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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Samizdata quote of the day A new study shows first-born children are more able and ambitious. So, why have we been ruled by a succession of younger siblings as prime ministers? So, why have we been ruled by a succession of younger siblings as prime ministers?
Because the able and ambitious go off to do something more interesting than tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
I mean seriously: where’s the sodding ambition in straining to reach a position that Gordon Fucking Brown managed to gain?
– Tim Worstall
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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 great majority of politicians are effwits who can’t get a high paying job in the real world. Merchant banking is populated by effwits, witness how they had to be bailed out by Left wing Governments in Britain and America when they propped up Left Wing governments mad housing schemes, housing doesn’t create wealth.
There’re a lamp posts in London and New York that could be put to better use.
A lot of Merchant Bankers are very smart people who operate in a system in which politicians provide extremely perverse incentives to do things that are stupid, vis a vis the economy in general, but which are more or less required either by law or by intentional structural distortion if said Merchant Bankers want to play the game. But there are also a few who are indeed effwits 😀
Perry,
The point is while they’re intelligent they ignore the consequences of getting involved with politicians who’re their biggest clients, it’s like priests being chummy with the devil, without whom they’d be out of a job.
Merchant Bankers hate governments who don’t borrow, big loans, big commissions.
Indeed. That is what those “perverse incentives” look like 😉
No, they would just be doing a different sort of Merchant Banking. And we would all be better off for it.
Merchant bankers have always dealt (and been intimately involved) with politicians and governments. Read the histories of Barings, Lehman Brothers, the Rothschilds, etc. The difference is that in the old days they controlled the politicians; today the reverse is true. But not all of them realize it (yet).
Well speaking as someone who worked in merchant banking, I assure you that lots of what get done is investment banking for projects that have nothing much to do with politicians and governments 😉 But at one time I also worked for the EIB, which is entirely about politicians and governments and it would be fair to say it is what drove me into the libertarian world view.
Perry,
I apologise for offending you.
But as you say Merchant Banking is necessary to finance substantial projects that expose banks to too much risk. But it’s politicians who fuck things up. The SMA is a classic example how big projects should be managed, not borrowing to fund largess.
I am not offended at all Regional! Indeed merchant banking and finance generally is so fucked up that seeing the reality it up close turned me into a libertarian! 😀
As I commented on Tim’s site, access to the world of career politics is largely controlled by the political circle. And there’s little incentive for those in the political circle to encourage entrants who would provide competition to the incumbents. So the entire system selects for mediocrity.
Words that precede an assertion that was surely in the minds of the ‘researchers’ before they even started looking at data, and is in fact a methodology of ‘hypothesis formulated for no obvious reason – evidence that suits hypothesis selected – hypothesis confirmed’ rather than, say, an examination of the stoichiometry of the combustion of ethane in chlorine by experiment and any attempt to understand what the ‘research’ shows.
You may note the complete absence of a mechanism, no positive control, no negative control, no standard material, no caveats.
I also note that the Grauniad piece hints at the FT suggesting that succession planning including provision for selecting first-borns.
Which is of course, arguably discrimination on the ground of age, and therefore may be unlawful. Naughty FT.
Perhaps we need affirmative action for the last-born! There’s a whole new field for bureaucrats to explore! Juniority can be the next cause.
It is said that those who can’t do, teach. I suppose those who can’t teach, run for office, and those who can’t learn, elect and re-elect them.
I nominate that quote from Billll as SQOTD!