Margaret Thatcher and the Rise of the Climate Ruse

July 20, 2022 / fosadmin / 2 Comments Contributed by William Walter Kay BA JD © 2022

Contrary to perception, largely sustained by opponents of the Climate Change campaign, this campaign was never the handiwork of some vast leftist conspiracy. Rather, the prime movers behind the Global Warming scare were a coterie of centre-right politicians such as: German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, US President George Bush Sr., Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and above all others, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. This paper recounts Britain’s domestic war on coal, focussing on Thatcher’s formative role; and drawing on archival information released pursuant to the 30-year rule. The paper surveys Thatcher’s substantial exertions to take the fight against the Global Warming phantom into the global arena; and concludes with commentary on Thatcher’s legacy and revisionist final writings.

• Background
• The 1984-5 Miners’ Strike
• Enter the Climate Ruse
• The Strikers’ Defeat
• Thatcher Expands the Climate Campaign
• Thatcher’s Legacy
• Conclusion
• Background

Britain’s first public coal-fired electricity generator lit-up London’s Holborn Viaduct in 1882. By the late-1940s an electrified Britain drew 90% of its power from coal-fired plants. Britain’s first nuclear power plant came online in 1957. Its primary purpose was manufacturing bomb fuel...........To Read More....

The Wages of Inflation

Editorial of The New York Sun | December 17, 2021

It can’t be a coincidence that we’re seeing so much labor strife around the country at a time when inflation is waxing. That doesn’t make it any less dramatic. On Sunday, employees of Kellogg cereal will vote whether to end a strike of more than two months and get back to work. The 1,400-strong Kellogg workforce had rejected decisively the prior contract proposal, and in consequence management almost fell into their Frosted Flakes.

The 3 percent raise offered by management wasn’t enough, the Guardian reports. The cereal giant responded with a threat to fire the striking laborers and replace them with new hires. President Biden said that idea left him “deeply troubled,” and he called it “an existential attack on the union.” Kellogg has instead sweetened their offer, which shows “the workers really have the upper hand at this point,” Ileen DeVault, a labor history professor, tells Reuters.

The producers of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks might have had their eye on another acrimonious strike that ended in mid-November — the one at Deere & Company. That strike lasted just more than a month. After two rejected proposals, it ended with 10 percent raises for more than 10,000 employees. The trouble at Kellogg’s also follows an earlier strike at a Kansas Frito-Lay plant and a walkout in five Nabisco locations across the country................

Beating stagflation required political heroics by President Reagan and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker. It was “a triumph of economic policy,” Robert Samuelson recently wrote. “Volcker imposed a ferocious credit squeeze, and Reagan supported this wildly unpopular policy.” Interest rates soared to 21 percent. Unemployment spiked at more than 10 percent. Bankruptcies ensued. “The triumph over inflation was bought at a huge personal and social cost,” Mr. Samuelson writes.

It’s hard to imagine any politician today able to take the heat for such an economic course. Then again, too, few if any politicians in history have been in a league with Reagan when it comes to articulating economic principles. Mr. Biden has been but a cheerleader for striking workers. He lacks an appreciation of a warning Volcker once articulated for Mr. Samuelson: “Don’t let inflation get ingrained ... there’s too much agony in stopping the momentum.”.......To Read More....

 

Fast-food strikes set for cities nationwide

AP News | Aug 29, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — Fast-food customers in search of burgers and fries might run into striking workers instead.  Organizers say thousands of fast-food workers are set to stage walkouts in dozens of cities around the country Thursday, part of a push to get chains such as McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's to pay workers higher wages.

It's expected be the largest nationwide strike by fast-food workers, according to organizers. The biggest effort so far was over the summer when about 2,200 of the nation's millions of fast-food workers staged a one-day strike in seven cities.

Thursday's planned walkouts follow a series of strikes that began last November in New York City, then spread to cities including Chicago, Detroit and Seattle. Workers say they want $15 an hour, which would be about $31,000 a year for full-time employees. That's more than double the federal minimum wage, which many fast food workers make, of $7.25 an hour, or $15,000 a year…..To Read More….