Only Lord Baelish will fight for meritocracy and the free market.
.. those rare few who do rise in station tend only to do so by their martial prowess.
.. In short, Westeros was never great, so it cannot be made great again.
.. One powerful lord does enjoy a rags-to-riches story, though — and he’s set on making the Seven Kingdoms into a good old-fashioned American meritocracy. I write, of course, about Petyr Baelish, whom you may know better as Littlefinger.
.. Baelish is the only plausible candidate for the Iron Throne whose claim is not hereditary. He epitomizes what could soon be called the Westerosi Dream. John McCain’s surgery delays Senate votes on health care bill 00:26 00:42
.. With Baelish, you have the opportunity to root for the little guy or, more precisely, the Littlefinger. His nickname derives from his humble origins
.. What’s more, Baelish has pledged to drain the swamp. He’s all too familiar with the misdeeds of the entrenched elite.
.. Of course, Baelish is not perfect. He acquired much of his fortune — and much of the information that facilitated his political rise — from running seedy enterprises, since shut down by the fanatical Sparrows
.. Do those plans, Machiavellian as they’ve always been, really make him so much worse than the alternatives? No, because the alternatives are impulsive heirs to the old hierarchy, totally reliant on magic; they offer rebranding rather than revolution.
.. Littlefinger, meanwhile, has consistently acted as an agent of chaos enabling those who desire to rise, regardless of birth or station. Only he can reorder Westeros for the graspers. Every red-blooded American should root for him.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449528/game-thrones-lord-baelish-champions-meritocracy-free-market
At 150, Canada Is ‘Cool’ but Can Aspire to Something More
If only we could establish the proper break between progressive values and progressive politics.
.. Canadians firmly believed in liberty and freedom, and still do, but never wanted a republic. Rather, we usually view our former colonial status as New France, and later British North America, in a respectful manner as a stage in our development... it started using the Westminster model of representative democracy only in 1931... What can Canadians do differently to ensure that this century, or any century, belongs to us, too? A fine start would be to establish a proper break between progressive values and progressive politics... Canada has leaned left for most of its existence... He has returned Canada to its traditional role abroad as a peacekeeper, renewed his supporters’ faith in social liberalism,.. my hope is that Canada will reflect on its longstanding core principles, question them, and make the necessary improvements. That would mean reducing our state-centric approach to government, increasing the influence of free markets, and ensuring that individual rights and freedoms are properly defended and upheld by the constitution.
Pope Francis Shocks Workers With Pro-Capitalism Pitch
“There can’t be a good economy without good businessmen, without their capacity to create and to produce,” he said, shattering his reputation as an enemy of the free market economy.
.. Moreover, only an economically healthy society can keep a democracy afloat, he suggested... “A monthly check from the state that allows you to keep the family afloat doesn’t solve the problem. It has to be resolved with work for everyone,” he said... “When it’s a system of individual incentives that puts workers into competition among themselves, you can obtain some advantages, but it ends up ruining the trust that’s the soul of any organization,” the Pope argued. “When a crisis comes, the company falls apart. It implodes, because there’s no longer any harmony.”.. The Pope said that it is “the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and – one step at a time – to build a better life for their families” who “sustain the life of society.”.. The Pope’s most remarkable words came when speaking about the ability of the free market to lift people out of poverty... “Business is a noble vocation,” the Pope continued, “directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.”
The Deeper Scandal of That Brutal United Video
The share of passengers denied boarding rose until the late 1990s to about 1 in 500, but it’s fallen to about one in a thousand
.. involuntary denied boardings are affecting about six passengers per 100,000.
.. But a free-market solution would require the airlines to raise the compensation offer indefinitely until somebody accepted the offer. It’s a simple matter of fairness: If airlines are legally permitted to make false promises—and to overbook a flight is, essentially, to promise a service that cannot be fulfilled—they ought to pay market price to compensate people for the unfulfilled promise. Instead, airlines are permitted to practice a kind of bizarro capitalism, in which they can overbook with impunity and throw people off the plane after they reject an arbitrary fee.
.. airline industry is sheltered from both antitrust regulation and litigation.
.. when fuel prices fell last year, as The Atlantic’s Joe Pinsker (who edited this story and who has a relative who works at United) has written, airlines spent the savings on stock buybacks rather than pass them to consumers.
.. what recourse do they have against the company? Very little. In the last decade, class-action lawsuits have become endangered thanks to a series of Supreme Court rulings that have undercut consumer rights. Disputes over fine-print regulation are increasingly likely to be settled in arbitration, without a judge or jury