We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

You are not supposed to take money away from the competent people and give it to the incompetent so that the incompetent can compete with the competent people with their own money. That’s not the way capitalism is supposed to work.

– Jim Rogers tells Zero Hedge what he thinks of bank bailouts. (Thanks to Adam Gilhespy for spotting this.)

8 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Mr Ed

    The whole point of politics is to reward failure and so doing by punishing success. For some, punishing success and turning it into failure is the essence of their beliefs.

  • Laird

    A very interesting interview and worth reading in full. I love the line quoted here, but there is more good stuff farther down.

    FM: You have become very favourable towards competing currencies as a solution to the crisis of fiat money.

    JR: That’s the only solution that has ever worked long term. Nothing has worked a long time – including gold, silver, seashells, cattle. Nothing has worked long term except that you choose your money.

    * * *

    FM: So competing currencies and may the best money win?

    JR: It’s the only solution that has worked throughout history. Every government imposed, every dictated from of money has always failed. Including the gold standard.

    Very insightful comments.

  • Mike Giles

    B-B-B-B-But letting the incompetent suffer the rewards of their incompetence is so unfair?

  • Paul Marks

    When will the madness end?

    As had often been said….

    Although the end will be terrible, it must come – and at least it will be the end.

  • Nick (nice-guy) Gray

    Look, there are a few who are very rich, like the tip of a pyramid, and there are many who are less rich, like the base of the same pyramid, and a politician must win more votes, so politicians are always going to promise to help the broad base- because if they don’t they will lose power. So Democracies will always have wage-gap wars (in place of class wars), or at least wage-gap rhetoric. so long as a country has a strong constitution, it can survive these bouts of envy.

  • Mr Ed

    @ Nick. Except that no one has to vote for theft, and even if they do, such a system will not last.

  • Nick (nice-guy) Gray

    Ed, does that mean that taxation is not theft? Aren’t taxes imposed by our elected reps? If you think it will not last, is this because nothing lasts, or because the system will implode? It has not yet imploded, so when will it? People actually do vote for theft, so long as it is called a tax. If politicians called it theft, yes, the system would not last, but it is sugar-coated, so we swallow the poison.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes Nick – taxation is voted upon.

    But the antics of the Central Banks are not voted upon – and they are just as much theft.

    When the create money (from nothing) and hand it out to their pals, the money everyone else has is worth less than it would otherwise have been.

    They are stealing from us.