Private Museum

After a long hiatus we are back. Hope you did not mind the gap. Episodes 2 to 6 of So, That’s It, Then are being edited and are planned for release on July 1st.

The President sees trade imbalances as something that is “not fair”. The problem is that the USA is the richest country so it obviously can afford to import more than anyone else. And what is especially weird is that he has also placed tariffs on countries where the US has a trade surplus. This is effectively a 10% tax on every product imported into the USA and that requires a massive…

The Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court may hold President Trump in contempt and the president may ignore it. That is the state of the “Rule of Law” – a broad concept of how the USA is governed. Three branches of Government that are equal. Except when they are not. Congress is not acting to moderate Trump’s extraordinary actions. RFK is supposedly responsible for the nation’s health has…

The tragedy of the LA wildfires and their destructive hell has been a horror story waiting to happen. Buildings that are vulnerable and adjacent to other buildings that are vulnerable mean that whole districts lost all their residences. The outcome was always possible and the combination of wind conditions, the growth of vegetation and trees providing fuel and other factors, possibly political…

Democracy does not work. Never did.Democracy is intended to limit power and stop demagoguery. Then populism activated prejudice in the “silent majority” and propaganda promoted ideas that are simply untrue. By gaining democratic agreement with ideas that benefit corporation and the very wealthy, the majority are choosing structural change that does not benefit them because of “immigration” or…

The state of the stock market is a multiplier of value due to speculative expectation. The rate cut seems very important as it signals that the relatively short period of supply side inflation has finally resolved so the money supply can increase (i.e. new debt can fund more activity).I am no expert but believe that the supply side inflation was extended by controlling demand and the risk of…

Make America Grate Again? The model of appealing to populism, to lie and grasp power as if it belonged to a single person and hunt down and imprison your personal enemies has been done before. I think the most egregious example of this form of power was attempted by an Austrian named Adolf, but the most successful was probably Ghengis Khan. And the least successful empire builder, but dictator…

The UK has a journey to arrive at a place where PR could be a possibility. This election probably is not going to open up that opportunity, unless the Labour Party have some hidden agenda. The main threat is not really the Conservative Party which has shot itself in both feet, but the Reform party stoking up immigration fears based on the starving of public services through Tory austerity and…

We attempt to build a machine that is self aware? Is this really what we should invest ourselves in? Or is there a more effective path? AI is only a machine. It has no “self”. We have a “self” but are we prepared to invest in ourselves at the same level as we invest in AGI? When we started, we built our houses using what we know. We watched as our shadows played on the wall and then connected…

It is a year of elections. The ones I have been focused on are in the Western world: the US election, and now the UK snap election. In both, the “sensible” vote seems to be on the Left. This is not because the Left is brilliant or even appropriate medicine to these great mature economies. It is because the options on the Right are ridiculous. America has a choice between two very old men. Biden…

The British Parliament is one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the modern world. But the system of democracy combined with tradition has perverted the course of fair law making. The problem is that “robust debate” now regularly incorporates a Government that attacks the opposition for what “it would do” instead of actually making good policy and defending it from points of order raised…

There’s a war between the Left and the Right that will go on and on. Both sides have their point of view. One is driven by CAPITAL power and ther other SOCIAL needs. Perhaps they need each other to function. Then there is the CENTRE. The Centre has its own Right and Left: from liberalism to socialism. I propose a new politcial affiliation based on building a better future using the best tools…

We think democracy will save us from tyrants. We think that an escalating conflict between conservative and liberal, or capitalism and socialism will provide the best governments wanted by the majority. Huge majorities vote in ‘strong-man’ leaders who then clamp down on human rights on the promise of immigration controls. The liberal governments adopt a futile, belief system that goes too far off…

A state of war exists when a country is attacked and has to defend itself, or if a country decides to attack another country, but in these modern times an attack occurs usually by surprise so no declaration of war usually occurs or it would give the game away, the element of surprise is predominant in strategy to create an advantage. The military are supposed to attack valid military targets but…

What is wrong with politics? Is it a ‘science’? Or is it an interpretation of human behaviour? I have often wondered if politics was invented as a replacement for war: diplomacy being a level of political resolution but politics has another meaning, another life in the arena of human thought and philosophy. We define a playing field, like a competitive team sport, with the sides labelled ‘Left’…

Watching the rise and demise of 4 British Prime Ministers, one has to question why a party, well entrenched in power, could manage to have such catastrophic leadership. Cameron lost the UK to the doomed Brexit, default replacement May failed to reverse this, or enact it, Johnson mismanaged the response to the Pandemic and lied to Parliament (a cardinal sin), his “elected” (by only 100,000…

Twenty years ago, the western world had united against terrorism as a recognised form of evil that had to be defeated regardless of how brutal the force required was, and with this concensus the governments of the USA and UK under George Bush and Tony Blair extended its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan (which most felt was justified) to oust Saddam Hussein and by invading and occupying Iraq…