The Oasis for
Rational Conservatives
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
When one of the world’s best financial analysts and I find ourselves agreeing with one of the world’s most repulsive SJWs (social justice warriors), you know things are getting über-weird 12 days out from November 8.
Last night (10/27), over two fingers of Ardbeg neat (you don’t insult the best Islay single malt with water or ice), financial guru Michael Markowski and I discussed the bottom line consequences of who wins the White House.
We agreed that hell is coming to breakfast for the stock market no matter who wins. The complete unsustainability of negative or near-zero interest rates is just one example (see Michael’s video on this below).
If Trump wins, his policies of eliminating regulatory hamstrings, raising interest rates instead of taxes, cutting spending, repatriating corporate offshore trillions, etc. will result in a V-shape recovery similar to that of Ronald Reagan’s in the early 80s.
If Hillary wins, her policies of more government regulation and taxes will result in a flatline L-shape anti-recovery similar to that of FDR’s in the 1930s, prolonging the Great Depression. The scariest part of this scenario is that the only way we finally got out the Depression was with World War II.
Hillary, in other words, will use the coming inevitable crash as all Lefties traditionally use crises – as a rationale to expand government power and control over our lives. Trump, on the other hand, will use it to expand economic freedom and opportunity which ends the crisis quickly instead of prolonging it and possibly ends in war.
And now for the fun cover story of today:
President George Bush denounced what he called an “Axis of Evil” in his famed 2002 State of the Union Address little over 4 months after 9/11: Iraq, Iran, North Korea. That it was – but another Axis of Evil had risen in America itself.
The Marxist Left in the Democrat Party had morphed into being unvarnished Fascist – seeking power not for any ideological purpose or rationale, but simply for power itself. What they retained of Marxism was its morality – that the end justifies the means.
Since their end was power for the sake of power, then any means to get it and keep it, any lie, any dirty trick, any hypocrisy, any threat, any violence, any corruption they could get away with, is the moral thing to do. The only thing wrong in their eyes is getting caught – which their Enemedia allies were dedicated to preventing.
Under Barack Obama – a treasonous hate-filled racist president dedicated to weakening America and strengthening her enemies in every way possible – the Democrat-Fascist/Enemedia Axis of Evil has reached an epitome of power.
And just like a dictator in a banana republic or African hellhole – like Maduro in Venezuela, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, or the Castros in Cuba – they will do anything, perpetrate any depravity or dishonesty, to keep it.
The headlines are in. Trump is the “anti-democratic” candidate because he refuses to rule out challenging the results of an election that has yet to take place. Such a course of action is “beyond the pale.” It’s a threat to democracy. And it is utterly and thoroughly unacceptable.
Except when Democrats do it.
When Hillary dragged Gore away from playing with his Earth globe to campaign for her last month, the crowd booed at his mention of the election and then chanted, “You won, you won.” Hillary grinned and nodded.
Hillary Clinton has always believed that President Bush illegitimately took office. She has told Democrats that Bush was “selected” rather than “elected.”
The media’s focus has been on whether Trump would accept the results if he loses. Yet a better question might be whether Hillary Clinton would accept her defeat.
Time was, leftists complained of rigged elections, the media paid attention to dirty tricks, and conservatives cared more about results than rhetoric.
Donald Trump, in characteristically haphazard fashion, said he thought the election might end up “rigged” (if he lost). Therefore, he would not endorse the November 8 result if he found that fear confirmed — unless, of course, in Jacksonian fashion, he managed to win.
All hell broke loose, from both the Left and “principled” conservatives, that Trump’s allegations had somehow undermined the American electoral process itself.
Not likely.
“Selected, not elected” was a Democrat talking point after the 2000 Bush victory. In a speech two years after that election, a now sanctimonious Hillary Clinton echoed those “selected” charges against the Bush presidency.
Al Gore became unhinged. For years, the former vice president could not speak publicly without screaming in vein-bulging style, and seemed to be obsessed by George W. Bush in Carthago delenda est fashion. The Crazed Sex Poodle is angrily campaigning with Hillary now.
China's property market went mad after the authorities poured fuel on the flames. Beijing is now slamming on the brakes.
Capital outflows from China are accelerating. The hemorrhage has reached the fastest pace since the currency panic at the start of the year.
The latest cycle of credit-driven expansion has already peaked after 18 months. Beijing has had to slam on the brakes, scrambling to control property speculation that the Communist authorities themselves deliberately fomented.
The central bank (PBOC) spent roughly $50bn defending the yuan last month, but this has not stopped the exchange rate sliding to 6.77 against the dollar - the weakest in six years.
"Our view is that the RMB (yuan) will depreciate 20% against the US dollar to 8.1 by the end of 2018 as deflation of the property bubble leads to more capital outflows," says Zhiwei Zhang from Deutsche Bank. "This is deflationary for global trade."
That is an understatement. A Chinese devaluation on this scale would be an earthquake for the world's economic and financial system, unleashing a tsunami of cheap manufacturing exports into Europe and the US. The world cannot absorb the consequences of so much excess.
Four years from now, will you regret having voted for the person you chose this year for president? In decision theory, there is a concept called “regret,” which is the emotion experienced when realizing that an alternative course of action would have likely resulted in a more favorable outcome.
The current voter regret matrix assumes that either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will win, and that Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will not. It also assumes that neither Hillary nor Donald will receive 50 percent of the vote, and a majority of Americans will have voted for other candidates.
This implies that those who vote for either Mr. Johnson or Dr. Stein will realize that if most of the votes that had gone to the minority candidates had been cast for the loser between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump, the other candidate would have won.
Those who vote for Mrs. Clinton are probably doing so because she is a woman, or they like her bigger government policies with promises of free stuff, or because they fear Mr. Trump more.
Hillary’s supporters are probably going to be disappointed when they eventually realize that she is deeply flawed ethically, and her bad behavior and judgment are not going to improve once she becomes president.
“Either we are going to win this election or we are going to lose this country.”
That sums it up, doesn’t it? Either/Or. It’s a binary choice. Trump made this clear in an extraordinary speech yesterday (10/20) in Delaware, Ohio. I strongly encourage you watch it entire.
When the Pub candidate race began some 18 months ago, I was repulsed by Trump. I still was when he gained the nomination, and very grudgingly supported it only because the alternative of Hillary was a nightmare from which we might never wake up.
Now he’s causing me to think of Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975). For many years, the 12 volumes of his monumental A Study of History has occupied a pride of place in my library. (The link is to Wikipedia not Amazon, as the latter only offers abridged versions, not the entire set which sells for over $1,000 on Ebay.)
Toynbee’s thesis on the rise and fall of civilizations is one of “challenge and response.” Civilizational success is determined by the extent of using challenges as opportunities to grow; failure comes when that ceases.
Yet Toynbee’s thesis applies to the lives of individuals as well. They can grow and succeed as moral human beings in response to personal challenges. As I watched the third debate Wednesday night and his Ohio speech yesterday, it dawned on me that this has happened to Donald Trump. This is not the same man of yesteryear.
“Such a nasty woman.”
Truer words have never been spoken about Hillary Clinton. Yet they may cost Donald Trump the presidency.
Trump’s offhand observation came near the end of the third debate last night (10/19). His potentially fatal error was using the word “woman” instead of “person.” Because of it, millions more women may now vote for the nastiest and most vile candidate for president since Lyndon Johnson for no other reason than – she’s a woman.
If that isn’t sexist, what is?
On Monday (10/17), the non-partisan psephologists at FiveThirtyEight analyzed the “gender gap” between men and women voting Democrat since 1952, concluding that, “Men Are Treating 2016 as a ‘Normal’ Election; Women Aren’t” –
“Men are favoring the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in typical numbers, but a historically overwhelming share of women say they will vote for the Democrat, Hillary Clinton… women are winning this election for Clinton.”
Eight years ago, American voters engaged in the most racist election in their country’s history. Are we about to engage in the most sexist?
The gender gap is now larger than we’ve ever seen. Here’s what it looks like as 538 mapped it out by electoral votes:
[Note: Please see Skye’s calculations below on how Putin’s investment in Hillary will make him $200 billion a year—JW]
Does Vladimir Putin want Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump to win the presidency?
Those supporting Hillary claim that Mr. Putin wants Mr. Trump to win, claiming that is why WikiLeaks is putting out the Hillary emails and speeches. Specifically, John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman, has been very explicit in charging that Mr. Putin wants Mr. Trump to win.
The charge seems to be a bit odd, given that both the Clintons’ and the Podestas’ (John and his brother Tony’s) organizations have been recipients of large sums of money coming from Russian interests, apparently with the blessing of the Kremlin.
What is the problem? Did the Clintons and their people not stay bought, or is it all a deception? If the American people were to believe Russians are for Mr. Trump, it would hurt him.
Having been an economic adviser to senior Russian government officials during the 1992 transition from communism and subsequently involved in business with Russians, I quickly learned that the conventional wisdom was correct in that things are often not what they seem.
Off the coast of Yemen and at the UN Security Council we are seeing the strategic endgame of Barack Obama’s administration. And it isn’t pretty.
In the last ten days, Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen have attacked US naval craft three times in the Bab al Mandab, the narrow straits at the mouth of the Red Sea. The Bab al Mandab controls maritime traffic in the Red Sea, and ultimately control the Suez Canal.
Whether the Iranians directed these assaults or simply greenlighted them is really beside the point. The point is that these are Iranian strikes on the US. The Houthis would never have exposed themselves to US military retaliation if they hadn’t been ordered to do so by their Iranian overlords.
The question is why has Iran chosen to open up an assault on the US? Iran’s game is clear enough. It wishes to replace the US as the regional hegemon, at the US’s expense.
Since Obama entered office nearly eight years ago, Iran’s record in advancing its aims has been of uninterrupted success. Is this an accident on Mr. Obama’s part, sheer incompetence, or is it something far far worse?
There's been a lot of concern recently about the “takeover of the Internet.” Yesterday (10/17), news reports broke that the lawsuit of four states suing the US for the Internet turnover has been dropped.
Here’s why not to worry about it. There’s something else to worry about instead.
The organization being handed to an “international body” is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN.
ICANN runs the DNS system that allows you to type in something like mysite.com, rather than something like 237.57.364.1. The root servers that people talk about keep track of all those numbers and names.
So, could the international group play ugly games with ICANN? It's possible, of course, but unlikely. ICANN really isn't very important anymore, save for political bragging rights. Here are some of the reasons why:
[This is Matt Ridley’s full lecture delivered Monday, 10/16, at the Royal Society of London, the oldest – founded in 1660 – and one of the most prestigious institutions of science in the world. Ridley’s lecture will likely be considered the currently definitive refutation of the fraudulent doomsday science of Man Made Global Warming. –JW]
I am a passionate champion of science.
I have devoted most of my career to celebrating and chronicling scientific discovery. I think the scientific method is humankind’s greatest achievement, and that there is no higher calling.
So what I am about to say this evening about the state of climate science is not in any sense anti-science. It is anti-the distortion and betrayal of science.
I am still in love with science as a philosophy; I greatly admire and like the vast majority of scientists I meet; but I am increasingly disaffected from science as an institution.
The way it handles climate change is a big part of the reason.
After covering global warming debates as a journalist on and off for almost 30 years, with initial credulity, then growing skepticism, I have come to the conclusion that the risk of dangerous global warming, now and in the future, has been greatly exaggerated while the policies enacted to mitigate the risk have done more harm than good, both economically and environmentally, and will continue to do so.
And I am treated as some kind of pariah for coming to this conclusion.
Why do I think the risk from global warming is being exaggerated? For four principal reasons.
Back in the days of Sigmund Freud, the world was powered by steam. Everything was pressure, force, heat, release of pressure, explosive pressure. Pressure, pressure, pressure…
Because we tend to understand ourselves in relation to the world we live in, Freud and his students created explanations for emotions, drives and instincts in terms of build-up and release, just like the steam engines of their time.
This formed the basis of the charge/discharge theories of emotional release that were influential in psychotherapy and pop psychology in the 1960s and ‘70s, and into the ‘80s.
Fortunately for us, we aren’t steam engines. We’re also not computers either. The best that such explanations do is give us the illusion that we understand ourselves through an analogy or metaphor.
Analogies and metaphors are fine as far as they go, but the computer analogy doesn’t do justice to the complexity of our creative, living systems. And the steam engine analogy doesn’t do justice to our emotions.
So just what are emotions, anyway?
