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

“…how will the media blame it on the failure of capitalism?”

Well, you know, China started market-friendly practices, it goes belly up, nothing bad ever happened in Mao’s China, and so on. The editorial in The Guardian writes itself.

– Commenter ‘Dom

Remember remember the 5th of November

Thank goodness for state intervention in the economy…

The predicted insanity of “quantitative easing” (i.e. re-inflating the bubble) is laid bare:

Sharp increases in share prices have improved the outlook for pension funds in every major developed nation apart from the UK, according to research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The news coincides with figures which reveal that the deficits in Britain’s largest privately-sponsored defined benefit schemes have soared by £15bn to £77bn, wiping out almost all the gains achieved by market increases the previous month. […] The deterioration is largely an unhappy consequence of quantitative easing (QE). Pension funds’ deficits depend on two factors: the value of their assets, much of which are equities, but also the potential amounts they will have to pay out when people retire in the future. These future liabilities have been pushed higher as QE has depressed yields on gilts and other bonds

I would quite like to see the people responsible for one of the greatest rolling acts of theft in recent history hanging from lampposts. Bernie Madoff was a minor league player by comparison.

A rational remark from a Hollywood star…

Wise words have been heard coming from the lips of someone in the acting profession, to wit multi-talented MILF action babe Milla Jovovich.

“I think parents need to take a lot more responsibility than they do about whether it’s OK for their children to go to Resident Evil or any other movie with violence or sex or whatever. It’s really easy to blame Hollywood for violence having an effect on kids, but movies would have no power if parents would just set their own standards. And it’s the same with video games.”

Common sense of course and that she had to even say this is an indication of the extent to which civil society has decayed. Violent art forms are as old as art itself.

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Samizdata quote of the day

The trouble is rules based safety nets often end up subsidising what they are supposed to be alleviating.

The big advantage a charity has is that they do not have to give you anything if they do not think you actually deserve it… the state on the other hand operates (quite rightly) not by using discretion but by following politically derived formulae. To get things from the state all you have to do is understand the system. This has all manner of unintended consequences when you (in effect) nationalise charity and replace private institutions with public ones… in short, when you replace charity with an entitlement, you completely change the rules of the game.

Perry de Havilland

Samizdata quote of the day

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

– Lord Acton, from The History of Freedom in Antiquity

…with extra added bonus quote from the same:

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime…

Garbage in, garbage out

Fact One: preposterous surveys cost the British economy £1.38 billion

Fact Two: prior to the invention of Twitter, no one employed in British offices knew how to waste time that should be spent working, as no one was surfing the internet, flirting with co-workers, staring out the window at that hottie over there with the short skirt and high leather boots, photocopying their bums, telling jokes, gossiping…

Fact Three: 97.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Samizdata quote of the day

Encourage adults to consume alcoholic beverage in a bar setting. Set an arbitrary closing, thus to encourage rapid consumption during the final 15 minutes. Throw out on to the street, inebriated, disenchanted drinkers, mostly young males. And here’s the clincher, all at the same time. Ensure that all other bars in the immediate area follow the same pattern. Then act surprised when incidents of violence and criminal damage spike.

Suppose for one perverted moment that an increase in violence and criminal damage were the intention. The present arrangement could hardly be improved upon.

– The hilariously pseudonymous commenter ‘Mustapha Jihad

Samizdata quote of the day

Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.

– Benjamin Disraeli

Samizdata quote of the day

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can

– Barry Goldwater

Samizdata quote of the day

“Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”

Anita Dunn, White House communications director and fan of the greatest mass murderer in history.

So one network for the Republicans and three for the Democrats then.

Samizdata quote of the day

The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it

– Terry Pratchett