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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I had already pencilled in the Rally Against Debt as something I would try to be at, if only because it will be taking place a mere walk away from where I live. An incoming email forwarded to me via the Cobden Centre has made this more likely. The email had this attached:
For me, those speakers are an appealing combination of the known, the known of, and the unknown.
How many others will show up, I have absolutely no idea. But, if I can do my tiny little bit to make the turnout that tiny little bit less insignificant, I think that I should. I still promise nothing, but I really will do my best to be there, and then to report back here, hopefully with some photos.
We are already pretty well aware of the case of people such as George Soros – the man credited with helping remove the UK from the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992 – who make a killing from financial markets, while attacking liberal capitalism. Another example is Warren Buffett, the so-called “Sage of Omaha” who, now in his 80s, is one of the world’s wealthiest men with an enviable track record for making money over the long term by what is said to be a ruthless, yet almost heartbreakingly simple commitment to “value investing”.
Over at the Cobden Centre, one of its writers, Detlev Schlichter has an excellent, and measured piece about the Buffett phenomenon. He respects Buffett’s track record (who wouldn’t?), but has this to say:
“So, should we feel sorry for Buffett for being dragged out of his comfort zone of the equity market and being quizzed on everything else? Hell, no. Buffett is a global celebrity and he obviously loves it. These big media events that celebrate him are carefully orchestrated. The tiresome shtick of the loveable everyman from the American heartland who just happens to be a billionaire is a carefully fabricated public image that Buffett uses skillfully to his own advantage – not only to sell shares in his company but – apparently – also to be on good terms with political power. It appears that, while honing his public image of the traditional investor committed to time-tested investment principles, he simultaneously has a big lobbying effort going on Capital Hill, asking for exemptions from collateral requirements for some massive derivative trades his company has made. Maybe it’s time to write another gushing letter to ‘Uncle Sam’?”
“Seriously, I have nothing against the man. I think he deserves admiration for his investment success and he may well be a nice guy. But everything else is show – and probably a cynical show at that. As Porter Stansberry has one of his characters say in this fictional but very illuminating dialogue, Buffett is a member of the establishment and now has a vested interest in the status quo, in government support of the paper money system. But remember that when paradigms shift, fortunes change. When it comes to assessing the future of our monetary system the billionaire and legendary investor may well be wrong. If so, he has the means to survive it but what about the middle-class minions who adore him and follow him blindly and who – I think- he has been lulling into some false sense of systemic stability.”
Here is something by me recently about the Koch brothers, who certainly do support capitalism. And this recently top US banker is probably one of the most hard-core defenders of laissez faire around. A refreshing break from the norm.
Like two drowning sailors hanging onto one another in order to postpone the inevitable, overstretched banks thus accumulate the debt of insolvent governments to keep the façade of solvency up.
– Detlev Schlichter
Yes Lawrence of Arabia is showing on Channel Five, now. I’ve been only half or less paying attention, but I heard this loud and clear:
“Money. It’ll have to be sovereigns. They don’t like paper.”
Said by Lawrence to Allenby, on how to pay the Arabs to fight against the Turks.
He would agree, as would all our mutual friends here.
This is a point of view which is now spreading rather fast.
My Cobden Centre Radio colleague-stroke-boss Andy Duncan is enthusiastic about the latest Keynes v Hayek video. Guido Fawkes already has it up at his blog, and that’s where I’m now watching it.
My first reaction is that Keynes was the bald one, while Hayek had plenty of hair right to the end. This video has it the other way around.
Lots-of-head-hair-to-no-head-hair is one of the most important variables in political propaganda, the bald guy typically being the wicked loser, and the one with the good head of hair typically being the virtuous winner. I therefore deeply regret this particular reversal of the truth. If Keynes had really had lots of head hair, but Hayek very little, fair enough. Hayek would still have been right and Keynes would still have been wrong. But why miss a trick like this, when the truth is on our side?
Otherwise, this video seems pretty good. The important thing is that Austrianism, approximately speaking, must now lose the economic argument and be known by everyone, everywhere, to be losing the economic argument. Austrianism is now being shunned by everyone of any significance in policy-making circles. Right thinking people all now agree that Austrianism is delusional.
And right thinking people are now driving the world economy over the cliff.
For a little more chapter and verse, try reading Detlev Schlichter‘s latest.
When the world economy lies strewn about the landscape at the bottom of the cliff, Austrianism turns around and wins. It reassembles the world economy, and then, slowly at first, but later with gathering strength, drives it back to its former heights and beyond, way beyond.
Well, I like to live in hope.
It’s kind of jumbled, but putting together what the Democrats are saying now and what actually happened in the past, I gather that their economic “plan” is to somehow organize another bubble so that some people will make a lot of money and then tax the hell out of these people, which will then eliminate the deficit and also pay for all their programs, present and future.
– commenter “Hagar” here
This will not surprise some of our regulars here, but I see that Standard & Poor’s, the rating agency has cut the debt rating and outlook for the US. (What kept you? Ed).
I’ll be intrigued as to how cheerleaders for current administration policy, such as Paul Krugman try and spin this. “Those evil bond market vigilantes…”
Time to start dusting off the “D” word.
Update: Talking of defaults closer to home, in Europe, Tim Worstall has been writing that it would be better for countries to openly discuss, and then manage, the chances of default rather than bury their heads in the sand. Meanwhile, Bloomberg columnist Matthew Lynn argues that the demise of the euro can and could be handled much more smoothly than many people believe. I hope he is right.
Another update: Dan Mitchell – of the Cato Institute, talks about lessons from Argentina. Oh great.
“If the Victorians turned up off our shores and threatened me with a gold standard, 7% taxes, property rights, free trade, the right to bear arms, the restitution of double jeopardy, free association, and the right to remain silent, while at the same time guaranteeing the repeal of civil forfeiture and detention without trial, etc., etc., etc., I would welcome them with open arms.”
– Samizdata commenter, John W responding to a point about the supposed evils wrought by the UK on other parts of the world.
A message from the people of Iceland to the global political establishment…
Farðu í rassgat!
By rejecting the absurd notion that governments can legitimately make taxpayers liable for bad commercial decisions by banks, Iceland shows itself as an island of sanity in a global sea of madness.
Rob Fisher has a couple of postings up about coffee, which I enjoyed reading. I am strictly a Gold Blend man myself, and am as interested in the structural qualities of coffee jars as I am in their contents, but even I notice how the price of Gold Blend can fluctuate quite wildly, which is what the second of Rob’s coffee postings is about.
In the first and more substantial of Rob’s coffee postings, the whole matter of Fair Trade coffee is gone into. Like many free marketeers, I assume this to be a fairly (actually not that fairly) foolish enterprise, better at separating money from dimwitted Westerners than at helping poor coffee growers in faraway countries. But what are the facts? Read Rob to learn more, and also read Has Bean, the quality coffee blog which Rob links to and discusses some of the content of.
Unlike me, Rob does care a lot about the quality of his coffee, having just purchased a coffee grinder. Apparently, the smaller the time gap between grinding and drinking, the better the coffee tastes. Unless you prefer Gold Blend.
Debate about George Soros has got bogged down.
Did he willingly help the Nazis deport Jews to their deaths, and plunder their property? Did he, even decades later, describe this as the most happy year of his life, fleeing only when he feared that the Nazis would discover that he himself was a Jew? Or did he have no choice, acting in the way he did simply out of a desire to save his own life?
How much did the parents of George Soros despise religious Jews? Did his father really support world government, and pass on this belief system to his son? Or was he just a man who enjoyed made up languages? Did his mother, in spite of being a Jew herself, really hate Jews? Or was it just a mild distaste? Does George Soros today fund groups, including groups in the Middle East, that want to wipe Israel from the map, out of hatred for Jews? Or, perhaps, out of hatred for any nation or individual that wishes to be fundamentally different – not part of a standardized world order? Or is Mr Soros simply ignorant of the true nature of the groups he funds?
Does George Soros fund – directly and via the Tides Foundation – groups in the United States that employ Marxists because he shares their desire to impose totalitarianism upon the world (making a mockery of his supposed anti totalitarian stand in Eastern Europe in past years)? Or because (again) he simply does not know the true nature of the groups he funds?
My own opinion is that the above is simply unknowable.
One can not get into the mind of George Soros to know whether he really knows that he funds anti-Israel groups, and far left groups. And one can not prove one way or the other whether he knows that many of the Marxists he funds, via the Soros money that goes to the groups they work for, are in “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” alliance with Islamist groups.
Mr Soros may simply be an old man totally unaware of, for example, the irony of his “Open Society Foundation” in the United States being controlled by a far left ex high officer of the SDS – someone who would be no friend of Karl Popper. For Soros to fund enemies of the Open Society in the name of the Open Society may simply be the result of a man whose brain is decaying with age – and who is getting a lot of bad counsel from evil advisers.
However, the written and spoken opinions of George Soros can be known.
Mr Soros may not be a good writer (I am not good writer either), but at least his works are fairly clear on his central claim. Pick one book at random, and the central political point is the same in each of the works that deal with policy. And his works have been stating the same central point – the same central lie – since at least the 1990s, so it cannot be a case of senility. If you wish me to pick out a single work, I suggest you look at the Open Society: The Crises of Global Capitalism. Remember that the first edition was published in the 1990s – long before any supposed senility can possibly have been a factor.
So what is the central lie told by George Soros?
It is his claim that “Market Fundamentalism” dominated the Western world in the 1990s, and in the 2000s. A fanatical laissez faire gripped the West, with government reduced to unimportance.
This is simply not true. → Continue reading: George Soros’ Big Lie – “Market Fundamentalism”
“Education of judges, government officials, law professors, and journalists could dissolve antitrust. Understanding the nature of antitrust and its lack of factual foundation undermines its appeal. Education about antitrust history not generally known but not difficult to understand might make a difference. History shows that the breakup of Standard Oil accomplished nothing. It was `part of a moral conflict’. It was like preaching against sin without defining it. Corporate consolidation need not be feared. No amount of magic `market power’ can force buyers to buy. For anyone interested in developing intelligent public policy, these ideas are not difficult to absorb.
Should Microsoft be allowed to add a media player? Should GE be allowed to acquire Honeywell? Should IBM be broken up? Antitrust supplies a vocabulary to discuss these questions but does not provide answers, no matter how much help is obtained by economic theory. Antitrust judgements are subjective choices of the judge about public policy. Law students should be taught that antitrust is not law enforcement. Journalists and opinion makers should be encouraged to ask themselves, `Do we really need to fear that some greedy capitalist will monopolize sardine snacks or mashed fruits and vegetables?’ The public should be told what is going on, that antitrust decisions are political decisions misleadingly portrayed as law and economics. Those in a position to do so should force more discussion of such questions as, `Can salaried government officials in Washington make better decisions about how many distributors of office supplies there should be in, say, Wheeling, West Virginia, than people whose capital is at stake?’ Although today’s antitrust community is alive and well, antitrust is atrophying. It is becoming a relic, an anachronism, the irrelevant debris of past political demagoguery. Education in the antitrust facts of life could accelerate the process.”
The Antitrust Religion, Edwin S. Rockefeller, page 103.
Well, as we can see in the case of Google, the antitrust movement still has legs today.
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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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