French Toast, Le Pen Wins!

In Macron v Le Pen, the latest polling has Le Pen at just under 40%, and Macron at just over 60%. The polls have narrowed a bit over 3% since the first round.

But....

Odds makers have Le Pen 2 out of 7 to win the presidency, and Macron with only a 1 in 6 chance. The odds makers were right about Trump and Brexit.

Macron, et al, are repeating the same mantra that Democrats/Clinton and the anti-Brexit folks spewed recently - a vote for the other person/idea is a vote for chaos and the devil! When the Establishment tries to frighten people, it doesn't work.   

Le Pen is very crafty. She knows that a huge portion of Melenchon's vote is more worried about responding to the liberal agenda/capitalism and the plight of working people in France, then about, for example, the plight of Muslim immigrants and Greeks in Greece, and about Europe. She is going all in on the "people of France" mantra to try to get this vote - the retirement age will be lowered, small business will be helped, taxes will be lowered, the 35 hour work week and civil servants will be protected.

Macron, on the other hand, is focused on furthering the very liberal world agenda that is now tied, almost 100%, to the perception of a corrupt elite. Where he gets specific, it may only cause worry - he will cut the civil service, slash labour costs (he says through a reduction in payroll taxes), cut corporate taxes to help the conglomerates, engage more internationally, and he has promised to not raise the retirement age (...which is what you promise when you are thinking about raising it...), all of which for many workers means insecurity.  

He also speaks in term of capitalist ideology, while Le Pen is speaking far more directly to the actual interests of voters (those chickens in pots....cars in garages...the state not in your bedroom that get you elected.) She is also much stronger on security, which is a very real concern, and where there is a real perception that the elites dropped the ball badly. If I were a shareholder of Goldman, Sachs, I'd be very worried...

And what about Europe - Macron's trump card? Melenchon was not a supporter of Europe as it is now.  The people who voted for him did not vote for the present European experiment. He would have wanted to stay in Europe, but also wanted to renegotiate the EU treaties, as if that could be done without massive upheaval.  Combined, Round One was at least a 40% + vote against Europe as it is now - that vote showing up en masse in May gives Le Pen the presidency. There is also a very powerful anti-elite bent underpinning to both the Le Pen and Melenchon camps that Macron cannot respond to. Again, 75% of voters in the first round voted against the parties that they knew.

Forget Melenchon, isn't this in the bag? Macron was the socialist economy minister under the despised Hollande - I think this will cause many conservatives to stay away. He is also loudly proclaiming that he is not a socialist now - which I think will cause many socialists to stay away. He may cunningly fall between two stools here, meaning he may not pick up much of the conservative/socialist vote he thinks he has in spades.

And so, I think Macron's vote is the one with the least potential to show grown next month, not Le Pen's. Here it is...

Le Pen - 54%

Macron - 46%

The workers really liked Hitler too.

MACRON!!!!

The Meaning of Macron

A member of the Establishment brands himself as an outsider and wins an election. Does this sound familiar?

When Trump did it he was a lifelong member of the Democratic Party who engineered a take-over of the Republican Party to become President of the United States.  He sold himself as a populist, anti-Establishment outsider.

When Macron did it, it was as a former Socialist minister of the economy who branded himself a centralist, and who has ridden the coats of "En Marche!" which is a new party that he has created to victory.  He beat a despised outsider and populist in the first round of the French presidential election by ALSO branding himself as an anti-Establishment outsider.

So far, so good, but please consider carefully what just happened.

The French people just rejected the purported Establishment in a way that the Americans did not even come close when they elected Donald Trump. On Sunday, the French Republicans - conservatives, and the party of Chirac and Sarkozy - got less than 20% of the popular vote. The Socialists, who are in power now in the form of President François Hollande - got slightly over SIX percent of the popular vote! What just happened in France is absolutely unprecedented - it is the equivalent of a non-Democrat and non-Republican winning the US presidential election.

Macron is being sold as the salvation of Europe. In fact, his victory may turn out to be far more disturbing than Trump's. It signals that those who have run Europe's second most important country since the end of the Second World War are trusted by only slightly over 25% of the French population (...the most important country is, of course, Germany.) It also suggest that those people may support a brand new French policy regarding Europe.

And what may that new policy be?

Macron says he supports "sugar, and spice and all things nice". As a "free range" politician, not bound to any particular party or tradition, I suggest that he may be a complete wild-card, with a very strong French nationalist bias that no true Frenchman could oppose, especially as he will have to respond to Le Pen. He is from the Establishment, but he is not actually beholden to anyone.

The key issue here is obviously the future of the European Union. Marine Le Pen wants to take France out of the European Union in order to preserve the French nation outside of that organization. Macron wants France to stay in - but the price may be that Europe has to largely become the French nation in order for France to stay.

For example, Macron is on record complaining about Germany's unfair trade surplus within Europe. Questioning this is the equivalent of questioning what is almost Germany's entire rationale for being in the European Union - it is the equal of Trump's questioning of NAFTA. Pushing this issue can only lead to very significant tension between the two countries that are absolutely essential to the union itself. Those who expect "sunny ways and sunny days" from a President Macron may be in for a rude surprise.

Macron is also on record demanding a European Commissioner who would run Europe, the European Parliament and a common budget. That's all good and well, but did he implicitly mean that this person would obviously have to be a Frenchman? The French see the Germans as the economic power behind Europe, where they are the defacto political power behind it. Implicit in this is a very powerful French nationalism - in other words, an appreciation that Europe IS France. What if Macron represents, not a laissez faire attitude to European membership, but what may become a French power-grab within the Union as the obvious answer to its chaos, especially Greek bankruptcy and Brexit?

Finally, he is very liberal on immigration and the question of Muslims in France. But he has also clarified, on many occasions, that obedience to the law of the French Republic is not optional. In other words, you can be Muslim in your home, but when you are in public, you must be French! Implicit in this is a very deep chauvinism.

He has been compared to Napoleon by some Frenchmen. Would a Napoleon play second fiddle to anyone? Would a Napoleon not try to entirely dominate EVERY situation?

Demanding that Europe become France may be even more disturbing than demanding a Europe without France. As Le Pen rises in the polls in the next week with her rabidly pro-nationalist/anti-Establishment message, I think Macron will have to respond with some traditional French chauvinism of his own. Stay tuned...we are in entirely uncharted waters here.

The Triumph of Truthiness

In the recent US Presidential election, I think we may have crossed a Rubicon from "truth" to "thuthiness".

There was a firm reaction by many in the media after this election to the "fake news" being propagated on many social media sites in an obvious attempt to negatively impact the election campaign of Hilary Clinton.  And, sure enough, reports of child abuse rings being run out of the basement of pizza restaurants were 100% fake.  But lurking within the fake news was a shocking amount of outright manipulation by many in the mainstream media, much of which is now crystal clear.

Foremost amongst this was a refusal on the part of many in the US media to report on, or even acknowledge, the devastating revelations by WikiLeaks in the form of the Podesta and other e-mails showing a shocking level of manipulation and outright corruption on the part of the Clintons.  

Be clear on this - these e-mails were true, not fake. This refusal to fully report on these e-mails may stem in part because some news organization - the New York Times and CNN for example - were caught in these same e-mails working with the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee to get Clinton elected and/or to hurt Trump's campaign. They were close to operating as propaganda arms of the Democrats.

As well, the successful burying of the Clinton e-mail scandal (...she used a personal server while she was Secretary of State, refusing to use the government server even one time, including for the sending and receiving of secret information, which is 100% illegal), shows the extent to which many in the mainstream media in that country is essentially "mobbed up". Every idiotic excuse offered by Clinton was trumpeted without thought or assessment...again and again. (Yes, others used personal emails, but almost exclusively for small things like asking that a car be brought around. No one has ever used only their own personal server exclusively during the entire time they were in office.)

Why does this matter? As intelligent, informed citizens, are we not able to see the BS and manipulation when it is offered to us?

Well, no.

The key here is to understand that, as the progeny of a successful movement to democracy and the idea of a free press, we are conditioned to think that what we read is true. Our most normal approach to news, especially that emanating from the mainstream media, is belief, not doubt. This is changing, and the implications, while not completely clear, are serious.  

Let me illustrate the problem.

The New York Times is the best newspaper in the world. Reading the e-mails between that paper and Obama's politicized Department of Justice, and the Clinton Campaign about how they should spin the story they were about to break about Hillary Clinton using her own personal e-mail server while she was Secretary of State was enlightening and exceptionally disheartening. This was obvious manipulation and spin of the first order.

In short, the NYT allowed these officials and political operatives to look at their report before it went out, and to suggest changes. Unbelievable. You do this if you think you work for the government and the politicians, not report on them.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-02/wikileaks-exposes-collusion-between-clinton-campaign-state-department-and-new-york-t

Maybe this has always happened - the media has always been corrupt and "mobbed-up". Certainly some news outlets - Fox and Huffington Post - are shameless in their support of their favoured champions. But we know that. What may be new is the realization that they may all be corrupt. Or, put another way, it may be that there is no neutral news media, anywhere. The free press is actually the bought press now.

If this is the case, all media necessarily becomes a source of information, because the only way to have even a chance of knowing what is actually going on is to read and compare all reports broadly. And so, you have to read the New York Times and watch Russia Today at the same time to get the complete picture, and then weigh what you read and hear.  

But underscoring this activity is a deep and I think damaging skepticism, the implications of which are not clear. Here are some initial thoughts, in the form of questions to emphasize that I do not know...

Progress is predicated on hope for the future. Will belief in a positive future become more difficult if we think our present is a pack of lies?

Rule of law is one of the hallmarks of democracy itself. Will our willingness to play by the rules, and even the rule of law itself, significantly erode in a world where we are convinced everyone else is cheating?

How do we raise our children so that they can be prepared for a world where we must assume that everyone has an angle to play?  

Beyond teaching them to be skeptical, which is healthy, do we teach them to recognize the facial expressions and idioms of pathological liars?  

Or, do we teach them how to play the game successfully, by showing them how to not give away the tell-tale signs of a liar, given that to be successful in this new world, they are going to have to lie and be good at it?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I do know that the media is how we see the world, and this window may have become substantially murkier.

To summarize - what are the implications for us and our world if we actually can not trust anything we read from any source?  

If they are all playing games, how are we to know?  

They all claim to be telling the truth, and this may be the most insidious aspect of this development. Many in the press are now obviously trading on a professional obligation to tell the truth in order to successfully perpetrate lies and distortions.

The American press has move a far, far distance from the days of Walter Cronkite.  

Do they understand how badly they have damaged themselves?

Without trust, they're out of business....and we are out of freedom.

The Markets

This just about says it all.....

https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2017/04/08/stock-market-valuations-and-hamburgers

I don't agree that you should stay in equities.  Take you profits, and hold on!

The Trump Doctrine

A suggestion.  In light of Trump's attack on Syria in response to Syria's use of chemical weapons, maybe we need a "Trump Doctrine" to guide international relations during his presidency?

The Trump Doctrine.

1. If anyone used chemical, biological or nuclear weapons against anyone, including both military and civilian targets, the USA will force the evil-doer to pay a price.  Enemies and neutral parties will be attacked; friends will be punished, likely through massive economic sanctions.  The world will still be a nasty place, but a line has to be drawn....just don't go there.

2. Anyone committing genocide and mass abuse of civilian populations, including their own populations in the case of world leaders, may be subject to arrest by US military forces, and the forces of America's allies, at any time, anywhere.  The USA will not become the world's policeman, but it will also no longer stand by and do nothing in the face of obvious breaches of the most basic human rights, sometimes on a massive scale. Those who are arrested may be delivered to the International Criminal Court of Justice if the USA agrees with the court's indictment, or to American military courts for trial.  Baddies will still do bad stuff in the world....but now they will have to do so never knowing whether or not they may find themselves in a foreign prison.

OK...the USA does some bad stuff, notably bombing foreign persons with drone strikes that have only a very shaky legal basis, at best.  And, some of America's allies are also absolutely awful, and the USA cannot be relied upon to ever arrest them.

So what.  America's foreign policy has been a mass of contractions and hypocrisy for decades. That is not about to change.  I can live with that if it means a virtual halt to the use of weapons of mass destruction, especially against civilians, coupled with significant worry on the part of evil people about whether or not they may be arrested some day, causing them to at least think twice before unleashing the dogs of hell.

Trump could do a lot worse.

BTW - there was no "false flag" in respect of the recent gas attack in Syria.  Some have claimed that Assad is winning the war, so he had no reason to do this, so it likely didn't happen.  Well, no. Assad has spent his entire time in office ruling based on terror.  He gassed his own population precisely because he is winning, as a prelude to what lies in store in a future Syria for anyone who would challenge him again.  Gassing his own people is completely consistent with everything we know about this monster.  He needs to be out of power and incarcerated.

Trump - Obama and Mob Rule

So, what do we know....basically.

Trump's associates were in contact with Russian hackers, who were likely working on behalf of the Russian Government, both prior to and during the Wiki Leaks that largely (and quite properly) destroyed Hillary Clinton's latest run at the White House.

Obama's White House was revealing the names of Americans who were picked up in wiretaps of Russians, and they were reading and distributing the contents of the conversations in order to try to respond to the Wiki Leaks to help Clinton, and/or to gain an electoral advantage over Trump.

All of this activity is illegal.

Basically, every one of these fuc*&rs has been operating like America is an enlarged version of the Cosa Nostra.  It is as if the American Establishment watched a documentary about Watergate, then openly asked..."Uh....so what was the point of all of this again?"

What if EVERYONE is a crook?

And with that, what does the world look like at the end of an empire?  Basically...this.

But take heart.  America's rebirth is coming - the essential genius underpinning American Democracy, and the obvious greatness of the American People will stand for no less.

But this rebirth will not come from anyone associated with these criminal scumbags.