The Weak West

What we are all thinking. Here's your daily news digest for 24 May 2023.

The Weak West
Photo by Stephane YAICH / Unsplash
‘America Looks Weak’: State Department Official Speaks Out
A long-serving State Department official offered a look into the internal reaction to the department’s pronoun fiasco.

Australia

‘Awful but lawful’: Neo-Nazi groups becoming more emboldened, ASIO boss warns
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has warned right-wing extremists are trying to recruit more people.
Autism rises as the NDIS expands | The Spectator Australia
An article in the Weekend Australian on April, 2023, titled, Autism to cost budget $8.25bn: will the safety net break? was captioned with: Autism to cost budget $8.25bn: will the safety net break?
News Corp denies it played a part in Stan Grant’s decision to leave Q+A amid racist attacks
Murdoch’s Australian media chief calls on ABC to ‘correct the record’ after accusations that excessive coverage encouraged racist social media trolls

International

Disturbing: Biden Forgets Huge Fact About His Dead Son, Makes Up Something That Never Happened
President Biden made a false claim about his son during a visit with marines stationed at a base in Japan.
Iraq Oil Output Continues To Fall Amid Turkey Spat
Oil production in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)-ruled region has continued to drop, extending a stoppage that has lasted nearly two months…
Boomer Europe is dying
Is Macron right about our defenceless world?

Business, Finance & Investment

Crowding Out: The Fed May Be Killing the Private Sector to Save the Government | Daniel Lacalle
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet reached its all-time high in May 2022. Since then, it was supposed to drop at a steady pace and shed three trillion US dollars by 2024. The normalization of monetary policy was built on the idea of a soft landing for the economy.
ABC The Business: Afterpay and Zip could face tougher future under new laws
I joined ABC’s The Business to discuss Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) businesses including AfterPay and Zip. We always thought these companies were mediocre – they were over-valued, with unsustainable growth and increasing competition. Way back in 2018 I warned investors about the BNPL space and continued…
Paying Off Your Home May Not Provide The Joy You Expect
Thanks to reader feedback, I realized one financial move that was not included in my top financial moves to relieve stress list, was paying off your home. Even though I thought long and hard about what to put on the list, paying off your home didn’t get a dedicated bullet point, just an add-on. For…

Culture

The ESG Trap
ESG investing would have us believe that it is possible to substitute another mechanism for money, prices, and profit – yet that is an experiment that has been tried numerous times and has always failed.
The Core Battle Within the Republican Party
The Core Battle Within the Republican Party. By Sundance. It is critical to understand that both the DNC and RNC are private corporations with no affiliation to government. It is a difficult shift …
WHO to Govern the Health of the World? ⋆ Brownstone Institute
This is the stuff of bureaucrats’ dreams: the legal authority to declare an emergency and the power thereafter to commandeer resources

Crypto & Blockchain

Binance Australia to Allow AUD Withdrawals Until June 1
Binance Australia has provided an update on its ongoing local payments situation, confirming that AUD withdrawals will be allowed until 1 June.
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The world’s favourite place to buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Delivery in less than 2 minutes, easiest order process, and we’re open 24/7.

Postscript

Wesleyan University bows to socialist club’s demands to pay for student abortions
The announcement followed the student group Wesleyan Democratic Socialists launching a petition to demand the school provide ‘care to people with uteruses’ following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

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