Foreign Direct Extraction

China buys its first African colony for a meagre $40million – 15th January 2016

From 1980, Zimbabwe has failed through Mugabe’s theft of the economy into his own foreign account. He is now using China to hide his failure (theft) without realising that he is selling out Zimbabwe, but who cares, and that is why he continues.

Bruce Agar, Botswana

Ally's Tartan Army

Half an hour into the 1978 Peru-Scotland game, I must have been crying , and I can’t say I ever got excited about Scotland playing ever again .

Don’t think i have missed too much .

There is certainly a part of Scots , who want to compete with the English , perhaps they feel in the shadow of London ? Or just lack some confidence . It’s not hard to understand. I would imagine most of the capitals of the world  pale by comparison .

Part victim , part blame game , part identity crisis, not feeling connected, it does sum up our present “political upheaval “, I do believe it will all subside though, at least for another 30 odd years.

Stuart Clark, St. Andrews, UK

Corbyn the Conqueror

Your correspondent is right. Labour is a great and good party and no Tory should celebrate its current plight – 18th January 2016. Corbynism like ISIL is a simplistic fundamentalist response to the the existential question facing us all. They are both driven by hate.

It has recently struck me that this strand of hatred of the system runs right back to 1066. William came over and took out the Saxon ruling class with ruthless efficiency, substituting his Norman colleagues; less than 10K over a population of around 2 million.

Folk memory has neither forgotten nor forgiven. We see it repeated in the Liberal Left with their determined opposition per se: anti-capitalist, anti-profit, anti-patriotic, anti–monarchy, anti-authority; anti-anything that makes the world freer, safer and more prosperous. They do not intellectually justify their position. It is an emotional response of negativity verging on hatred. The general election too was an exercise in negativity. The punters voted against that meta-narrative of the metropolitan Liberal Left.
It is time for a serious conversation on this and other matters.

Meanwhile the Conservatives have the opportunity to make the case for Conservatism, capitalism (not corporatism), the Monarchy, the constitution, property rights, the rule of law and freedom of speech.

Dorothea Bradley, Somerset, UK

The EU's New Clothes

The European Union is heading for the dustbin of history – 22nd January 2016 is good news, indeed. Socialist, Communist, and Marxist ideologies (and atheism) always fail. Look at the USSR. Look North Korea. Look at Maoist China. Look at Cuba. And now look at Chavez’s Venezuela.

Of course, there will always be elites whose englightened-ness eclipses their common sense who will seek to force the various degrees of Marxism down our throats (European Socialism, American and Canadian Socialism, Chavez-ism, Castro-ism, ad nauseaum). We as the unwashed and uniformed are equally doomed to suffer through their mistakes because we, too often, elect them before they morph into despots and unelected technocrats.

Keith D Crosby, California, USA     |    @keithcrosby

Theodore Bromund is absolutely right in The top 10 US myths about the European Union – 21st Jauary 2016 about the effect of the EU on intra-European relations  Can anyone seriously imagine that Greco-German relations would be as bad as they are today if the two countries had not had a shared currency?

Moreover, as a diplomatic force vis-a-vis the rest of the world, the EU has near-zero impact. As I write, the UK is digesting the conclusions of a judicial inquiry into an act of nuclear terrorism in London in 2006. Is the EU going to take any measures against Russia? Is the UK’s position in reacting to this act of aggression strengthened in any way by our membership of the EU? No, we are more likely to get support from DC than Brussels.

Laurence Copeland, Warwickshire, UK     |    @turntheairblue

Whilst the thought of a naked Angela Merkel is an awful thing to contemplate, I hope you are right about the demise of the E.U. I think you are wrong about the UK referendum being an irrelevance. It is very relevant to those of here who care. We want to get out before the collapse occurs as it won’t be pretty.

George Harlock, Milton Keynes, UK

Kasich has been Trumped

I have two issues with an otherwise well written article (It’s the Stupidity, Stupid: why Jeb Bush is fighting the wrong fight – 20th January 2016).

Firstly, Kasich does not impress. In the last Fox Business News Debate he made a pitch for the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement. Every ten years prices double. That is the real consequence of inflation. Yet, wages have not increased since 1998. And since Clinton’s China trade agreement in ’97 and Nafta, and Bush’s non enforcement of anti-trust in 2003, 60,000 factories have closed their doors. That’s thirty million jobs.  Under Obama the adult participation rate has gone from 68% to 62%. That means the unemployment rate is 38%. There are 100m americans living off food stamps, section 8 housing, and welfare checks.  That means there are two freeloaders for every working american. And Americans take no pride being on the dole.

And what did Kasich do at the debate? Make a plug for the trans pacific trade agreement. Kasich shot himself in the foot on primetime TV. Quote Kasich… “and there are fifty year olds that have lost their corporate jobs, and we need to offer them re-training opportunities…” Really? That’s his solution?

40% tariffs on imports is what is going to get Trump elected. That is the solution to the pain and the itch. Because your average american is not a policy wonk. You cannot make the case today that the trans pacific trade agreement makes sense, even though from a policy point of view it makes absolutely perfect sense.

Secondly, “Cruz appeals to traditionally conservative Christian voters”.
That is complete nonsense. Cruz is a born again evangelical protestant. I cannot think of anything more offensive to your average catholic. He probably makes your run of the mill anglican cringe in shame… So lets look at the electoral make up of non rural communities. Chicago has very large Polish and Italian populations. Boston is Irish and Italian. New York has a very large Italian and Puerto Rican population. Miami (and this is critical in the general election) is predominantly south american Catholic. California is 45% catholic. And Cruz, like Luther, to the average Catholic, is the anti-Christ.

The American left has purposefully occupied “liberal” ground. Even though its not liberal its socialist. But american liberals now call themselves “independents”. They are not. They are liberals. By the same token the american left has superimposed themselves on catholic social justice doctrine. But those conservative catholics that believe in social justice are not socialists. They make up a large portion of the “independents”. But they are not independents. They are socially conservative catholics. And they don’t care where you stick your pecker provided you don’t make them foot the bill. And if catholics can make a case for a Jesuit Pope, they can make a case for Trump.

Trump is going to carry New York and Massachusetts in the general election. And that is huge.

Cruz does not speak for Christians. He speaks to what Obama labeled the “bible thumping gun carrying bigots in america’s heart land”. Harsh, but true. Because sometimes communists (in the Paris 1789 “comune” sense of the word), however smart they are, occasionally fail to keep their mouth shut. And Cruz is payback for that.

Hugo Fuxa, New York, New York, USA