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Message from Jeff Nyquist

Saturday, 17 April 2010 20:56 Jeff Nyquist

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Last Updated on Monday, 17 May 2010 18:04

A Totalitarian Epigone

Tuesday, 27 December 2011 00:00 Jeff Nyquist

The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong Il, has died of a heart attack. The economic policy of his regime resulted in 900,000 to 3.5 million deaths by starvation-related illnesses in the 1990s. Instead of allowing the North Korean people to make their own economic decisions, Kim’s regime used the country’s resources to develop and build several nuclear weapons while maintaining a standing army of over 1.1 million men, along with over 7 million reservists.

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 19:02

The Mafia that Rules Russia

Monday, 31 October 2011 00:00 Jeff Nyquist

On Sunday I spoke with Luke Harding, the Guardian (UK) Moscow bureau chief who was expelled from Russia on 5 February 2011. “For you Russia is closed,” he was told when returning to Moscow after a trip to Britain. His Russian visa was annulled and he was bounced out of the country, despite lobbying from friends and associates, despite having a home in Moscow (which the Russian secret police had previously broken into – in order to intimidate Harding’s family). The Kremlin has a special means of communicating with uncooperative journalists: you break into their home, you rearrange objects, you open the tenth floor window of a child’s room, and if all else fails you expel the unwanted critic from the country.

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 19:00

Totalitarian Methods

Monday, 24 October 2011 00:00 Jeff Nyquist

The pioneers of totalitarianism, Lenin and Hitler, both denounced the capitalism system as rotten. But Lenin was the first to recognize, with the advent of his New Economic Policy, that totalitarianism can wear a capitalist face. Lenin called his version of capitalism “state capitalism,” while Hitler proposed a “social market economy.” In both instances, the central principle was state power over private power. This formula seems to be emerging today in the United States, without the appearance of an overt socialist revolution. In America, socialist totalitarian principles advance by gradualism. Capitalism is overtaken bit by bit, so that most observers do not realize how far things have moved down “the road to serfdom.” Whether it is health care or banking, the automobile industry, fishing or timber – the state successfully interjects itself, asserting ultimate control. The reason is always given that the state can solve problems that the market cannot solve.

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 18:58

The Truth and Financial Meltdown

Monday, 17 October 2011 00:00 Jeff Nyquist

Today’s anti-Wall Street protests show that many citizens are blaming Wall Street for the country’s economic difficulties. Even the President of the United States has expressed sympathy for the protestors. In recent days police and protestors have battled in Manhattan – with protestors shouting “Hell no! We won’t go!” These children of America apparently feel that the traditional wellspring of American prosperity is den of iniquity. This view was summarized in a 2010 documentary film titled Inside Job. The film outlines “the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry….” Most critics gave the film high ratings. But Barrons economics editor Gene Epstein warned readers in an Oct. 2010 review that the documentary’s outrage was “misdirected.” Those who watch the film, wrote Epstein, “will still be left with a dim understanding of the root causes of what happened, and thus a dim grasp of what should be done to prevent it from happening again.” The people who made the film were not financial experts.

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 18:56

Russia’s Internet Revolution

Monday, 10 October 2011 00:00 Jeff Nyquist

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s article in the Oct. 3 Izvestia, titled “A New Integration Project for Eurasia,” received a spontaneous and hostile mass-review. In recent days, the Russian-speaking public has registered its distrust and dislike of the new policy by responding (on the Internet) to Putin’s article with a “#” sign, signifying a jail cell (as in Russian usage). In each response there follows a line, “Thanks to Putin….” Thousands upon thousands thank the former KGB officer for bringing back the Soviet Union; for Stalin and Brezhnev’s return; for winter to come and summer to go; for the world to never end and for the world to end. Hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions by this writing) of Russian speaking internet users have registered their dislike of the Eurasian Integration Project, using a cyrillic hashtag – “#спасибопутинузаэто.”

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 18:55

Is Russia Ruled by a Secret Politburo?

Monday, 03 October 2011 00:00 Jeff Nyquist

It has recently come to light that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is going to run for the presidency of Russia next year. Last March, while visiting Russia, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden advised Putin not to run. After all, it is beginning to look as if Putin is a dictator. First, Putin is the President of Russia for two terms. Next, Putin becomes prime minister while an apparent stand-in (President Dmitri Medvedev) openly admits that his authority is less than that of Putin. Recently Putin announced his intention to serve another presidential term. We ought to ask if Putin is a dictator? Does he decide everything on his own? The answer to this question was recently given by a retired East European politician.

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 18:52