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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“A boundless, millennial promise made with boundless, prophet-like conviction to a number of rootless and desperate men in the midst of a society where traditional norms and relationships are disintegrating – here, it would seem, lay the source of that subterranean medieval fanaticism which has been studied in this book. It may be suggested here, too, lies the source of the giant fanaticisms which in our day have convulsed the world.”
– Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium, page 288.
This is a classic study of the revolutionary, religious groups and mystics of the Middle Ages. Cohn, famously – and much to the anger of the Left in the late 1960s – pointed out certain ominous parallels. I could even go so far as to suggest that the more extreme parts of the Green movement could be also viewed in a similar light. The desire for a purer, perfect world free of Sin, pollution or material wealth are themes that sound remarkably similar.
Subtracting time needed to get to the area, at 146,000 barrels per day that translates into 9 million barrels that could have been processed since the initial offer was made by the Dutch.
– a commenter here called ‘Willab’ remarking on the belated US decision to accept Dutch assistance in dealing with the BP oil spill.
To think that the new economy is over is like somebody in London in 1830 saying the entire industrial revolution is over because some textile manufacturers in Manchester went broke.
– Alvin Toffler
Readers may find it odd that students are being encouraged to express solidarity with totalitarian terrorist movements that set booby traps in schools and boast of using children as human shields, and whose stated goals include the Islamic “conquest” of the free world, the “obliteration” of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people. However, such statements achieve a facsimile of sense if one understands that the object is to be both politically radical and morally unobvious.
– David Thompson ruminates on the perverse intellectual incentives that face academics
“Those who justify the need for greenhouse gas reductions by exploiting the mounting human and economic toll of natural disasters worldwide are either ill informed or dishonest…Prescribing emission reductions to forestall the future effects of disasters is like telling someone who is sedentary, obese and alcoholic that the best way to improve his health is to wear a seatbelt.”
– Sarawitz, D., & Pielke, R.A, (2005 January 17). “Rising tide, The New Republic, 10.” Quoted in Cool It, by Bjorn Lomborg, page 108.
I guess after a harsh winter, the AGW alarmists must be breathing a sigh of relief now that we are having a nice summer.
Allow me to put it another way, instead of scientists, these people were hedge managers, and they were found by an inquiry, run by fund managers and bankers, of not being involved in insider trading, but being part of a fan club. Moreover, though the figures they published for investors were misleading, the investors could have obtained the raw data and worked out that they were being sold a lemon on their own.
Would you be so forgiving?
– A commenter challenges George Monbiot on the subject of the Russell “Inquiry”, which found evidence of a failure to by communicate, but which didn’t find anything wrong with “climate science” on account of it not trying to. Recycled by “James P” in his comment here.
“I was just watching part of a Congressional presentation on C-Span honouring the slaves who built the u.s. capitol – not by making restitution to their heirs, of course, but by setting up some sort of plaque. What especially bugged me was the speakers’ continual references to expressing “thanks” and “gratitude” for the slaves’ “sacrifices” and “contributions.” If I take your wallet at gunpoint, it would be rather a euphemism to call your handing it over a sacrifice, and what I owe you is not gratitude. (Of course the language of sacrifice and gratitude is also used in connection with conscript soldiers shipped off to die in lands they’ve never heard of.)”
– Roderick Long, anarcho-capitalist blogger.
I do not agree with Mr Long on all his views – he is far too keen on that seriously wrong-headed Kevin Carson chap for my liking – but the quote above is an absolute zinger.
The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it. The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.
– The artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, explaining why he isn’t getting down with the tubes.
It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.
– George Washington
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
– Benjamin Franklin.
Happy 4th of July to my American friends and relations. This is a good day for all Anglospherists to remember.
The words are mainstream anarcho-lefty stuff, but the name being quoted is a bit of a departure for the place where I spotted this. I took this photo in March, in Leake Street, which is a tunnel under Waterloo Station where graffiti artists do their best and their worst, with results that constantly change. Thank my Photoshop clone for how clear those words are. I went through the Leake Street tunnel again today and wondered if this sign had survived, but of course there was no sign of it. Here is how Leake Street mostly looks.
Contrary to what most people had assumed, banking in the United States had been highly stable in the decades before deposit insurance. Of course, depositors were concerned about their safety, but this made them cautious in whom they banked with. They demanded reassurance from their banks, and the banks gave it to them. Pressure from depositors forced the banks to be conservative, to lend carefully, to keep their leverage ratios low, and to disclose their broad positions. The bankers themselves were conservative even in their dress, but this was itself reassuring, and the solid architecture of the banks’ offices reinforced the notion that they were pillars of the community with solid roots in it. The key to banking was maintaining the confidence of depositors and not taking that confidence for granted.
Before deposit insurance, a bank that took too many risks would eventually undo itself. It would do well for a while, increasing market share and generating better shareholder returns than the fuddy-duddy banks, which would feel the pressure. However, come the inevitable downturn, the cowboy bank would experience heavy losses on its questionable lending, liquidity would tighten, and a point would come where the frightened depositors would run for their money: the cowboy would be literally run out of business. These occasional crises were unpleasant, but good for the long-term health and even stability of the system: the runs would expel the cowboys from the system and give a salutary reminder to those who survived. The system itself was rarely seriously at threat, because the depositors would redeposit their funds with the safe banks. There would typically be a flight to quality, a transferring of funds within the system, rather than a run on or threat to the system as a whole. Thus, it was the threat of a run that kept the bankers in line.
Once you introduce deposit insurance the situation changes profoundly. Deposit insurance allows the bankers to take their depositors’ confidence for granted. This takes the pressure off the bankers, who can now safely increase both their lending risks and their leverage ratios, thereby increasing returns to their shareholders (or, in modem Wall Street, to themselves). For their part, the depositors are no longer concerned with the risks their banks are taking, but only with the rates they get on their deposits. Consequently, deposit insurance subsidizes risk-taking, so leading to excess risk-taking with the deposit insurance agency and, ultimately, the taxpayer, picking up the tab.
Nor does the damage end there. With deposit insurance, there is no longer any run to fear and even the most insolvent banks following the most unsound “shoot to the moon” investments can now remain in business indefinitely, attracting more funds and staying in business by merely raising deposit interest rates. The process of competition then becomes utterly subverted: instead of allowing the conservative banks to drive out the cowboys, even if it takes a little time, the process of competition now rewards the cowboys and penalizes the good banks. It therefore pays to become a cowboy and, eventually, all banks do.
– From Alchemists of Loss by Kevin Dowd and Martin Hutchinson (pp. 271-2). Pictures of the two authors here, taken at the launch of the book last Wednesday evening at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
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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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