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Neoliberalism is a lot like socialism/communism. It's a broad term that covers a lot of extremely different ideologies, some better and some worse. "A Neoliberal's Manifesto" is a lot like "The Communist Manifesto." When I read it, there's a lot that I disagree with but there's also a lot that I agree with. Overall, the ideology is flawed, but it makes many valid points.

The more you are informed and educated about the facts and the evidence, the more your views will align center-left. Not with the radical left, not with marxists and anarchists, but with social democrats, German neoliberals, and proponents of the "open society." It Is a fact that conservatives and right-wingers are generally uninformed about the matters on which they have the strongest opinions.

Coincidently I'm sure, yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the German Workers Party, who one year later changed their name to the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party.

Initially a tiny organisation, they recruited disaffected, angry and often unemployed young men. They began with protests much like the one in St Kilda yesterday, often hugely outnumbered by police and counter protesters.

I understand the contemporary fashion of blanking out a person's name when they say something truly stupid. In part, it is to show that the comedy should be directed at the comment, rather than the person. Likewise, it is a principle of charity - you want to give the person an opportunity to improve themselves, and who knows, maybe if they discover they are part of a meme that the world is laughing perhaps they will take the opportunity for self-reflection.

Just wanted to share an insight from John Médaille’s book on distributist political economy. In the book, he distinguishes between legitimate interest and usury and this insight becomes really interesting in light of modern money theory (MMT):

Trump's decision to ignore his military advisors and withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan is a disastrous proposal. ISIS will regroup and come back in full force, Christians and Kurds in the Middle East will be slaughtered, and Islamic extremism will rule the Middle East perpetually. Trump bowed to Erdogan's will and agreed to withdraw troops. Erdogan is a supporter of Islamic terrorism and racist Arab nationalism. The only reason he wants America to withdraw from the region is so that Turkey can resume its genocide against the Kurds, which was halted when the U.S.

In the 1990s, Norway set up the equivalent of what would have been "the mining tax", the public accumulation of a wealth fund to capture resource-based superprofits.

This is a good read. This is a more traditional conservative take on healthcare. I don't know to what extent we can turn back the clock and go back to guild and concierge approaches, although it would be best if we could do so. I sympathize with single-payer because it seems the simplest and most feasible solution...but then again, maybe something more conservative/libertarian would be easier to get support for in America.

On the night of the 2018 US mid-term elections there were many saying that the expected Democrat 'blue wave' over the Republicans did not eventuate. Nicholas Kristof at New York Times offered the advice "Don’t listen to Democrats who portray these midterms as an important triumph".