Utopia, you are standing in it!

Back in 2016, I shared a television program about the “Improbable Success” of Switzerland. Today, here’s a follow-up look at that “sensible country.”

There are elements to this video that are outside my area of expertise, such as the role of the reformation.

But the video mentions policies that I find very appealing, such as the country’s strong federalist system (unlike the United States, federalism hasn’t eroded).

This means jurisdictional competition, which has played a big role in curtailing bad policy.

And there was a brief indirect mention of the nation’s spending cap, which also has been a big success.

Interestingly, Switzerland’s strong track record is getting noticed in unusual places.

Here are some excerpts from a New York Timescolumn by Ruchir Sharma.

There is…a country far richer and just as fair as any in the Scandinavian trio of Sweden, Denmark…

Aside from the fact that the CFR for people unvaccinated against Covid-19 is about 1/10 of the flu CFR, there’s also the question of whether the vaccines are working as a population-wide solution.

That last point has to be emphasised because I don’t doubt that the vaccines are working to protect the population most at risk from the virus: people over the age of 70 and those with comorbidities.

But the question of widespread population protection is what this doctor addresses in this article, If the Vaccines Work, Why Aren’t They Working?, which starts with the usual disclaimers apparently required for such discussion now, even among MD’s:

The grinding, thumping cacophony generated by giant industrial wind turbines delivers wholly unnecessary misery worldwide. Sleep deprivation is first among the list of adverse health effects caused by these things and the pulsing low-frequency noise they generate.

The wind industry has fought tooth and nail to avoid the consequences of the harm it dishes out, mostly with impunity.

However, increasingly its victims are fighting back and winning.

One French couple, driven mad and eventually driven out of their home by wind turbine noise have had just such a victory.

French couple win legal fight
The Guardian
Kim Willsher
8 November 2021

A French court has recognised “wind turbine syndrome” after a couple established that their health was damaged by noise from a nearby wind farm.

In what is believed to be the first judgment of its kind in France, Belgians Christel and Luc Fockaert were awarded more than €100,000 in…

This is the pre-edited text of an article that will shortly be published in World Commerce Review (https://www.worldcommercereview.com)

The liberal tradition in political thought is by no means unified. The original ideas developed in the (Scottish) Enlightenment, most importantly by David Hume and Adam Smith, have been modified extensively. This has led to different definitions and practical applications of individual freedom, the core idea of liberalism, but also of most other ideas associated with the liberal tradition.[i] Regardless this proliferation, the wide liberal support for free trade and globalization as a means to alleviate poverty and foster human development more broadly has been rather constant, although the ideal of trade free from all government interference has never been within reach. With the World Trade Organization at shambles, the increase of bilateral and regional trade treaties which often hamper free trade more than fostering it, and a general anti-liberal sentiment…

Posted by Sara M. Butler, 26 November 2021.

A felon’s right to claim sanctuary upon sacred ground for a period of forty days is hardly a new subject for this blog (see previous blogs by McSheffrey, Butler, Kesselring, and McSheffrey). Nor is the tension that sometimes existed between sheriffs keen to catch a criminal and the church’s dogged persistence that sanctuary must be respected. When violations of sanctuary by royal officials did occur, we usually hear about the consequences from the secular side of things. The close rolls offer up numerous instances of felons restored to sanctuary at the request of the king, presumably after complaints issued from the church in question. For example, royal correspondence to the sheriffs of London in September of 1337 ordered them to restore Andrew of Sutton immediately to the church of All Hallows, Haywharf in London…

By Paul Homewood

The climate doomsday machine makes much more noise about warming-induced melting of Greenland’s ice sheet than Antarctica’s, even though the Greenland sheet holds only about 10% as much ice. That’s because the smaller Greenland ice sheet is melting at a faster rate and contributes more to sea level rise. But the melt rate is no faster today than it was 90 years ago and appears to have slowed over the last few years.

Full story here.

Below is the key graph, with Ralph’s comments:

I was tempted to head-up this belated MPS post “Je ne regrette rien”, as that – I regret nothing (about last year’s monetary policy) – was what Orr told yesterday’s press conference as he was getting rattled towards the end. He should regret quite a bit – notably the $5.7 billion of taxpayer losses on the LSAP, and the ongoing huge risks (neither were points he was willing to engage on, whether in the MPS, in the press conference, or at FEC this morning – indeed he actively played distraction). But that isn’t really where I want to focus my thoughts on the Monetary Policy Statement.

I thought the MPC should have raised the OCR by 50 points. The MPC disagreed, and moved by only 25 points. That is their choice of course, but – once again – I was struck by just how lacking and inadequate the supporting…