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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Public regulation is static by principle. According to his knowledge of the past, a regulator will define conditions for the presence. However, she cannot know what will come in the future. By definition, innovation represents the direct opposite. Innovator cares not about what people did in the past or what the current situation is. Innovation is a projection of the future. The issue arises when these two concepts collide in a concrete case. The regulators then judge the innovation on the basis of the old standards and the innovators judge the regulation based on their own vision of the future.
Today the static barriers of government regulations are exceeded by new technological innovations and new entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is necessary to take a step back and look at these issues from a broader perspective. We can also look at this problematics simplistically and see if the new technology fits into the official regulatory box, or not. And if it, by chance, doesn’t fit, we ban it automatically.
– Robert Chovanculiak
Specifically, Buffett offered to bet that over a ten-year period from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2017, the S&P 500 index would outperform a portfolio of hedge funds when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs, and all expenses. Hedge fund manager Ted Seides of Protégé Partners accepted Buffett’s bet and he identified five hedge funds that the predicted would out-perform the S&P 500 index over ten years.
As I reported last September on CD, Buffett’s now-famous bet was actually settled early and ahead of schedule, because the outcome was so one-sided in favor of the S&P 500 index over hedge funds
– Mark Perry
I have been following this for a while and given my views on hedge funds, I was not in the slightest bit surprised at the outcome. Factor in fees, costs, and all expenses and the difference becomes eye-watering. Personally I am a big fan of the Terry Smith school of thought (which is to say when it comes to investments “don’t just do something, sit there!”): with a few glorious exceptions, managed funds almost always over-trade.
2017 was a very good year for me, and I would like to wish our fractious community of contributors and readers a splendiferous 2018.
 New Year’s Eve at Samizdata HQ with a La Bomba Daiquiri
This was a real threat to the press, and our #FreeThePress campaign urged citizens to say No to both prospects. Section 40 would mean strong-arming newspapers into signing up to a press-backed regulator – ending centuries of a (relatively) free press. What’s more, the only press regulator that has been approved by the Leveson-created Press Recognition Panel is Impress, which is staffed by snobbish ‘hackademics’ and funded by tabloid-loathing millionaire Max Mosley.
– Naomi Firsht
Wishing our readers a splendid Christmas…
 Duck with skin turned to quackling, stuffed with pheasant & wood pigeon. Beware of shot. Crispy roast potatoes coated with polenta. More off-camera!
But the problem is worse. For in our taxation of the richer among us we’re pretty much at that Laffer Curve point. Sure, we can argue about whether the income tax take peaks at 40%, 43%, 47% and so on but all the experience (our own experience with the 50% rate, academic research by Diamond and Saez and so on) tells us that when we look at taxes upon income (so, adding NI and so on) then we are at least around about that peak.
Which means that if we’re to increase the tax take as a percentage of the economy, the thing being demanded, then we’re going to have to tax the poorer among us. The very people who don’t have much to start with and who are really going to miss that marginal income.
– Tim Worstall
Adriana Lukas, intermittently of this parish, will be giving a chat on the cheerful subject of Life under Communism. Turn up and meet assorted Samizdataistas at this Libertarian Home meetup event in London, Tuesday, December 5, 2017, 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM!
For the past 12 years, Swift has managed to channel the the homegrown charm of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, with a dash of the Nashville country music scene, while gallivanting around New York with Lena Dunham and Karlie Kloss types. By sidestepping politics, she’s shown she doesn’t have to choose between past and present, or sever old ties as she laps up fame and money. She’s a pop star, and although she wields sizeable influence, she has no obligation to be political.
Essentially, the charge against her is that she hasn’t participated in the ‘denouncing Trump’ dog and pony show. This isn’t about her being apolitical, it’s about her failing to endorse socially acceptable liberal policies and candidates. Worse still was Swift’s refusal to celebrate Hillary Clinton.
– Steigerwald & Wolfe
I am indifferent to Taylor Swift (that said, she is very easy on the eyes and I do have a soft spot for driven successful people), but oh.my.god… I loath people who demand everything be about frigging politics. So if Swiftie really doesn’t give a flying fuck about the whole political dog-and-pony show, I must say that, rather than the music, does make me rather warm to her.
 Swiftie sez take yer politics and shove it where the sun don’t shine
All the while, parallel negotiations have been ongoing between the EU and our more militant Remainers: Blair, Clegg, Clarke, Adonis, Corbyn and more have all been along for meetings with Barnier and Juncker. Calls for a second referendum from senior Remain politicians are now regular. It’s not rocket science to see what is afoot: a co-ordinated effort to offer Britain the most punitive terms imaginable, with which the British will then be presented in a second referendum – crawl back to the EU or face a financially ruinous bill to trade.
Calls to ‘rule out no deal’ must be understood in this context – it is simply begging the EU to give us the worst possible deal, and everyone knows it. The EU’s apparent concessions in October are simply theatre to keep Theresa May in place – they have no desire to reach a reasonable deal.
We cannot continue walking into this trap. Instead, we propose the Government starts immediate preparations for reverting to standard global trade, the basis on which both the US and China trade with the EU, and create a ‘WTO transition fund’ with the money the EU is demanding: likely to be around £60 billion or more. Britain does, after all, do more trade with the rest of the world than it does with the EU under the cherished Single Market.
– Brendan Chilton
Truth in advertising?
Was out for a wander this evening and saw this right in front of the Venezuelan Embassy in London.
It is astonishing that in 2017, anyone can still openly call themselves a socialist in polite society and be treated with more respect than if they called themselves a fascist.
The United States wants Canada to end supply management, which impedes agricultural imports – dairy, eggs, and poultry. Canada’s trade negotiators and politicians steadfastly refuse, and in their defense of the policy call up an astounding piece of logic: that the less Canadians have, the richer we are.
Canada’s Agriculture Minister insists that supply management is an “excellent system” and that “to deal with anything else is simply a non-starter.” Supporters on the left argue that the policy is necessary to protect domestic farmers from unfair competition from American farmers who receive government subsidies.
Conservatives have argued the same. Current Parliament Member and former International Trade Minister, Ed Fast argued in a recent essay that America simply wants access to the Canadian market “to deal with its own problem of overproduction, to the detriment of Canadian farmers.”
Here is what all proponents of supply management are arguing: If we allow the Americans to send us milk, then their problem of overproduction becomes our problem. Don’t you see how problematic it is, how much poorer we will become if we allow them to send to us the fruits of their overproduction, and at a low price to boot? Don’t you see how much richer we would be if we had less milk?
– Matthew Lau
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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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