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.
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My considerable thanks to Iain Murray for bringing to our attention this crass bit of wealth-destroying codswallop courtesy of our enemies, the Eurocrats.
Ever more wedded to discredited enviro-mental ideology, the EU has now passed laws forcing all EU motor vehicle manufacturers to pick up the tab for the recovery and recycling of old vehicles and has drafted a raft of pettyfogging regulations that they have to comply with in the process.
Thus they have not only delivered a legislative hammer-blow to the fruitful and wholly organic (in the best sense of the word) car-recycling industry but heaped a wholly unnecessary cost burden onto industry and, therefore, European consumers. Oh, and we ain’t seen nothing yet.
“Where will it end? Not content with cars and fridges, the EU has now moved on to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, covering televisions, toasters and the like. The concept of ownership is thus undermined, property rights are violated, industry is put at a competitive disadvantage and – to top it all – illegal dumping is encouraged”
Do these people have the first inkling of how an economy actually works? Are they cretinous or malevolent or both? Do we have to rely on a kindly asteroid for salvation?
The European ‘Kommisariat’ is deeply concerned about Europe’s lack of progress in the field of biotechnology
Apparently, Europe is light years behind the USA in development and commercial application (snigger). The solution? A brand new ‘Policy Initiative’ (read ‘Five-Year Plan’) which will involve all of Europe’s biotech companies being made answerable to the suits in the European Commission for the ‘Great Leap Forward’ which is now required of them and the Commission, for its part, will ‘assist’ by means of various ‘initiatives and proposals as appropriate’
Having been ordered to compete with the USA one wonders what fate awaits European bio-engineers should they fail? Exile in Siberia? I wonder if the European Commissioners have stopped for even a second to ask themselves why companies in the USA are so far ahead? Probably not. The idea that central plans don’t work is unknown to the Eurocrats; the reality that innovation and enterprise are smothered by ‘initiatives and policies’ is offensive to them. It is as if the Soviet Union is still the blueprint for them (while being an object lesson for everybody else)
Anyway, the American biotech companies shouldn’t bother losing any sleep. If this is the way that their European counterparts are going to be forced to play their hand, then the existing gap will only grow wider
I am quite convinced that the only law that will never, ever be broken is the law of ‘Unintended Consequences’
Who ever imagined that the Thai 10-Baht coin would be indistinguishable from the 2-Euro coin?
Be wary when shopping for European prostitutes: they may be ‘ladyboys’
Or should I say higher tax future. Head of the European Central Bank, Dutchman Wim Duisenberg has said that the new Euro currency will lead to tax harmonisation in the long run. Of course I don’t think anyone thinks that means taxes will move down to the lowest common denominator given the French and German remarks about ‘unfair tax competition’. No, we are talking about the whole EU moving up to the confiscatory levels of the highest.
This is of course a 100% political, rather than economic, matter. Taxes are the amount of money confiscated by the state and that is decided by political, not economic, processes. Yet still people maintain the fiction that the European Central Bank is not a politically motivated entity. What economic factors are going to drive taxes to the same levels because the EU now has a common currency?
Now correct me if I am wrong but I thought the entire USA used the US Dollar. Tell me, are the total taxes in New Mexico, Carolina and New York all ‘harmonised’? No, I didn’t think so.
But some animals are more equal than others
Europe is getting old
It’s all about cause and effect and as yea sow so shall yea reap. Europe’s post-war social model has always been a euphamism for high taxes, a bloated public sector and rigid, protectionist policies. The long-term effect is that children have been, quite literally, priced out of the average family budget
As a result, Europe’s elites are sitting on a volcano. The present levels of welfare and pensions are simply unsustainable and whilst there is much hot air about reforming the fact is that Europe’s politicians dare not break the promises they have made to their people. Change now will just be too painful. Yet, the only way to sustain the current systems would be by the influx of vast numbers of young immigrants. With national socialists already on the march throughout much of Europe, that’s going to be like throwing a match into a tinderbox
Yet there is not single purblind European politician who will not fall over themselves to declare their unswerving support for the social model. It is almost the equivalent of the US Pledge of Allegiance which is ironic given their hostility to the US and it’s dynamic, less-fettered capitalism that threatens to pull the plug on their collective life-support machine
Europe is swinging to the Right according to this article in the EU Observer.
In 1997 only three of the fifteen EU countries had Conservative governments. Now the figure is seven and the Portuguese are expected to elect a Conservative government this year.
However, expect no material changes. European ‘Conservatives’ (Christian Democrats) are not informed by classical liberal values and therefore tend to be, at best, centrist and, at worst, indistinguishable from the Social Democrats they replace.
How appropriate that, with the end of January almost upon us, and so many are struggling to complete their tax returns, we get a little lift from the EU Commission who have hinted that they may relieve of this onerous duty. Instead, it is suggested that, in future, we simply remit our hard-earned direct to Brussels
What I like is the assertion that this new idea appears in a confidential letter sent by EU Commissioner, Michaele Schreyer, to her fellow EU Commissioners. Yes, the letter was so confidential that it has been splashed all over the front page of the EU Observer. As if we have been treated to a tantalising glimpse of the goings-on behind the Chocolate Curtain
Nothing of the sort. This is an administrative trick. The decision by the EU to tax direct has already been made and this little pantomime is to test public and media response. The European equivalent of running it up the flagpole and seeing if anybody salutes (or balks)
But what matter really? Balk away. Its on the cards regardless
A Reuters article has claimed that eating over 400 Euro notes could prove toxic due to the ink… but what I want to know is how do they know that? I will not believe them until someone holds down Romano Prodi and forces 400 Euro notes down his throat (ideally using European Commissioner Chris Patten‘s head as a ramrod).
If Prodi croaks, I will freely admit that perhaps I should not always be such a sceptic.
Well if the USA can have the absurdly named Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), a conflation of things that cries out for parody (when they are not murdering Branch Davidians, that is), I suppose the E.R.A.S.M.U.S. cannot be far from being established (European Rapid Action Sauce Monitoring Uniformed Service). Such a police service is surely needed to protect us from unscrupulous vegetable merchants, as demonstrated by this Times article Brussels can like it or lump it on sauce.
Samizdata reader Scott Flatman has seen the future:
<sound of door crashing open>
<sounds of shotgun rounds being chambered>
“Sir, put down the sauce, step away from the stove!”
[Editor: We thought this reader’s letter from Lagwolf was worth published ‘as is’ and without comment]
When not holding off the spawn of the “Goat with a Thousand Young” this week (Natwest Bank), I have been contemplating a few things. Most obvious during the post-euphoric cigarette smoke and chat centreing around the Euro, is that of libertarianism and the EU.
Most specifically is it possible for someone who calls themselves a libertarian to be also pro-European Union. For the sake of giving the thoughts borders, let us assume that the EU is an organisation that wishes to end up as single European state called “Europe” and that Prodi was right in his recent musings on the subject. Let us ignore the domestic apologists for the EU who believe that is not heading that way and is merely a collection of like-minded states wishing to co-operate. The seems to be a particularly British disease, I have yet to meet, in all my dealings with continentals, one who does not believe the EU is heading that way. It does not matter whether they are pro or anti or none of the above.
I think it is impossible for someone to be pro-EU and be a libertarian if they in fact know anything about the EU at all. The entire apparatus is anti-freedom and highly statist. Do anyone who reads this honestly believe that they EU will ever keep its meddling hands out of any aspect of its citizens lives? What is most amusing of course is there attitude towards the transfer of labour. On one hand they promise all their citizens to move about and work where he or she wishes to do so, but on the other hand they are striving to make it unattractive to do so. What would be the point, baring love or taste, of someone moving to a fellow EU country if all aspects of financial and professional life are the same. The EU is its lowest common denominator approach wants to make it so no part of the EU is any more attractive to a worker than other part. This will of course please the bureaucrats because they absolutely hate people who do not stay in one place and preferably stay in the same job. Let’s face it, the bureaucrats want to know where you are and what you are doing at all times.
Further the musing on Euro-slavia (there was an alright published under that name a few years back ). You really do not have to look at Yugoslavia to see that there is a great possibility the EU will eventually fall into chaos and civil war. It may last 50 years or even 100 but its internal rifts are just too large to overcome. I have been pondering this for many a year and have written a trilogy of Eurosceptic cyberpunk novels that remain unpublished. I lost any hope of getting them published once I realised all the major players in the publishing game in the UK are owned one way or other by the Germans. At this point it is possible that a publisher of said books could be prosecuted for distributing an anti-EU publication. However, thanks to the glory of this wonderful thing called the internet, the books are available in edited manuscript form from my website (lupusandco.com)*1 in a few days once I re-launch it.
Of course it is quite possible that the recent laws limiting criticism of the EU will ultimately be its undoing. When enough people start getting banged up in gaol for merely criticising one aspect of the EU people, even in the UK might sit up and take notice. It would be a wonder to behold to see Amnesty launching a campaign to save some fisherman or farmers being held in some Belgium jail for burning the EU flag. Is the Euro-wide arrest warrant the first nail in the EU coffin?
Lagwolf
[Editor’s note: *1 = We will report when this site is up and running]
David Carr pointed out that Euro Leader and superstatist Romano Prodi insists that membership of the Eurozone is for ever and irreversible
The president of the European Commission Romano Prodi believes that membership in the Eurozone is a “definitive marriage” and thus he feels the need for a good economic policy across the Eurozone, to keep the marriage solid. “You cannot leave the Eurozone once you’re in”, Prodi said on Wednesday.
Which is, of course, exactly what Tito said about Yugoslavia.
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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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