A MarketPlace of Ideas                        

This is more an economic and political history of Britain than anything else.  The economic and political epochs of Britain are covered with nothing else talked about.  Even cultural events mentioned have strong bearing on economics with an example being a massive party that was the prototype rave.  Raves of this type are pay for entry models and more an economic effort than a party as much as they are talked up to the opposite.

Britain was on the edge of bankruptcy at the end of world war 2.  They owed money to the USA and at the same time they wanted to undertake a huge welfare effort including socialized medicine.  Sound familiar?   Sounds like the USA to me in 2009 under Obama. If you have interest in economics you need to watch all 5 of these shows.  In many ways the USA appears to be squarely on the same path as this has been empire.  

…..And just so you know Britain paid off the last of the loans from this era in the 2000’s. 

From video description: Britain in 1945; the country is victorious but nearly bankrupt. As Clement Attlee’s Labour government sets out to build ‘New Jerusalem’, Britain is forced to hold out the begging bowl in Washington. Though Ealing Studios produces a series of very British comedies and there is a spirit of hope in the air, the British people’s growing impatience with austerity threatens to take the country from bankruptcy to self-destruction.

Viewing Notes

• To be added upon second viewing

Links to all the videos

Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain
Episode 1 – Advance Britannia 1945-1955
Episode 2 – The Land of Lost Content 1955-1964
Episode 3 – Paradise Lost 1964-1979
Episode 4 – Revolution! 1979-1990
Episode 5 – New Britannia 1990-2007

Robert McNamara has died.  Unfortunately his brand of social engineering is alive and well.   You may know a couple of Roberts "innovations".  They include the F-111.

 And the ever jamming M-16 rifle.

His life demonstrates the abject failure of when the unwashed hands of government apparatiks touch the inner workings of our society. 

Read George Wills Article to understand better how McNamera introduced his own particular version of errors into the system. 

The apogee of McNamara’s professional life, in the first half of the 1960s, coincided, not coincidentally, with the apogee of the belief that behavioralism had finally made possible a science of politics. Behavioralism held — holds; it is a hardy perennial — that the social and natural sciences are not so different, both being devoted to the discovery of law-like regularities that govern the behavior of atoms, hamsters, humans, whatever.

This sort of social meddling has not ceased.  Unfortunately it has found a new home in the left.  Unable to fathom the mathematics of chaos they straddle the bucking bronco wild horse proclaiming over and over it will end differently this time.  This time we can break this wild horse called human reality.  This from the people who claim there is no god on one hand but on the other purport to have god like qualities of to-the-core understanding.  I think that is unlikely.

I guess all we can do is wait for Obama to be tossed off this pitch black mare with the bewitching eyes.  It will come sure as the sun rises.

Likely you have heard this old adage about security and liberty.  The security they talk about is economic.  Things are likely to get tougher in the near future.   We are shipping too much money out of the country for oil.   We are too dainty to allow it to be drilled on our coasts and in ANWR.   Thus things will deteriorate more until the pain threshold is found. 

Many people will want to vote for the politician that says it will be ok if we only regulate this or tax that.  These are the unDemocrats who will say anything to get elected.  Say anything to get the power.  I would like to think you as an electorate will have the sense not to listen.  But I’m doubtful about this.  You listened in the past and you likely will in the future.   The problem is this sort of thing never helps economically and in fact damages something much more precious than your temporary economic circumstances and that would be your liberty.  I know this is true.  My favorite home away from home country is Brazil.   As currently constituted Brazil has a fully implemented form of government that the unDemocrats want to have here.  The people know their government and changing it is hopeless.  Nothing will ever change in that area and the Brazilians know it.   With liberty you can improve your economic circumstances.   With economic wellbeing you can not necessarily do diddly squat about your liberty.  I know its tough to be a good soldier.  You have to be brave.  And clearly about 50% of the population lacks any impulse toward liberty. Quite the opposite.  They lick their chops at the thought of another round of incremental carving up of liberty for the sake of financial gain. 

Remember losing a job is temporary.  Living in a land of curtailed liberty is pretty much for your entire lifetime.    So don’t be dour Gus Halls who secretly long for a beer, a recliner and a black and white television.   For an inspired life you have to dream of liberty.

A joke told by Bernie Mac shows a Twain-ish twist that illustrates the high art of communication.  When you take it to this sort of level like Twain and Mac it pays.

His joke was as follows:

My little nephew came to me and he said, ‘Uncle, what’s the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?   I said I don’t know … but I’ll tell you what you do. Go upstairs and ask your mother if she’d make love to the mailman for $50,000.   Mother saying she’d sleep  with anyone  for $50,000 — and daughter hypothetically answering the question in the same way.  Hypothetically speaking, we should have $100,000……….. But realistically speaking we live with two hos.

This joke is at its core very intellectual.    His illustration of wishful thinking versus realistic thinking contains a clarity hard to explain to people in normal language.   

It shows people who act out of motivation of wishful thinking to be the clowns that they are.( read liberal voter here ).  We conservatives have these laughs at you liberals expenses everyday.  When a liberal starts going on about global warming.  When you go on about raising taxes as a good thing.  We laugh at you.  We laugh hard.  And we wonder how can anyone be so damned square as to believe it.  But that is the "power" of wishful thinking.  It is the power to make use more powerfully brained conservatives laugh hysterically at your clumsy antics.

That light at the endo of the tunnel might just might be a huge human sized bugzapper so watch out. 

All the is shiny is not necessarily good and that which appears sullen might not all be bad. 

A friend name Beau Izdebski once said "Those who are hardest to get to know are often the best to get to know"

My experience since then suggests that is true.  It also suggests even so it might not last. However I always have loved a wild ride.