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]
|
The law does not apply to Romano Prodi The EU Commission would appear to be a law unto itself. Confirming his remark last week that the Euro Stability Pact is stupid, he added yesterday:
“Neither the Commission nor myself have been appointed just to enforce rules blindly, ignoring their limitations. That is what I called – and still call – stupid,” he said, addressing Euro-MPs who had summoned him to Strasbourg to explain his unauthorised ditching of Europe’s core set of economic rules.
At least he is honest. He want to power to do what he thinks is best for all of Europe and to hell with any inconvenient agreements that get in the way. Fair enough because I think EU law is also completely illegitimate nonsense too, but then I’m not the head of the European Commission.
|
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.
|
So far he has merely stated that the pact is stupid, which it is. I think he is entitled to his opinion.
So far every common currency has self-destructed and the Euro won’t almost certainly be an exemption from that rule. If the pact remains as it is it’s going to happen pretty soon.
Some common currencies do succeed. The East Carribean Dollar has covered the same eight soverignties, with a factor of three difference in GDP, for 27 years now. It’s even been remarkably stable, having been pegged at XCD 2.70 to USD 1.00 for 26 years, even though there’s only a 60% reserves requirement.
Or the dollar. The Economist reported recently that El Salvador is going to an all dollar economy.
This is off-subject, but I was watching BBC Worldservice today, and they reported that 80% of the European Union’s 100,000,000,000 euro / year budget goes to subsidies, mainly of farms. C’est incroyable!
What, exactly, is the point of these farm subsidies, other than to hurt third world farmers by flooding their markets with artificially cheap food? This is as insane as U.S. farm subsidies (which have substantially hurt Mexican farmers), but I don’t think our subsidies are that large. I don’t have figures about that, so please correct me if I’m wrong.