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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While the weather in the UK has been, with barely a break, a miserable wet time resembling one of those bits of the Old Testament where God gets a bit pissed off with His Creation, it has been stinking hot in some other countries, notably the wheat-growing parts of the US. Hence, all kinds of grim predictions of shortages, and ensuing higher prices for bread and other foods, as reported by Reuters.
But there is another factor besides the weather – deliberate government policy concerning biofuels. Here is blogger Bishop Hill on the matter:
“I’m sure that people who can no longer afford a loaf of bread will be much reassured by the fact that the UK government is discussing flexing their biofuels mandates.”
Of course, the idea that misguided environmental ideas might make poor people even poorer is a notion that does not fit with the conventional narrative from our political class. I doubt that our own benighted Prime Minister, David Cameron, gives this much thought, or if he does, evades the implications thereof. One of the biggest scandals of our time, in my view, is not private banks cooking up “LIBOR”, or MPs fiddling their expenses, but the fact that a mistaken or overwrought theory about climate change was used to justify loading extra costs on the global economy and those least able to bear it.
This item at the Harry’s Place blog, concerning the Guardian newspaper’s coverage of issues such as Israel and Islamists, needs to get the widest possible attention:
“If Guardian journalists are twitchy about what is happening to their newspaper, they have only themselves to blame. The Jews were, as always, the canary in the coal mine. When those journalists stayed silent, either because they didn’t think they could say anything, or because they didn’t care, or even because they partly agreed, they allowed a culture of zaniness and extremism to take root at the newspaper. Now, the guns have been turned on them, over Syria and Middle East reporting generally, and it may well be too late for them to stop it. The Indymediaisation of The Guardian is likely spread further, across its other departments, as experts leave and are replaced by “Open Journalism” monomaniacs.”
“It is the job of economists to point out trade-offs; it is the job of politicians and planners to deny that trade-offs exist.”
– William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden, page 256.
Here is a terrific piece on the problems posed by the mounting costs of funding retirement, and the tax implications thereof, from Reason’s Nick Gillespie. It is obviously written from a US perspective but as always, the lessons are broader than that.
I particularly liked how he lampoons old Baby Boomers calling for a return of the draft. That bad idea never seems to entirely die off.
“We’d rather like people not to live on flood plains. Because, you know, their existence is evidence that that’s where it floods sometimes. Not being able to insure your house against floods if you live on a flood plain is what is known, in technical language, as a “fucking clue” that perhaps you shouldn’t be living there. Surely to God at least one person in government knows someone at Lloyds of London?”
– Tim Worstall. I love it when he gets justifiably riled.
“The assumption of natural rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence can be summed up by the following proposition: “first comes rights, then comes government.” According to this view: (1) the rights of individuals do not originate with any government, but preexist its formation; (2) The protection of these rights is the first duty of government; and (3) Even after government is formed, these rights provide a standard by which its performance is measured and, in extreme cases, its systemic failure to protect rights — or its systematic violation of rights — can justify its alteration or abolition; (4) At least some of these rights are so fundamental that they are “inalienable,” meaning they are so intimately connected to one’s nature as a human being that they cannot be transferred to another even if one consents to do so. This is powerful stuff.”
– Randy Barnett.
“In order to punish Barclays further, they should have to start life again as a third division Scottish football club.”
Mark Littlewood, boss of the Institute of Economic Affairs, in a private communication via Facebook. It is so good that I don’t think he’ll mind me quoting him here.
He is talking about the resignation, announced today, of Bob Diamond as CEO of Barclays. That bank has been fined a total of £290 million by US and UK authorities for manipulating the inter-bank interest rates known as LIBOR. Criminal prosecutions are high possible and the net could widen very far indeed.
Barclays is one of those UK banks – HSBC being the other big high street one – that did not receive, nor ask for, bailouts by the UK taxpayer. However, that bank, like all the rest, did benefit from the privilege of being able to get access to cheap Bank of England funding; and it also benefited from state-backed guarantees. The point cannot be made too often: we don’t have a proper capitalist banking system but at best a hybrid. But it also needs to be recognised that even in a world of total laissez faire and no funny fiat money, there might still be market conventions for setting a benchmark reference rate for interest rates between banks, just as there is a daily “fix” for the gold price in the London spot gold market. Such market benchmarks arise, like a sort of Hayekian spontaneous order, because they are useful for other economic actors in pricing products of their own.
However, when a bank or other institution fiddles the prices submitted for these benchmarks, it erodes confidence in the system and the reputation of the miscreant will be badly damaged. In a crude sort of way, what has happened is a good sign that organisations which screw up suffer.
Update: Guido Fawkes weighs in, and points out that the manipulation of interest rates has also been government policy for years.
There might be a tendency, I think, among some world-weary types to say that this whole “Fast and Furious” disaster now unravelling is nothing more than the US equivalent of the sort of “Westminster Village” obsessions that we Brits got engrossed over more than a year ago. Nothing much to see here, please move along, etc. But I don’t see it that way. The use of executive privilege to squash oversight of key decisions made by this administration seems to be a serious matter that ought to concern the wider public, not least as people got killed and hurt.
Jennifer Rubin weighs in on the subject of the lamentable US Attorney General, Eric Holder:
“If he were a first-year law student asked to explain how the president could refuse to allow House oversight on a botched operation in which Americans and Mexicans died and the administration has twice had to cop to providing erroneous information to Congress, Eric Holder’s letter would get an “F.” He doesn’t set out the nature of the document being withheld, the type of privilege being asserted, or the argument as to why it supersedes the right of Congress to oversee executive branch misconduct. Congress is certainly within it rights to hold him in contempt. But really the president should can Holder.”
Bear in mind this appeared in the Washington Post, the same newspaper that we associate with the Watergate scandal, and hardly a bastion of the “vast rightwing conspiracy”.
Here is a great video featuring “Skeptical Environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg, talking to John Tierney, . Lomborg discusses his views about how any debate on improving lives of the poor around the world requires us to understand that resources are scarce, and that being obsessed by “sexy”, attention-grabbing issues means we ignore the less glamorous, but often far more severe issues. Of course, the media and political world tends to push attention towards the “eye-catching initiatives” (to use Tony Blair’s formulation). But that doesn’t mean we have to settle for this. Lomborg is terrific. No wonder he drives deep Greens nuts.
I recommend pretty much all his works, especially his book, Cool It.
Here is a brief comment I left over at Tim Worstall’s blog, regarding fractional reserve banking and supposed journalistic illiteracy about said:
“I can see why smart people are dubious about fractional reserve banking. The whole “maturity transformation” line that defenders of FRB come up with only works if you are prepared to take the risk that, in the event of a crisis, you won’t be able to get your money out of a bank when you want it. That is why, in a real free market, not the rigged charade we have now, FRBs would have to be clearly advertised as such, and without the moral hazard-machines of state deposit insurance and a central bank acting as lender of last resort, printer of funny money, etc. In such a laissez faire world, FRB might persist, but it would be a lot more restricted than now, and its capacity for causing booms and busts reduced. Like I say, it should not be illegal so long as everyone knows what it is.”
Brian Micklethwait wrote about this “Fast and Furious” scandal some time ago here, but the story – which has not really caught fire in the MSM and has barely registered over this side of the Pond – has now gone into another level, according to Michael Graham (H/T, Instapundit):
In December 2010, Brian Terry — a former Marine and police officer turned Border Patrol agent — was working in Arizona, 11 miles from the Mexican border. He was killed in a gunfight with Mexican drug runners, and two of the AK-47s found at the scene were linked to a then-unknown program of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms called “Operation Fast and Furious.”
The name is perfect, because the president wants you furious — and fast. He wants you focused on those mean ol’ House Republicans who, according to Department of Justice consultant Robert Raben, are just “doing the bidding of the National Rifle Association.” Obama wants you debating Bush-era gun programs vs. his own, the limits of presidential privilege — anything except the fact that yesterday brought us the highest four-week average of initial jobless claims for the year.
President Obama has invoked something called executive privilege to prevent certain documents emerging about this case and how it has been handled. This is pretty serious stuff, as the guys at The Volokh Conspiracy blog argue. In fact, it is unconstitutional. (Not that the POTUS seems overly bothered by such considerations). The irony is rich, of course, because it has been claimed that the administration has been more than willing to leak details of things such as the US moves to capture OBL, and other targets, to its friends in the media and even Hollywood.
Now, I am not going to pretend that the Republicans are much better, if at all. These are politicians we are talking about here. The point, though, needs to be made loud and clear to those still operating under the illusion that the White House is occupied by someone with any consideration for the limits of power. It also shows that he is not all that smart: he’s given the GOP a nice big scandal to raise hell about between now and November.
What the f**k do they teach at Harvard these days?
Update: Good comment by Mark Steyn. Very apt:
“And by the way, if you are a viewer of nightly network news, you do not know anything about this story. I think ABC did its first story on Fast & Furious just last week, or a few days ago, for about 20 seconds. You would never have known that in fact citizens, many dozens, hundreds of citizens of America’s neighboring nation, Mexico, have been killed with guns provided for them by the United States government. That ought to be a national scandal, but it’s not, because the media have declined to run with it. But what we do know is that, in part because the media declined to run with it, Eric Holder & Co. thought they could in essence just deny to Congress the plain reality of the situation. What’s interesting about the assertion of executive privilege is whether Obama’s participation in this sorry story is absolutely direct, whether it concerns the operation, the knowledge that the operation had gone screwy, or even whether it’s just a kind of philosophical signing off on the operation. But the point is that this very much does confirm the, I think, tends to confirm the worst case narrative, that in respect of this particular story, the government is rotten and is lying about it. Senior cabinet officials are lying about it, and there is now a question mark over whether the President is also lying about it.”
“If you want others to pay more tax, then you should be consistent and pay as much as you possibly can yourself – you should even consider paying more than you have to by making a donation to HMRC or to government-owned institutions, such as NHS trusts. Those who believe taxes are moral in of themselves – a commitment to the common good – should practice what they preach. Yet if the allegations of massive, albeit legal, avoidance involving Carr are right – he hasn’t denied them – a man who specialises in ridiculing others, often in the cruellest of ways, may now end up as the butt of others’ jokes.”
Allister Heath, talking about Jimmy Carr, a stand-up comedian with a flair for tax planning. Heath’s solution: a simple, low, flat-rate tax that everyone pays, should be embraced. The only people who will suffer are tax lawyers and accountants, who may find they have to do something rather more productive instead. (In case anyone objects, I am a minarchist, not an anarchist, so some way of financing the most minimally-necessary state functions needs to be found).
Update:
“The real joy is that these people are all Lefties of the worst sort. I don’t just mean they’re pompous, preachy and self-satisfied – God knows, the Right has a few of those as well. I mean they’re the most glaring kind of hypocrite, denouncing their enemies as not just wrong but evil, while committing the sins they rail against. It’s like those class crusaders – Polly Toynbee, Diane Abbott – who send their children to private schools: by their own behaviour, they forfeit any claim to be taken seriously. It may seem gratuitous to rejoice in their downfall, but the moralising morons have fashioned the rods for their own backs. It would be positively rude not to take a thwack or two.”
Robert Colville.
Okay, another update, from Jamie Whyte, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
“For those Brits who complain that Mr. Carr is not paying enough towards their state-provided services are not really motivated by moral principles. They simply want Mr. Carr’s money. And Mr. Cameron wants their votes. Their outcries are not the sound of moral indignation. They are the howls of frustrated predators.”
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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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