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]
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Detlev Schlichter starting the week next week Incoming from Detlev Schlichter:
Just a heads-up in case you are interested, I will be one of four guests on Andrew Marr’s show Start the Week on BBC Radio Four on Monday, 16th January. The program starts at 9 am but there are various ‘listen again’ facilities, and it will also be published as a podcast. The topic is the financial crisis, and the other guests are The Economist’s Philip Coggan (author recently of Paper Promises), Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, and the Labour life peer Maurice Glasman.
I am interested.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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The man is on his way to being a megastar, if I have anything to do with it.
If he can give Baron Bishopsgate or whatever he wanted to call himself, a kickin’ he’s got my applause.
Well one against four (counting Andrew M.) – but still worth listening to.
Many thanks for pointing this out Brian.
The man from the Economist magazine was a lot fairer than I expected him to be. As was Andrew Marr.
Although one was still left with the impression (from the Economist man and so on) that some balance needs to be struck between the demands of debters (and others) for more money to “help the economy” and the demands of creditors (savers) to preserve the value of money.
No doubt a policy aimed at preserving a “stable price level” or some such – as with the (terrible) policy of monetary expansion during the late 1920s (under the “gold standard”, beware the word “standard” it implies that the gold is NOT the money, that it is just a “standard” for something else that is the money) and the 1990s and 2000s (the great Alan Greenspan inflation – which according to inflation-is-prices-going-up-in-the-shops people was not inflation at all).
Detlev Schlichter had a few chances to say things and did say some things. Perhaps he could have made more deadly points (and perhaps he could have WARNED IN STRONGER TERMS about the times that will soon be upon us), but he did not really have time to develop an argument in a civilized way (and he is clearly a civilized man).
The Labour party Lord said something interesting things – although he was obsessed with “worker representation” on company boards and the need for formal qualifcations to do any job (what did he want a Guild system as in the Middle Ages – does he really believe that sort of restrictive practice is in the interests of the poor?) – and he confused “the labour theory of value” with the dignity of labour (they are rather different things).
However, he was right about German culture still valueing producing physical things – and producing them WELL. The idea of the craftsman is alive and well in high tech Germany. As is the idea of the family business (something I do not think he did mention). And he even praised the Austrian School – astonishing.
Although Detlev Schlichter is correct that RELATIVELY sound German monetary and fiscal policies (since World War II) are the reason that Germany has done better than Britain. And also that Germany faces many of the same problems that other places face – for example the unsupportable Welfare State and the problems of major credit bubble banks.
They are not all small Lander and county banks – and lots of bad little institutions (like the American “Thrifts” in the 1980s) are as bad as a few big banks anyway.
It is the PRINCIPLE (the principle of lending out money that DOES NOT REALLY EXIST – i.e. “savings” that no one has actually saved) that is the problem – not whether there a few big banks or lots of little banks.
As for the lady from the Bankers Association……
Well this person said nothing very bad. Although there was little point in her being there – although I suppose the idea was to have the “banks represented”.