Want to take a guess at which presidential candidate’s economic program consists of making us all work more hours? A hint: it’s the one who was born with a Wedgewood silver coffee service in his mouth:

“My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours” and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.”

Aren’t you sometimes afraid of your fellow citizens? Check this out:

PPP’s newest North Carolina poll finds that Donald Trump’s momentum just keeps on building. He’s the top choice of Republican primary voters in the state, getting 16% to 12% for Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, 11% for Mike Huckabee, 9% for Ben Carson and Marco Rubio, 7% for Rand Paul, 6% for Ted Cruz, 5% for Chris Christie, 4% for Carly Fiorina, 2% for Rick Perry, 1% each for Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum, and less than 1%

each.

Well, one thing is for sure. Nobody wants a moderate. And many people don’t even want sane.

Fellow educators: do you assign group projects to your students? I almost never do because I can’t face having to arbitrate between those who did all the work and those who did nothing.

When a group project is unavoidable, I always give everybody in the group their own grade. I don’t get the point of the one-grade-per-the-entire-group practice. What’s the point other than making the teacher’s life easier? What can be the pedagogic rationale?

The Mayor of the Spanish city of Granada met with the high-schoolers who had shown the best results on a college readiness test. The Mayor had some important wisdom to impart to the eager students.

“The more naked a woman is, the more elegant that makes her!” the Mayor announced. “And it’s the opposite for a man! The more dressed he is, the more elegant that makes him!”

There is an enormous brain drain from Spain right now. Brilliant young people are fleeing the country en masse because the country’s future has been devoured by corrupt and piggish politicians like the Mayor of Granada.

I was emailed the following question:

Are you as opposed to the IMF offering debt forgiveness to Ukraine as you are for Greece?

As nobody around here except me knows, Ukraine is teetering on the brink of economic collapse. Ukraine’s economy has been shrinking faster than any other economy in the world this year, and things are dire. Ukraine’s debt is much smaller than that of the much smaller Greece (how on Earth did the Greeks manage to waste 360 billion when even Ukrainians were only able to spend 40?) and there is a war going on.

Given all this, I’m not as much against debt forgiveness for Ukraine. I’m a lot, lot, LOT more against debt forgiveness because I care about Ukraine ‘ s future so much more than I ever could about Greece.

Ukraine needs to implement all of the reforms suggested by the IMF and it has to get rid of the noxious Soviet mentality that makes people sit on their asses and wait for the government to give them things and somehow magically to defeat corruption.

And there’s a long way to go yet. The Ukrainian parliament is trying to push through a bill where people who had taken out lines of credit in USD will be allowed to repay their loans in local currency at the pre-inflation rates. This is, of course, an enormous handout to those who made a bad (and almost always an unnecessary) bet. And the really great thing is that finally – finally! – there are people in Ukraine who are saying that the bill is wrong and should be rejected. There are even patriots who are saying they will emigrate if the bill goes through because they don’t want to live in the country of endless handouts. And that’s beautiful.

Debt forgiveness would mean business as usual: corruption, enormous swatches of young, able-bodied people refusing to work and waiting for yet another handout, cynicism, disillusionment, poverty. Ukraine can do better, that’s for sure. And it will as soon as Ukrainians abandon the Soviet mentality altogether.

Greeks, in the meantime, can go suck off Putin for all I care.

I only had a chance to watch part of Hillary ‘ s first major campaign interview but it was hilarious. Hillary did not answer a single direct question, no matter how hard the interviewer tried to press. It was all “I will address this eventually,” “I will make my position known,” “I will give a speech addressing this on Monday.”

The interviewer was getting tired of this and finally pointed out that most Americans consider Hillary dishonest and untrustworthy. To which Hillary responded that the Right was to blame.

I loved Hillary at this interview. I really dig the sang-froid, the coldness, the utter indifference she evinces towards her very obvious lack of charisma. I never see any women I can identify with on television here. And it’s kind of lonely. Unlike Hillary, I can be charming if I choose to try, but I really identified with her unapologetic refusal to please and accommodate.

As for the actual issues, she refused to discuss them, so I can’t opine.

So does anybody here know what the great disagreement between the EU and Greece is all about? What are these cuts that Tsipras is so valiantly resisting?

One cut that Tsipras has refused even to discuss is military spending. Europe is asking for a cut of 200,000 extra in military spending but Tsipras won’t even discuss it. Because growing their military is absolutely crucial for the impoverished Greeks right now. As you probably know, Greece has the third largest military expenditure rate in the NATO after the US and the UK relative to the GNP. And that’s just something that Tsipras is not going to sacrifice.

I wonder what military conflict the Greeks are preparing for with such urgency.

No, of course, I don’t wonder. What Tsipras is doing is absolutely transparent.

If Bernie supports Greece, I can’t support Bernie. Unfortunately, Sanders has demonstrated that he doesn’t get foreign policy. He thinks that every country in the world is a mini-Vermont, and that’s just Patrick Buchanan with a different vector. And we can’t have a Buchanan – style politician deciding our foreign policy.

So we are left with Hillary. The huge upside with her is that Putin is terrified of her more than of any other candidate.

On July 4, Putin called Obama to wish him happy Independence Day. As the call was taking place, 4 Russian long-range strategic bombers with nuclear capabilities approached the US air space.

Two of the bombers came within a couple of miles of Alaska and two more were flying close to the central part of California’s coast. US fighter jets had to go up to intercept the Russian bombers.

This has been reported in the US media but in a very quiet way. I’m betting you haven’t heard about it because any real information gets drowned out by yet another meaningless cycle of outrage. I watched the news for over an hour yesterday, and all I heard was an endless Donald Trump loop. And yes, Trump is an idiot, but let’s move on already. We have nuclear bombers of a very hostile nation approaching our air space. Isn’t that a bit more important than yet another tantrum by yet another unelectable loser?