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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Most readers will know about Detlev Schlichter and his book Paper Money Collapse. Some readers will know about Max Keiser who presents The Keiser Report on Russia Today. Yes, Russia Today. Doesn’t sound good does it?
Well, it is not all bad. Keiser does predict global economic collapse (the non-badness here being that his prediction is (I think) correct). He does blame central banks and their printing of money. He does point out that what we are seeing at the moment is very definitely not capitalism. He does interview a good number of libertarians such as Peter Schiff. And he does advocate the ownership of gold and silver.
But then things start to go downhill again. He forever blames the global situation on “banksters” and their “fraudulent” ways. While apparently being in favour of capitalism he still manages to lambast any attempt to control government spending. The UK coalition government’s austerity programme, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and the Tea Party have all been criticised by him. He also seems to believe in global warming or to be more accurate: CAGWIT (that’s my new acronym: Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Inspired Tyranny, by the way). And he interviews a whole bunch of nutters including Keynesians and anti-Israelis.
The other night he interviewed the distinctly non-nutty Detlev Schlichter. The good news is that Schlichter managed to get most of his main points across (now if only he were allowed to do that on the BBC!)…
…The bad news is that during the interview Keiser made his usual remarks about fraud (at about 20:00). And Schlichter said nothing or, at least, nothing in response. Now I appreciate that Schlichter is new to this kind of thing and that he has a book to sell but I think he should have at least said something. To acquiesce while Keiser makes his outrageous claims, to my mind, gives the impression of agreement.
Via Japan Probe comes the news that 14 luxury sports cars were involved in a recent pile up. This will have been expensive. The crash took place as the cars were cruising along at (what for a supercar is) the rather sedate pace of about 90mph. This will have been embarassing.
My Japanese isn’t up to much but the video seems to suggest that the pile-up took place on the ‘China Road’. I cannot help feeling there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
There seem to be lots of people out there who think the euro is about to collapse. They talk about Greece or Italy leaving or of Germany leaving or the creation of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ euro zones. I beg to differ.
Let me explain. There is one thing that people in the Anglosphere often fail to understand: euro-federalists are euro-fanatics. They (the euro-fanatics) seriously believe that should the European Union fail or take a step backwards or even stutter, then Europe would more or less instantly be plunged into war.
Now, us sceptics might ask why it was that there was no war between 1945 and the founding of the European Community (1958, if I recall correctly) or why, if a European Community was all that was needed to preserve the peace up to 1992, it was necessary to create the European Union, but we would be wasting our breath. This is not something that has anything to do with logic or reason. Euro-fanaticism pretty much took over where religion left off.
When push comes to shove nothing else matters. So, when Germany’s politicians are given a choice between the breakup of the euro and a Weimar-style hyperinflation fueled by the European Central Bank printing press, they’ll choose the hyperinflation. Inflation at 20%, 200% or 2000%? It won’t matter: they’ll do it.
And that is the choice they will be given. The PIIGS: Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy are bust. They cannot pay their bills. In itself this would not be a problem. As far as the European project is concerned these countries are expendable. France, however, is not. France is absolutely central to the project. After all, without France there would be no one to go to war with. French banks have lent enormous sums to the PIIGS. If the PIIGS go bust (possibly only even one of them) France’s banks go bust. Now you and I might think “serves ’em right” or “well, that’s how capitalism creates wealth: by weeding out loss-making enterprises” but that’s not how the euro-fanatics think. They are no less wedded to the theory of ‘too big to fail’ than Hank Paulson – the US Treasury Secretary who bailed out US banks in 2008. So, France’s banks will be bailed out. But France can’t afford to do this. So, it will have to print money. But France can’t print money. So, it will have to get the eurozone to do it instead. Enter the ECB. Enter hyperinflation.
The good news is that hyperinflations can’t go on forever. At some point Europe’s hyperinflation will end but it will end in different countries at different times. The different times will dictate that there will, in the end, be a euro breakup, but the hyperinflation will happen first. We just have to hope that the breakup of the euro and possibly even the EU doesn’t trigger the very war it was designed to prevent.
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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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