Category Archives: Financial crisis

Paul Weston on the Great Reset

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In the following video Paul Weston discusses the Great Reset, the grand scheme for a New World Order as proposed by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum. Digital currencies, universal surveillance, and universal digital IDs (a.k.a. “health passports” or “vaccine passports”) are integral components of the plan.

Paul Weston is a British-based writer who focuses on the damage done to Western Civilisation by the hard Left’s ongoing cultural revolution, which seeks to destroy the Christian, capitalist and racial base of the West. For links to his essays, see the Paul Weston Archives.

Hat tip: Steen.

The Corona Bankruptcies

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Alice Weidel is the co-leader of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany). The following article reports on her remarks about the alarming number of people who have filed for personal bankruptcy since the Coronamadness began.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this piece from PolitikStube:

Weidel: The bankruptcy wave is just a foretaste of the consequences of the catastrophic lockdown policy

The number of personal bankruptcies in Germany was 31,821 in the first quarter of the current year. That is an increase of 56.5 percent compared to the same period last year. The chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, Alice Weidel, explains:

“The drastic increase in personal bankruptcies since the beginning of the year is just a foretaste of what awaits us in the near future. The dramatic consequences of the government’s disastrous lockdown policies are beginning to take shape. The reserves of more and more citizens have been used up. Along with companies, the people are increasingly going under economically. A development that can be postponed but not prevented by the gigantic record debt.

“The government will try to maintain the status quo with the money of future generations until election day.

“The damage has essentially already been done, but it could at least be limited by finally ending all lockdown measures immediately. The government still does not seem to be ready for this.”

Thailand, Land of the No More Smiles

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Our Bangkok correspondent H. Numan sends a gloomy account of the situation in Thailand as the coronavirus “pandemic” winds down.

Thailand, land of the no more smiles

by H. Numan

I’ve got bad news and I’ve got bad news. Which do you want to hear first?

Let’s start with the bad news. Thai International Airlines is on the brink of declaring bankruptcy. The airline has been very badly managed, long before the Chinese Virus struck. Countless efforts have been made to revive the company. You can read as: every executive lined his pockets. Thursday the axeman will arrive. The government stated it will not support Thai Inter. The decision of the shareholders should have been reached last Friday, but they asked for an extension.

It’s a pretty big deal here. You can see that because… everybody pretends it is not a big deal! Loss of face, you know. If KLM goes belly up, the Dutch would be up in arms. Thais are the most chauvinistic people on the planet. Their national pride goes down, and it’s not really important? Come on!

Thai International is the national carrier. A long time ago, one of the very best airlines in the world. The food was excellent and the service superb. The problem was that they didn’t make any profits. Why? Well, everybody working in Thai Inter got free flights. And their family members. And friends. And the royal family (always first class, of course). And their staff. And the friends of the royal staff. And most government officials. And their friends. You get the idea, I think. That can work in a well-managed company in a strong economic climate. It doesn’t most of the time. Thai Inter was never well managed to begin with.

That was no problem when Thai Inter was a government-run airline. After privatization this continued and became a serious problem. One of many. They did cut costs, but that took much of the shine off the airline. The last time I flew Thai, it showed. Food was not too bad — but that comes from me. In other words: from a garbage can with very low gourmet standards. If I find food mediocre, people with higher standards, beware!!! Entertainment was dated. Chairs were visibly well used. Staff was still friendly, but clearly overworked.

It’s a very big deal for Thailand, as it is the national carrier. The reason of the postponement is to put more pressure on the government to cough up something. Which they won’t do. Currently, the offices on Vipawadee Rungsit Road are for sale. The company staff works in rented space. They were able to sell off their old Boeing 747’s. However, that is not enough. Thai bought a lot of big Airbuses 340 and 380 — which nobody wants. Those planes are brand new, and can only be sold for scrap value. That really hurts.

That was the bad news. Now for some more bad news. Thailand survived the Chinese Virus pandemic relatively unscathed. The first two waves, that is. Until third wave hit us, hard. The death toll rose from under a hundred for a whole year to 614 in a matter of weeks. It’s still pretty good, compared with other countries. Thailand ranks 117, whereas The Netherlands ranks 27, with +17,000 deaths. As Thailand has four times as many citizens and is a third-world country, that’s actually pretty good.

I live in the dark-red zone, being Bangkok. Dark-red is an euphemism for black… One of the reasons is the outbreak of the virus in Thai prisons. Especially in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Thai prisons are notorious all over the world. One can, with good reason, call it Auschwitz in the tropics. Cells are vastly overcrowded: 40 men to a cell with barely room to move. Prisoners are kept in their cell from 3pm until 7am. With one jar for a toilet. No air-conditioning and all the mosquitoes you want. Thai cuisine is served: the cheapest rice possible with meat (cockroaches) or vegetarian (without the roaches). Water comes from a nearby canal. The guards differ from the ones in Auschwitz in that they don’t speak German. You won’t be surprised to hear that medical care and especially hygiene are matching. Hence, 6,853 cases in just the Bangkok prisons.

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The Nightmare of Hyperinflation is Coming

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Our Bangkok correspondent H. Numan extrapolates from our present fiscal woes to something more grievous and possibly terminal.

The nightmare of hyperinflation is coming

by H. Numan

He who doesn’t learn from history is doomed to do it all over again. We haven’t learned a lot from history, and are going to make the same mistakes. However, history never repeats itself. It’s always different. One of the reasons is that people tend to look at history, and think: ‘I wouldn’t have done that. How stupid!’ That’s looking back with 20/20 hindsight. You know the problem, and know what didn’t work back then. Most people think our ancestors were really stupid and they themselves are very smart. No, they weren’t, and you aren’t.

We’re about to make the same mistakes all over again. The current dogma is that Hitler was extreme right-wing and the treaty of Versailles was too harsh. Both assumptions are wrong. Disastrously wrong, as you will find out.

Let’s start with Hitler. He didn’t come out of thin air. He became politically active in 1919. Hitler wasn’t extreme right-wing; he was a socialist. His ideas, many of them, were mainstream in Germany at the time. The Germany army started planning rearmament right after (probably before) signing the treaty of Versailles. All Hitler did, once he gained power, was to speed it up and drop any pretenses. All Germans into a greater Germany (‘Heim ins Reich’) was something every German wanted, left and right. The German army was already planning to conquer the east in the future. That’s why they didn’t have a problem with Hitler’s Lebensraum policy. At first together with Poland, only later they switched to conquering Poland first. Before attacking the USSR, that is. Either way, large swaths of Poland were originally German. They would have reconquered it anyway. With or without Hitler.

Hitler himself was a racist communist. Not my words. His own words. He wrote in Mein Kampf, pages 406-407, that National Socialism differs from Communism only in its racism. Take away racial ideology from Nazism, and you’ve got communism.

Now the treaty of Versailles. World War One ended in three treaties: Versailles (Germany), Trianon (Austria-Hungary) and Lausanne (Ottoman empire). The treaties of Trianon and Lausanne were really harsh. They literally drew and quartered those empires into little pieces. Versailles was as lenient as it could be. Germany lost some territory, had to pay a steep penalty and was restricted in her armed forces. Compared with the other treaties almost a slap on the wrist. Don’t forget the Allies made huge sacrifices. Settling for anything less was not possible; their electorates would never have accepted that.

On the other hand — something not only the Germans tend to overlook — we have the treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918), which ended the war on the Eastern Front in favor of Germany. That was a real diktat. It was harsh to the max, so harsh that the USSR didn’t want to sign it. Kein Problem, said the German army. Then we simply go on. So they did, and added more demands. The USSR understood they had two options: take it or leave it. They took it. If you are merciless yourself, you can’t ask for mercy.

What you probably don’t know is that Germany, long before the war began, had the most developed welfare state of the time. Not only that, the German parliament was predominantly left-wing, with very strong labor and communist parties. They didn’t have any influence, mind you. Bismarck started with social laws, so they couldn’t. Not because Bismarck was a socialist, far from it. Better to give a little now instead of being forced to give more later on was his policy.

The German plan was to saddle the Allies with massive demands and make them pay for the war, plus a little extra. The problem was they lost that war. Experts have calculated they couldn’t make any profit out of the war. The costs were simply too high. Just like the Allies in the Versailles treaty, they would have to settle for something more realistic. However, that is moot. They lost. The result was a very expensive welfare state and massive war debts.

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Corona: Information, Misinformation, Disinformation, and Propaganda

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Below are six recent articles from PolitikStube with the latest news on the Coronamadness in Germany. Many thanks to Hellequin GB for the translations.

Article #1: Masks are bad for your health:

The first meta-study on masks is available — Result: masks are hazardous to health

From RA Ludwig: The authors urgently advise doctors to respect their oath and to give liberal exemptions.

This study should mean two things:

1.   Doctors who are targeted by the public prosecutor for allegedly false certificates may not be prosecuted.
2.   Fines for mask violations must be withdrawn.
 

Anyone who has received a fine should send this study to the competent authority / public prosecutor’s office.

School administrators, teachers and employers should also be more careful. Remember, the pandemic will be over, and with it panic and hysteria. Then the courts — only to divert attention from their own guilt — will scapegoat you and persecute you with all severity. I strongly advise against “compelling” even a student or an employee to wear a mask without first having received a specific positive certificate from a doctor.

I also advise business owners not to expel anyone not wearing a mask.

Masks are harmful to health and there is not a single study that clearly shows the benefit.

Write on your doors that you assume that anyone who does not wear a mask is liberated. It is not your job to play the deputy lord. You are only putting yourself in the danger of making yourself liable to prosecution.

Source of the study

Article #2: Hospital ICUs are not overwhelmed:

Reality in intensive care units — Helios-Kliniken boss: “The situation is not really dramatic at the moment”

The Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn repeatedly warned of the overloading of the intensive care units and of the dramatic situation in many hospitals that were reaching their capacity limits, and in his speech in the Bundestag yesterday, Spahn again pointed these things out to justify the change to the Infection Protection Act. The situation is so noticeable that Spahn reduced orders for 10,112 ventilators last year and canceled 8,505 orders again.

The situation is so drastically noticeable: In 2020, 20 hospitals had to close in the middle of the deadliest “pandemic” of all time, the clinics were not sufficiently occupied with patients and could not make any profit as a commercial enterprise. Of course there are also some hospitals that are working to the limit, but the situation is probably not as dramatic as the politicians and the media want the citizens to believe.

Stirring panic and targeted disinformation — that has been the linchpin of the government since the beginning of Corona to justify measures, lockdowns and the “emergency”, but now someone is finally speaking the truth, the head of the hospital chain Helios:

“The situation is not really dramatic at the moment, even if our large hospitals in particular are now treating a large number of Covid patients again,” said Francesco De Meo of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Thursday edition) with a view to the intensive care beds being occupied. The total number of cases is currently still below what the hospitals would have managed during the second wave in winter.

“In the beginning the discussion revolved around the hospital beds as a whole, then about the staff, now about the intensive care capacities.” He thinks one should look at “the whole picture”. “And I don’t think it makes much sense to scare people further as long as we’re on the level of the second wave,” warned De Meo.

The Helios hospitals currently care for around 15,000 patients without Covid-19 in normal wards and a good 750 with Covid-19. There are currently just under 1,150 patients without and just under 330 patients with Covid-19 in the intensive care units.

“There have always been full intensive care units, that’s nothing new,” he said. However, it works well to move patients to hospitals with free capacities, “which means that the effectiveness of our health system stands and falls.” In Germany, patients are quickly transferred to the intensive care unit.

Source: Epoch Times

Article #3: The government of Saxony cashes in on COVID:

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On Being a Compliant Drone

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I’ve been specializing in European affairs, particularly the European migration crisis, for almost fifteen years. Even a cursory look at the migration issue tells us that the massive influx of uneducated third-worlders — most of them Muslims — are a net drain on the economies of the countries that host them. Even after many years of residence, unto the second and third generation, they consume more in social benefits and other state transfers than they pay into the treasury in the form of taxes. After Angela Merkel opened the floodgates to asylum seekers in 2015 the shortfall became even more apparent.

By now it is glaringly obvious that the State gains no fiscal advantage from the importation of the replacement population. The original rationale — that the newcomers would be needed to pay the taxes that would fund the care of the white native population after retirement — has become completely unsupportable. The migrants themselves will remain net consumers of state welfare benefits even as the original population ages into senescence.

Why, then, is the “refugees welcome” ideology still propagated with such fervor? Self-interest would seem advise taking the opposite tack. Why the continued push for mass immigration?

I used to wonder whether a form of pseudo-religious mania might be at work, some sort of collective suicidal madness. Or was it perhaps that the elites who foisted their migration policies on the populace had realized their earlier mistakes, but were unable to change course without risking their political careers?

In the last few years, however, I’ve come to a different conclusion. The Powers That Be don’t want to import producers; they want to import consumers. The production machine that is a modern Western economy requires a consumer base to buy all the stuff that keeps the system humming.

Productive workers aren’t as necessary to that system as they were fifty or sixty years ago. Automation has moved in and taken over many of the functions that had previously been performed by the lowly proletariat. Machines have made those workers redundant, but their patterns of consumption are necessary to keep the entire system operating at optimum capacity.

Bringing in ill-educated foreigners is necessary to make sure there are enough consumers to buy food, drink, and gewgaws, to use the electricity, to occupy the housing, and to keep the social workers employed. Thanks to automation, far fewer productively employed workers are needed nowadays to generate consumer goods. The magic of quantitative easing ensures that the State always has sufficient money to stuff into the pockets of welfare recipients, whether native or immigrant.

All Western nations are now governed to varying degrees by corporate fascism. Huge transnational corporations have a symbiotic relationship with elected political leaders and the permanent governing class. The elites who sit at the apex of this syndicalist pyramid become fabulously wealthy by vacuuming up just a small portion of the financial transactions generated by the process of production and consumption. Producers — whether human or mechanical — are needed for this process, but consumers are also an absolute necessity. Preferably consumers who spend every drachma that comes into their hands, and go deeply into high-interest debt to consume even more stuff.

As Artificial Intelligence becomes more and more sophisticated, fewer and fewer unskilled or low-skilled workers will be required. We are moving towards a future dominated by the unimaginably wealthy, who will employ a relatively small managerial class of administrators, engineers, and technicians. The only low-skilled workers needed will be personal servants and sexual playthings.

But the system will still require the lumpenproletariat as consumers. That’s where the compliant drones come in.

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Is Europe Sinking Into Chaos?

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It seems that the Brave New World has finally arrived, ushered in by means of a genetically modified virus — a device that few prophets of dystopia predicted.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this op-ed from PolitikStube:

Robert Blum: Is Europe sinking into chaos?

In many European countries, people are now violently taking action against the government’s Corona measures and are defending themselves. In Germany, too, there is tentative resistance.

“How long will Michel* keep still?” A good friend asked me over the weekend. The time to rehearse the collective uprising has long since passed. Unfortunately, the average German citizen still believes these restrictions are correct.

However, anyone who takes the trouble and reads the headlines in the media can no longer deny the reality. This is evident in all corners and edges. Sledging children are arrested with their parents in Hamburg because they allow themselves a little free time and fun, while doctors already have verifiable evidence of mental disorders caused by the imprisonment of the people.

There is demonstrably no excess mortality for 2020, writes Der Spiegel today, but an over-vaccination. The Ministry of Health ordered more than 230 million vaccine doses for almost 80 million people.

First elections are only held by postal vote. The Ministry of Economic Affairs also wants to maintain the lockdown if the incidence number falls below 50; previously it was 100.

The attempts to establish a totalitarian government in Germany can be clearly seen in everyday life, and nobody can later say that they did not know anything about it. In the Netherlands people are already fighting for their freedom in the streets. In other countries, too, there is clear resistance, and it is only a matter of time before a showdown takes place between the people and the government.

However, there are already losers. Our life, our freedom and our trust, all of that is gone, because the corona crisis is a turning point in human history. It is nothing less than the global attempt to subjugate the world population under the specter of an emergency, united in fear. This is unique in human history. Any James Bond opponent who has tried to usurp world power looks ridiculous compared with the Corona plan. Even Hollywood hasn’t thought of this in 50 years.

But this is real and serious. You may not share my opinion, either, but I see what I see, and that means for me a global, artificially sustained state of emergency in order to finally implement measures globally that would have been unenforceable by democratic means. Climate change, environmental problems, migration and everything else can be brought under control during the Corona emergency. Because to solve these problems you need two things: human freedom must be prevented and the existing economic system must collapse in order to create something new afterwards. All of this is happening right in front of all of us, and it is by design.

Such thoughts may be banished to the realm of the tinfoil-hat wearer and be viewed as too far-reaching, but the arguments now fit the global crisis and situation and provide the appropriate solution for all problems. It cannot be a coincidence, and to create a crisis through a virus, yes you have to imagine that first.

But here neither James Bond nor any other superheroes will save us. We must become the superheroes ourselves if we want to win the war that has been declared on us. We will have to fight. For our future, our rights and our freedom. Otherwise we will be consigned to the new realm of world domination that will keep us in check with the fear of a virus.

Courageous people have already taken up this fight, and we have to make a decision in Germany, too. Liberty or bondage. What did Adenauer say? We choose freedom.

— Robert Blum

*   Deutscher Michel, Der Deutsche Michel (literally “The German Michel”) is a figure representing the national character of the German people, rather as John Bull represents the British.
 

The Business of Germany is Anything But Business

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Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from PolitikStube:

Germany is becoming less and less attractive for companies

According to a study, Germany has clearly lost its attractiveness in an international comparison. In the current location ranking of the “Country Index for Family Businesses” by the Mannheim economic research institute ZEW, the economically largest EU country slipped three places to 17th place out of the 21 industrialized nations.

Germany thus achieved the worst position in the index, which has been published every two years since 2006 and was commissioned by the Family Business Foundation. The USA, Great Britain and the Netherlands are at the top.

The ZEW announced on Monday that Germany is clearly lagging behind when it comes to taxes as a location factor. In addition to “Taxes” and “Financing”, the ZEW researchers also evaluate the subject areas “Productivity”, “Human Capital”, “Infrastructure and Institutions” and “Energy”.

Translator’s afterword:

I know that there was a plan to turn Germany into an Agrarian Society after WWII, but the Western Allies quickly realized that this would not do, because they would have a need for German engineering and innovations if they want to stay a step or two ahead of the Communist menace.

But since the Communist menace has taken over each and every aspect of the former Free World and turned those countries — with a little nudge by the CCP — into full authoritarian states that are up for grabs by Communist China, I’m not surprised that German engineering and innovativeness have become OBSOLETE. Those characteristics now stand in the way of Progressiveness, and need to be destroyed.

For that purpose they successfully installed Angela Merkel, and she’s almost done with the utter destruction of Germany, but this time not even an agrarian society will be allowed to survive.

A New Year’s Roundup of Coronanews in Germany

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Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating these two articles about COVID-related events in Germany.

Article #1: The effects of masks on children:

Study: Masks for Children

A recent study by the University of Witten / Herdecke examined the effects of wearing face masks on children. An average wearing time of 270 minutes per day — i.e. about one day of class — was assumed. As a result, stress was found in 68% of the children.

Specifically, the children suffered from irritability (60%), headaches (53%), concentration difficulties (50%), less happiness (49%), aversion to school / kindergarten (44%), malaise (42%), learning difficulties (38%) and drowsiness or fatigue (37%).

Article #2: Members of the Bundestag will take a Corona-related pay cut:

Oh God, the poor “people’s representatives”: Members of the Bundestag are threatened with a reduction in Parliamentary Allowance

The members of the Bundestag could face a reduction in Parliamentary Allowance in the wake of the Corona crisis, as nominal wages have fallen and the negative trend due to the lockdown is likely to continue.

The payments from the tax-financed feed troughs could be reduced: instead of the €10,000 only €9,800? Is that just before the notorious Starvation Cloth?

We’re not shedding tears of pity; so far there is still the additional income to compensate for the reduction in Parliamentary Allowances, and if the unemployment of the subjects should progress due to the lockdown, one could also think about minimizing the number of members of the Bundestag, since a bloated parliament is inappropriate for such a small country.

t-online.de:

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Doubling Down on Deplorable

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When political topics come up in conversation with my liberal friends, I tend to say: “Let’s not talk about politics. I’m a right-wing extremist; everyone knows that. So any discussion would be fruitless, and probably unpleasant.” My political opinions haven’t changed much in the last eight or ten years, but I’m much more of a right-wing extremist than I used to be, because the “center” has moved so far to the left.

Years and years ago I used to keep up with the latest news by checking Google News every day. Yes, it was obviously biased, but it still listed relevant news items. It might not feature or headline the ones I wanted to see, but they could be found. However, it gradually became more and more restrictive and censorious, so I gave up using it, and relied on the Drudge Report to headline the news stories that were most likely to interest me. Then a couple of years ago Drudge sold out, and his former site became just as useless as Google News. I had to cast about in other places to find relevant material. Doug Ross is an excellent aggregator, and provides useful tips. And Conservative Tree House is invaluable.

My most frequent stopping places are Power Line and Western Rifle Shooters Association, for very different reasons.

I’ve been reading Power Line since the “fake but accurate” Killian Memo days in the campaign season of 2004. Back then its contributors were Scott Johnson, John Hinderaker, and Paul Mirengoff. Since then they’ve added Steven Hayward. They’re generally more deplorable than National Review, but still well within the conservative mainstream. They live in the world of foundations, think tanks, and reputable right-wing journals. Which is fine with me; I’ve hung out with plenty of think-tank people since I started doing Gates of Vienna full time. I don’t fit in very well with that crowd — I’m more radical, and disinclined to zip my lip just to protect my income streams — but I like them well enough.

So I read Power Line to keep abreast of the right-wing mainstream. At least three of the contributors are lawyers, and often focus on legal issues, which is very useful. Two of them are from Minnesota, and feature the Woke absurdities of progressive Twin Cities political issues, which are as bad as those of Ann Arbor, Berkeley, or Portland.

But they don’t stray beyond the pale of the mainstream. That fact became glaringly obvious in the wake of last month’s election. All the massive, egregious shenanigans that came up in the weeks after the vote made it abundantly clear that the election was a complete fraud. There’s plenty of documentation available for those who care to look for it, but the Power Line guys are reluctant to discuss it, and tend to insist that the malefactions of the Democrats were insufficient to change the result. Joe Biden was the people’s choice, maybe not as much as the official tally would indicate, but still the winner.

I can understand their reluctance look the facts squarely in the face. Even if they dissent from liberal orthodoxy, they are still denizens of that environment where people have jobs talking politics and going on TV and writing books and papers and attending conferences. To admit that the election was a sham would be to acknowledge that their world is constructed of the flimsiest gossamer and can be rent asunder with the twitch of a pinky.

No, it’s better to pretend that conservatives can somehow manage to prevent the worst forms of electoral fraud in the future. They’re already gaming out strategies for the midterms in 2022, and thinking about Republican prospects in the 2024 presidential contest. As if future elections had any real meaning. As if Republicans differed in any fundamental ways from Democrats.

And maybe they’re right. Maybe the deplorables who descend on Washington D.C. next week will have no lasting effect. Maybe the new socialist regime will only be temporary, and Republicans will get another chance to pretend to be conservative in Congress and the White House. Maybe the earnest foreign policy wonks of the Right will get their hands on the levers of the military-industrial complex and initiate new military interventions to bring democracy to Berserkistan or engage in nation-building in Gondwanaland.

Maybe… Maybe…

But my intuition tells me that the country has been irretrievably changed, and not for the better. The gossamer fabric of the old political system will most likely be twitched aside soon by the Fickle Pinky of Fate.

For that reason, I tend to hang out more and more at WRSA these days. They’re so far beyond the pale that they don’t even register on the National Deplorometer.

Concerned American — whose avatar is Zippy the Pinhead — posts numerous links to a variety of sites that disagree on many issues, major and minor. What they all have in common is an absolute dedication to the Second Amendment, without all the restrictions and revisions that have hobbled it for the last fifty years or so. And they also agree that serious trouble — variously known as the Boogaloo, Spicy Time, and the Big Ugly — lies just around the corner for what was once known as the American Republic.

This time it will be a real civil war. The Recent Unpleasantness of 1861-1865 is usually described that way, but it was actually a sectional conflict. The two sides held well-defined territory, and clashed in the traditional manner of opposing armies. Yes, the war divided families. And yes, the situation in the Border States was not clear-cut. Still, the war was a sectional one.

The Big Ugly will be different. It will pit rural and small-town people against the major metropolitan areas, and urban neighborhoods against each other. We have no parallels in North American history for the type of conflict that is likely to break out here. We will have to look to the Balkans or Rwanda to get a feeling for what we can expect.

Or maybe not. Maybe the Power Line boys are right, and all this will blow over. Maybe people will put on their masks, get vaccinated, and plop themselves back in front of the TV, where they belong.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Earlier today I found an excellent essay linked at WRSA. It’s called “The Next Question” by someone who writes under the pseudonym Publius Valerius at American Partisan.

The author opens by laying out the facts of the stolen election of 2020. I agree that they are indeed facts — the election was stolen, in divers, clearly identifiable ways, as documented and attested by numerous eyewitnesses in affidavits and other forms of legal testimony.

It is also a fact that state and federal courts are largely refusing to receive the evidence of the attested materials, but that doesn’t make the latter any less facts. In the long run, the historical record will feature these demonstrable facts — that is, assuming that the historical record does not end up under the control of Google, Amazon, and/or the Red Chinese.

Below are excerpts from rest of “The Next Question”:

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A Christmas Present for Businesses: Bankruptcy

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The German government’s Coronavirus measures, when added to the existing burden of its “climate change” policy, have been devastating for small and medium-sized businesses.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this op-ed from PolitikStube:

Alice Weidel: Unemployed thanks to the government’s lockdown crisis

The wave of insolvencies is rolling in — and not only hotels and restaurants are affected; it also extends to a wide variety of medium-sized companies. For example, the automotive supplier TQM is deep in the red. If the federal government laid the foundation for bankruptcy with its ideological climate policy, this has now been accelerated so much by the shutdown policy of the same government that the company has to file for bankruptcy now. Or the Klier hairdressing chain: where lockdowns keep doors locked, but rents and personnel costs continue, such companies quickly run out of steam.

Traditional companies are not spared: The most recent lockdown causing Christmas markets to be canceled nationwide meant that a manufacturer of Christmas decorations, Käthe-Wohlfahrt, had to file for bankruptcy. The family business, founded in 1964, currently employs 300 people, all of whom are looking to an uncertain future.

The list could be continued indefinitely — and shows that not only the lockdown policy of the federal government is fatal, but also its rescue policy. Because while Lufthansa, for example, can count on generous help from the state, this does not apply to most medium-sized companies.

People from retail or gastronomy who have lost their jobs because of the Corona measures no longer understand the world. How can it be that the state takes the air to breathe from the middle class and, on the other hand, finances lavish salaries in the subsidized aviation industry? The federal government has lost all measure in its headless lockdown.

In the end we must return to the social market economy, in which citizens in need are supported and competition is not distorted by state intervention in the market process. Protecting risk groups is the top priority of a federal government, but with its opposite chaos policy it is leading the country to the brink of ruin and the people into poverty.

“Wir Schaffen Das” is Finally Paying Off

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The following article discusses the catastrophic economic effects of coronavirus mitigation policies in Germany. Hellequin GB, who translated the text, includes this introductory note:

What Napoleon didn’t manage, what the Allies didn’t manage in WWI and WWII, what Bomber Harris didn’t manage, what the Red Army didn’t manage — namely the utter destruction of Germany — Angela Merkel has finally managed with her Corona measures.

Not that she’s alone in this. Most of the world’s political and social elites have been busy destroying their own countries for money and absolutism, while the 24/7 muzzled cerebral amputees are happily clapping and conforming with more lockdowns and chafing at the bit to send in their Darwin Award applications.

The translated article from PolitikStube:

Fatal lockdown policy: A rolling wave of bankruptcies!

50,000 employees have to go: Lufthansa is massively cutting jobs, half of them by the end of December. Next year is also associated with severe cuts for the workforce, which has been suggested to waive its wages. Another 10,000 jobs are to be cut in Germany.

This is all the more annoying as it was not until May that the federal government issued a rescue package of €300 million — including a 20 percent state participation. Obviously, the course was wrongly set for this, as participation at taxpayer costs was linked to so-called sustainability goals instead of job guarantees. After three quarters, the company “rescued” by the state has already posted a loss of €75.6 billion this year.

But not only Lufthansa is affected — the effects of the disastrous lockdown policy affect almost all economic sectors. For example, the largest German hairdressing chain, Klier, is filing for bankruptcy. In addition to around 1,400 branches in Germany, there are numerous other locations in other European countries.

Like that long-established company, the same is true of many others: Hoteliers and restaurateurs are on the skids, and most of them have still not received their Corona aid. Many sole proprietorships from various industries have been hit just as hard. Their reserves are often used up; the existential worries rob one of sleep.

For these companies, the lockdown — which has been extended until the cows come home — is a disaster. In 2021, the bankruptcy wave will roll in with billions in loan defaults, because then the obligation to file for insolvency will apply again.

The GroKo [governing coalition] could not have done it worse and more negligently!

Alice Weidel: The Lockdown is Ruining Our Lives!

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Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this op-ed from Politikstube:

Alice Weidel: The lockdown is ruining our lives!

The nationwide lockdown, which will initially apply for one month, will come into force tomorrow — with fatal consequences for the economy.

Revenues will collapse by €19.3 billion; 600,000 jobs are in acute danger, according to the pitch-black forecast of the DIW Institute. Hotels and restaurants have been hit particularly hard with a loss of €5.8 billion; experts assume that these industries will have to reckon with 55 percent less income than in 2019.

The areas of sport, culture and entertainment also had to cope with a minus of €2.1 billion, retail a minus of €1.3 billion, and German industry a minus of €5.2 billion. A large part of the €19.3 billion in losses is attributable to corporate service providers, logistics companies and cinema operators.

Given this bleak outlook for just one month, GDP slips by one percentage point.

This has direct consequences for the labor market: The number of temporary workers will increase by 400,000 to 3.2 million by the end of the year.

DIW Director Michael Hüther also assumes that around 591,000 people will lose their jobs as a result of the “lockdown light”, and another 15,000 employees in 2021 — provided the shutdown ends on December 1, as announced, otherwise another would threaten the aggravation of the situation.

The rude awakening comes when the short-time work expires and the obligation to file for bankruptcy returns.

Germany will not be recognizable after Merkel’s lockdown scenarios! Taxpayers will feel this by 2021 at the latest.

The translator adds this afterword:

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A Tale of Two Kings

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In his latest report H. Numan gets to wear both his hats at the same time: The “Dutch correspondent” one, and the “Bangkok correspondent” one.

A tale of two kings

by H. Numan

It doesn’t happen often, but I can report about The Netherlands and Thailand at the same time. Both kings have the same problems. The difference is that one of them has a lot more of those problems on his plate.

King Willem-Alexander decided to spent an autumn holiday in his mansion in Greece. Almost immediately after he announced in the troonrede (our State of the Union) the government gave him a raise of 8%. His subjects also got a steep raise, albeit in taxation. Someone has to pay for it all, and it ain’t king Billy. Just before that State of the Union the king insisted his daughter Amalia will become a millionaire on her eighteenth birthday. Then she has to set up her own private cabinet as crown princess, to the tune of €1.8 million per year. That is considered by just about everybody in the country as somewhat steep for an eighteen-year-old girl. Before this, the king bought a very nice speedboat for only two million euros.

Now, each affair could easily be managed on its own. But gaffe after gaffe after gaffe is too much. The population began to grumble when the press announced the king was taking it easy in his mansion in Greece. Especially with all restrictions and travel bans for everyone else. The grumbling — it’s only grumbling, but we Dutch sure can grumble! — became so strong the government had to order the king back home, pronto.

Back home he made a full insincere apology on national TV, on all channels. I stress insincere. Why? Because he and his wife returned home, but his daughters stayed partying in Greece. The reason? The airline was fully booked. I kid you not. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was… fully booked.

That’s the very same airline that is forced to let the king fly Boeings whenever he feels like it. No joke: King Billy does have a commercial pilot’s license, and “asked” KLM if he could fly once in a while. Of course you can, your majesty, replied KLM. So it’s possible the captain of your plane might be the king himself. Which you probably won’t know, as he flies incognito. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am your captain, Willem-Alexander of Orange, by the grace of God king of the Netherlands, prince of Orange, count of Nassau, etc. etc. etc.” is something you won’t hear. Listen to his name though. If the captain is Willem or Wim van Buuren, it’s him. The Orange family uses that incognito a lot.

Can you imagine any airline refusing to fly a royal family, because the flight was fully booked? Especially now, during a pandemic with severe travel restrictions? And almost nobody flying? Well, about 15 million Dutch do. Because they swallowed that silly excuse as if it were speculaas (Dutch spiced cookies). Let’s tally that as one of his many gaffes. King Willem is not only king of The Netherlands, but surely king of gaffes. I can fill a book with them by now.

Over on the other side of the globe. To not-so-warm (24° C/76° F) and sunny Thailand. The cool season has started; it’s pretty chilly early in the morning.

To my surprise that televised excuse of King Willem went completely viral in Thailand. Thais are amazed. “Look at that king! Wish he was ours!” “Wow. Is that really possible????” That’s on the not-yellow brick road; the demonstrators. On the yellow brick road, royalists are outraged by it. “The king has to offer his apologies? Why on earth? Why doesn’t he throw them all in jail?”

As I wrote earlier, for the first time in history the Thai students are (somewhat) rising against the monarchy. A small protest that became nationwide. At first the demand was some restriction on the severe lèse majesté laws, and more transparent government. After that the protests grew really big; they now demand the government resign.

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