불길하게 돌아가는 트-김 회담 준비

미국 본토를 때리는 ICBM 능력 제거에만 초점을 맞추면 한국은 희생된다.

조갑제닷컴

트럼프 대통령과 김정은 회담을 준비하는 미국과 북한이 공개적으로 신경전을 벌이고 있는 가운데 미국이 북한의 핵 및 미사일의 완전한 폐기(CVID, 또는 PVID)가 아니라 미국을 타격할 무기만 폐기하는 수준에서 마무리 지으려 하는 움직임이 감지되고 있다.
미-북 정상회담은 잘해야 미래의 비핵화를 언급하는 선에서 마무리될 가능성이 있다고 에반스 리비어 전 국무부 동아태 담당 수석부차관보가 VOA 인터뷰에서 말하였다. 리비어 씨는 18일 VOA와의 전화 인터뷰에서 트럼프 행정부가 ‘성공’에 집착해 그 기준을 낮출 수 있다고 했다. 특히 마이크 폼페오 국무장관의 최근 발언을 우려하면서 미국의 목표를 북한의 대륙간탄도미사일 위협을 막는 정도에 두는 건 매우 부적절하다고 비판했다.
마이크 폼페오 국무장관이 미국의 목표는 미국 본토를 타격하는 북한의 탄도미사일 역량을 없애는 것이라고 밝힌 적이 있는데, 리비어 전 부차관보는 '탄도미사일 역량을 제거하는 것은 미국이 달성하려는 여러 목표 중 하나가 돼야지 이번 회담의 유일한 목표가 돼서는 안된다'고 강조하였다. (발췌)
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김영희 前 대기자의 황홀한 횡설수설을 비판한다
문무대왕
김영희는 19일자 <중앙SUNDAY> 29면에 “홍준표는 미네르바의 부엉새를 너무 일찍 날리지 말라”라는 장문의 칼럼을 게재했다. 한마디로 한반도 비핵화에 대한 부푼 가슴과 장밋빛 청사진에 대한 황홀경에 빠진 횡설수설에 ‘김영희가 정말 대기자가 맞는가?’하는 의문을 들게 하는 예찬일색이었다. 이와는 달리 남북문제에 대한 정부의 태도를 비판하고 한반도 비핵화에 대한  영구적 대책수립을 촉구한 제1야당 홍준표 대표에게는 딴지를 걸었다. (발췌)
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며칠전 산보하다 우연히 신영복의 책 <담론>을 주워서 가끔 읽고 있다. 그는 감방에 있을 때 한적을 많이 읽고 한문에도 능통한 사람으로 알려져 있다. 그런데 관해난수(  觀海難水)를 '바다를 본 사람은 물을 말하길 어려워한다'고 해석해 놓았다. (116쪽) 하지만 이것은 문맥상으로 보면 그리 매끄러운 번역이 아니다. 아래는 관해난수가 나오는 문장이다.
孟子曰：「孔子登東山而小魯；登泰山而小天下。故觀於海者難為水，遊於聖人之門者難為言。"
위의 문장을 자연스럽게 번역하려면 다음과 같이 해야 한다.
"공자는 동산에 오른 뒤에 노 나라가 작다고 생각했다. 또 태산에 오른 뒤에는 천하가 작다고 여겼다. 그러므로 바다를 본 사람은,  나머지 하천들은 물로 여기기 어렵고, 성인의 문하에서 주워들은 사람은, 기타 학문은 학문으로 여기기 어렵다."
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이 와중에 경제부총리는 경제 괜찮다는 드립침...

청와대에선 최저시급 인상도 나름 성공적이였다고 함

현실에선 폐업률이 IMF랑 금융위기때를 제낌...

이런 와중에 내년엔 실질적 최저시급 1만원 넘긴다함

경제계에선 제발 현실적인 임금안 도입해달라고

비는데 쌩까고 무시하고 있음

이 와중에 북에 돈 퍼줘야되서 세금은 존나게 걷어야함

그나마 삼성이 꾸역꾸역 한국경제 방어중인데

삼성 죽일려고 완전 난리중임

시발 난 달러나 존나게 사놔야할듯 싶다

한국경제는 천천히 가라앉고 있는 배 같다.....

[출처] 한국 좆됬음.....경제 개씹운지중.........
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美中무역협상 타결…"中 흑자 상당감축·미국산수입 확대 합의"

두차례 고위급 협상끝 '공동성명' 발표…'빅2 무역전쟁' 우려 일단 해소
미국의 초반 승리 평가…中, 미국산 '농산물·에너지' 수입 늘리기로
지식재산권 침해 지적에 中 특허법 등 관련 규정도 개정…구체적 내용은 미완 

중국 대표단은 대미 무역흑자를 2천억 달러 감축하겠다는 의향을 밝힌 것으로 알려졌다. 이렇게 되면 연간 3천750억 달러에 달하는 중국의 대미 흑자는 반 토막 나게 된다.

양국은 또 제조업 상품과 서비스에서 교역을 확대하는 방안도 논의했다면서 "교역 증대를 위해 우호적인 여건을 조성해야 한다는 필요성에 공감대를 이뤘다"고 덧붙였다.

공동성명에는 미국이 가장 우려해온 중국의 '지식재산권 침해'를 방지하는 방안도 원칙적 수준에서 담겼다.

양국은 "지적 재산권 보호를 가장 중시하면서 협력을 강화하기로 의견을 모았다"면서 "중국은 특허법을 포함해 해당 분야의 법·규정에 대해 적절한 개정에 나설 것"이라고 밝혔다. 연합뉴스

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12명의 여종업원!

조또비씨가 기획보도하고, 

민변이 고발하고, 

통일부가 검토하고, 

노동신문이 보도하는 

절묘한 협력관계를

봤을 때 분명 잘 짜여진

콘트롤 타워가 있다!

[출처] 12명의 여종업원! 조또비씨가 기획보도하고, 민변이 고발하고, 통일부가 검토하고, 노동신문이 보도하는 절묘한 협력관계!
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전쟁이 나지 않는 한, 남중국해는 중국의 소유로 전락하게 된다.

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우선 플랫폼경남의 사무처장을 맡은 오세주씨 는 지난 3월 12일 한국시설안전공단 비상임이사로 선임됐다.

플랫폼경남의 집행위원장을 맡고 있는 조명제씨도 지난 3월 12일 한국시설안전공단 비상임이사에 임명됐다.

플랫폼경남 운영위원장을 맡은 박재혁씨도 지난 3월 21일 주택관리공단 상임감사로 임명됐다.

플랫폼경남의 운영진은 아니지만 플랫폼 경남 개소식에서 케이크 커팅을 했던 김경수 의원 후원회장 출신 허정도 씨도 지난 3월 11일 LH(한국토지주택공사) 상임감사위원에 임명됐다.

경남 유일의 혁신도시인 진주에 입주해 있는 공기업들에는 이들 4명 이외에도 여러 명의 낙하산 인사가 있는 것으로 알려졌다. 현재 진주시에는 한국남동발전, 한국세라믹기술원, 중소기업진흥공단, 한국산업기술시험원 등이 있는데 특히 이들 기관의 감사와 비상임이사직은 민주당 인사들로 속속 채워지고 있다고 한다

출처: 조선닷컴. 발췌

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김학용 "국방개혁, 김정은 심기에 발목잡혀"

출처: 조선일보
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한국, 10대 수출국 중 증가율 1위→8위…”수출 둔화 우려”
출처: 이투데이
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언제 발발할줄 모르는 전쟁에 대비하는 것이 군의 존재의 목적인데

북한 김정은과 주간에만 전쟁 하기로 합의한것이 아니고서는 군인들이

부대내 대기가 아니라 외출을 허용한다.

대한민국 군을 슈퍼마켓 알바정도로 생각하는것은 아닌지.

[출처] 南北 전쟁은 일과 시간에 하기로 합의 ????
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"北관료, 한국 행사서 연방제 통일 안 하면 전쟁 경고"

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 economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) in 1940:
“The gold currency has been criticised for various reasons; it has been reproached for not being perfect. But nobody is in a position to tell us how something more satisfactory couId be put in place of the gold currency.”
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2014년 이후 캐나다의 투자는 놀랍게도 18%가 감소되었다.

캐나다인의 1/3은 돈이 없어서 매달 지불해야 하는 청구서와 빚을 내지 못하고 있다. 하지만 캐나다의 재정 적자는 계속 늘어나고 있다.

트뤼도 정부는 현실과 동 떨어져 있거나, 아니면 경제 발전과 캐나다 인들의 재정적 곤경을 그냥 신경 쓰지 않고 있다.

우리는 실책을 범한 정부를 선거로 물러나게 하고, 그것으로 정부가 책임을 졌다고 말한다. 하지만 정치인이 선거에 지고 물러나는 것으로, 그의 책임을 다 한 것인가?

부와 직업이 창출되지 않았다. 상품은 생산되지 않았다. 빚을 졌다. 이런 것들이 캐나다 인들이 짊어져야 할 재정적 결과들이다. 누가 보상할 것인가?

 

Canada's Debt Spiral

 

•Lee Friday

 

 

Living beyond our means requires us to borrow money to cover the difference between our income and our spending. Many Canadians now understand the financial consequences of this practice and regret the choices they’ve made. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Trudeau is not one of them, as evidenced by his government’s budget deficits which are further eroding the financial wellbeing of Canadians. He has broken a campaign promise, ignored basic economic principles, and seems hell-bent on setting an ignominious record. According to the Fraser Institute: "Justin Trudeau is the only prime minister in the last 120 years who has increased the federal per-person debt burden without a world war or recession to justify it."

 

The Broken Promise

 

The Liberals had won the 2015 federal election with a pledge to run annual shortfalls of no more than $10 billion over the first three years of their mandate, and to eliminate the deficit by 2019-20.

 

The deficit for 2016-17, Trudeau’s first full fiscal year, was $17.8 Billion. The forecast for 2017-18 is $19.9 Billion, and for 2018-19, the forecast is $18.1 Billion.

 

And now, from the government’s 2018 budget, we read this:

 

While austerity can come from fiscal necessity, it should not turn into a rigid ideology about deficits that sees any investment as bad spending.

 

The government says deficits are economically beneficial, and compares deficits to loans taken out by entrepreneurs and business owners. But here's the rub: in order to spend, the government must first raise money by taxing or borrowing (deficits). This deprives the private sector of money which would otherwise be available for businesses to borrow and invest in new production, thereby creating jobs and raising our standard of living.

 

Moreover, government ‘borrowing and spending’ imposes a financial burden on future taxpayers who must pay back both the loan and the interest payments. In contrast, repayment of private business loans imposes a burden on the entrepreneurs — and because entrepreneurs are held personally liable, they are incentivized to be prudent decision makers. Politicians, on the other hand, lacking personal liability, tend to be fickle, reckless, arbitrary, and wasteful.

 

Why Government Spending is Bad

 

When a private business earns a profit by converting various resources (labour, raw materials etc.) into products which consumers voluntarily buy, this means it has made efficient use of the resources. Wealth is created. In contrast, a private business incurs losses when it fails to persuade consumers to voluntarily buy its products, which means it is wasting resources. If the firm cannot improve, it will discontinue operations, thereby conserving resources for entrepreneurs who can use them efficiently.

 

Economic progress (wealth creation, rising living standards) comes from efficient allocation of resources through profitable enterprises, where consumers determine what gets produced. These are the basic economic principles which Justin Trudeau ignores.

 

Politicians can pander to special interest groups because profit/loss calculations do not exist within government. This prevents consumers (taxpayers) from expressing their preferences as they do in the marketplace, where they "vote with their dollars." The government forces taxpayers to subsidize whatever it supplies, at a price it dictates, whether we want it or not. Thus, the government’s coercive taxing and spending tends to waste resources, which is economically counterproductive. And, as noted earlier, government spending reduces private investment.

 

As Charles Lammam and Hugh MacIntyre wrote in the Financial Post (emphasis added):

 

business investment in Canada has declined by a staggering 18 per cent (after accounting for inflation) since the end of the third quarter of 2014."

 

Crucial to any plan to improve our country’s long-term economic prospects is encouraging private-sector investment, innovation and entrepreneurship … on this front, federal policy choices have been counterproductive.

 

And Morneau’s fiscal update makes clear that the government will continue to run persistent deficits and rack up more debt, which signals potentially higher taxes in the future (since debt is simply deferred taxation), creating yet more uncertainty today among investors and entrepreneurs.

 

… 64 per cent of CEOs said Canada’s investment climate had worsened in the last five years, noting growth in the tax and regulatory burden.

 

Does Justin Trudeau Live in an Alternate Reality?

 

That is the economic reality to which the Prime Minister seems oblivious. Private business investment is limited by government spending and regulations, but Trudeau’s government thinks everything is fine. From their 2018 budget, we read this:

 

… Canadians are feeling more optimistic about the future. Everyday dreams — whether it’s paying down debt, saving for a first home or going back to school to train for a new job — are closer to reality.

 

I’m not sure what reality Justin is living in, but here is the reality on Earth:

 

One third of Canadians have stretched themselves so thin that they can no longer cover monthly bills and debt payments, according to a survey …

 

Thirty-three per cent of respondents … admitted to being stretched beyond their means on a monthly basis, marking an eight-point increase since MNP's last survey in September …

 

… almost four in 10 respondents … admitted they regret the amount of debt they've taken out in their lifetime.

 

… Forty-two per cent of respondents … said they'll be in financial trouble if rates rise much higher. Moreover, nearly one-third said they could be forced into bankruptcy because of rising interest rates.

 

Trudeau’s government is either out of touch with reality or they simply don’t care about economic growth and the financial plight of Canadians. Either way, the lack of personal accountability among politicians is a concern.

 

Accountability

 

If I break my neighbour’s window, accident or not, I pay for the replacement. The compensation comes out of my own pocket. I am accountable for my actions.

 

If the Liberals lose the federal election next year, there are many who will say they have been held accountable for various mistakes. In fact, this is what we are always told, “If you don’t like the government, then don’t forget to vote, because this is your opportunity to hold them accountable.”

 

Really? That’s how we define accountability in politics? Does our anger disappear simply because we kicked the bums out of office? Is it enough to see teary-eyed politicians deliver concession speeches on election night?

 

If I walk around the neighbourhood and break all the windows in all the houses, then lose my job, do my neighbours forgive and forget? I think not.

 

What about the financial hardship that government spending inflicts on Canadians? The private investments not made. The wealth and jobs not created. The products not manufactured. The debt incurred. These are real financial consequences which individual Canadians are forced to absorb. Who will compensate them?

 

If politicians knew they would be held personally accountable for the damage they inflict — they would inflict far less damage.

 

Conclusion

 

Many ‘experts’ have encouraged the government to balance the budget, but the size of the budget is the real problem. Government spending, and taxes, must be slashed. How much? The sky is the limit. There is nothing the government does that the private sector can’t do better, at far less cost.

 

A drastic reduction in the size and scope of government would trigger massive private investment and economic growth. But until voters learn some basic economic principles, they will continue to get the government they deserve, whether it be the Trudeau regime, or a different party of con artists.

 

 

Following a 23-year career in the Canadian financial industry, Lee Friday has spent many years studying economics, politics, and social issues. He operates a news site at www.LondonNews1.com

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Hunter Lewis on Morality

 

 

•David Gordon

 

 

The Secular Saints: And Why Morals Are Not Just Subjective. By Hunter Lewis. Axios Press, 2018. Vi + 435 pages.

 

Hunter Lewis has set himself a difficult task: he endeavors to explain why morals are not subjective. To understand his project, we must understand what Lewis means by “subjective” and its contrasting term “objective.” Consider the two statements “Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939” and “Stalin was evil.” Whether Stalin signed the pact is a factual question, not dependent on people’s attitudes toward it. Either he did or he didn’t. What about the second statement? Is this true or false, in the same sense as the first statement? Are there “moral facts”?

 

To some people, it is obvious that there are no moral facts. Questions of good and evil, right and wrong, are “value judgments.” Ludwig von Mises expressed this position with characteristic force and lucidity: “All judgments of value are personal and subjective. There are no judgments of value other than those asserting I prefer, I like better, I wish. . .Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things.” (p.363, quoting Mises.)

 

Lewis agrees with Mises; but, like Mises, he thinks there is more to be said. Value judgments express our desires; but to get what we want, we must deal with the world as it objectively exists. “Each one of us has a choice not only about goals, but also about whether we want to try to harmonize ourselves with reality and increase our chances of attaining our objectives by following rules, or whether we do not wish to do so.” (p.400)

 

The basic ideas of this position are straightforward. If you want a happy and fulfilling life, you must cooperate with others. A free market with the division of labor makes possible a vast expansion of productive power. To secure these benefits, though, people must obey certain rules: “We must face the reality of the physical and social worlds in which we live, and this reality imposes on us many objective rules. If we want to survive, we must eat, and if we want to eat, we must gather food, and so forth. By using our logic, and learning from experience, we can develop a system of objective rules that will enable us to consider the long term as well as the short term and to work together to meet our needs and even realize many of our desires. If we are unable to rein in our subjective desires in order to conform them to physical reality and find common ground with others, we will eventually perish. In effect, then, Mises is asking us to overcome the clashes of self-interest in the immediate social or political context, and instead focus on the long term and on the choice of policies and actions that are truly sustainable.” (pp.380-81)

 

In this view, then, the principles of ethics are what Kant called hypothetical imperatives: “If you want to survive and live a happy life over the long term, you should do such-and-such.” Although value judgments are subjective, in the sense explained above, once you accept the value judgment expressed in the “if” clause of the hypothetical imperative, the rest of ethics becomes objective. (Lewis makes clear that Kant rejected this account.)

 

Lewis looks to David Hume as a precursor of this approach. Far from being a moral skeptic, Hume recognized that people need to cultivate certain virtues if they desire to live well: “we learn from experience what is both useful and agreeable, and no moral system makes sense if not useful and agreeable. Moreover experience teaches us that what is useful and agreeable in the long run is often of much greater consequence than what seems useful or agreeable at the moment. . .Importantly, we also have to want to learn from the ’facts’ of experience, and want to make our lives better. . This desire to improve our lives does not itself come from either logic or experience. . . it is clearly also a choice.” (pp. 190, 197)

 

If morality tells us how to advance our interests over the long run, and the free market is essential for doing so, an important consequence follows. Morality requires that we institute and sustain the free market. Intervention into the market is not only ill-advised but morally wrong.

 

Henry Hazlitt ranks high in Lewis’s estimation as a proponent of this view of ethics. ”Mises disciple, economic writer henry Hazlitt. . .took both David Hume’s ideas and those of Mises and developed them into a complete moral philosophy under the name Cooperatism (or Mutualism) in his book, The Foundations of Morality.” (p.381) The name Hazlitt chose for his system highlights the important of social cooperation in the free market to advance our long term interests.

 

I have discussed only one thread in this rich book. There is much more, e.g., a discussion of the view that God’s commands are the foundation of ethics. The writers whom Lewis treats reject this view. They are “secular,” though not all are hostile to religion; Hume, e.g., is much more a religious skeptic than Kant. The book also offers portraits of remarkable people, whose lives show their various attempts to make sense of the world. Lewis’s long and learned treatment of Montaigne is especially insightful.

 

One cannot read Lewis’s book without being impressed by the author’s philosophical acumen, scholarship, and humanity.

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