Good morning. In the Lowlands, May 10 marks the 1940 German invasion of Belgium and the Netherlands (both of which had stayed neutral after the invasion of Poland) and thus the beginning of World War Two for the people in those countries. May 10, 1940 is also the day on which British King George VI reluctantly sent for Winston Churchill to be Prime Minister of the realm.
(a) Speaking of British PMs, there’s a long interview by the Triggernometry guys of 49-day long PM Liz Truss, embedded here at Samizdata. In the comments, “Paul Marks”, “Martin” and “Bulldog Drummond” sum it up as follows:
[PM] Anyone elected to public office in this country knows how very limited the powers of elected people are – we (yes I am one – although only at a local level) are not powerless, but we are not very powerful either.
However, Liz Truss did make tactical mistakes – for example dismissing Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and replacing him with Jeremy Hunt (of all people), Liz Truss was told “do this – or you will be removed”, but by doing it, Liz Truss (a good person and a sincere supporter of liberty) showed weakness – and thus signed her own death warrant.
As for reversing the proposed tax cuts to “calm the markets” – the following should have been said, and said publicly….
“The Markets” did not bat an eyelid at 400 Billion Pounds being thrown away on absurd, indeed highly damaging, Covid policies – or at the endless Billions thrown away on “Net Zero”. “The Markets” are not free market capitalism – this is not Victorian Britain. “The Markets” are dominated by a handful of highly political Corporate Entities backed by the endless Credit Money of the Bank of England and the other Central Banks.
If you do not have honest money, you do not have honest markets, you do not have a honest economy. Instead you have a farce where endless Credit Money is created (from NOTHING) and dished out to a Corporate Elite to push their ESG and DEI (and all the rest of it).
[M] Also leads to a lot of politics being somewhat fake as well. Truss for example presents herself as a radical free marketeer while opponents and media present her as a libertarian ideologue. The reality was she was a loyal minister for a decade in a government that massively expanded government and introduced lockdowns. Similarly Priti Patel and Suella Braverman are seen (and like to present themselves) as immigration hardliners, yet as home secretaries presided over some of the largest levels if immigration into the UK ever. Their rhetoric suggested the former but the fact that they didn’t really control the Home Office ensured the latter.
[BD] The whole point she’s making is not even the PM, let alone mere ministers, can do jacks[**]t against the wishes of the Blob without repealing a vast array of enabling legislation that’s turned UK into a defacto blob technocracy. And that isn’t going to happen because a large chunk of the ‘Conservative’ Party doesn’t even want to repeal those things
(b) This powerful article points the finger at one individual for the increasing mainstreaming of judeophobia in the “Democratic” party: of course, the same “Baraq the Blightbringer” who is almost certainly the de facto president, using “Abu Hunter”, a.k.a. F. Joe Biden as a front to bypass the two-term limit.
(c) I’d be rich if I got a dollar for every eyerolling comment I get about “dor sug zayin” (Grade Z Generation) and worse. But this video makes me feel more hopeful: Megyn Kelly is interviewing 24-year old actress Brett Cooper who seems to refute every Gen Z stereotype — and she claims that increasing numbers of Gen Z-ers are like her: rejecting victimocracy and wokebaggery, embracing family values and work ethic.
(d) Why is Warren Buffett sitting on over $180B of cash? Sure, it’s not greenbacks in a sock drawer, and he can get over 5% on 3-month treasuries, but you can hear him at 2 minutes in the video here saying “we don’t use it if the yield is 5.4%, but we wouldn’t even use it at 1% — but don’t tell that to the Federal Reserve [laughter] …] Things just aren’t attractive […] but this may change [and then we’ll be ready]”
Are we in a massive bubble of just about everything? With a 93-year old star investor keeping a huge pile of cash (instruments) at the ready to massively buy up things after an imminent crash?
A CNBC commenter at the same video throws around the figure of a 40% drop. Intriguingly, some Florida real estate vlogger have been throwing around 35-40% numbers for expected price drops. Sure, 3/4 million internal migrants have come to this “peninsula of relative sanity”, but about 1/2 a million left — almost all of them to other Southeastern states, especially South Carolina. The reasons? No, not Ron De Santis, as the left doucheoisie might think, but exploding insurance costs (and not just in Miami or other “hurricane lane” locations), steeply rising real estate taxes also for longtime home owners because of escalating real estate values,… and for younger home owners: mortgage interest. (Mortgages, in turn, may force you into expensive insurance plans, where an owner of a fully paid-up house could choose to take some risks.)
If you sell a house in Connecticut, NY State, or Massachusetts, you can easily pay cash on a house here — in fact, a birdie told me that about half of all single-family home sales, and almost three-quarter of condo sales, in the state have been cash transactions recently. This influx of cash-flush internal migrants has had the effect of driving up real estate prices (at least in desirable areas), which in tandem with the steep rise in mortgage interest rates (as the [near-]zero-interest rate policy finally could not go on anymore) has created a situation where the median earner in Florida would have to spent every penny they earn to pay off a mortgage on a median home here.
So two basic things could happen here: these high prices could be the “new normal”, or a market correction could occur if the influx of “blue state refugees” dries up at least somewhat.
ADDENDUM: an Imam based in Germany comparing the HamaSS Einsatzkommandos to… Ukraine’s defense against Putin’s invasion is either on a par with Joseph Goebbels, or even worse, but alas nothing unusual by the standards of radical Islamism.
Meanwhile, “The New Neo” hits one out of the park. Biden’s betrayal: “But for Michigan?”
The title is a reference to the Thomas More biopic, “A Man For All Seasons”.
At More’s trial for treason, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, administers the oath to Rich, who swears that the evidence he gives will be truthful. Rich then tells the lie that dooms [Thomas] More. As Rich leaves court, More notices that Rich is wearing the chain of office as Attorney General for Wales, the position he has been given in exchange for his perjured testimony. [Thomas] More remarks to Rich, “For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales!”
Spin, strangeness, and charm 
I have to say there are some very odd things happening in the markets. The yen has weakened enormously over the last year. But as a result in yen terms the country is running the sort of current account surplus that was last seen in the1990s when the concern was that the yen was excessively strong. The worry was that a weak yen would mean that Japan could not afford the imports of fuel and food it needs but with such a surplus that is clearly not the case. Moreover inflation in Japan is still low (compared to the US). Some of that is government policy in that oil taxes have been effectively cut to keep the price of fuel acceptable but even so there ought to have been more price rises I think.
Somehow it seems to me that no one actually believes the yen is really worth as little compared to the dollar/euro