New Economic Perspectives

By William K. Black
July 5, 2016     Bloomington, MN

NYT Editorial Decrying BREXIT – Part 7

The NYT editorialized against the BREXIT vote, just in case the six columns it printed attacking the vote might not make it clear where the editorial board stood.  The editorial explained what it saw as the basis for the vote.

It was a cry of anger and frustration from more than half the country against those who wield power, wealth and privilege, both in their own government and in Brussels, and against global forces in a world that they felt was squeezing them out.

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By William K. Black
July 5, 2016     Bloomington, MN

The sixth column that the New York Time published on the same date condemning the vote in favor of BREXIT can be dealt with briefly.  It too attacked the legitimacy of democracy, which it presented as a threat to “representative government.”

Steven Erlanger – Part 6

Steven Erlanger quoted with apparent approval this revealing quotation in his column condemning BREXIT.

Bronwen Maddox, former editor of Prospect Magazine and the new director of the Institute for Government, a research institution, commented by email that “there is a growing intolerance for representative government, which is likely to have consequences for the ability of any government to run the country.”

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By William K. Black
July 5, 2016     Bloomington, MN

Jim Yardley – Part 5

Jim Yardley wrote a column entitled “Populist Anger Upends Politics on Both Sides of the Atlantic.”  Yes, anyone in the UK who supported BREXIT is just like an American supporter of Donald Trump because they are angry.  Indeed, it’s “the same” as every non-establishment politician and political supporter throughout Europe and the U.S.

The same yawning gap between the elite and mass opinion is fueling a populist backlash in Austria, France, Germany and elsewhere on the Continent — as well as in the United States.

As Tony Blair’s column correctly noted, however, the leadership of the pro-BREXIT movement was ultra-elite.  Elite opinion was fractured in the UK along multiple fault lines.  EU “elites” have, of course, brought the EU over a decade of massive bubbles, widespread fraud by financial elites, financial crises, a Great Recession, an economically illiterate response to the Great Recession that forced much of the eurozone into Great Depression level unemployment.  Oh, and those elites have been exposed in far too many cases as tax frauds and cheats.  Oh, and the head of EU Commission is the guy who turned Luxembourg into a “let’s make a secret deal” cesspool for large corporations seeking to evade paying taxes.  The dominant EU elites are colossal failures in terms of competence and ethics.  Any rational, adult citizenry would reject the dominant EU elite “opinion.”  Yardley admits at one point that the rejection is rational.

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By William K. Black
June 24, 2016     Kansas City, MO

Tony Blair

Tony Blair disgraced his office as Prime Minister and continues to disgrace it as lobbyist for murderous kleptocrats.  Blair’s column claims personal credit for a series of supposed triumph, blames the BREXIT vote on the Tories, and throws Jeremy Corbin, his successor as Labour Party leader, under the bus.  The title of Blair’s article refers to the democratic vote in favor of BREXIT as a “coup,” which helps explain why he specializes in getting ever wealthier by fronting for tyrants and kleptocrats who he presents as evolving democrats.  The English language is just one of the things Blair helps torture.

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