Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2227

Not So Fast

It’s got to be either one of the stupidest acts that I can recall or a very wicked plan by Washington neocons to sabotage Korean peace talks.

How else to describe the decision by Big Brother USA and junior sidekick South Korea to stage major air force exercises on North Korea’s border.  The prickly North Koreans had a fit, of course, as always when the US flexes its muscles on their borders.  Continuing South and North Korean peace talks scheduled this week were cancelled by the furious North...

Vaticanonomics

The Vatican recently released a report on “the present economic-financial system” of the world that is typical of all pronouncements about economics from the Catholic Church bureaucracy:  It is astoundingly ignorant of even elementary economic concepts, and is written in the language of a C-/D+ high school writing assignment.  There is confusion over the definition of very simple economic concepts like profit and GDP.   There are 49 footnotes, but none of them makes reference to any economic...

Norse-Era Jewelry

When you think of ancient Vikings, the first thing that pops into your mind is probably not jewelry, right? The picture that forms in the mind of most people is one of savages with long sharp spears, swords, and heavy shields attacking coastal communities. However, you will be pleased to know that Norse people of old also made beautiful and intricate ornaments; bracelets, rings, necklaces, etc., out of a variety of materials including bronze, iron, gold, silver, amber, and resin. Early on in...

4000 Google Employees Sign Petition

There is a story from World War 2 that always struck me as the essence of what it meant to have a conscience. A German soldier who was a member of a firing squad told his commanding officer that he could not bring himself to fire upon and kill a lineup of helpless, innocent Jews. The commanding officer told the soldier if he did not follow orders and kill the Jews that he would have to join them. To the officer’s surprise, the soldier laid down his rifle and walked across to stand amongst the...

Britain Shrugs as Royal Wedding Approaches

A majority of Brits don’t care about the Royal wedding, a YouGov poll has found. 66% said they don’t care about the upcoming nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, on Saturday.

The survey, commissioned by the anti-monarchist pressure group Republic, also found that 60% of those surveyed are just planning on having a normal weekend while a further 10% will be working.

Other findings include that 57% believe the Royals should pay the full cost of th...

Bad News for Feminists

It is only through ignorance or suppression of the truth that anyone can believe in the leftist worldview, a kind of bad morality play that would be merely amusing were it not so influential.

Of this feminism is a representative example. Motivated by status envy, which is a reflection of human nature’s difficult need for esteem, feminists have a perverse conception of history. It never seems to occur to them that men no more chose their greater physical strength and, yes, greater ability to e...

Absolutely ‘The Right Stuff’

This is one of the best-written books on early space history one can read. The writer uses wit, sarcasm, and the truth to present a pretty factual tale of the people who have “the right stuff”. However, it’s important to read the book with a little Skepticism. Mr. Wolfe was not beyond bending a yawn just a bit for literary purposes. This is easily illustrated by his handling of the Gus Grissom Mercury flight and the exploding door controversy. And, to be fair, I don’t think a strict account w...

If US Foreign Policy Were Consistent

The Syrian civil war, we have been told, began as part of the Arab Spring and really took hold when Syrian government forces allegedly opened fire on protesters across the country in early 2011. This pattern of indiscriminate violent behavior against civilians has been a talking point in the western media’s regime-change narrative. The media often goes so far as to claim that the government led by Bashar al-Assad has lost all legitimacy.

What then, should we make of Israel’s decision to open...

The World Will Not Mourn

There are good reasons for any good progressive to bemoan the presence of the childish, racist, sexist and ecocidal, right-wing plutocrat Donald Trump in the White House. One complaint about Trump that should be held at arm’s-length by anyone on the left, however, is the charge that Trump is contributing to the decline of U.S. global power—to the erosion of the United States’ superpower status and the emergence of a more multipolar world.

This criticism of Trump comes from different elite cor...

A Double-Whammy for the Auto Industry

Here’s another sign that the air is starting to come out of the subprime automobile bubble.

The default rate on subprime auto loans has reached levels higher than we saw during the financial crisis. As a result, lenders are shutting off the easy money spigot. That’s bad news for the auto industry.

According to the latest data from Fitch and reported by Bloomberg, the delinquency rate for auto loans more than 60 days past due hit 5.8% in March. That’s the highest level since 1996. The default...