On the Record | Why Not Add America’s Advantage to the Anglosphere Commonwealth?

Please see my latest article for the American Thinker, ‘Why Not Add America’s Advantage to the Anglosphere Commonwealth?’:

“England and America are two countries separated by the same language,” George Bernard Shaw once remarked. Post-Brexit, why allow any barriers to stand between the world’s two greatest allies?

During debate over the United Kingdom referendum to exit the European Union, Remain supporters argued that British trade would suffer; Leave campaigners countered that Britain had the world as its oyster, pointing to her proud history of overseas trade during which the “second” British Empire flourished. But why should Britain limit herself? Why not include her “first” imperial American offspring?

For even as the War of Independence created the worst relations imaginable between the two countries, with peace America wasted little time in renegotiating trade deals with her former mother country.

When the United States became tangled up in Britain’s conflict with revolutionary France upon the high seas, President Washington sent John Jay as his envoy to London, resulting in the eponymous treaty which resumed trans-Atlantic “amity, commerce, and navigation.”

Disagreement at the climax of the Napoleonic conflict brought the two nations to arms again during the short-lived, fairly inconsequential War of 1812. But tranquility and, more important, a dynamic alliance, has reigned ever since. Now another opportunity presents itself.

“Of all the many splendid opportunities provided by the British people’s heroic Brexit vote,” British historian Andrew Roberts writes, “perhaps the greatest is the resuscitation of the idea of a Canzuk Union.”

Read more . . .

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My thanks to the editors at the American Thinker.

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And allow me to wish my American friends a happy Constitution Day! — celebrating the adoption of the U.S. Constitution on this date in Philadelphia, 1787.

On the Record | Education of a Quick Study Presidential Candidate

Please see my latest article for the American Thinker, ‘Education of a Quick Study Presidential Candidate’:

The Donald never ceases to amaze. Much like the developer’s ladder he climbed under the tutelage of his father, Trump has scaled the political ladder with equal speed and facility. He has risen from the no-chance dilettante candidate to the GOP’s nominee in a (current) statistical tie with his Democrat adversary for the White House. Friend and foe alike are nonplussed. But the quick-study presidential candidate would be no surprise to Alexis de Tocqueville.

Sent to the United States by the French government to study prison reform, Tocqueville encompassed the entire republican experiment, publishing his reflections as Democracy in America.

The New World’s break with aristocratic Europe fascinated him; immediacy, dynamism, and action took the place of refined, unhurried contemplation. “The democratic social state and democratic institutions lead most men to act constantly,” Tocqueville wrote; “now, the habits of mind that are appropriate to action are not always appropriate to thought.”

Critics of Trump will read into these sentiments an indictment of the Republican presidential nominee, whose early campaign was marked by cringing off-the-cuff statements and unfiltered appraisals of his opponents.

Read more . . .

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My thanks to the editors at the American Thinker.

On the Record | In Just a Wee Bit of Irony Scots Could Be Orphaned by British Independence

Please see my first cable for The New York Sun, ‘In Just a Wee Bit of Irony Scots Could Be Orphaned by British Independence’:

Here’s a wee bit of irony. The decision of the British people to leave the European Union may have been seen by the Scottish elite as yet another chance for Scotland itself to secede from the United Kingdom and set up their own country, seated within the European Union. But it turns out that the scheme could run into trouble owing to Scotland’s own leftist tendencies.

It’s the Scottish adherence to welfare state policies that may yet do them in. “To be a member of the EU you should have, except in extremis, a budget deficit of no more than 3% of GDP,” writes political economist Tim Worstall for Forbes. “Fudging is possible [but] not a tripling of that target.” Were Scotland an independent state, its budget deficit would be 9.5%.

Scotland’s unofficial poet laureate, Robert Burns, might have remarked, “The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley . . .”

Read more…

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My thanks to Seth Lipsky, editor of The New York Sun, for his kind assistance in preparing this cable for the press.

On the Record | Donald Trump addresses America’s Debt

Please see my latest post for the Quarterly Review, ‘Donald Trump addresses America’s Debt’:

‘The Open Conspiracy.’ That is what Henry Hazlitt, the renowned New York journalist, called the political effort to ‘monetise the debt’ by inflating the currency so that U.S. government debts incurred to-day will cost less to pay to-morrow; or, as is the case, years into the future — if ever.

But in an interview with CNBC on 5^th May, Donald Trump, presumptive Republican presidential candidate, took a swing at the conspiracy by matter-of-factly stating that, as President, he would seek to restructure the payment of U.S. Treasury bonds at lower returns.

Trump then cracked the conspiracy wide open four days later, acknowledging America’s — and all countries with fiat money — dirty little secret: ‘you never have to default because you print the money’.

And, in the process, Trump unleashed yet more political opprobrium upon his head.

Read more…

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My thanks to Dr Leslie Jones of the Quarterly Review; and my appreciation to Professor Steven Kates of RMIT University for guidance on calculating inflation.