of overstaying their visas. As Saudis they are entitled to staying in America for up to 6 months on a B visa when issued. All of the highjackers on B visas entered the United States less than 6 months before the attack, most of them in April or May. None of them entered the country illegally.

In order to conduct anti-terrorism, we need to get the facts straight. Terrorism is a very serious threat, as is Salafi Islam, and we need to take them seriously.

Reading through the page I have some recommendations to bring our response in line with the actual causes for how the attack happened. Be warned, the Saudi government is really not going to like this.

• Abolish ESTA. ESTA is the famous government waste and inefficiency Elon Musk keeps going on about. It does not keep America safe. Allow citizens of democracies with low visa overstay rates to come to the USA without any form of visa through eGates. Right wingers who blabber about government waste are the ones who generally create wasteful programs like ESTA. We should cut real government waste. Abolish ESTA.
• Saudi and UAE citizens can only get B visas for up to 6 months validity as a result of the 9/11 attack. Currently they are valid for ten years.
• Qatari citizens can only get B visas for up to 6 months validity because of their collaboration with the Taliban. Currently they are valid for ten years.
• Strengthen anti-money laundering laws to ensure there is no path for American money to end up in the hands of terrorists.

They are really not going to like the last piece.

But fuck them.

We live in a globalized world where travel is more accessible than ever, global GDP per capita has never been higher, infant mortality is dropping every year, and life expectancy is up globally. This is a very different world from 50 years ago. There are a few major conflicts in the world today, particularly in Ukraine and Israel, but the trend of global deaths from armed conflict has been going down for decades, especially during the War on Terrorism which were the most peaceful years in history.

As the world has become more safe and interconnected, countries have to make choices about how we interact with each other. The first question is whether to join a customs union with similar countries, which is usually a pretty easy decision given the aggregate benefits. The next question is whether to form a travel area like Schengen or the Andean community given the costs and benefits of customs, the costs of customs between low-corruption democracies usually outweigh the benefits, so countries are forming free travel areas around the world.

These are easy questions with lots of upsides and few if any disadvantages.

Currency union

But then there is the question of a full blown currency union. Should you pursue it? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

The main reason countries pursue currency unions is perceived stability. They see the exchange rate staying the same with other countries, with less volatility with third parties, and this is perceived as a good thing. It is good for consumption if you have a valuable currency which makes imports cheaper. But if you are a net exporter in a country with lower productivity, it can actually be worse for your business by making your exports more expensive.

So in the case of Luxembourg and Germany I see no reason why these countries should not have a currency union. They are both highly educated countries with low corruption, leading to very similar economies. Luxembourg is very small, so tying their currency to a larger wealthy economy makes sense.

Currency fluctuations

But what about when it comes to Portugal? Portugal has a mean years of schooling of only 9.6 years versus 13.1 in Germany. Portugal’s GDP per capita is hence significantly lower, and their corruption perceptions index ranking is significantly lower than Finland. While every country in the Eurozone is highly developed, there are major fluctuations within it.

By adopting the Euro, Portugal’s exports are more expensive. This attracts fewer tourists, and makes it more difficult for Portuguese businesses to be cost-competitive globally when exporting. With a weaker currency they would see Portuguese businesses export more items, boosting national income. This is one major drawback of different economies adopting a currency union.

A second consideration is if there is a local recession, the currency usually will drop in value. This makes exports cheaper, boosting the economy so the recession is less severe. This doesn’t work if you are in a currency union, making it far more difficult to recover. It also makes it so you can’t borrow money from your central bank to do a fiscal stimulus to reduce the severity of the recession.

It’s also disadvantageous in good times. If your economy is booming wildly and you are in a currency union, you cannot raise interest rates to keep the economy at a less frantic pace. This can lead to faster inflation and bubbles.

A central tenet of modern economic theory is counter-cyclical policy. While there are some services the government always handles, like health care, education, and infrastructure, they increase and decrease their involvement based on the market cycle. If unemployment is low and inflation is high, they might put off that infrastructure project for a rainy day. In a recession with high unemployment and deflation the government will hire people on to build the backlog of infrastructure projects, keeping the economy moving and people employed.

But if you are in a currency union you lose this ability. You will not have the monetary independence which allows you to reduce interest rates and have the government borrow more money straight from the central bank in order to get the economy moving. You also are stuck with less volatile interest rates in good times, so you can’t increase interest rates faster in order to slow down an overheating economy.

So are currency unions worth it? It depends what you value.

If you value having a strong currency so when you travel abroad you have more purchasing power, currency unions can provide a short-term fix. This makes things look good to citizens, improving the popularity of politicians. This is why currency unions are so politically appealing.

But when recession strikes, currency unions can act as a further weight on your economy. Keeping your depressed economy in a high-interest rate environment with your government less able to borrow money to get people back to work and projects built. Businesses still have to deal with more expensive loans, reducing employment further.

So in my opinion I think the costs of a currency union outweigh the benefits. If you want to become wealthier, the only way to do it with little downside is to improve productivity. Productivity is measured by the value of work done per hour. You can’t hack your way to higher productivity by working longer hours, you can only do it by increasing education levels and adopting better technology.

If you improve your productivity, your GDP will go up by definition. Your quality of life increases as people make higher incomes. As people make more money, they will import more items from abroad. As your country increases its exports demand for your currency will go up, improving the value of your currency.

An easy way to think of this is in terms of net exports versus net imports between two currencies. The currency with net imports will see its value rise in that currency pair.

So let’s say the United States and Canadian dollars are hypothetically trading 1:1. If the value of American exports to Canada (software) is higher than Canadian exports to the United States (oil) the United States has a trade surplus with Canada. This trade surplus means there is more demand for USD than CAD. This will push the prices away from parity, to perhaps .99 USD for 1 CAD, or 1.01 CAD/USD.

In this scenario, where I would have gotten 1000 CAD for 1000 USD, I will now get 1,100 CAD for the same amount of USD.  This means the next time we trade, Canadians will need to spend more CAD to buy the same amount of computers, pushing our trade back to parity. But it also will make Canadian oil cheaper, meaning Americans will buy more oil, bringing the exchange rate back to parity in the long run ceterus paribus.

Polish zloty

Poland has joined the European Union, but has maintained its own free floating currency. Being in the European Union and Schengen Area it has all the advantages of free trade that one could want to boost their economy, their education level is high, though corruption remains around the level of Italy, so way better than their neighbors Russia and Belarus, but with room for improvement.

This has led to massive growth in the Polish economy over the last twenty years. The zloty is far less valuable than the Euro, keeping Polish exports relatively cheap. This boost in exports helps bring money into Poland, improving their incomes, and their incomes have increased from $30k in 2014 to $44k in 2024. Almost 50% in 10 years!

I suspect if Poland had entered into the Euro their exports would have become more expensive, slowing their growth.

When Poland sells good to the rest of the European Union, this bring Euros into Poland which they can then turn around and purchase more factor inputs to further increase their productivity. This creates a virtuous cycle until their economy reaches the productivity of the other members of the bloc. If Poland were to hit a recession, the zloty would depreciate, Polish exports would become cheaper, and that would increase exports, boosting their economy in a counter-cyclical manner.

Portugal has no such advantage. If their economy hits a recession they are tied into the Euro so they have to use other methods.

So is it worth it?

Should countries join currency unions? My answer is no. As long as you keep increasing productivity you will see an improved quality of life. This will happen whether you are in a currency union or not. So during normal times, it won’t make that much of a difference.

But when the economy hits a recession in the future for whatever reason, it will not be felt equally across a large currency union. This will cause a conflict for monetary policy. Do they keep interest rates high for the countries less harmed, risking the recession regions falling further? Or do they reduce the interest rate and risk an inflationary cycle in the countries which are doing relatively well?

Exchanging currencies for goods is natural. The hassle of exchanging currencies is minimal in today’s technological era, the only issue you might have is increased price volatility.

But price volatility is not necessarily a bad thing. It means the market is working. You want prices to fluctuate to clear the market and facilitate trade. If prices are unable to change you will end up with shortages and surpluses. The advantages of price volatility outweigh the cons.

So countries should absolutely form customs unions and open border regimes, but keep their own currency.

Tariffs

The European Union is reinstating tariffs on Ukrainian exports.

They continue to restrict Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian military bases with weapons donated by the European Union.

Espionage

900,000 Russians are working in the European Union. Germany just charged three of them as acting as a backdoor for Russian intelligence. It is unknown how many Russians in Europe are still sending money and information back home.

This is very similar to the Hamburg cell before 9/11, and the way how all of the 9/11 terrorists were granted visas to the United States. None of them came illegally.

Visas

The European Union plans on implementing visas on all foreigners who currently can travel to the Schengen Area visa-free. No one from any of the countries which will fall under the new visa regime has ever committed any terrorist attack in Europe.

Conclusion

When you see these three parts of the story you quickly realize its part of one giant picture. We continuously have elected weak leaders in the US and EU who have undermined our own security. We are hostile towards each other by implementing new visas and keeping up trade barriers, while at the same time we allow hostile foreign actors from Russia and Saudi Arabia to travel to our countries, send money back home, and kill our citizens.

These clowns blabber about national security as we restrict travel between democracies while Russians send our money to Russia which is then used to kill our allies in Ukraine. We granted visas to terrorists prior to 9/11. Saudi Arabia has never been held to account for their utter lack of security in fighting counter-terrorism by at the bare minimum canceling the passports of known terrorists. But don’t worry, that massive attack by Liechtensteiners will be prevented because they are a serious threat to our national security because they sold your grandmother a new set of dentures.

At the same time Europe continues to buy natural gas and oil from Russia which finances their slaughter of Ukrainian civilians.

We need strong progressive leadership which will stop this farce of national security. Every country has a responsibility to prosecute terrorists from their country and ensure they do not have a passport. If a country fails to do this, they should not be allowed entry to our countries. We need leaders who will sanction Russian fossil fuels. We need real actions to protect our national security, by having rigorous background checks from all travelers from state sponsors of terrorism and strong money laundering laws to prevent the financing of international terrorism.

The real sources of money laundering for terrorism are conspicuously missing from Trump’s travel bans.

Despite all the laws passed after 9/11, nothing has been done to stop the flow of money from the Gulf States to terrorism. It’s an absolute scandal. Billions of dollars a year flow from these countries to international terrorism. It needs to stop. They have started to crack down on it but it has been almost a quarter century since New York was bombed by their citizens. They have had plenty of time, they have no excuse.

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine demonstrates how much we need a political awakening. We need to realize that opposing authoritarianism is national security. Allowing our money to freely flow to countries which are committing genocide and financing terrorism undermines our own democracies. It funds global propaganda campaigns which exist for the sole reason of undermining our democracies.

For the last 25 years and longer our governments have not taken these threats seriously. We have cracked down on the liberty of our own citizens while allowing dirty money to flow freely to rogue nations committing acts of international terrorism. This needs to stop.

We need a new political consensus that we are going to protect our national security, not by putting up walls between friends, but by ensuring that it is as hard as possible for dictators to finance their corrupt mafia states as they build outlandish projects as they pretend to be a modern society. We need to elect leaders who will take these threats to our countries seriously instead of through damaging performative nonsense which divides us from other democracies.

Slava Ukraine. Free Afghanistan from Saudi terrorism.

I’m a long-time Nexus member, which is a program for expedited travel to and from Canada, which also gives me membership in TSA Precheck and Global Entry (expedited US customs at airports). If you are eligible, it is worth joining.

I am on reddit and I am part of the Global Entry, TSA, Nexus_TTP, and uscanaborder subreddits since I’ve learned a lot about these programs just through use.

A consistent problem which I have found along with a lot of other verified travelers is that a lot of agents and airline employees do not understand the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Neither do they understand the required documents to go through TSA. I have gone through the government’s websites and here is a helpful table with the current rules as I can gather from looking through official government websites:

TSA Precheck

Global Entry

Nexus

SENTRI

FAST

Passport card

Passport

Other Real ID

Non-Real ID

Viajero Confiable

Military ID or Merchant Mariners

American Indian card

Domestic flight TSA

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

Land or sea border to US

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

On official orders

TRUE

International flight to US from anywhere

TRUE

Flight to US from Canada

TRUE

TRUE

On official orders

Expedited TSA

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

Expedited customs into US

TRUE

TRUE

TRUE

Expedited customs into Canada

TRUE

Expedited customs into Mexico

with Viajero Confiable

with Viajero Confiable

with Viajero Confiable

with Viajero Confiable

TRUE

Flight into Canada from anywhere

TRUE

TRUE

This is what I understand from reading through government websites outlining the rules. Yes, it’s a bit confusing but fortunately agents only need to know the row which is relevant to their job.

The long and the short of it is to get a Nexus card and then apply for Viajero Confiable if you plan on going to Mexico more than once. It’s the best program as is clearly seen in this table.

What a couple of days it has been… Ukraine has destroyed a substantial portion of Russia’s air force and today they successfully attacked the Kerch Strait Bridge. We are clearly in the last steps of this war, and it will be over by the end of the year with Ukraine regaining all of its territory.

Now we just need the Russian front to collapse from a lack of supplies as Ukraine does more attacks on Russian military targets, destroying the Russian supply lines, causing a collapse of their military.

Once Ukraine has won, Russia’s economy will collapse as it is so dependent on the military right now for economic vitality. Their foreign reserves are collapsing, food prices are skyrocketing. Their economy is on the edge of total collapse, and if history is any predictor, this means the probability Putin will be removed from power this year is increasing rapidly. Just like the Tsar and the Supreme Soviet.

Trump has nothing to do with this.

Even without the sanctions, Russia would still be collapsing because of the lack of manpower due to the ongoing war. The sanctions have had little effect. Russia is still trading openly with China, Central Asia, and India. Their exports of oil have increased to China at the discount which has kept their economy running. Because this is the thing about sanctions and tariffs in a multi-polar world… they don’t tend to work very well. This doesn’t mean we should not use them, but unilateral sanctions are quite weak.

Ukraine has now gotten to the point where they have enough military equipment to not need NATO as much as they did three years ago. They have reached the point where due to the strain on Russia’s economy and Ukraine being able to continue to build their own military industrial complex they will definitely win. NATO should still send weapons though, because that will merely hasten Ukraine’s victory.

Also, Ukraine will be seeking multilateral protection pacts even if they will be unable to join NATO in the near future given right-wing governments in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. By seeking out unilateral protection pacts with both Germany and France, Ukraine will get sufficient security to be able to focus on making the necessary reforms to hasten their EU membership.

I predict all of this will happen by the end of the year.

Regarding Israel… Only the United States and Israel seem to oppose the immediate release of the hostages in Gaza right now, among a handful of other countries less involved in the conflict. 70% of Israeli voters do not trust their government. The probability of Likud losing the next election is almost a guarantee at this point with 70% of Israelis wanting Netanyahu to resign.

Once the war ends, Netanyahu will be dragged back to court, and he will almost certainly be convicted on corruption charges. The end of the War in Gaza will be the end of his government, so he must continue the war as long as possible. He also has an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, something they don’t do lightly.

So will the War in Gaza end this year? I have no idea. I kind of doubt it honestly. Netanyahu has the full backing of the US government and he will be able to return to either the United States or Russia with few questions asked because he can return to either country by right. He is a member of the Russian diaspora, his family lived in New York before emigrating to Israel. I don’t think Netanyahu will ever see consequences for his crimes against humanity. Netanyahu fleeing Israel at the end of this war for asylum in the US or Russia is a guarantee.

If Netanyahu flees Israel, it looks like the opposition will win, but don’t expect much to change. The only centrist, arguably center-left, party which is projected to win more than 10 seats is The Democrats. Every other party supports the construction of more illegal and destabilizing settlements in the West Bank, whether they are part of the government or not. Israeli society has moved very far to the right in the last decade, more than any other democracy. There is effectively no opposition.

Nothing will fundamentally change in Israel. The United States should let them govern themselves and withdraw. Our influence there is not helpful, only destructive. Our influence there is making Israel-Palestinian relations worse. It gives them few consequences for their decisions, and funds an endless war with no end. The best thing to do is pull our military support and then they will have the necessity to work with their neighbors diplomatically. The endless supply of weapons is destabilizing the region, putting Jews and Muslims around the world in danger. The fighting enflames tensions, empowering violent extremists. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be solved by violence alone. There needs to be diplomacy and the establishment of laws for Israeli-Palestinian relations based on shared humanity. This will not happen as long as you have the dangerous combination of a right-wing government and endless weapons. Our policy there is profoundly anti-Semitic, and it needs to change.

My philosophy regarding war has been deeply influenced by the Russian and Israeli wars over the last few years. When there is an obvious case of a sovereign democratic state being invaded by an authoritarian regime, the only option is to support the democracy with weapons, give advice, but let them lead because they are the ones at war. But when it comes to civil wars like in Israel/Palestine, it becomes very complicated. The relations between Hamas and Likud are extremely complex as I have explored before from Israeli sources, and the best thing to do is just not get involved. The two major wars could not possibly be more different.

Regarding the United States, we will have elections next year, Democrats will almost certainly win, and hopefully they will be more forceful than Biden was. We need Democrats who are unwilling to compromise with fascism, because the Republican Party has gone off the cliff. These are not your great-grandparents Republicans of the 1950s. The modern Republican Party is a radical nationalist movement inspired by Putin. They cannot remain a major party in a free and democratic society. Democrats need to win and make a clear argument why they should hold government. We need to push the Overton Window back towards liberalism and make the modern Republican Party unelectable.

There are no clear imminent changes in the rest of the world for this year as far as I can tell. China will be able to fully replace Russia’s support of North Korea, so no change. The loss of Russian political influence in media will allow cooler heads to have more of a voice, and this will take a few years. The loss of Russian support in countries like Burkina Faso could cause some much-needed regime change.

The loss of Russian support in Iran could start to bleed that regime dry and bring back another round of protests, within a few years.

These are my predictions. The main events are of course the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Gaza War. Other major wars are unlikely to change any time soon.

References:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-food-prices-inflation-interest/33244563.html

https://kyivindependent.com/russias-foreign-currency-reserves-fell-to-lowest-since-2008-amid-mounting-deficits/

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3994135-russia-faces-major-labor-shortage-due-to-war-in-ukraine-foreign-intel.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exports-sanctioned-russian-arctic-oil-china-set-rise-april-sources-say-2025-04-17/

 

 

 

The finale of Doctor Who Season 41 (Series 15) was… odd.

Wish World worked. That was a very solid episode. We had Mel, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, with the Rani and Conrad as the villains. It’s an excellent episode. It ends with the Doctor falling in a very climatic and emotional way.

I’m not a fan of teasing the return of Susan and then not bringing her back properly. What a missed opportunity.

The finale The Reality War is rushed. They tried to stick too much in one episode and the exposition/action didn’t really work in my opinion. It could have been done better. Here’s what I would have done:

Wish World is the first episode of the arc. It’s excellent. No changes.

Second episode should be a throwback exploring the beginning of how this occurred. More exploration of this world would have been helpful, 20 minutes leading into the throwback, 20 minutes in the new world starting their life together. 10 minutes with the aftermath of the Doctor falling from the tower in London. Ends with Belinda remembering who she is at the Time Hotel. Susan joins through the Time Hotel.

Third episode is the first half of The Reality War. A lot of the dialogue needed more editing. Spend a full hour ­exploring the finale of that episode. This delves into the actions into the Rani and Conrad. More time with Unit. Susan is part of the action.

Fourth and final episode ties up the story of the Doctor and Belinda’s relationship. I assume the child of the Doctor and Belinda is from the world being rewritten? It’s ok to leave that part as a mystery. But they deserved a proper sendoff. Susan is in the story as well.

That would have given enough time to explore the main threads of the story:

• The Doctor and Belinda’s relationship
• The Rani
• The Doctor and Belinda’s child

Story list:

1. The Robot Revolution
2. Lux
3. The Well
4. Lucky Day
5. The Story & The Engine
6. Ruby and Belinda travel with the Doctor vs the Daleks
7. Ruby, Anita, and Belinda travel with the Doctor vs the Daleks
8. Ruby, Anita, and Belinda travel with the Doctor story involving Conrad and the Daleks
9. The Interstellar Song Contest
10. Wish World
11. Reality War Part 1: Belinda’s Husband, Susan enters
12. Reality War Part 2: Rani and Conrad, Susan exits
13. Reality War Part 3: The Story of Poppy

I think the last season was a good season overall, but it was too short and often rushed.

This is how you fix Season 41.

The answer is to maintain the keys to power. Most politicians end up getting cocky after being in office for years and make mistakes. But the one exception to this rule is in Singapore.

PAP has remained in power in Singapore since independence. From a fairly lazy point of view one might assume this is because the elections is rigged, but in reality there is no sign the election was rigged. PAP has remained in power for 50 years because they consistently deliver results. Singaporeans have a high quality of life. They have the highest GDP per capita in the world. Things are stable. We find a similar pattern in Luxembourg where CSV has remained in power for 35 of the last 45 years. CSV has also led their country in a way towards prosperity with strong social programs.

One important difference is that Luxembourg consistently has coalition governments like most countries in Europe. Unlike others however rule has stayed pretty consistently in the hands of CSV. It literally took a spy scandal for them to lose power in the 2013 election.

Germany is similar. Merkel stayed in power in Germany until she resigned as party leader. SPD was unable to pull together a strong leader against her during her time in office, and the economy remained strong aside from the global 2008 recession. She also led a coalition in each of her governments, with the SPD three times and FDP once. Her party remained the strongest party in the Bundestag for 16 years.

This is true in every democracy really. Keep the economy strong. Don’t mess up foreign policy. Don’t have a scandal. If you do these three things you will probably stay in power.

For this reason we can explain every time parties lost power in American history. A similar analysis can be done for every democracy.

Why the presidency changed hands

2024 is because of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

2020 is because of the COVID-19 pandemic

2016 is because of the Electoral College. Obama did a good job and Clinton beat Trump by millions of votes.

2008 is because of the 2008 recession.

2000 is because of the Electoral College. Clinton presided over a strong economy with no major foreign policy mistakes, so Gore won the popular vote.

1992 is because of Ross Perot.

1980 is because of the Iran Hostage Crisis

1976 is because of Watergate

1968 is because the Vietnam War was in a stalemate.

1960 is because of Cuba’s fall to communism and an ongoing recession.

1952 is because of crises in Korea and the fall of China.

1932 is because of the Great Depression.

The list continues.

So this means that if presidents were able to avoid making major screw ups, the presidency would change a lot less often.

Abolishing the electoral college would also help based on the result of the 2016 election.

I do not believe stability of one party staying in power is the clear benefit. But keeping extremists like Trump out of office is an obvious benefit to our country. Abolishing the electoral college will help keep extremists out of the presidency.

Adopt a modern election system, keep a strong economy, and don’t screw up foreign policy to keep power.

There are two main issues with supposedly left-wing movements in the Anglosphere. It is understandable and good to want to fight for social justice. It is good to stand against transphobia, racism, sexism, and other evils.

But wen it comes to economic and climate issues the left-wing doesn’t make any sense.

Let’s start with climate, because this is straight forward. The most efficient policy to fight climate change is a carbon tax and dividend system. Canada has done this and it has already had the impact of shutting down 20-23 coal-fired plants for an entire year. The money is then returned the pockets of average Canadians, so most Canadians make more than they spend. It’s reasonable, just, and equitable. Give me another policy which doesn’t exempt big businesses and reduces wealth inequality while reducing emissions for a lower economic impact. I’ll wait.

Their staunch opposition to such schemes doesn’t make any sense.

But don’t worry, they had their opportunity in 2018 to propose how they would actually solve climate change. Cliff Mass analyzed their proposal, I don’t need to repeat his work. TLDR, it was basically greenwashing as if written by the coal industry.

Their economic proposals for inflation are non-nonsensical. In response to spiraling housing costs, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has decided he needs to stick it to landlords by restricting the building of more housing units. This is a common motif on the left in the US and Canada. It doesn’t work. People are moving to tech hubs, and with increased demand and stagnant supply the price must go up. Restricting housing to reduce rents is like going to a brothel to become a virgin again. It doesn’t work that way. It’s stupid.

But perhaps the most braindead demonstration the DSA doesn’t understand what they are talking about is when they say they want to end the independence of the Federal Reserve.

This is idiotic, let me explain why.

The best practice adopted by every strong economy today is to have the central bank be able to adjust interest rates on an as-needed basis to keep the economy moving smoothly. There’s no reason to deviate from this policy. If you have a competent head of government it’s not going to change. But less honorable politicians who get control of monetary policy will generally use the interest rate to their political advantage. This means reducing the interest rate before an election to increase their chances of being elected. This is a problem because it creates an unpredictable market.

Politicians can use the frantic changing of interest rates to manipulate the stock market to their personal benefit while creating general economic disarray.

So its best to keep monetary policy in the hands of an independent central bank, where the central bankers are forbidden from trading stocks for their personal benefit. This is also why members of congress should be forbidden from trading stocks. This is also why the President should not be allowed to unilaterally change tax policy. The conflicts of interest are just too great.

The American left needs to abandon these ideas.

So here’s a new basic platform for a better platform for American politicians:

1. Tax policy is the domain of congress. Any changes in tax policy need to be done by law, not executive order.
2. Preserve and defend the independence of the Federal Reserve.
3. Every American needs health insurance at all times.
4. Every American who wants to go to college needs to be able to do so without taking on debt as long as they stay in good academic standing with their school.
5. Nationalize the railroads.
6. Abolish ESTA. Citizens of democracies need to be able to visit America visa-free. Citizens of democracies should be able to go through customs using eGates.
7. It should be easy for someone who is hired for doing a job in the United States to get a work visa. The exploitation of migrant farm workers needs to end.
8. Defund the police.
9. America has not built enough housing which is why housing prices are increasing rapidly. We need to legalize housing.
10. America should work towards eventually joining the European Economic Area and Schengen Area with Canada.

I feel like this is a much more reasonable policy which will improve the quality of life for all Americans.

Response to this video:

Simon lists a few examples to show the rise of radicals, and I’m going to throw in one more for good measure, in the argument that there is a global populist wave and this is going to be succeeded by a return to normalcy.

Also, is there a reasonable politician or party who has been able to command popular approval without needing their opponents to be compared to Donald Trump?

First, the examples

Country	Year	Radical	% of vote	Note	Still in power
Turkey	2007	Gul/Erodgan	80%	Voted by assembly	yes
Hungary	2010	Orban	53%	Opponent was a hard core Russophile	yes
United Kingdom	2010	Cameron	36%
India	2014	Modi	39%		yes
United States	2016	Trump	46%
Philippines	2016	Duterte	39%
Brazil	2018	Bolsonaro	55%	Worker’s Party was crippled by corruption scandals
South Korea	2022	Yoon	49%
Slovakia	2023	Fico	23%		yes
Argentina	2023	Millei	56%	Second round, predecessor had 100% inflation	yes
United States	2024	Trump	49.8%		yes
Italy	2022	Meloni	43%		yes

As we can clearly see, most of these populists received less than half the votes. The four cases where the populist won over 50% were either not voted for directly, or they were running against a deeply unpopular and corrupt incumbent, giving them a major advantage.

But the more interesting thing is how rare these cases really are… there are 71 countries ranked as a democracy or flawed democracy by the Democracy Index, and there are only a handful of examples of these politicians winning. When we see coalitions forming like in Italy, it is invariably because they received the endorsement of centrist parties like the Five Star Movement.

Let’s investigate these cases in detail:

Netherlands

If we look at other countries which have not seen the rise of radicals, the Netherlands comes to mind. Geert Wilders’ party won the most votes, but he was unable to form a government. The Dutch Prime Minister is now Dick Schoof. The funny thing is that Geert Wilders is the only Dutch politician who gets much coverage in English-language media, but as soon as he is relegated to the back benches I think Dutch politics has disappeared from English language papers. PM Schoof is from the Labour Party which is a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, a mainstream left-of-center party which is pro-EU and public healthcare and education.

We find the same thing in most countries in Europe. They will have a radical Euroskeptic politician like Mateusz Morawiecki in Poland, but when they are then forced to make a coalition government they consistently fail and a standard Europhilic centrist party continues to hold power with a coalition as normal. The Netherlands is pretty normal.

Italy

Put simply, Italy’s election system is best explained as the type of system you would get if you put a heroin addict in charge. It doesn’t make any sense and regularly goes against the wishes of the majority of voters. This is how Giorgia Meloni was able to get a majority of the seats with 43% of the vote. It’s absolutely insane and Italy needs election reform as badly as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Maybe more, and that’s saying something! Seriously Italy, your election system is insane. Fix it for your own sake.

Hungary

I’ve written about Hungary before.

Slovakia

This brings us to the interesting case of Slovakia. Their president is Peter Pellegrini. He is your standard left of center social democratic European president. He won with 53% of the vote last year. A landslide. His opponent was a member of the center-left Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe/Renew Europe. Renew Europe is portrayed as center-right on Wikipedia, but this is incorrect. They are also center-left. The most popular Radical, Stefan Harabin won only 11% of the vote. He was crushed. The Prime Minister Robert Fico is from the Smer party, which won a landslide of 23% of the vote in the 2023 parliamentary election. Smer is supposedly a center-left to left-wing party but also Euroskeptic. Fico organized a grand coalition with parties from across the political spectrum after the last election. Slovakian politics are a total mess. The fact that the other parties were willing to even discuss growing a coalition with Fico shows that despite over 75% of voters directly voting against his party the parties did not listen to how voters chose to vote for a heavily Europhilic president when they actually were able to directly vote for the direction of their country. This is the inherent weakness of parliamentary democracy. Slovakians want to be part of Europe and support Ukraine, but their parties betrayed them in forming a coalition with Fico. Expect a major realignment in the next Slovakian election.

Slovakia did not fall to radicalism because their previous government did anything severely wrong. They were betrayed by the party leadership. Fico has very little support. The party Hlas/Voice – Social Democracy is a left-wing party which aligned itself with Fico to form the new government. Hlas has seen a 5% drop in the polls since the election, with their former support dividing across parties which chose not to form a government with Fico.

Slovakia teaches us a very important lesson. Ally yourself with radicals and lose support.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom teaches us a different lesson to Slovakia, but with similar threads. It’s also the most complex to come to my conclusion. The 2010 election saw The Tories win 36% of the vote with the best performance of the Liberal Democrats in decades. This was after over a decade of Labour rule. The Liberal Democrats made an alliance with the Tories in response, which shot their party in the foot to the present date. David Cameron is a radical Euroskeptic who is in favor of money laundering. Cameron is ultimately a rather pathetic man who always goes for what he sees as easiest, with no guiding morality to his actions. The most dangerous form of politician. He is a coward who resigned after the Brexit referendum. He is less honorable than Gollum. In response to his radical agenda the Labour Party elected Ed Milliband, who is a very moderate but still Europhilic politician. He failed to provide a vision however to the United Kingdom and was unable to win the 2015 election. 2015 was the first election which saw Nigel Farage grow to prominence under his UKIP branding. David Cameron moved his country to the right which gave room for Nigel Farage given the shifting Overton Window. He is solely responsible for the rise of Farage. David Cameron then endorsed UKIP’s vision after the 2015 election by pushing for the Brexit referendum, similar to how Smeagol surrendered to Gollum in the Two Towers. Jeremy Corbyn is once again another Euroskeptic centrist who failed to provide any alternative to David Cameron’s position.

Centrist? Corbyn however identifies as a socialist. People refer to him as a mainstream Scandinavian social democrat?! How could I identify him as a centrist? For the following policies I argue Corbyn is not a member of the left-wing of the Labour Party but actually a moderate:

• He has always been a Euroskeptic, contrary to the position of basically every left-wing party in Europe.
• He supports Brexit.
• He supports nationalizing British rail, which is a mainstream position in Europe.
• He has no opinion on Scotland independence.
• He opposes the Norway model (so much for being a Scandinavian socialist)
• He supports a customs union with the European Union but not EU membership, so a Turkey like model
• He opposes NATO, which is contrary to basically every left-of-center party in Europe.
• His support for Palestinian liberation is mainstream
• He claims Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “not unprovoked”

On every issue he is either in the European mainstream, no opinion, or simply an isolationist. So yes, I do not believe Corbyn is socialist. He’s mainstream in most of his viewpoints aside from his Euroskepticism. The rest of his viewpoints align almost perfectly with the interests of Vladimir Putin. So given an option with a corrupt Brexit-supporting Tory party, a corrupt Brexit-supporting Labour Party, and a fully discredited Liberal Democratic Party given their coalition agreement, Britain voted to keep the Tories in power. They had no good option. This was true in both 2017 and 2019.

By 2024 Brexit had finally happened and people were exhausted with constant bullshit coming out of the Conservative Party. Britain’s economy has been running on fumes and Labour finally won.

But the reason why Labour finally won in 2024 is not because Keir Starmer is a super popular and charismatic leader. He’s quite the opposite really. They simply won because Reform UK, the rebranded UKIP under the human sack of radioactive waste Nigel Farage got 14% of the vote which in the British first past the post election system stole enough votes from the Tories to give Labour the victory. Reform is now the most popular party in the United Kingdom. Keir Starmer has failed to lead the United Kingdom away from the colossal failure of Brexit and right now looks like he will be the man who leads Britain into the First Farage Cabinet of 2029.

Let’s pray the Liberal Democrats win instead and do not form a coalition with the bloody Tories.

Britain shows over the last 15 years that the term of one radical does not mean they will be succeeded by a moderate. The election of Starmer proves this tenet is false.

Conclusion

So it is tempting to say that the choice between radicals and centrists is clear but on a closer look when we investigate most of these cases the radical government was either formed through a corrupt bargain or through a spoilt election.

Most democracies however do not see the rise of populist politicians like Trump, Fico, Starmer, Cameron, and Orban.

We see the rise of pretty mainstream politicians like Emmanuel Macron in most stable democracies around the world. Macron might be extremely unpopular, but at least he’s not completely crazy or living in a fantasy land like most French politicians regardless of political affiliation.

This is the way it works in most European democracies. Sometimes you get an absolute asswipe Euroskeptic like Karl Nehammer of Austria, but that’s unusual, and they are constrained from pursuing their most radical policies by the threat of human flight. Austrian politics has always been the most insane in Europe.

But aside from the absolute train wreck of Austrian politics post-Charlemagne the rest of Europe is usually relatively sane. Most politicians are somewhere near the middle, they support the European Union, they support NATO, and move their countries towards better policies through sane and balanced policies.

So when we come down to it, the rise of most radical politicians comes from coalition agreements against the will of the people or by having an absolutely disastrous governance under a highly corrupt or moderate politician who was unable to direct the national narrative. Having a weak head of government in a democracy opens up the dialogue in ways which are almost never beneficial to society. We need our prime ministers and presidents to have the ability to propose reasonable policies and have control over the narrative. They need to direct the country in a good direction.

Because if they choose not to there is an endless supply of nefarious actors who will make big promises based in fantasy land.

When you elect a head of government thinking that they will be moving your country one direction, and they instead work on promoting the policies of the party that most people voted against, people lose faith in politicians and go towards radicals.

That is why strong progressive leadership is the best bastion against fascism alongside freedom of movement. The pattern of centrist – radical – centrist – radical observed in the video is real in a lot of countries. But this is unusual. Most stable democracies alternate from one normal party to another normal party, one of which is more left-wing, one is more right-wing, but both parties agree with the post-Holocaust consensus that cooperating with your neighbors and building a strong economy is the best option for the people. Most democracies in reality alternate between two normal parties which champion cooperation between countries giving little room for the rise of extremists like Starmer in their countries.

So the real trick for countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy is to start electing normal somewhat boring politicians who champion cooperation through free trade, visa-free travel, social liberalism, and offer a strong vision for the future, instead of this alternating back and forth between the vapidness of Starmer or the insanity of Cameron. We need to be more like the Netherlands, less like Austria.

Let’s break the doom loop and elect normal people.

At-will employment, which requires employees to go to the office, relocate away from home, and usually to states with limited workers rights is inherently broken. Employers are able to layoff employees at any time for any reason, with a very imbalanced relationship.

Best part is that if the company is big enough and the economy collapses under bad investments made by the same large companies, the government will bail them out. The employee on the other hand has to fight tooth and nail for the unemployment insurance scraps which we pay direct taxes for. The company of course doesn’t have to pay taxes because that will “kill jobs” even though they are the ones doing the layoffs. Voters are then convinced to vote for politicians who will slash unemployment benefits and ramp up more subsidies for the businesses which are laying people off and consolidating industries, reducing employment opportunities, making it so companies which do random layoffs have less competition, driving down wages for even more insecure positions.

It’s infuriating and someday we need to wake up and vote for politicians who will support a competitive capitalist economy, not this rigged system which we have now.

In order to keep this system employers push for political candidates who will manage the economy so it doesn’t get too good. They do this through idiotic policies like tariffs which slow down the economy in a way which hurts people who don’t have millions of dollars in the bank.

When the economy finally collapses under the strain the government ensures the big businesses who are doing the random layoffs will get an enormous amount of government money to keep them afloat to “save jobs” while everyone else gets scraps, if anything at all.

I do not believe that market cycles are natural. I think they are inherently political. The last recession under a democratic president was in 1980 under President Carter. That recession was caused due to monetary tightening by Paul Volcker.

The recession before that under a Democrat was in 1948 under President Truman. Just like in 1980 it was not due to any policy of the president, but due to the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates during an election year. It didn’t work in 1948 however since Truman defeated Dewey.

The 1945 recession was due to an influx of former soldiers coming home after Hitler committed suicide.

The 1937 recession was caused due to an attempt to quickly balance the budget before the economy was ready, and a tight monetary policy.

Are you noticing a trend yet?

The Democratic Party before 1932 was significantly different from how it has been since.

All but one recession under a democratic president is due to an overly zealous Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy during a presidential election year!

Every other recession since has happened under a Republican president. We have had 10 recessions under Republican presidents and 4 recessions under Democratic presidents since 1929.

Republicans engineer recessions to remove competition in the market. This drives wages down and profits up for the largest corporations.

They use Russian propaganda against their democratic opponents to win elections. The use of the internet by Russian bot farms are designed to elect meek and conservative leadership across the democratic world. These leaders are inherently fearful and weak. They hesitate to criticize Russia or send Ukraine enough aid to win. By preventing a Ukrainian victory they maintain their support of the Russian bot farms. They push up extreme politicians which prevents progressives from getting enough support to win.

The politicians who would fight to unrig the system, the heads I win, tails you lose system we have today becomes entrenched. Entrenched businesses make our jobs less secure. Our wages are lower than they would be otherwise. Even union jobs have little protection.

I’ve been looking for work for 3 months now. I’m tired. I’m hungry. The game is rigged. Visa restrictions mean that simply moving to another country for work is not an options. Russian propaganda has propped up right wing governments around the world. The economic impact of the Invasion of Ukraine is everywhere. It makes everything so much more difficult. We have it easy, we are not being killed in our homes by rockets at 2 in the morning.

Our politicians are weak and slow. We have the power to stop this. Our governments are corrupt.

Support Ukraine. Defeat Russia.