Author: VD

Fired from royalty?

I didn’t even know that stepping down was an option. What does that even mean?

Prince Andrew was forced to quit royal duties last night after a dramatic intervention by the Queen and the Prince of Wales. They took decisive action to contain the fall-out from the duke’s disastrous TV interview about his friendship with a paedophile billionaire.

The interview triggered days of catastrophic headlines and caused a string of businesses and charities to desert him.

Following lengthy discussions with Charles, who is touring New Zealand, the Queen summoned Andrew to Buckingham Palace and told him to step down.

That’s fine and all, but now tell him to fly to the USA and be interviewed by the FBI. (reads royal statement) Ah, “for the foreseeable future”. In other words, it’s just a PR stunt until everything blows over, or so they hope.

Announcing Castalia Deluxe

The much-anticipated monthly subscription to join the Castalia Deluxe Book Club and receive a deluxe leather-bound book published by Castalia House every other month is now available.

  • Genuine leather bindings
  • Gilded cover and spine titling
  • Gilded page edges
  • Archival-quality paper
  • First-rate fiction
  • Timeless classics of history, science, and philosophy

The first Deluxe Book Club book is the Deluxe edition of The Missionaries by Owen Stanley. And for the seriously hard-core book collector who has all the Franklin Signed First Editions, it’s also possible to sign up for the limited-edition Library subscription.

Just to be clear, Castalia Deluxe is the main product and the Deluxe editions are the focus of this project. The Library editions are an ancillary experiment we’re doing at the request of some very serious book collectors, and which the Deluxe editions make possible. In quality terms, we are targeting the late ’80s Franklin Library editions for our Deluxe editions, albeit with better cover designs.

Canada’s veterans celebrate the Revolution

There are so many New Canadians that they have their own veteran’s associations now.

Dressed in the uniform of China’s People’s Liberation Army, the 40 or so singers stood proudly in neat rows and belted out an old favourite.

I am a Soldier talks of defeating the Japanese, vanquishing Nationalist leader Chiang Kai Shek in the Communist revolution and being tested by the revolutionary war. The performance “brought forth a whirlwind of Chinese military spirit in a foreign land,” said a report on the concert.

The recital earlier this month at the Centre for the Performing Arts in Richmond Hill, Ont., was not offered by a visiting martial choir from Beijing.

It was the work of a surprising new Canadian association, dedicated to retired troops of the China’s People’s Liberation Army or PLA — China’s armed forces — who are now settled in this country.

Interesting that we don’t often hear how “Canada is fallen” even though it is a tossup between Canada and Australia concerning which will be the first to follow South Africa into the “formerly First World” category.

Antitrust intensifies

There is a stronger case for breaking up Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon than there was for breaking up Standard Oil:

Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft all easily have more than 10 times the net income as did Standard Oil when it was broken apart. Apple coming in at close to 50 times the net income! Cisco and Intel come in just under 10 times the net income as compared to Standard Oil, both at 9.9 times greater net income than Standard Oil when it was broken apart.

If 91 percent control of the oil refining industry and net income of $35 million per year was enough to break apart Standard Oil under the terms of the Sherman Antitrust Act, there are a few tech super giants that would face a similar fate if the trust-busting philosophies that held sway during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt were en vogue today.

In January, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled The Antitrust Case Against Facebook, Google and Amazon. The article reports that these major tech firms each have greater control over certain high tech industry sectors than Standard Oil had over oil production during its heyday. For example, 95 percent of young adults using the Internet subscribe to a Facebook product, whether it’s the company’s flagship social network or other services like Instagram or WhatsApp. Google controls 89 percent of Internet searches.

Where monopolies don’t exist, duopolies certainly do; Google and Apple, for example, collectively hold 99 percent of the mobile operating software market.

If the percentage of market share for important tech sectors held by these titans wasn’t enough, the massive fortunes these companies continue to generate would seem likely to trigger at least some antitrust scrutiny. Remember, Standard Oil’s annual net earnings through 1906 earned what today would be $969 million each year in 2017 dollars, adjusted for inflation. To some of the tech super giants of today, $1 billion in profits is nothing more than pocket change.

What is holding Republicans back? This is an absolute no-brainer as well as a certain vote winner across the political spectrum?

Self-reliance is a military virtue

Sanctions and U.S. military assistance are threatening to change the balance of power in the Middle East. Just not in the way they were intended to do so:

Despite decades of sanctions, Iran has succeeded in developing its missile arsenal, which is larger than that of any other Middle Eastern country including Israel, a Pentagon study said Tuesday.

“Iran has an extensive missile development program, and the size and sophistication of its missile force continues to grow despite decades of counterproliferation efforts aimed at curbing its advancement,” the Defense Intelligence Agency said.

“Lacking a modern air force, Iran has embraced ballistic missiles as a long-range strike capability to dissuade its adversaries in the region — particularly the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia — from attacking Iran,” the report said.

Iran has “the largest missile force in the Middle East,” the report said. A US intelligence official said on condition of anonymity that the assessment included Israel.

Not unlike the German development of the U-boat and the Japanese development of the aircraft carrier due to overwhelming British and American battleship strength, the Iranian bypassing of the aircraft-based air superiority doctrine is likely to have helped it strategically in the end.

And due to its inability to purchase weapons from the US or the European countries, it now has a base of missile technology that cannot be cut off at will by those countries.

A vice too far

Even evil corporations that proudly fly the rainbow flag are unwilling to get behind the P in LGBTP:

Prince Andrew’s supporters are in retreat today as yet another multi-million pound business cut ties with the pet charity project he plugged repeatedly in his BBC car crash interview…. KPMG, one of London’s big four accounting firms, was the first to admit it was protecting its reputation by ending its £100,000 a year sponsorship.

Insurance giant Aon asked for its name be removed from the scheme’s website and drugs maker AstraZeneca said it was reviewing its relationship.

Children’s charities and schools linked to Prince Andrew are also in disarray today as they distanced themselves from the under-fire royal.

A string of major companies and charities are also examining their links with Andrew after his extraordinary TV interview on Saturday.

The Outward Bound Trust, which has the prince’s daughter Beatrice as a trustee, is holding a special meeting this week to discuss the issue.

Children North East and The Children’s Foundation, both charities Andrew lists on his official website, refused to tell MailOnline if he will keep his official role supporting them in light of the Epstein scandal.

Now, I’m certainly willing to give Chick-Fil-A the benefit of the doubt regarding its recent marketing missteps. But I suspect that even its most die-hard supporters will admit that convergence has taken root inside the Christian restaurant chain  if it starts featuring Prince Andrew in its advertising.

Mailvox: Converging the Mustang

American automotive buffs are not happy with Ford permitting its new electric vehicle to wear the Mustang brand as a skinsuit:

Recently Ford revealed a new all-electric 4-door crossover SUV. Then labeled it a Mustang Mach E. There is a 50min video of the reveal on YouTube. In the comment section people are seeing the complete inversion of an iconic car brand and they’re not happy about it.

Based on the diversity hires shown from the design team, I’m not surprised they have no understanding of the Mustang brand.

I look forward to reading Corporate Cancer soon.

Although I’m not an American muscle car guy, I can sympathize. I wasn’t happy when Ford acquired and trashed the Jaguar brand either. But seriously, diversity or not, how hard is it to grasp that a Mustang is a sports car, not A 4-DOOR UTILITY VEHICLE?

Speaking of Corporate Cancer, the paperback is now available at Amazon and at a discount at Castalia Direct.

It may interest readers to know some of my predictions in the book are already coming to pass, such as the continued targeting of the Internet giants by national tax authorities.

The Czech government approved a seven percent digital tax proposal on Monday aimed at boosting state coffers by taxing advertising by global internet giants like Google and Facebook, the finance ministry said. The tax would apply to companies with global revenue over €750 million ($826.5 million) annually, 100 million crown ($4.32 million) turnover in the Czech market and a reach exceeding 200,000 user accounts.

Tax cuts are terrible incentives

A straightforward industrial policy would be vastly preferable to abstract arguments with no means of holding corporations accountable for their failure to follow through on the theory:

In the 2017 fiscal year, FedEx owed more than $1.5 billion in taxes. The next year, it owed nothing. What changed was the Trump administration’s tax cut — for which the company had lobbied hard.

The public face of its lobbying effort, which included a tax proposal of its own, was FedEx’s founder and chief executive, Frederick Smith, who repeatedly took to the airwaves to champion the power of tax cuts. “If you make the United States a better place to invest, there is no question in my mind that we would see a renaissance of capital investment,” he said on an August 2017 radio show hosted by Larry Kudlow, who is now chairman of the National Economic Council.

Four months later, President Donald Trump signed into law the $1.5 trillion tax cut that became his signature legislative achievement. FedEx reaped big savings, bringing its effective tax rate to less than zero in fiscal year 2018 from 34{f18bb1fdf52d98bded86883b9be18028c561f8992f79c47739bf349fa8a297cc} in fiscal year 2017, meaning that, overall, the government technically owed it money. But it did not increase investment in new equipment and other assets in the fiscal year that followed as Smith said businesses like his would.

Nearly two years after the tax law passed, the windfall to corporations like FedEx is becoming clear. A New York Times analysis of data compiled by Capital IQ shows no statistically meaningful relationship between the size of the tax cut that companies and industries received and the investments they made. If anything, the companies that received the biggest tax cuts increased their capital investment by less, on average, than companies that got smaller cuts.

From free trade to immigration to corporate tax cuts, the more one examines economic theories in practice, the more obviously false one observes them to be.

Corporate Cancer audiobook

The audiobook+ for Corporate Cancer is now available at Arkhaven Comics for $14.99. Narrated by Bob Allen, the audiobook+ includes the ebook in both Epub and Kindle formats and is 4 hours and 51 minutes long.

Supporters of the Replatforming should check their emails, as you will receive a coupon for a free download that is valid until December 2nd. Be sure to download your ebooks and audiobooks before then!

The paperback will be shipping to Heroes of the Resistance next week. The audiobook will also be available on Audible in the next two weeks or so.

UPDATE: If you were having initial trouble with the Patreon code, try again. It should work now.

UPDATE: David Stewart reviews Corporate Cancer on his YouTube channel:

Chick-Fil-A cucks

The chicken restaurant takes its first big step toward corporate convergence:

Chick-Fil-A said on Monday that it has stopped funding two Christian charities after coming under fire in recent weeks from LGBTQ activists. The fast-food chain’s foundation has donated millions of dollars to The Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Both organizations have a history of opposing same-sex marriage.

Chick-fil-A said it no longer funds the organizations.

“We made multi-year commitments to both organisations and we fulfilled those obligations in 2018,” a spokeswoman for Chick-fil-A told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding the company would focus its giving on “education, homelessness and hunger.”

When reached by CNBC, the company declined to comment further.

The Atlanta-based company has faced criticism in the past for its charitable donations and CEO Dan Cathy’s public comments opposing gay marriage. As Chick-fil-A expands outside of its stronghold in the southeastern U.S., activists have put pressure on the company.

This echoes the convergence of NASCAR. Forsaking the existing audience in favor of chasing one that they will never find.