(1) Decline of the Middle Class could lead to Revolution as in 1930s - Joel Kotkin(2) Woke Left facing Defeat in 2022(3) Wokeness is a problem for the Democratic Party - James Carville(4) UK working class hand Labour another defeat, rejecting its Woke values(5) Business Lobby in Australia's Northern Territory campaign to bring foreign workers back(6) Economist Ross Garnaut admits that mass immigration lowers wages, & causes economic stagnation(7) Marine Le Pen cleared of Hate Speech for posting Images of ISIS Atrocities(8) Britain's first Trans Hate Crime trial is halted, as Judge dismisses the case(1) Decline of the Middle Class could lead to Revolution as in 1930s - Joel Kotkinhttps://www.newgeography.com/content/007033-yeomanrys-global-declineYeomanry's Global Declineby Joel Kotkin 05/03/2021https://schweizermonat.ch/yeomanrys-global-decline/Focus: «Middle Class» Issue 1086 - May 2021Yeomanry's Global DeclineCapitalism has created prosperity for large parts of the population. Its current big-tech-dominated version is endangering it.by Joel KotkinF.or much of the load part of the 20 th Century, the world's middle class what ascendant, expanding and, in most countries, Firmly in control of national politics and culture. Yet in more recent decades, this process has been slowly reversed, in the United States as well as in Europe and, increasingly, East Asia.This erosion of the middle class has many roots. Globalization has savaged many middle-class jobs, whether in factories or increasingly services, transferring employment to China, India, and other developing countries. In many countries, immigration, much of it from poor countries, has posed a threat to wage rates, particularly for lower skilled workers and increasingly professionals as well.In the United States, long seen as the great land of opportunity, the chance of middle-class earners moving up to the top rungs of the earnings ladder has dropped by approximately 20 percent since the early 1980s. Across the thirty-six countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the richest citizens have taken an ever-greater share of national GDP, and the middle class has become smaller. Much of the global middle class is heavily in debt, mainly because of high housing costs, and «looks increasingly like a boat in rocky waters,» suggests the OECD.Traditionally, those classes hurt most by what pundits may praise as «transformative change» would turn to the political class that identifies with their interests. But in many countries where parties once strongly tied to middle- and working-class interests – the Australian and British Labour Parties, the German Social Democrats, or the American Democrats – are no longer working class in nature but dominated by an alliance among the ultra-rich, particularly in tech, well-paid professionals, government workers and those most dependent on government aid.Capitalism out of the soilThe earliest democracies in Athens and Rome rested on an assertive, property-owning middle class. Later on, as slaves and elites grew to dominate ancient societies, displacing the middle orders, they became more monarchical and autocratic. In imperial Rome, small farmers and artisans were being displaced by slaves imported from the far ends of the expanding empire. Occupations and social status came to be determined by heredity. By the end of the Republic, over 75 percent of all property was owned by roughly 3 percent of the population, while over four-fifths owned no property. These were the roots of the political economy that would define the Middle Ages.This process was reversed slowly, starting with the rise of the autocracy-dominated Venice Republic, and its analogue trading states. The most important development took place later, in the Low Countries, where property ownership expanded as swamps were drained, and dikes rected, allowing new people to own land. As the economic historian Jan de Vries observed, «capitalism grew out of the soil in Holland.»With capitalism, and a rising middle class, Holland became a progenitor of modern democracy free from aristocratic or clerical domination, as the expulsion of the feudally inclined Spanish overlords empowered the bourgeoisie. The Dutch expanded human rights, including those of religious minorities and women. Dutch culture was family-centered, inventive, sober, frugal, and tolerant. Some immigrants came as merchants or artisans, but even the poorest, observed one Dutchman in 1692, «cannot die of hunger if he works hard.»Over the ensuing centuries saw the rise of the yeomanry across large parts of Europe, North America, and Oceania. Rather than create the dystopia that Marx predicted, capitalism, with reforms, instead uplifted a large portion of the masses and created a solid middle class (a designation first used in Britain in 1812). A study covering the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States shows that all three saw a rapid decline in the concentration of wealth from the 1820s up to the 1970s. Never before had so much prosperity and relative economic security been so widely enjoyed.Record earnings for Bezos, poverty for the massesSince the 1970s, the wealth differential between middle-income and upper-income households in the United States has grown. Data from the Census Bureau show that the share of national income going to the middle 60 percent of households has fallen to a record low. Wealth gains in recent decades have gone overwhelmingly to the top 1 percent of households, and especially the top 0.5 percent.[i]In this period, the affluent class of roughly 1.35 million—the top 1 percent—has done well while the largest gains have been especially concentrated among the top 0.1 percent, roughly 150’000 people.[ii] Since the mid-1980s, the share of national wealth held by those below the top 10 percent has fallen by 12 percentage points, the same proportion that the top 0.1 percent gained.[iii] This pattern has been accelerated by the pandemic. Last year, Amazon tripled its profits and Jeff Bezos made $70 billion while billionaires earned over $1 trillion since March. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft now make up 20% of the American stock market’s total worth.In contrast, millions of Americans have fallen into poverty or are on the verge of destitution. While large chains have reported record sales during the lockdowns, over 160,000 small businesses have closed. A survey by the advocacy group Main Street America suggests up to 7.5 million small businesses are likely to go out of business if the crisis lasts to the end of the year. As one Silicon Valley wag put it, America increasingly resembles «feudalism with better marketing «.European countries renowned for their robust social welfare provisions are showing the same pattern. Social mobility has declined in over two-thirds of European Union countries, including Sweden.[iv] Germany is significantly less equal than its EU peers, with richer households controlling a bigger share of assets than in most other western European states. The bottom 40 percent of German adults hold almost no assets at all; barely 45 percent own homes.[v] In Great Britain, a decline in the numbers of middle-wage jobs has depressed wages at the lower end, and increased unemployment among the young; more broadly, it has brought a halt to social mobility.[vi]The same trends are appearing in East Asia, which until recently enjoyed dramatic growth in the size and prosperity of the middle class. Since 1990, famously egalitarian Japan has seen not only a declining average standard of living but also a considerable widening of the gap between the wealthy and everyone else.[vii] In China, egalitarian socialism may be the prevailing ideology, but the country is now more unequal than most Western nations. Its Gini index—a measure of inequality—has gone from highly egalitarian in 1978 to more stratified than Mexico, Brazil, or Kenya, as well as the United States and virtually all of Europe.[viii] The nascent middle class made some progress, but the big gains occurred in the top 1 percent of the population, and particularly in a tiny fraction of that group. The income of the ultra-wealthy expanded by more than twice the national average rate.[ix] Middle-class Chinese people now find it difficult to buy property or get ahead.[x]Will the middle class rise up?China’s autocratic state increasingly looms as the future role model in which the yeomanry is allowed to exist but wields little influence. Certainly, after the events of the past year, Europe and much of the developing world seems anxious to fall into Beijing’s economic and even political orbit.If European and American business adopt strict environmental policies while China pollutes and bides its time, a European mega-crisis could lead to «noticeable loss of welfare and jobs», observes Eric Heymann, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Research. And he warns: The policies envisioned in the EU’s «European Green Deal» will not work without «a certain degree of eco-dictatorship». Fritz Varhenholt, a long-time environmental advocate in the German Social Democratic Party, shares this concern, fearing «a dramatic loss of prosperity in Germany».It’s not unlikely that these policies will elicit protests, as we have seen in reaction both to pandemic- and climate-related restrictions, as can be seen in demonstrations across Europe.Perhaps a more permanent resistance can be in demonstrations by rural and exurban residents against urban-driven energy policies, particularly attempts to wipe out affordable natural gas and raise energy prices across the board. This was a major reason behind the «gilets jaunes» movement in France and similar protests in the Netherlands.The tendency for overreach by the very wealthy, and their embrace of «progressive» policies that hurt the yeomanry’s prospects, has already created unusual events like the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the rise of far-right parties across Europe and the passage of Brexit. Trump may be gone, at least for now, but the increasingly censorious approach of tech titans who control social media and plans to restrict such things as single family homes – not a concern of the upper classes – could widen an already large gap between elite and a large portion of mass opinion. Some have even adopted policies that would seek to impose ever more draconian policies that favor some minorities over whites and, in some cases, Asians as well.The danger now looms that the yeomanry, afraid of dispossession, will shift towards embracing authoritarian policies from both right and left, much as occurred during the 1930s not only in Europe but also in the United States.Without the prospect of moving up, there is little reason for immigrants, minorities and, most terrifyingly, millennials to embrace democracy. A loss of faith in the basic values of our society is particularly marked among the young; nearly 40 percent of young Americans think the country lacks «a history to be proud of». Far fewer place a great emphasis on family, religion, or patriotism than in previous generations. Europe is, if anything, moving faster toward cultural deconstruction, by anathematizing its own heritage.At the end of what we are witnessing, ironically, a return to European feudal patterns that are one part of the continental heritage that we never hoped to see return. Ultimately the real argument is not about philosophy, as many conservatives may prefer, but about class and economics. If the current neo-liberal regime cannot be made to serve the middle and working classes, we could experience the recurrence of class conflicts that we have not seen for the better part of a century.Joel Kotkinis Geographer and Presidential Fellow for Urban Futures at Chapman University in California. His latest book is "The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class" (Encounter Books, 2020).(2) Woke Left facing Defeat in 2022https://www.commentarymagazine.com/noah-rothman/the-left-will-never-see-it-coming/Commentary MagazineMAY 03, 2021 POLITICS & IDEASThe Left Will Never See It Comingby Noah RothmanOver the weekend, residents of a prosperous, well-educated suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth went to the polls to vote in municipal elections. There, races for local offices revolved around a controversial plan to institutionalize the precepts of Critical Race Theory in education. And for proponents of that plan, it was an absolute shellacking.Those who backed the teaching of post-liberal racial thought in American classrooms had big plans. They sought to force both teachers and students into mandatory cultural-sensitivity training programs and empower a "director of equity and inclusion" to oversee it all. They wanted to create a formal database to track incidences of racism, discrimination, and harassment. They hoped to introduce a zero-tolerance policy for episodes of racism and discrimination, on or off-campus. And they intended to establish an archive of "microaggressions," which are exactly what they sound like: minor, probably unintentional slights that could conceivably be construed as racial even when likelier and more convincing explanations for individual acts of thoughtlessness exist.Opponents of this philosophy won, and by no small margin. The slate of candidates arrayed against these ideas beat out opponents by roughly 70 to 30 percent, taking two school board seats, two city council seats, and the mayoralty. What's more, turnout in this unconventionally timed race ballooned by as much as three times the rate at which voters typically participate in Southlake, Texas municipal elections.There are lessons in these results that Democrats would be well-served to internalize, but that seems an unlikely prospect. In reporting on the outcome of the municipal elections, NBC News framed the revolutionary proposals on which Texans were asked to vote as nothing more than "diversity and inclusion training requirements." Its critics, NBC reported, claimed that the new methodology would "institutionalize discrimination," but the vote against this "pro-diversity plan" was generally dismissed as the verdict of a "historically conservative city" where "74 percent of residents are white." As one member of the small minority of parents who supported these efforts mourned, "it feels like hate wins."Such a framing presents the victorious opponents of these measures not as a vanguard but as the reactionary and hidebound remnants of an outmoded political theory. That could be highly misleading, but you can see how it would comfort wounded anti-racism campaigners. After all, this exercise in narrative crafting is familiar.The effort to introduce theories posited by the New York Times' "1619 Project" into K-12 classrooms is a highly visible fact of modern life for parents. Public schools in districts like Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City, and Buffalo introduced the project's tenets into the curriculum shortly after its publication in 2019. In Ohio, one education department was so eager to display its support for the new ideology that it allegedly went so far as to restrict public comments to mute its opponents.The educators who are intent on adding this symposium of op-eds to the syllabus have every reason to fear their critics. The "1619 Project" has been the subject of caustic criticism from working historians across the political spectrum.Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon Wood described the project as "wrong in so many ways." Lauded chronicler of the Civil War, James McPherson, called the project a "one-sided account" that "left most of the history out." In these pages, author and University of Oklahoma history professor Wilfred McClay observed that the Project's claim that America's capitalistic ethos was an outgrowth of slavery is a byproduct of the project's reliance on "demonstrably wrong" and long ago discarded academic theories. Its own editors described the "goal of the 1619 Project" not as dispassionate history but an effort to "reframe American history" and place slavery "at the very center of our national narrative."So, when the Department of Education published guidelines for a new grant emphasizing the "1619 Project" and advising applicants to show how they would teach "systemic marginalization, biases, inequities, and discriminatory policy and practice in American history" accordingly, there was plenty of room for good-faith objections. But when Sen. Mitch McConnell offered one such objection in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, the reaction provoked by his request to avoid promoting a "politicized and divisive agenda" in the classroom was anything but honest."Republicans ask Biden to withdraw 'divisive' proposal to teach more Black history," read Reuters's headline. "McConnell leans into the culture wars," Politico's playbook reported. Absent any valid objections to the teaching of this media product in classrooms, "the Kentucky Republican no doubt is looking to throw some red meat to the base." The Republican leader "dove into the cancel culture wars," the Huffington Post contended. It was difficult to find much coverage of the Education Department's directive outside conservative media before McConnell merely acknowledged this initiative. Indeed, McConnell's reaction to the story received more coverage than the story itself, and primarily to provide his progressive critics with a springboard to dunk all over their political adversary.To judge from their preferred media venues, the left is more inclined to discredit critics of an agenda centered around the tenets of anti-racism philosophy than they are to take stock of the resonance of those critiques. If election results in Southlake are any indication, this is a losing issue for the left. For the moment, Democrats seem constitutionally incapable of taking the hint.(3) Wokeness is a problem for the Democratic Party - James Carvillehttps://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/05/02/pinkerton-wokery-is-snobbery-how-the-populist-right-can-win-the-new-class-war/Pinkerton: Wokery Is Snobbery; How the Populist Right Can Win the New Class WarJAMES P. PINKERTON2 May 2021  2,154Carville's Warning to DemocratsJames Carville is a well-known Democratic operative, and yet he's also capable of causing trouble for Democrats.  That's what happened in an April 27 interview, when he declared, "Wokeness is a problem, and we all know it."  A problem, that is, for the Democratic Party.As Carville explained:You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people?  They come up with a word like "Latinx" that no one else uses.  Or they use a phrase like "communities of color."  I don't know anyone who speaks like that.  I don't know anyone who lives in a "community of color."  I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in . . .  neighborhoods.We might pay special attention to some of Carville's word-choices: "people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges." There's a stereotype that leading Democrats hang out in the Ivy League and other posh colleges—and Carville agrees with it.Indeed, he went on to attack "jargon-y language that's unrecognizable to most people—including most Black people."  Picking up on his theme of a snobby dimension to leftist thinking, Carville added, "This 'too cool for school' [bleep] doesn't work, and we have to stop it."Here we can pause to quote conservative Scott Alexander, who wrote earlier this year, "Wokeness is a made-up mystery religion that college-educated people invented so they could feel superior to you." Continuing, Alexander added, "The whole point is that the only way not to be racist is to master an inscrutable and constantly-changing collection of fashionable shibboleths and opinions which are secretly class norms."So we can see: Alexander is agreeing with Carville; the whole essence of wokeness is that it's a status symbol.  Just as some people choose to raise themselves—at least in their own estimation—by gaining an affected accent, others seek to gain status by becoming fluent in woke.Politically correct lingo thus further distinguishes Berkeley, CA, from, say, Beckley, WV.Then Carville, a native of rural Louisiana, known as the "Ragin' Cajun," roared some more, saying of Democratic vulnerability, "I think it's because large parts of the country view us as an urban, coastal, arrogant party."We can also add: "rich."  Of the ten richest states (including the District of Columbia), as measured by per capita income, Joe Biden carried eight last year; of the ten poorest states, Donald Trump carried nine.  Drilling down a bit, we can also see that Democrats represent 41 of the 50 most affluent districts in the U.S. House.Yet it's not just that Democrats are woke and wealthy. In addition, some of their best-known policy ideas are way-y-y out of touch with ordinary people. But don't take my world for it—here's Carville: "Maybe tweeting that we should abolish the police isn't the smartest thing to do because almost [bleeping] no one wants to do that."Not surprisingly, Carville's words didn't play well with the woken. Transgender activist Charlotte Clymer lamented that Carville has "chosen to buy into this bizarre myth that asking adults to be empathetic and responsible is 'wokeness.'"And the woken website Jezebel jabbed, "Carville seems to have one job of late: Popping up to offer his list of grievances about the left's influence on the Democratic Party."  The writer then addd a racialist snipe at "People—often white, often men—with large and influential platforms who redefine co-opted terms like 'woke' and dictate its supposed harm."Yet interestingly, on April 30, Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, seemed to agree with Carville. As Harrison said of Carville, "there's some truth to what he says," and then he added:Ultimately, working people just want somebody, and their leaders, to speak plain English, to speak to them in the way that they operate, in the space that they operate in.We might recall that Harrison was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina last year, in which he challenged Sen. Lindsey Graham—and that in September 2020, he was running dead even with Graham. But then Graham started running TV spots lambasting Harrison and Democrats for wanting to defund the police.  Graham's spots did the job.   In November, Harrison lost by 10 points, despite spending $130 million, vastly more than Graham.Summing up the election afterward, Harrison's former boss and longtime mentor, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), recalled, "Jaime Harrison started to plateau when 'Defund the Police' showed up with a caption on TV right across his head."In the South Carolina results—Harrison outspending Graham, thanks to abundant out-of-state donations, but still losing badly—we can see the lesson for the Democrats that Carville was pointing to: Woke is wealthy, but woke doesn't work politically.In fact, Carville is not backing down. On May 1, he appeared on CNN, adding fuel to the fire, incinerating wokeness yet again: "Most of the people that are enthused by this kind of dialogue live in Boston or Manhattan or Washington, but we're going to carry D.C. and New York and Massachusetts.  We're not going to win an election in a faculty lounge." ...(4) UK working class hand Labour another defeat, rejecting its Woke valueshttps://www.spectator.com.au/2021/05/labour-is-doomed-whether-starmer-stays-or-goes/Labour is doomed whether Starmer stays or goesPatrick O'FlynnPatrick O'Flynn7 May 20217:37 PMSo the Conservatives have won the 'pools, as we used to say of jackpot winners before the advent of the National Lottery.The Hartlepool constituency, known before 1974 as 'the Hartlepools' in recognition of the distinct settlements of old Hartlepool and West Hartlepool, has just secured its place in British political folk lore. It isn't just the fact of a red wall brick turning blue at a by-election some 11 years into Tory-led governments that is remarkable, but also the crushing extent of the Conservative victory.While by-elections are often remembered as flashes in the pan – with shock results reversed at subsequent general elections – that is because they are normally won by opposition parties when governments are going through unpopular phases.For governing parties to win hitherto safe opposition seats in by-elections is very rare indeed. When it happens by a landslide, at the start of mid-term, amid 'sleaze' accusations being flung at the PM and against a leader of the opposition who should still be in his honeymoon phase then we are entitled to suppose that something more profound is going on.Which it is. As I have been arguing ever since the 2019 general election, most recently for Coffee House earlier this week, a long-term structural political alignment is in progress that stems from the collapse of Labour's traditional coalition of support.Brexit was the catalyst and Labour's post-referendum behaviour the accelerant. The traditional working class, to be found in largest numbers in post-industrial towns in the Midlands and the north of England, has come to understand that its values are despised by the modern, woke, middle-class Left which now holds the Labour party in its grip.Were Labour now to decide that it must tilt drastically back towards the pro-nation, tough on crime, socially conservative, immigration-sceptic, anti-ID politics outlook of its lost tribe of voters, then Keir Starmer would not be the man to lead it.As the uber-Remainer, the mastermind of Labour's betrayal of Leave voters, the knee-taker in chief to the Cenotaph-defacers of BLM and the man who sided with whiney Meghan and Harry against the Royal Family, he would have no credibility as a Blue Labourite. Just a slippery London lawyer in a sharp suit trying his luck with a new message.But were anyone else to lead such a bold change of direction, the consequences for Labour would be equally disastrous. The two-thirds of its activists and big chunk of its voters who subscribe to the full panoply of modernist-Left beliefs would surely slope off in huge numbers to the Greens. ...(5) Business Lobby in Australia's Northern Territory campaign to bring foreign workers backhttps://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2021/05/bosses-demand-separate-quarantine-facilities-for-foreign-workers/Bosses demand separate quarantine facilities for foreign workersBy Unconventional Economist in Australian Economyat 1:40 pm on May 6, 2021Bosses across the Northern Territory have used the cover of ‘skills shortages’ to lobby the government to build a second quarantine facility at the former detention centre Bladin Village – 50 kilometres from Darwin – for the exclusive purpose of flying in foreign workers and students:The NT Farmers Association and Hospitality NT want to use Bladin Village — a former detention centre 50 kilometres from Darwin, previously known as Wickham Point — to help bring in foreign workers for industries including agriculture, hospitality and construction.They say the facility could also be used to quarantine international students who wish to study in Australia…The facility has the capacity for more than 1,400 people and, under the NT Farmers’ proposal, it would be run by the Federal Government, with states and territories contributing to operational costs.Industries would pay $2,500 per person for the 14-day quarantine period…Hospitality NT is backing the NT Farmers’ proposal for Bladin Village, with CEO Alex Bruce saying he hopes it will help his industry solve a 7,000-worker shortage.Here’s a novel idea: if these businesses are struggling to find workers they should offer higher pay. None of these roles are ‘skilled’ and all could be filled by the resident workforce with a little training.The notion that the Northern Territory is experiencing acute worker shortages flies in the face of the Territory’s abysmally low wage growth of only 1.6%:Northern Territory wage growthNorthern Territory wage growth remains abysmally low.If labour shortages are so acute, then why aren’t wages rising as employers compete for staff?And why is the Northern Territory’s labour underutilisation rate still so high?NT labour underutilisation rateNorthern Territory’s labour underutilisation rate remains high.Clearly, the notion of widespread labour shortages has been dreamt up by employers to coerce the government to open the immigration floodgates. Because having ready access to cheap foreign workers is an easy way to cut back on labour costs and remove the need to provide training.The business lobby is right to insist on expanding the nation’s quarantine capacity in low risk locations like Bladin Village. But this capacity must be reserved first and foremost for the tens-of-thousands of Australians still stranded abroad.(6) Economist Ross Garnaut admits that mass immigration lowers wages, & causes economic stagnationhttps://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2021/05/finally-economists-admit-lower-immigration-is-good-for-workers/Finally economists admit lower immigration is good for workersBy Unconventional Economist at 12:15 am on May 6, 2021After being ignored for nearly a decade, it is gratifying to see Australia's economics fraternity belatedly endorse MB's argument that lower levels of immigration are necessary to drive labour underutilisation down and wages up.The shift began in March with the release of Ross Garnaut's new book, Reset, which argues that the massive increase in Australia's immigration intake in the early 2000s, which saw Australia's population swell by 35% in 20 years, was one of the major factors contributing to Australia's decade long wage stagnation. Garnaut also calls for Australia's immigration intake to be halved post-COVID to safeguard workers and living standards:"The overall effect was to integrate much of the Australian labour market into a global labour market for the first time"…"Integration into a global labour market held down wages and inflation during the resources boom, [but] it contributed to persistent unemployment, rising underemployment and stagnant real wages"…"It contributed to the historic shift in the distribution of income from wages to profits. Increased immigration contributed to total GDP growth, but detracted from the living standards of many Australian working families"…"Breaches of labour laws on wages and other conditions became common"…"Immigration now lowers the incomes and employment prospects of low-income Australians".Since then we have witnessed a conga-line of economists confess that mass immigration lifts unemployment and lowers wages, including ANZ's Daniel Gradwell, Citi's Craig Woolford and CBA's Gareth Aird; although Aird has been consistent on the matter for years.Even the RBA, which has long been a cheerleader of mass immigration, has tentatively acknowledged that the endless migrant flood has worked against its goal of full employment and wage growth.The latest mainstream economist to fall into line with MB's view is Saul Eslake, who explained to the Eureka Report's Alan Kohler that the closure of Australia's borders to migrants has significantly reduced the amount of ‘competition' which Australians who've lost their jobs face in seeking new ones. This, in turn, helps to explain why the unemployment rate has fallen faster than expected and should soon lead to rising wages:"The longer our borders remain closed to international migrants, the easier it is for the targets for unemployment to be achieved"."For example, on average over the three years to March 2020, the working aged population was growing by around 22,000 a month. And that in turn meant you needed jobs growth of around 13,000 a month or more in order merely to stop the unemployment rate from rising. But since the onset of the pandemic and in the last six months or so, the working age population has only risen by around 8,300 a month. And that means that you can prevent the unemployment rate from rising with much less employment growth than pre-pandemic. Or, to put it another way, you only need employment growth of about 0.13% per month in order to get the unemployment down to less than 5% by the end of this calendar year. Whereas if the working aged population has been growing at its pre-pandemic rate, you would have needed employment growth of more than double that in order to get the unemployment rate down to 5% or less with no change in the workforce participation rate"…The SMH's economics editor, Ross Gittins, noted similar yesterday:"[Economic managers have] concluded that the only way to get wages growing again is to get unemployment down so far that employers are having trouble finding the workers they need and are forced to compete with other employers by bidding up the wages they're prepared to pay…[It is] quite foreign to what the econocrats have been telling us about wages for as long as I've been in journalism…Amazing isn't it. Gareth Aird aside, it is like Australia's economists have suddenly discovered the laws of gravity!Let's hope economists now unite and speak out against the Morrison Government's planned reboot of immigration to pre-COVID levels by:Abolishing labour market testing requirements;Lowering costs and speeding up approval times for importing foreign workers;Expanding the skilled occupation list to include almost any role;Providing all ‘skilled' visa holders with a clear pathway for transition to permanent residency; andGranting ‘skilled' visa holders priority access to flights and hotel quarantine ahead of stranded Australians.If the pre-COVID level of migration are restored, an extra ~200,000 workers would enter the Australian labour market every year. This would necessarily drive up unemployment and put downward pressure on wage growth.Australians already suffered a decade of stagnating real wage growth on the back of mass immigration, alongside declining amenity. The Morrison Government's proposed immigration reforms would be a fatal final blow for wages and living standards.(7) Marine Le Pen cleared of Hate Speech for posting Images of ISIS Atrocitieshttps://summit.news/2021/05/04/le-pen-cleared-of-breaking-hate-speech-laws-for-posting-images-of-isis-atrocities/Le Pen Cleared of Breaking Hate Speech Laws For Posting Images of ISIS AtrocitiesLudicrous charge went to court despite Le Pen using images to condemn ISIS.Populist leader Marine Le Pen has been cleared of violating hate speech laws after she was ludicrously charged for posting images of ISIS atrocities in an effort to illustrate the barbarity of ISIS.Le Pen originally posted the images in 2015 as a rebuttal to comparisons that were being made between her National Front party and Islamic jihadists."This is what Daesh is," she wrote under the photos, which showed ISIS militants executing people.Despite posting the photos in an effort to denounce ISIS, Le Pen was accused of "disseminating violent messages that could seriously harm human dignity," a charge that was never applied to media outlets or journalists who shared similar photos.While anything other than an acquittal would have been incomprehensible, the fact that it took over 5 years to happen is absurd and undoubtedly related to Le Pen’s hostility to the French establishment.Le Pen, who has vowed to ban "Islamist ideologies" and restrict wearing of the hijab in public places, is once again expected to end up in an election run off with President Emanuel Macron, with the vote set to take place in April next year.As we previously highlighted, it appears as though a growing segment of the French population shares her concerns.  A poll released last week found that a majority of French people support the sentiments expressed in a letter signed by active duty and retired members of the military warning that the country is heading towards a "civil war" caused by failed multiculturalism and attacks on French identity.(8) Britain's first Trans Hate Crime trial is halted, as Judge dismisses the casehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6764763/Britains-transgender-hate-crime-trial-halted-one-day.htmlBritain's first transgender hate crime trial is halted after one day as judge says 'there is no case and never was a case'Miranda Yardley, 51, was accused of harassing transgender activist Helen IslanDistrict Judge John Woollard dismissed the case following a one-day hearingThe judge's decision has been called a victory for free speech by campaignersBy SANCHEZ MANNING and JOANI WALSH FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAYPUBLISHED: 09:11 AEST, 3 March 2019 | UPDATED: 15:49 AEST, 3 March 2019Britain's first transgender hate crime prosecution has been halted by a judge who declared: 'There is no case and never was a case.'Miranda Yardley, 51, was put 'through ten months of hell' after being accused of harassing a transgender activist on Twitter.But District Judge John Woollard dismissed the case after a one-day hearing, saying there was simply no evidence.Campaigners called the decision a victory for free speech, while the accused claimed police were being used to 'enforce a political ideology'.The hearing at Basildon Magistrates' Court in Essex last Friday brought into sharp focus the complex and often rancorous divisions within the transgender community.On one side was Yardley, an accountant, who describes himself as a transsexual and identifies as a man, even though he underwent gender reassignment to become a woman ten years ago.Despite his own experience, his contention is that individuals cannot change sex – and this has drawn fierce criticism on social media.Giving evidence via video link was his accuser, Helen Islan, who is married with children and works with the trans advocacy group Mermaids, which campaigns for children who want to change gender.The court heard that one of her teenage children is transgender. The spat began with a discussion – joined by other Twitter users – about self-identification, which allows people to be recognised as transgender simply by declaring themselves male or female.Concerns were also expressed about how the powerful trans lobby was allegedly eroding women's rights by allowing transgender women, born male, into female-only spaces. This, it was argued, was a threat to women.But using a pseudonym, Ms Islan accused her opponents of 'spreading hysteria' and it was at this point the exchanges grew increasingly aggressive.In response, she was unmasked by Yardley who tweeted a picture and a link to her real identity. The tweet also referenced her transgender child, which Ms Islan argued effectively 'outed' him.She said it led to them both being harassed adding that the post made her feel 'stressed and sick'.Initially, Ms Islan's complaint was dealt with by West Yorkshire Police before being passed to colleagues in Essex, who decided it was a hate crime.But when the case reached court the defence referred to pages of social media posts in which Ms Islan herself was regularly tweeting about her trans child, about him taking blockers, that he had 'come out' at school.The court heard that a simple search on Google brought up Ms Islan's personal details, including a family photograph that she had herself posted.At one point during the hearing, Judge Woollard said: 'Where is the evidence [of harassment] taking into account the need for free speech? You have to show a course of conduct and at the moment we have one tweet.Where is the evidence for Miranda Yardley outing Ms Islan's son?' Later he threw out the case and awarded costs to the defendant. ...