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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My favourite commentary on all the financial mayhem of the last few days and hours is this, from Scrappleface:
“To sustain this shining city on a hill,” Mr. Bush said, “we need to rescue the ignorant, irresponsible folks – from Wall Street to Capitol Hill to Main Street – who got us to where we are today. We must guarantee that no American suffers the soft bigotry of being forced to live with the consequences of his bad decisions.”
The president, in remarks to the news media clearly aimed at reluctant Republicans in Congress, said, “Our financial system rests on a foundation of huge banks, brokerage houses and quasi-governmental agencies that followed Washington’s lead by gambling on long-shot, poorly-collateralized investments. Now this glorious way of life is threatened, and we must act to preserve it.”
“We need to guarantee that the structures, systems, people and products that got us to this point won’t be tossed on the ash heap of history,” said Mr. Bush. “If these giant companies fail, then America will be left with nothing but thousands of small to mid-sized financial firms that made prudent investment decisions during the past 15 years.”
I’ll skip the next paragraph, if only so that I can say read the whole thing without having already stolen the whole thing, but the final paragraph demands inclusion:
“It is a moral imperative that we guard the civil rights of these idiots,” he said. “If we fail, then we face the specter of free market capitalism run amok, and millions of Americans will feel the painful lash of personal responsibility across their backs.”
One of the reasons I like this is because it makes me laugh, while at the same time allowing me still to be Thinking About It All, rather than just escaping into pure escapism.
One thing I do strongly believe (“know” would be putting it too strongly) that is relevant to all this mess is that the Great Depression was not caused by the Wall Street Crash, but by the mistaken things done before and after – especially after – the Wall Street Crash. To say that the Crash caused the Depression is that old folly of blaming the messenger for the message. It is now clear to us all, to those to whom it was not clear at the time, that the mistakes made during the previous few years have done a lot of damage. But I fear that the mistakes being made right now will prove even more costly.
And if I had to decide about all this, right now, knowing only what I know now, I’d say: let the market now do its job. The economy has been fatally mixed in recent years. Unmix it. If you have just lost your shirt, the taxpayer won’t buy back so much as a button for you. Yes, cruel, and I certainly wouldn’t say that every shirtloser has been stupid, as Scrappleface’s Presdent Bush does. And such cruelty is certainly not how you win elections. But far more cruel would be (will be?) changing the rules of the entire game for the worse.
Update: Von Mises Institute Bailout Reader.
I guess the Bloomberg editor who transmitted this story in error has suffered the equivalent of being thrown into a pool of sharks, as happened to a baddie who got on the wrong side of Largo in Thunderball. There has always been a Spectre-like feel about the Bloomberg news operation, not to mention a cultish aspect, even. In their London office, there are lots of fish-tanks dotted about, presumably designed to make the staff feel calmer, but you never know what sort of beasties might lurk.
There is this wonderful story – I am not sure if it is totally accurate, though – about how an employee who fell out with a notorious Bloomberg editor, called Matt Winkler, managed to transmit headlines on the service that repeated for hours, with the words: “Winkler is a Wanker – Official”.
I just love the news business.
A new film is out later this year in the US taking the p**s out of Michael Moore. It looks quite amusing. Here’s the trailer. Some of the one-liners are excellent.
“I thought I’d begin by reading a sonnet by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.”
Spike Milligan
Make: has a wonderful way of dealing with security cameras.
This balloon-based anti surveillance camera project by Brooklyn-based artist William Lamson is an easy way to fool even the most sophisticated forms of surveillance technology. Helium filled rubber balloon set to the correct height and covered with enough static electricity to stick to any surface, such as a public camera. Now if only they made robotic pins for security officers to pop them.
“Weren’t the eighties grand? Cash grew on trees or, anyway, coca bushes. The rich roamed the land in vast herds hunted by proud, free tribes of investment brokers who lived a simple life in tune with money. Every wristwatch was a Rolex. Every car was a Mercedes-Benz. A fellow could romance a gal without shrink-wrapping his privates and negotiating the Treaty of Ghent. Communist dictators were losing their jobs, not presidents of America and General Motors. Women wore Adolfo gowns instead of dumpy federal circuit court judge robes. The Malcolm who mattered was Forbes. Bill Clinton was only a microscopic polyp in the colon of national politics, and Hillary was still in flight school, hadn’t even soloed on her broom. What a blast we were having. The suburbs had just discovered Martha Stewart, the cities had just discovered crack. So many parties and none of them Democratic…Back then health care was a tummy tuck, not an inalienable right. If you wanted a better environment, you went to Laura Ashley.”
– PJ O’Rourke
It may be disgustingly authoritarian, but it is risibly incompetent too. It appears the Home Office has just spent a very large amount of UK readers’ money making a vast online advertisement for NO2ID. We’d despaired of reaching ‘the youth’ ourselves, too expensive. I’m very glad they decided to do it for us.
With audience participation. Which embarrassingly for the Home Office shows ‘kids’ not to be quite the suckers they’d hoped. Enjoy.
Via the Boing Boing website – is this superb picture. Enjoy.
“Two substantive political issues are the federal budget deficit and the war in Iraq. Now, if you’re electing Democrats to control government spending, then you’re marrying Angelina Jolie for her brains. This leaves the Democrats with one real issue: Iraq. And so far the best that any Democratic presidential candidate has been able to manage with Iraq is to make what I think of as the high school sex promise: I will pull out in time, honest dear.”
– PJ O’Rourke. He is still the greatest.
Via Tim Worstall’s blog, I came across this imagined encounter between Polly Toynbee, and her political Mr D’Arcy, Brown, by this guy:
As for poor Pol, where to start? Imagine the despair, so raw you can almost taste it. Imagine the sense of crushing disappointment. For years now, she has waited for her prince to come – her dashing Norse warrior, who will sweep away all the effete detritus of the Blair years and unload a torrent of resources into child poverty and public services. Night after night she has left the red light on for him; lying in the bed in her Agent Provocateur lingerie, maybe some crotchless pants and a peephole bra, striking an uncomfortable pose lest he come charging through the door at any moment to sweep her up in his powerful arms.
Oh my god.
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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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