The Economic Nationalist

Lawrence Auster’s blog format, which Laura Wood, the Thinking Housewife, has adopted, happens not to be my favorite format. Among readers’ comments, the format leaves a vague, probably unintentional, nevertheless fairly heavy impression of sycophancy. Many readers evidently like the format, which naturally is fine with me; but, as the saying goes, it’s just not my cup of tea.

But don’t let the format bother you today. Go and read this.

(Incidentally, one suspects that the best blog format just might be the format which existed long before blogs, or the Internet, ever arrived on the scene—the standard periodical format with the familiar, stuffy, stodgy, “Dear Sir”-addressed column of “Letters to the editor.” Not, mind you, that “Dear Sir” actually works in a medium in which readers will identify themselves by handles like “Sgt. Joe Friday” and “Axe Head”! Can you imagine? “Dear Mr. Head: Your point is well taken. We can understand why you and your neighbors in Location Undisclosed might feel as you do, but for the reasons stated in the article we believe otherwise. Respectfully yours, The Editors.” It does not quite work, does it? But, anyway, you get my drift.)

Russell Roberts brings wise economic counsel.

In testimony before the congressional Joint Economic Committee last week, George Mason University economist Russell Roberts made a … point with regard to job creation and the stimulus. “There is no reliable way of knowing whether the stimulus package has averted a worse situation—or whether it’s part of the problem. There is no consensus in the economics profession on this question, and no empirical evidence that can settle the dispute.’’

Economics, a tremendous science, is badly abused when policymakers fail to grasp the crucial message Dr. Roberts quietly conveys. The message: economics knows some things pretty well; about other things, economics offers interesting theories which observable facts sometimes refute—theories which, though interesting, though even theoretically unrivaled, must therefore be regarded as probably false.

In the particular case in question, regarding the stimulus, Dr. Roberts admits that he finds himself in a double bind. In this case, the facts which might refute the relevant theories are not even observable. That of course does not mean that all the theories are wrong. It does not even mean that the stimulus should not have been tried (though the Economic Nationalist did generally oppose it). What it means is precisely what Dr. Roberts says that it means.

One should hardly expect to discern the proper real-world application of economic theory until one has understood, not only theoretical economic principles, but also Dr. Roberts’ overriding metaprinciple—that there remain important aspects of the real economy economic theory has never adequately explained, nor can hope to explain any time soon.

HJH

Mona Charen writes,

It’s Freudian: The Viennese analyst taught that if you say you hate your mother, you hate your mother. And if you say you love your mother, you are in denial about hating your mother. Climate change believers are like Freudians. If the weather is warm, it’s proof of global warming. But if the weather is cool, this, too, is evidence of the sinister tricks global warming can play.

These words earn Miss Charen the Economic Nationalist’s extremely sporadically awarded recognition as Quote of the Week.

(For the record, the Economic Nationalist has never taken a position on the proposition that mankind were threatened by man-made global warming.)

The eminent Paul Gottfried calls us the alternative Right. We are disciples of Bob Taft, Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Our time has come.

Our time has come, I say, though you may doubt it, so let us view the battle as from the enemy’s lines. The enemy, the liberal, commands the field, but his forces blunder blindly, distraught, in disarray. His morale is in catastrophic collapse. His victory is empty, his triumph bitter on the tongue. The mirage he has long imagined to be truth is revealed in his own eyes as hubris, or less, as mere vanity. He does not admit his error. No, never that. But the bright liberal dawn of 1968 has turned to a blackening eve of wrack and ruin. Like Tolkien’s Gollum, he hates us. He hates us forever, but he hates himself the more. Love to him now is hardly known.

A strong enemy is never weaker than when he has ceased to believe in the justice of his own cause. You and I will learn to recognize a morally hollow foe. It is said that our foe finds willing recruits today among the younger generation, to fill his hollowness, and indeed this is true; but these young recruits are not the eager spirits of 1968, in foolish rebellion against an older, more conservative world. These young recruits rather are the wary youth of a world gone mad, trying to find their way.

Despair is a sin, but we need not despair. Truth is a powerful ally: she stands on our side. We lack vigorous, seasoned leaders, for Buchanan and Paul have already grown old, and Taft and Helms are gone; but chance will supply leaders in time as we persist in harassing our hollow foe.

The year 1954 will never come again, and this is a real loss; but Western civilization is twenty-seven centuries older than 1954. Western civilization is not so easily killed. The West, that great Oak, will flower again. The strident divisions we find today among ourselves on the alternative Right bespeak the passion of our commitment, a passion our enemy can no longer match.

The long age turns at last. Our time has come.

Howard J. Harrison
The Economic Nationalist

Let the wheels of industry turn! Confirming this journal’s expectation, the ISM index of change in U.S. manufacturing activity has risen to a robust 55.7 for October.

Except to the (maybe considerable) extent to which Congress might interfere, the Economic Nationalist knows no reason the present U.S. industrial recovery should not prove the strongest since 1973.

There is not much in a word, maybe, but what do these recent news headlines have in common?

Read the rest of this entry »

O, the narcissism!

… Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group Ltd. is worried that its relations with Muslim countries—an important destination for its goods—will be imperiled if [a Nov. 29 referendum to ban the construction of minarets] passes. “The brand ‘Swiss’ must continue to represent values such as openness, pluralism and freedom of religion,” said Hanspeter Rentsch, member of the executive group management board at Swatch. “Under no circumstances must it be brought in connection with hatred, animosity towards foreigners and narrow-mindedness.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Pundits are busily grinding axes today on the stone of yesterday’s off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey and upstate New York. Pundits always do. The reader can decide whether the following interpretation too grinds an axe.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tony Blankley is an instinctive conservative, a patriot and—one finds every reason to believe—a chivalrous, decent man. He has earned the public respect his voice is accorded, which is why it matters when he writes nonsense like this:

[Regarding] South Korean trade, … in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic … harm.

Read the rest of this entry »

Vaguely philo-Semitic but mostly uninterested in Jews as such, I seldom care to write on Jewish topics. This however is a U.S. nationalist blog and, well, if you have not heard why a U.S. nationalist should be interested in Jews then you can just skip this article. I would.

For those of you still reading, it is supposed by some that American Jewry persistently, actively undermined the American nation. This notion has been advanced by one Kevin MacDonald, a courageous man and a careful scholar, as far as I am aware America’s leading exponent of suspicion of Jewish activity as such.

Read the rest of this entry »