Eisenhower’s green Oval Office clears them all

As I reported hours ago, Flávio Bolsonaro has arrived safely in United States. The mastermind behind this operation is U.S. Secretary of State @SecRubio . From the United States, free and safe, Flávio will lead the opposition against Lula.

"Why does nobody run for the school board?" "Why are the Rotary clubs empty?" "Why does every town meeting feel like it's run by the same motley assortment of terrible people?" Because the men who ought be doing so--the successful local men of prominence, typically businessmen and lawyers--came to the conclusion in the mid-20th century that participation in and leadership of civic life was someone else's job. This is the desire of the so-called conservative to simply "work" rather than do all the other things that keep entropy at bay and ensure things function. Their doing so left open the field to the worst among us: spiteful malcontents It wasn't always like this. The planters of the Virginia gentry served as vestryman, justice, militia officer and burgess, usually before he turned thirty and usually for no pay, other than perhaps having some travel expenses covered as a burgess. It was expected of him, and he expected it of himself: as a man whose success made him privileged, he was duty-bound to be the one to show up and lead That habit can come back. It ought come back. It starts with showing up to the boring meeting, and being the sort of man to whom others listen. The sort of man whose reputation for success and competence, and cultivated but not overdone and always aesthetically pleasing look makes others want to follow him This is what the great men we look back to did, and is indeed what their whole soceity was geared toward producing: great men who were great leaders at every level of civic life, from the humblest station at the bottom to the greatest at the top Re-engaging in that way will be critical if we are to retake our country. Read more about what we can learn from the Virginia gentry here: theamericantribune.news/p/ho…

Gn

duck wallet

Can I say something

Brazil has some very interesting election laws -People can vote as young as 16 -Voting is mandatory unless you are illiterate or over 70. Blank votes are permitted -Despite requiring everyone to vote they hold elections on a single Sunday -They banned corporate campaign donations & instead provided taxpayer funded airtime

🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham has announced five "everyday fixes" ahead of the Budget 1. Carer's Allowance will be changed so carers no longer lose their entire benefit when they earn over the limit - instead, their support will reduce by £1 for every extra £1 they earn 2. Import tariffs will be removed on more than 100 products, including baked beans, chocolate and gherkins, to save households up to £21 on their food shop a year 3. Tax-free mileage rates for workers using their own cars will be made permanent at 55p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, with the rate for additional miles rising from 25p to 35p 4. Parental pay will be extended to over 150,000 more parents a year, including self-employed fathers and partners 5. Hundreds more Post Office drop boxes will be rolled out to save people queueing at branches

Brexiteers can't have what we want inside the EU. For us, freedom and sovereignty are a sine qua non. But Remainers can still achieve many of the things they claim to care about from outside the EU, in many cases with the support of Brexiteers. We can still have good relations with our European nations. We can still consider ourselves a full member and participant in European culture and civilsation. We can still have ease of movement for travel and even work, though not complete freedom of movement. We can do deals that help with passport queues. We can still do all the cooperation on climate, nuclear, science, space etc, provided these things are not used to hold Britain over a barrel or as a means to extract yet more money from us. We can still get the trinkets like free data roaming. We could even freely choose to align with certain EU regulations if it suits us and if the rule makes sense, subject to our sovereign Parliament agreeing to it. All Remainers have to do is make a good enough case for these things, win an election and then instruct our politicians to pursue them. They might also lobby their precious EU to be more reasonable; to treat Britain as a friend, ally and equal and to do any deals on a mutually beneficial basis, without any other agenda. The fact that they can't suggests a fundamental weakness in their arguments. They don't trust the British electorate and would rather achieve these things by the back door, by locking them in as part of our EU membership and making it impossible for a British government to do a damn thing about it. They would rather see Britain humiliated and made an example of and ultimately go running back to the EU with our tail between our legs.

Jamie Dimon to a country that pulled its gold out of New York: you have three armies within 400 miles, while gold in America is protected by two oceans and the US military “If we have the strongest military in the world and the strongest economy in the world, we will be the preeminent reserve currency. It is those two things.” “I was in a country somewhere in the Middle East, and also in Europe, and the people said, we took our gold out of the vaults in New York City and moved it to our country. You know what I said to him? I said, you have three armies within 400 miles who can come take your gold.” “That’s the real world. You’re not thinking clearly about safety. That gold is protected by the Atlantic, the Pacific, the United States military, the rule of law.” “But if we are not the preeminent military and economy, you will see our reserve status come down.”

The entire Financial Times editorial board has published a piece urging Lula to cut government spending and appoint a finance minister who enjoys the confidence of investors. I get the impression that the FT editorial board has never opened an economics book other than some outdated introductory macroeconomics textbook, perhaps something by Mankiw. Otherwise, it's hard to explain such astonishing arrogance and economic ignorance. Lula and the Brazilian people have absolutely no reason to bow to the demands of financial markets. Brazil is Latin America's largest economy, a major regional power, and a country with a high degree of monetary sovereignty. Around 97% of the central government's debt is denominated in its own currency, the Brazilian real. The relationship between the state and financial markets is therefore nothing like the FT portrays it. Brazil is not dependent on financial markets. On the contrary, financial markets depend on government spending, which creates financial assets for the private sector, while government debt denominated in the national currency is one of the instruments through which those assets are held. What Brazil needs is not capitulation to financial markets, but an independent economic policy focused on expanding production, creating jobs, and improving people's living standards. Armed with the insights of heterodox economic theory, Brazil has the potential to show the world what a genuine economic miracle looks like. ft.com/content/79785581-88c2…