Utopia, you are standing in it!

The local Wellington magazine, Capital, which seems to be a curious mix of the serious and the lifestyle, earlier in the year asked if I would write a piece on house prices. That article outlined the story I’ve run here repeatedly, that durable and very large reductions in house and land prices are quite possible – we see everyday examples in perfectly pleasant urban areas in the United States – but are only likely to happen if there is genuine aggressive competition among owners of land beyond existing urban areas. It is that sort of competition, from land whose best other use is probably for something agricultural in nature, that would durably lower land (and house) prices in existing urban areas.

That article ran in April. In late September the editor got in touch and asked if I was interested in doing another piece. Since there had been numerous…

There’s a political party in the United States – the Democrats – that represents rich people and it is trying very hard to cut taxes for those rich people.

Since I don’t resent rich people (indeed, I applaud them if they earn their money honestly), I generally want lower taxes for upper-income taxpayers. But I don’t want special tax breaks for rich people. Instead, I want to cut their taxes in ways that promote greater national prosperity so that I’ll benefit as well.

• Lower top income tax rates.
• Lower tax rates on capital gains.
• Lower tax rates on dividends.
• Lower death taxes.

Sadly, those aren’t the options the Democrats are choosing.

They are putting all their energy into a dramatic expansion of the state and local tax deduction. This is the tax break that rich people get when they use state and local tax…

The big wind drought in Europe has acolytes ranting about giant batteries saving the day. It’s a typical but delusional response to wind power’s hopeless intermittency.

True enough, at the margins, it is possible to store electricity. But, the cost of doing so on any kind of scale is simply out of this world. Then there’s the way giant batteries are developing a habit of spontaneously exploding into giant, toxic fireballs (see above and below).

Eric Worrall reports on the latest ‘batteries will save us’ wheeze, this time it’s the US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen taking us down the rabbit hole.

Treasury Secretary on European Wind Drought: “Energy Storage … Can Be Deployed”
Watts Up With That?
Eric Worrall
4 October 2021

If Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has calculated how much must be spent on energy storage to stabilise a 100% renewable grid, she does not seem keen to share.

For a party so long invested in White Racism you’d think they’d understand it better now that they claim to be on the other side from it.

But the results from Tuesday’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey, and the subsequent fallout from Democrats and the MSM allies tearing their hair out in frustration at their losses and near losses, show that rather than asking why they lost they’re convinced that they already know why:

Ms Hill is a former sports journalist who now makes a living as a race-grifting writer at places like The Atlantic. Among the talking heads she was not alone in this. The best response was from the newly elected Virginia Lt. Governor-Elect, Republican and former US Marine, Winsome Sears:

This followed some pathetic Democrat attempts to derail the Youngkin campaign along the same lines by trying to recreate the infamous Charlottesville “Tiki Torch” event…

Claims to the French Throne

When King Charles IV of France died on February 1, 1328 without a surviving male heir, it ended the direct line of the Capetian Dynasty which had ruled France since the election and accession of King Hughes Capét on July 3, 987 by the prelate of Reims.

King Charles VI of France

Twelve years prior to the death of Charles IV, a rule against succession by women, arguably derived from the Salic Law, had been recognised – with some dissent – as controlling succession to the French throne. The application of this rule barred Charles’s one-year-old daughter Mary, by Jeanne d’Évreux, from succeeding as the monarch, but Jeanne was also pregnant at the time of Charles’s death.

Since she might have given birth to a son, a regency was set up under the heir presumptive Philippe of Valois, son of Charles of Valois and a…