More than between left and right, the division is between tax paying citizens and witting or unwitting possible redistribution profiteers

Sir, Wolfgang Münchau writes, “Liberal democracy is in decline for a reason. Liberal regimes have proved incapable, of solving problems that arose directly from liberal policies like tax cuts, fiscal consolidation and deregulation: persistent financial instability and its economic consequences” “The future belongs to the left, not the right” February 25.

The risk weighted capital requirements placed on top of any natural risk aversion distorts the allocation of bank credit in favor of what is perceived as safe and against what’s perceived as risky, has nothing to do with liberal policies. The risk weights of 0% the sovereign and 100% the citizens, just puts crony statism on steroids.

Münchau also “The euro, too, was a liberal fair-weather construction.” That could be but when EU authorities assigned a 0% risk weight to all public debt of eurozone sovereigns, denominated in a currency that is not their domestic (printable) one no one could call that a liberal construction. It was idiotically dooming the euro to failure.

Sir, I feel left or right labels do not really define what we citizen are up against. Our real adversaries are those I have come to call redistribution profiteers. In my home land Venezuela, where the central governments some years has received 97% of all export revenues, that is easy to see. But even in the rest of the world that is happening, unfortunately without being sufficiently understood. Much of it is the result of citizens lacking the most basic societal information, namely how much their central and local government receive in income, from all taxes, per citizen. 

Of course taxes are needed but such per citizen data, published regularly, would also put pressure on improving the day-to-day quality of government bureaucracy. I mean we want our taxes to be spent well. Don’t we?

PS. As a self declared radical of the middle, or extremist of the center, I feel the best hope we now have to improve our societies is by means of an unconditional universal basic income. That UBI should be 100% paid for, be large enough to help all reach up to jobs in the real economy and be small enough so as not allow anyone to stay in bed.

@PerKurowski

“Whut you goin' to do when a [lefty] gits starts to talk purty? I'm jist a [socialist] who cain't say no”

Sir, Janan Ganesh writes: “At some indistinct point in the recent past, the left lost its monopoly on rebellion. To rebel was to be conservative or libertarian. It was more transgressive to buck the sensitivities of the age on race, gender, sexual preference, climate change, civil liberties, mental health and religion than to walk on eggshells around them. This shift in what it meant to be a radical was the price of the left’s success in the culture wars. The more it policed language, the more it inadvertently glamorised anyone who gave voice to unreconstructed sentiments — even if… they almost never mean them.” “Counter-elite mentality” May 6.

The left also lost out when it was not able to resist the siren songs of false sirens like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. I am always reminded of Oklahoma’s Ado Annie singing “I Cain't Say No!”

“Whut you goin' to do when a [lefty] gits flirty

And starts to talk purty? whut you goin' to do?

Whut you goin' to do when he talks that way

Spit in his eye?

I'm jist a [socialist] who cain't say no”

Also, even though they understand that terms like “deplorable” do not serve any useful recruiting purpose, they just can’t resist going on and on, like with for instance their current “We and time will make you understand how truly dumb you were/are voting for Trump”, arguing every little minuscule happening into a Trump fault, losing perspective on things.

Frankly, a President who can drop an A-bomb basically at his will cannot fire an FBI director for whatever cause at his will?

@PerKurowski

The Latin America left is just a self-serving myth… and I am not so sure of much of the rest of the left either.

Sir, John Paul Rathbone, when referring to Latin America’s “limp” response “to growing Venezuelan authoritarianism and repression, writes” “This is solidarity gone too far, especially from fellow leftist governments.” “Leaders of the left should force Caracas to face the music” June 10.

In Latin America there are no leftist governments, there are just politicians pragmatically using the leftist agendas, in order to put themselves into power for furthering their own interests. Just look at Venezuela. A country in which just gas (petrol) and cheap foreign exchange for travelling abroad giveaways represents more than what is invested in all social programs put together. What has that to do with left… or with right policies for that matter?

No, the Latin America left is just a self-serving myth, and there are indeed many making good money promoting that myth. And the number of willing buyers of that nonsense in Europe and in the US, would seem to imply that perhaps much of what is supposedly left is not really left even there.

But that said much of the right is not that right either. In fact much, perhaps most, of the current left vs. right debates, remind us of boxers spitting out at each other, looking to increase the amount of money to be split between them and the promoters for the next fights… and of the so many dumb enough to buy and love the fake shows.

@PerKurowski

Still… all we need is love!

Sir you argue that “bereft of ideas even after a cataclysm for capitalism that there is a need for “Reinventing the European left” January 6.

In a world where everyone now needs to take some time out and refocus, even you, is it not a bit arrogant to single out just one party as being in need of reinvention?

Also, does “All we need is reinvention” really substitute for that old “All we need is love”… I don’t think so.