California Goes Groucho On Gasoline

By Kerry Jackson August 8, 2025 

Editor’s note: This has been excerpted with permission from the Pacific Research Institute. To read the entire article, click here.

What did California officials think was going to happen when they decided it was a dazzlingly brilliant idea to hound the oil industry out of the state? That magic would take over and there would be no consequences for their rash decisions? Apparently, they weren’t thinking at all, because, according to reports, the California Energy Commission (CEC) is looking for a buyer who will take over one of the refineries that’s being abandoned by a company that’s had enough of being beaten up by Sacramento. Their confidence in their crusade to green out the state seems to have been replaced by panic.

To paraphrase the great Groucho Marx, they have values, and when those wreck things, they have others...... By this time next year, there might not be even a dozen refineries left in the state to produce the 38 million gallons of California’s boutique blend that’s consumed every day. ................To continue reading, click here.

•  South American cold underscores role of oil and gas - August 8, 2025 by Vijay Jayaraj - In July, a bone-chilling cold wave swept across South America, plunging nations like Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay into an energy crisis that laid bare the fragility of their power systems. Record-low temperatures, driven by an Antarctic air mass pushed electricity grids to the brink, forced governments to ration gas, and left thousands without power for over a day.

  This brutal winter exposed a stark truth: South America’s energy infrastructure, strained by poverty and uneven development, cannot afford to gamble on unreliable sources like wind and solar. For nations striving to lift millions out of poverty by boosting economic growth, abundant oil and gas offer the only practical path to surviving harsh winters and securing a prosperous future..............To Read More

 

 

The World's Nine Orders

By Rich Kozlovich

All geopolitics is predicated on four factors.  Geographics, demographics, economics, and that most exclusive factor of all, the happiness factor, and the happiness factor is seemingly incomprehensible to most of the world's leaders.  Why?   The masses just want security, and the world's leaders just don't care.  When they don't care, they don't understand, and they don't want to understand.

Yesterday this article appeared at American Thinker, From Cats and Geese to Kissinger’s ‘World Order’, with Christopher Chantrill outlining four foundational narratives according to Henry Kissinger, with whom I've never been impressed.  That started a train of thought in me as I thought......  just four?  Really?

Well, I guess you can organize and define all of this as one pleases, but I thought four was entirely too limiting, so, I came up with nine foundational narratives, i.e. nine orders that impact human existence, and truth be told, that number is open to debate.   

First.   There are these International organizations such as the United Nation (UN), which I consider a "Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy", the World Trade Organization (WTO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, the

If we take a look around the world we find there are eight more foundational cultural systems that pretty much determine what goes on the in the world, and once we recognize and analyze that it becomes clear the concept of an organized "world order" is an impossible dream, and these international organizations are the "first" among the orders of our existence, and they're a disaster for humanity.   Follow the links to see why.

Second.  Let's take a look at China.  Their history is massive, and impressive, and while their nation is officially atheistic, it's foundational social paradigm is still predicated on Confucianism.  Chinese knew China was the center of the universe, and all they needed was China, and outside the current leadership's desire to control the rest of the world, that's not what the Chinese people want.  

They're spending enormous amounts of money on their military, but China's broke, and going more broke by the day.  They've just closed thousands of restaurants in China over economics. Central planning at it's worst, a Maoist economic philosophy that failed when Mao was alive, and will fail with Xi as China's Maoist emperor.

Like the old Soviet Union, they're not a natural capital generating nation, and there's every indication they're heading into an economic toilet just like the Soviet Union with Xi's Maoist economic thinking.  The sooner that happens the better off their world will be.   Like most leaders, the leadership in China hasn't a clue about what makes the people of China happy. 

Third. Islam has no concept of world peace until the world is converted to to Islam, preferably with the sword.  As a result, Islam has been at war with the rest of the world in varying degrees for almost 1500 years.   Any harmony that exists with Islam and any other nation or group in the world is never anything except temporary, and it only exists to allow Islam to reorganize and attack once again.  Also, there's no harmony within Islam.  

The foundational values of Islam are hate, greed, envy, lust, and violence.  And the only ones they hate more than kafir (non believers) are Muslims of different sects, as each sect considers the other sects heretics, and the Koran demands the death of heretics.   They're only powerful as long as oil is king, and that's subject to change, but only if the rest of the world has the will.  

They're a medieval tribal culture with modern communications, transportation, and weapons, all of which means they must be contained and isolated, as they cannot, and will not, be assimilated. 

Fourth. India is mostly Hindu, and their goal is to transcend reality into a higher plane, and truth be told, I find India and those who embrace this philosophy totally incomprehensible, and their culture amazingly complicated.   But they can be a force, and the key here is they're not going to embrace any of the other five orders, in any way except to potentially allow them to be a very small part of their culture, which also means they will play all sides against each other for their benefit.   Trusting them overmuch is irrational as India will never be a stable ally, and their internal social structure is extremely complicated.

Fifth.  Then there's the Russian order.  Russia's huge, and is a "hordesland" nation, meaning large armies could sweep over their land with ease as did the Mongols, and is the underlying social paradigm, or fear, for Russia as a nation, albeit that fear is now irrational as no one wants to attack Russia, certainly not any nation or group of nations in Europe.  And that social paradigm accepts they idea Russia can only survive by being controlled with absolute power, and that everyone in the world want's to destroy Russia, so all nations are Russia's enemies.   

One thing Russians developed as a result of being overrun by invading armies is patience.  They believe the tides of time, distance, and size are on their side, and will wait for the tide to change.  But like China, it's not a natural capital generating nation, and we now know, it's not the military bear we thought it was, and they're losing credibility as a world power daily. 

Sixth.  Europe, which Otto Von Bismarck once observed that America, unlike Europe, is a real nation, sharing the same language and culture.  Whereas Europe is nothing more than a geographical designation.  A geographic designation with at least 24 official languages, and more unofficial dialects, amounting to around 200 languages.  All with widely different cultural values.  The only biding force in Europe was Christianity, and they turned that into wars.  

The nations of Europe aren't real nations, they're a conglomeration of small Kingdoms, Dukedoms, etc, that were pushed together through peace treaties after some war or other over the centuries, and they've pretty much abandoned Christianity.  Now they believe in anything, everything, and nothing.   Europe can't even embrace a united Europe without disastrous results, as we're now seeing, let alone a united world.   Their embrace of uncontrolled immigration by Muslims will destroy them, so let's try and get this right.  Europe is a spent force, the EU is doomed, and their economic collapse is imminent.  

Seventh.  Africa, and it's a mess, it has aways been a mess, and it will always be a mess, speaking between 1500 and 2000 different languages, filled with terrifying religious movements and failed social paradigms.  There is no stability in Africa, even in the northern tier Muslim nations.   Given the corrupt lack of civil rights in these nations, and the lack of a stable rule of law, there can be no social order in which they'll fit.    As of 2023, there were, since 1950, approximately four hundred and ninety two attempted and/or successful coups around the world.  Two hundred and twenty of them were in Africa.  One hundred and nine of them were successful.  Africa is a bad investment.

Eighth.  Latin and South America are also a mess, and much of what's going on there is also unfixable, at least from outside sources.  Let's take Argentina.  Argentina in the early 20th century was one of the most economically successful nations on the planet could have been to model for the rest of South and Central America, except they embraced socialism and continued an viral downward economic swirl for over 100 years.  But that's now changing.  We'll come back to that.  

The geographic conditions of South America makes war extremely difficult and none of these nations have navies capable of Normandy style invasions.  Even the Northern Tier nations have geographic issues, and don't even have railroads that connect them together, and their mineral rich interiors are largely ignored because of their lack of capitalist thinking and social structure, along with unstable political structures.

The Union of South American Nations is a loser and gets nothing done.   As of 2021 of the 16 countries that make up South America, seven have either suspended or withdrawn their membership, and as far as I can tell there are only six active members.   As for taking action against Venezuela?  They couldn't even agree on who the Secretary General should be and at times the position went unfilled. And guess which country remains a member? Venezuela!

From Mexico to the tip of South America there's now only two nations overcoming the socialist plague that's been destroying them by the new President of Argentina and El Salvador, both of whom believe in capitalism.   In El Salvador  President Nayib Bukele, did a hard crackdown on crime, and the power of the criminal elements in South and Latin America is devastating, and most of these nations don't have the political capital to do the same.  

No matter what deals they make internationally – they will eventually have to look North, especially since it’s my belief the world is going to face a very large economic downturn within the next five years, possibly not for ten.   How fast and how deep will depend on the region, with China and Russia leading the downward trend, and all that international trade will become much more problematic – except to the North – to the United States, and from that point on the U.S. will dominate these societies economically, and if they embrace that it will be to their benefit!

Ninth.  America no longer shares a culture as it did in Bismarck's day, and America must get it's migrant situation under control, America needs to deport about 25 million aliens, illegal,  some legal, and some immigrants who need to have their citizenship revoked as a result of their anti American activities, some even involving espionage, criminal gangsterism, and obvious efforts at sedition.

For entirely too long Americans felt we could turn the rest of the world into America, or at the very least get them to embrace the American dream and the implement it in their nations.  That turned out to be stupid, but the reason for that is the intellectuals taught that and promoted it.  The facts are two fold.  We don't understand them and their historical social paradigms that were created over centuries, and they absolutely don't understand the American concepts of democracy and capitalism.   

Other than these international organizations and the United States, there's a singular thing all the other orders have in common.  For most of their  history they were all ruled by kings with absolute power, which is why we don't understand them, and they don't understand us.  These seven orders exist with social constructs that are antithetical to each other at foundational levels, and there will be no world order predicated on peaceful coexistence.   Most importantly we need to understand, no matter what we do they will always hate and resent America, and that's the thing we need to understand about them. 

However, there is one foundational truth we need to embrace.  They need us, and we don't need them.  America is a natural capital generating nation, and unlike all these other orders we can feed ourselves, arm ourselves, defend ourselves, fuel ourselves, create our own internal commercial market, and we're capable of paying off our national debt.   

It's time we picked up our marbles and went home, and let them all crash.  Then there will either be a world in chaos, or they'll come to their senses, stop causing trouble and just take care of their people. I'm thinking they'll pick chaos.  Why? Because according to historians we're coming the end of a historical cycle, and all end cycles have massive economic downturns and are rife with violence.  History tells the tale, and often times it's not a pretty story, and then a new cycle begins.   Sadly, those kind of crashes are the fix. 

 

Biden Handed Over South America to China

By Daniel Greenfield July 02, 2023 @ Sultan Knish Blog  

When Biden met with Lula da Silva, the founder of the Marxist Brazil’s Workers’ Party and a convicted criminal, it was a victory lap for both socialists.

Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former leader, had survived his bribery conviction and rigged an election that overthrew Jair Bolsonaro: his conservative patriotic predecessor. Biden had survived his own trial by fire during the midterms which locked down the 2024 Democrat nomination.

Lula also met with fellow Marxists: Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

Biden and Lula talked of “democracy” and “fighting extremism”. They badmouthed their predecessors, Bolsonaro and Trump, and Biden offered the Marxist some big checks.

“Both our nations’ strong democracies have been tested,” Biden falsely claimed, and “both in the United States and Brazil, democracy prevailed.”

Media accounts compared Biden and Lula who had both faced mass public protests over their stolen elections. Biden had been one of the first to congratulate Lula on his stolen election and invited him to the White House despite the Brazilian Marxist’s longtime enmity to America.

“The United States and the rest of the world can count on Brazil in the fight for democracy,” Lula assured Biden.

The Biden administration and the media had worked hard to bring Lula to power despite the fact that he was an ally of geopolitical enemies like Xi in China and Putin in Russia.

Last month, Lula flew to Beijing where he pledged his true allegiance: signing 15 bilateral agreements and forming an official partnership that will include embedding China’s Huawei technological spy operation into Brazil’s communications infrastructure.

Every time Biden and the Democrats say “democracy won” in South America, what they really mean is that China won.

Lula’s most significant statement was a call to end the use of the dollar as an international currency. And this was not just talk. In March, Brazil agreed to use the Chinese Yuan currency for its purchases. Biden and the Democrat Party’s backing for Lula had undermined America in its global economic struggle with China and the international order they claimed to revere.

Brazil’s move was soon followed by another major South American government, Argentina, also agreeing to pay for Chinese products in Yuan.

Argentina’s leader Alberto Fernandez is a successor to the criminally corrupt Kirchner administration, backed by Obama, which has continued to rule through Fernandez. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had been charged with high treason over her dirty deal with Iran. Despite being banned from holding office, she serves as Fernandez’s vice president.

Although arguably he serves as her number two.

Much like Lula, Democrats and their media cheered the Fernandez-Kirchner ticket as the best hope for “democracy”. Like Lula, Alberto Fernandez is a supporter of Xi and Putin. Singing from the leftist playbook, Fernandez paid a call on Putin and urged both countries to work together to cut the United States out of their economies.

In Beijing, Fernandez signed memorandums and agreements with China worth tens of billions of dollars that included the construction of a Chinese nuclear plant. And Argentina and China expanded their currency swap to $5 billion.

Despite all that, Biden welcomed Fernandez to a ‘Summit on Democracy’ and pledged to “stand up for our democracies”. Biden then cheerfully agreed to help him further renegotiate the country’s debt.

Biden’s “democracy” agenda for South America was paying massive dividends… to China.

The latest election in Paraguay however denied another victory for Marxist ‘democracy’ when Santiago Pena of the Colorado Party defeated Efrain Alegre of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party. A strong proponent of shifting the country’s economy over to Communist China, Alegre had previously been arrested on corruption charges.

Much as in Brazil and Argentina, the Biden administration went all in to help China gain another ally by imposing sanctions on the Colorado Party. The move may have backfired by making the leftists appear to be not only China, but Biden’s puppets, leading to a sizable election defeat.

This was another loss for the Biden-China coalition after Pedro Castillo in Peru was impeached and removed from office for trying to stage his own coup. Castillo had focused on building ties with Communist China. The Biden administration had protested Castillo’s arrest, warning, “we will continue to stand against and to categorically reject any acts that…undermines democracy.”

But keeping Peru and Paraguay in the American camp does not compensate for losing Brazil and Argentina. Bolsnaro’s victory had put a pro-American government in power in Brazil. And the Democrats put loyalty to the International Left over America to secure Brazil for their comrades. And leftist victories in South America are really victories for Communist China.

Beyond the economic consequences, the Biden administration’s treasonous allegiance to the International Left gives China an even deeper foothold in the Americas.

The People’s Republic of China has vast global ambitions. It has built a massive radio station in Argentina under the Obama-backed Kirschner regime, that is likely being used to spy on us, and is moving to close a deal on a naval base. With that base, Chinese ships would have a gateway to Antarctica. Fernandez’s victory, backed by Democrats and the American Left, has all but given China a deep military foothold in this hemisphere and its waters.

And the Biden administration is only just getting started handing over South America to China.,

When Biden put Kamala in charge of dealing with mass migration, it wasn’t to stem the tide of illegal aliens crossing the border, but to assign the blame for it to “root causes” such as a lack of “democracy” at home. That was diplomatic slang for pushing for regime change.

Kamala flew off to Guatemala to try and topple the government of Alejandro Giammattei: a conservative pro-American and anti-China leader who recently visited Taiwan. Crowds of Guatemalan patriots jeered her arrival. The Biden administration began abusing its Justice Department to aid leftists, including those backed by Soros, and leftist Guatemalan officials looking to bring criminal charges against the Giammattei government. Kamala met with Thelma Aldana, his likely future opponent, who received political asylum from the Biden regime.

This is what a coup looks like.

Last year, Kamala flew out to attend the inauguration of Honduras’ new socialist president Xiomara Castro. Castro, the wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, a Cuban ally who was removed from office after trying to take over the country, who had been backed by Obama.

Castro’s vice president, Salvador Nasralla, a ‘Palestinian’ Arab, claimed that the Jews run the country and his wife had declared that, “Hitler was a great leader”.

But the chief propagandist for the Zelaya regime had spent its final days urging, “I believe it should have been fair and valid to let Hitler finish his historic vision.” That had not diminished Obama’s support for the leftists and the Castro-Nasralla regime’s Hitlerism didn’t stop Kamala from flying out to bless the latest member of the ‘democracy’ family in South America.

In March, Castro officially switched ties from Taiwan to Communist China, and will be heading to Beijing.

Expect the Yuan and the Chinese bases to follow.

There isn’t a struggle between America and China in South America, there’s a perverse alliance in which the Biden administration betrays, suborns and hands over friendly countries to China.

While Communist China has plenty of cash, it lacks the sophisticated political networks to bring down governments. That’s an asset exclusively possessed by the International Left, Russia and D.C. Under Biden, as under Obama, those networks have been pooled for leftist takeovers. What Biden and Kamala are doing to South America is what Obama did to the Middle East, using ‘democracy’ and the ‘fight against corruption’ as false flags for bringing America’s worst enemies to power. In the Middle East, it was the Islamists. In South America, it’s the Marxists.

The ultimate beneficiary is America’s greatest geopolitical enemy: Communist China.

In a handful of years, Biden has crushed America’s allies and empowered its enemies across South America. American companies are being shut out of the southern continent while Chinese companies, which are arms of the regime and its military ambitions, are taking over.

Biden’s China treason poses an existential threat to America.

China’s growing holdings in South America will give it access to vast mining, agricultural, energy and navigational resources while putting it within striking distance of the United States.

Democrats and the media cheered each “victory for democracy” in South America. What they did not say was that these victories really marked the expansion of China south of our border.

One of the greatest betrayals in our history, on par with Truman handing over China to the Communists, has happened quietly while hardly anyone noticed and while America slept.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. 
Thank you for reading.

Moochers and Looters

John Stossel  May 03, 2023

There's a socialist wave in Latin America. Mexico, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil recently elected leftists. These politicians at least distance themselves from thugs like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but all propose socialism-lite policies giving government more control over more people. Why don't people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? Gloria Alvarez, a social media star from Guatemala, is running for president of her country to try to educate people about the damage socialism does.  People do need educating.

"It's like Stockholm syndrome," says Alvarez in my new video. "When you ask people, 'Who should take care of health, education, football, arts, whatever?' They always answer, 'government.' How are you going to not have corruption if you leave everything in the hands of the government?"..........People push for socialism because they don't study it."............One survey found that most millennials support socialism. But "when they were asked to define or describe socialism, none of them could!" says Alvarez. "They don't know socialism's massive failures.".....To Read More...

The Unbearable Lightweightness of Kamala Harris

June 11, 2021 By J. Robert Smith

It’s faint praise at best to describe someone as not smart or dumb.  In fact, I don’t know that Kamala Harris is dumb.  She may have brains, but she doesn’t much show them.  She comes across as a woman who’s well over her head, and that should disturb anyone who cares about the welfare and safety of the nation.  After all, this Californian who spent a chunk of her formative years in Montreal is, as the cliché goes, “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” 

Harris mouths talking points and reads from scripts like a robot.  She often displays an inappropriate, grating cackle-of-a-laugh, which suggests nervousness and lack of confidence.  

Her recent interview with Lester Holt was sophomoric.  Does anyone not think that profilers in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea aren’t taking copious notes?  Wonder if tyrants Xi Jinping and Vlad Putin wake up in cold sweats at night dreading Harris’ ascendency to the presidency?  

Key question is, does the long corrupted and daft Joe Biden have enough gas in his tank to stay president for the full ride?.......To Read More.....

 

Staff murmer to press that they're 'perplexed' about Kamala Harris's performance on her first trip abroad

June 11, 2021 By Monica Showalter

Kamala Harris staff seem embarrassed in the wake of her first blundering trip abroad to Mexico and Guatemala, and once again, they're leaking it to the press.

According to the New York Post:

Biden administration officials are “quietly perplexed” about Vice President Kamala Harris’ fumbling multiple questions about the border and are concerned her unforced errors will overshadow her first international trip, according to a report.

Speaking to CNN, administration officials discussed how the question of visiting the border dogged Harris for the whole trip, with her answer to NBC News’ Lester Holt stealing the spotlight from her work.

They're not angry at the press, they're embarrassed about her, and her inability to answer a simple question from CBS's fawning Lester Holt, (a newsman who views fairness in news coverage as overrated), and very likely wanted to make Harris look good. The Harris blunders were stealing the spotlight, they said, as if that trip, which Harris herself said was to bring "hope" had any substance whatsoever. .........To Read More.....

 

Big Government Enables Big Corruption

November 24, 2020 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Most readers care about economic developments and economic comparisons involving the United States.

Some readers also care about what’s happening in other major nations, such as China, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom.  Relatively few readers, by contrast, care about economic developments in nations with comparatively small economic footprints, such as Peru. That’s understandable, but I want to cite Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s recent column in the Wall Street Journal because she focuses attention on the very important – and very unsavory – relationship between big government and corruption.

Her column is about political turmoil in Peru, but what she writes applies everywhere in the world.

…it’s hard to see how an electorate that so often votes for populism at the polls can extricate itself from the grasp of crooked politicians. The hard left’s solution, which is to rewrite the 1993 constitution and give the state a larger role in the economy, would make things worse. …Peruvians are frustrated. They have been told that by voting they can secure an honest government. But elected officials repeatedly turn out to be self-interested and corrupt. …Yet as fast as they throw the bums out and bring in new ones, more scandals arise. At the core of this dysfunction is a state with vast powers to redistribute wealth. …Even voters who say they want less corruption may find that change conflicts with their self-interest. The siren song of populism draws them to politicians who can hand out plenty of government jobs and other goodies in a world of weak institutional checks.

Amen.

I made the same point, for instance, in this 2009 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. And I was focusing on the United States.  Simply stated, when politicians have more power over the allocation of a nation’s resources, the greater their incentive to abuse that power.  To be sure, it’s not a linear relationship.

A country’s political culture also matters. Some nation’s have developed very low levels of tolerance for corruption, so there’s not a strong relationship between corruption and the size of government.  As you can see from Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, the Nordic nations are among the countries that are especially good in this regard.

But nation’s from the developing world, including the perennial bottom-dweller Venezuela, tend to get poor scores. The moral of the story is that it’s especially important to limit government (and therefore limit opportunities for corruption) in countries that don’t have high scores. I’m including this data because Peru, unfortunately, is in the bottom half of nations.

Not a terrible score when compared to Venezuela, but weak compared to Chile.  That being said, I want to close with a dose of optimism about Peru.

Today’s final visual is a chart showing how economic freedom in the country dramatically increased starting in the mid-1980s when the “Washington Consensus” was ascendant. And, just as Prof. William Easterly found in his research, this eventually kick-started much better economic performance.

P.S. It is worrisome that Peruvian economic policy stopped improving beginning about 2005. And based on Ms. O’Grady’s column, it seems unlikely that policy will get better in the near future.

P.P.S. Chile remains (at least for now) the big economic success story of Latin America, though Panama deserves a bit of attention as well.

Secretary Pompeo making friends in South America

April 12, 2019 By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Secretary Mike Pompeo has announced that he will travel to Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Colombia. His trip to South America is a step in the right direction, as Ana Quintana wrote: The four countries Pompeo will visit this week are leading international efforts against Maduro's dictatorship. The four countries Pompeo will visit this week are leading international efforts against Maduro's dictatorship. In the history of Latin America, this sort of cooperation and consensus is unprecedented.

There is symbolism attached to the trip as well. Three of the four countries — Chile, Paraguay, and Peru — have known oppression firsthand. All were formerly governed by dictatorships and are now democracies. The State Department is highlighting how their democratic transitions can serve as an example for a post-Maduro Venezuela.............

Also, these four countries have serious leadership. During the Obama years, Latin America never received the attention it deserved. The Obama administration was only interested in "Latinos" who wanted to walk into the U.S. illegally. It's nice to see that the Trump administration is supporting democracies and also standing up to Maduro.

Good move and another demonstration that Secretary Pompeo was a brilliant choice.............. Read more

My Take - One thing missing from this analysis.  These leaders are finally coming to the correct understanding that if they really want to create a stable economy that will create a stable social order, they need the United States.  The main problem in all these countries is the undying social paradigm for immense government corruption and a belief in socialism.  They really need to educate their citizens.  But so does the U.S.  The U.S. needs to start purging America's universities of their leftist insanity, or we're going to end up like Venezuela, or have a civil war.  Neither is unacceptable, but if we continue down the road we're traveling, one or both is inevitable.     

Tiny Ecuador demonstrates world's stupidest idea: Dumping America to become China's running dog

December 25, 2018 By Monica Showalter

If there was ever an example for nations worldwide of What Not To Do, take a look at what socialist Ecuador has done to itself in dumping the U.S. and turning to align its interests to China. The New York Times has a superb (albeit stomach-churning) report about how Ecuador sold itself out as a vassal of China, getting for itself a junk dam that is already collapsing, and turning over 80% of its oil production to the communist behemoth in order to pay its massive, massive debts from it. That, in exchange for scrapping its military ties to the U.S. and skipping out on its tab with western banks.

According to the Times report:

“The Chinese put the hook in,” said Steve Hanke, a Johns Hopkins economist. “At the end of the day, what do these countries have? A pig in a poke.” ................

He loudly kicked the U.S. out of its tiny air base in Manta by 2009, and at the same time embraced China, which got it on the hook for billions in loans for junk infrastructure projects, in exchange for pretty much all of Ecuador's oil. As for the oil-is-king strategy, well, we all know how that worked out for Venezuela............. They sure taught gringo a lesson, didn't they?........

And the Times notes that Ecuador is not the only country out there with this kind of strangling embrace from China. According to the Times: China, now South America’s top trading partner, has seeded the region with infrastructure and a staggering trail of loans.

It has reaped political benefits, too, getting Latin American nations to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Pakistan is reportedly in similar straits over Chinese debt, and so is much of Africa, again, another case of the capture of the resources. There are likely other places, too.........To Read More.....

My Take - All, and I mean all, of our Southern neighbors will have to look North to get out of this mess, and they'll not get good terms, but the terms will be better than what the Chicoms have duped them with.  Socialists are going down the tubes everywhere and that includes China. 

What?  China's going down the tubes?  Yes! 

They don't have the money they're loaning, and those borrowing don't have the money to repay them.  Time isn't on their side, it's on America's side, so don't get all worked up over this because the more they do this kind of thing the sooner they all go broke.

The World As I See It: Central and South America

By Rich Kozlovich

There's been a lot of talk recently about the economics of our Southern neighbors, including some who've noted they're taking important steps to define their own economic destiny. Although I applaud them, there's just a few problems with that which will not be easily overcome - if at all.

First, the real problem in my opinion goes back to America’s involvement in WWI. There was no earthly reason for America to get into that bloodbath which bankrupted Europe and destroyed millions of lives, either killed or crippled for life.

The Lusitania was officially a British "passenger" ship, but it was known by the Germans to be carrying munitions, which made it a legitimate target,  and the British government knew that.   While the public was mislead into believing this was an act of barbarism because over a thousand passengers died, under the rules of war, the Lusitania was in fact a legitimate target.  If the American public should have been outraged it should have been against the British government for putting these civilian lives at risk.

The fact Americans were on board was immaterial, but Wilson made that a national issue to justify American involvement.  Wilson was an Anglophile, who while declaring neutrality, was working to push America into that meat grinder.  The man was contemptible in more ways than any politician in America today, and that’s saying a lot.

As for the “conspiracy” between Mexico and Germany known as the Zimmerman Note – that whole thing was a farce, a stupid farce, but none the less it was still a farce.  Neither Germany or Mexico could carry out any action against the U.S., and Mexico knew it, and Germany knew they couldn’t possibly support Mexico militarily or financially as promised.  Since America had just invaded Mexico and captured Veracruz in 1914 successfully, American leaders had to know it also.  That may have been justification for some sort of financial retaliation against Germany, but that should have been all.  There was no legitimate threat there.

Here’s some speculation. What if America had stayed out of WWI, what would have happened?

First, without American involvement the war would have remained a stalemate with the slaughter of the entire next generation and destruction of a lot of real estate costing billions Europe didn’t have. All the European powers were facing socialist, communist and anarchist uprisings and that would probably continue until the government of one or more of them was overthrown, just as it happened in Russia, or they would have all had to end the war with boundaries created by the German army in order to get control in their own nations.

Germany would go through economic collapse incapable of holding on to any land they occupied, and the rest of Europe would work to keep the embargo in place. In short – as trading partners they’d be worthless, and would have been unable to pay their bills.

That brings me to South and Central America. With Europe an economic mess that would create an incentive to increase trade with our neighbors to the South. What would be the long-term consequences? First, I think economic and social stability would have increased, and Argentina, which was one of the most economically successful nations on the planet could have been to model for the rest of South and Central America. It seems to me trade would have increased all over South and Central America, which would have been good for them and for us possibly preventing the take over by socialists.   

They wouldn’t have had to spend enormous amounts of money for their militaries either because of the geography of South America makes that need largely unnecessary being separated with jungles and mountains. When was the last time you heard about a war between South or Central American countries. Even the Norther Tier countries of South America have geographic obstacles that are extremely difficult to overcome. As for the rest of South America – moving armies through their geography makes it almost impossible, and none of them ever had a Navy capable of a Normandy style invasion.

Which brings me to the cold war.

If we just stood by and let the communists move into these government they would go broke all the faster, just as has Venezuela.  And if we had the foresight and patience – it would have all come our way, and the support from China and Russia would have evaporated long ago. The same is true of South East Asia. They more they controlled the sooner they’d go broke.

The fact remains we’re the only nation on Earth that can feed itself, fuel itself, arm itself and defend itself. They need us, we don’t need them. No matter what deals they make internationally – they will eventually have to look North, especially since it’s my belief the world is going to face a very large economic downturn after 2020 - how fast and how deep will depend on the region, with China and Russia leading the downward trend, and all that international trade will become much more problematic – except to the North – to the United States, and from that point on the U.S. will dominate these societies economically.

Feel the Bern: Venezuelans, Go Home: Xenophobia Haunts Refugees

For decades, the oil-rich citizens of a great nation were stereotyped by their poorer neighbors as haughty. Now comes the payback.

By Ezra Fieser and Matthew Bristow ‎March‎ ‎05‎, ‎2018‎

Mr. Saik touched a raw nerve when he released “La Chama.” Panama’s hit single is about a Venezuelan woman who “fears nothing but immigration officers,” and “was famous in her own country but here does something else” — the something else presumably being prostitution.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse are crowding into cities and makeshift camps in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and throughout the region, the largest mass emigration in modern Latin American history.............In Colombia, Venezuelans trying to get by selling snacks on public transport have been set upon by local vendors. Peruvian media showed video of a fist fight on a bus after a man got into a shouting match with Venezuelan passengers, accusing them of fleeing their country “like rats.” In Trinidad and Tobago, authorities have rounded up migrants suspected of being in the country illegally, deporting some and imprisoning others, Living Water Community, a human rights group said.............

Bitterness surfaced on social media in 2015 when a Venezuelan woman in Panama posted angry messages on Facebook, saying that without migrants, Panamanians would be “living in a desert, eating bananas like the monkeys they are.”

Furious locals mounted a campaign to have her thrown out of the country. She was eventually expelled under a law that allows deportation of any migrant who incites racial, cultural or political hatred.

Colombia Joins Argentina and Venezuela in Adopting Backward Economic Policies

By Abigail R. Hall Blanco  •  Friday December 23, 2016 9:19 AM PST  •  3 Comments

The Colombian government recently “persuaded” food producers to agree to have the prices of some of their goods “frozen.” Soon the prices of products like red meat, fish, dairy, eggs, grains, and processed foods will be set by the Colombian government. Once imposed, producers of these goods will be unable to raise their prices.  According to Colombia’s Agricultural Minister, Aurelio Iragorri, the measure is intended to achieve food security following price fluctuations over the past several months.  On this blog I’ve discussed how the price system is fundamentally important. Only via the mechanisms of private property rights, prices, and profit and loss can resources be allocated to their highest valued use.......To Read More.....