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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The devil in the detail Down in the dreary bowels of the Financial Times’ website, which has a list of what we happy people can expect in today’s budget, is this classic of FT understatement:
The chancellor will announce a delay in introducing international financial reporting standards to government.
No shit, Sherlock. In plain English, the vast debt bill incurred in the government’s Private Finance Iniative will not be put on to the public balance sheet for a while yet. How jolly conveeenient. If the PFI debt was so accounted for, it would add tens of billions of pounds of debt to the public balance sheet, making the state of the UK public accounts look positively Italian.
As I have said before, this “off-balance-sheet” stuff is a curse of modern finance, and should be scrapped.
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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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Looking at that page, what struck me (as it often does) is how incredible it is that we put up with this endless kleptocracy. People have become so used to it that they don’t question it. We’re like a nation of battered wives who just shrug off the latest black eye because “that’s the way marriage is”.
How do we start to persuade people that continued arbitrary battering by a government is not the only way a society can be?
Ian B:
Far too late.
I don’t know if it is too late (although I fear I will be long gone or in my dotage before anything gets better). As is too often the case with we Brits, we need a crisis of some sort to wake us out of our slumber.
And although the middle classes are being squeezed and things are getting worse, a lot of Labour’s client state: those living on benefits, in public sector jobs, or private contractors working for state projects, are happy to go along with this state of affairs.
Mind you, if there is a serious house market reverse in this country and there is a recession, then all bets are off.
Civil war or revolution. Can’t see any other way. The idiot Brown has gerrymandered his votes by picking our pockets. There’s no democratic way back. No Pasaran!
A few years back, a young woman graduate student researched and prepared A Financial Statement of the United States, which was ultimately commercially published for a couple of years at least (Harper-Collins, I think).
Since the issue (“Truth in Public Sector Finance“) is at least “on the stove” in the U K, even if in “back burner” status, it is a better case for action there than here in the U S (where it seems to have taken on the aura of Bismark’s “sausage production”).
To move things along, some organization should sponsor the private creation of what the political hacks are trying to delay. Next problem: getting broad interest in it when published, so it can be explained and generally understood.
LOL!
Well, apparently Darling’s theft-spree has stolen around 2.6 billion from us this time. It’s funny how these big numbers just don’t have the effect they should, they’re just too big to comprehend.
Two thousand, six hundred million.
Two thousand, six hundred thousand thousand.
Perhaps we need to find a way to get at the young. When I was a lad, we had people visit my school to give talks. We had a vicar who played eletric guitar (how we laughed), some interesting atomic scientists from Harwell, a man from the Communist Party (how we laughed), an animal rights activist (ditto), but we never had a libertarian.
Perhaps it’s time for libertarians to organise themselves into gangs and prowl from school assembly to school assembly, telling kids their teachers are post-marxist nutjobs and freedom is a worthwhile thing.
Just a thought.
Ian B,
Well there is hope. I just came across this:
David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’
It’s a great read by someone who saw the light.
Maybe you’ve already read it. It’s been linked by all the political blogs here in the States. In fact the website is so busy you may have trouble getting it to load. But take a look – it’s inspiring.
Samizdata should collect a list of stories like this for that little project you suggested.
The US Federal Government has had an ACCRUAL basis financial statement prepared the last decade or so. This is 2007
Page 35 of the PDF file (page 31 of the report) has Comptroller General Walker’s most recent letter to the President and the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House (and presumably all the members of Congress). It clearly states-
Accounting and financial reporting standards have continued to evolve to provide greater
transparency and accountability over the federal government’s operations, financial
condition, and fiscal outlook. Fiscal year 2007 marked the second year in which the
Statement of Social Insurance has been presented as a basic financial statement.4 As
noted above, this year, we were able to render an unqualified opinion on the 2007
Statement of Social Insurance. This is a significant accomplishment for the federal
government. This statement shows that projected scheduled benefits exceed earmarked
revenues by approximately $41 trillion5 in present value terms for the next 75-year
period.6
Considering this projected gap in social insurance, in addition to reported liabilities (e.g.,
debt held by the public and federal employee and veterans benefits payable) and other
implicit commitments and contingencies that the federal government has pledged to
support, the federal government’s fiscal exposures totaled approximately $53 trillion as
of September 30, 2007, up more than $2 trillion from September 30, 2006, and an
increase of more than $32 trillion from about $20 trillion as of September 30, 2000.7 This
translates into a current burden of about $175,000 per American or approximately
$455,000 per American household.
4 Social insurance programs included in the Statement of Social Insurance are Social Security, Medicare,
Railroad Retirement, and Black Lung.
5 On an open group basis (current and future participants). On a closed group basis, which excludes the
benefit payments and contributions of individuals under the age of 15 (or not yet born), this amount is
approximately $45 trillion.
6 Black Lung’s long-range actuarial projections are through 2040 when the program is scheduled to
terminate (i.e., a 33-year period).
7 The federal government’s fiscal exposures are derived from information reported throughout the financial
statements and related footnotes.
His letters in prior years have been even more striking and strongly written, openly available online for the last several years. Last year he did a speaking tour of the US to get people to wake the hell up. And? Nothing. Don”t expect a revolution to occur if UK Government Financials all of sudden are fully stated. No one cares. Socialized education has been too effective. The only possible end to this cycle is a huge economic collapse in which everyone else except government will be blamed and a more brutal form of Socialism will be acceptable and demanded. In my opinion every gripe put forth on this blog will be looked upon as the salad days of Socialism once the bubble bursts.
I said, in my misery : “far too late.”
…..but then MarkS wrote
Civil war maybe; I don’t think we’re capable of mounting a half-decent revolution.
Getting into fights is second nature to us but revolution requires a sense of purpose…we lost that in 1945…along with everything else.
Is there no way I can cheer you up about the state of the country I still live in, PExpat?
Margaret Hodge fired from a cannon, at the dome of the Albert hall during the last few bars of Land of Hope and Glory perhaps? 😉
I think that Ron Paul demonstrated that it is possible for a people to regain their sense of purpose, if they have an attractive goal to aim for.
Obviously he did not, in a year, form a majority. None the less, he got out an important message. I don’t know who will next be willing to suffer the slings and arrows or the fascists on the right or the socialists on the left, but I have little doubt that it will be easier for him because of Paul, and it will be easier for the next revolutionary because of him.
It’s too bad more people didn’t decide to beat the terrorists, overcome the terror, and support sanity for a while.
Mind you, if there is a serious house market reverse in this country and there is a recession, then all bets are off.
I don’t follow your logic. Why would ” those living on benefits, in public sector jobs, or private contractors working for state projects” care about a house market reverse or recession? Their jobs are quite secure. The ones that own houses will be under not pressure to sell, so they can wait out any downturn.
Once you have a substatial portion of the population drawing benefits from the rest, your democracy is in an irreversable downward spiral. It’s happening on the continent, in Britain, and in the US.
RAB…you are a treasure & are gifted in the imagination department. The cannonization of the dreadful Hodge would help a little in unspoiling my day but, sadly, there is insufficient ordnance, even in the oh-so-well outkitted Armed Forces, to put the myriad Hodge fellow-travellers into orbit.
Don’t be so hard on the Albert Hall…it’s awful…I like it.
And don’t make a Hodgepodge of Land of Hope & Glory. It may be a tad passé but it’s a nice tune…I hum it quite often.
A silly argument. What counts is that there is a large “floating voter” segment of the population that is in work, is politically uninterested, is content, and does not care what happens to this country up until the point that they start losing their jobs and cannot pay their mortgages off. When that happens – like in the early 1990s – it has massive political consequences. Sure, I appreciate the consequences of their being a large “payroll vote” of Labour-supporting parasites living off the state, but even so, a recession puts the middle classes into play.
I’m curious. What do other Samizdatas think it would take to turn the tide in the UK? What measures would Brown’s glove puppet and the rest of his Lower Sixth cabinet have to do to push the average Briton over the edge? With Magaret Thatcher it was the poll tax. What do you think would be Brown’s poll tax and are the middle classes who he picks on, as committed as the ragbag of anarchists who revolted over the poll tax? Why did that create such a furore?
The poll tax didn’t push the average Briton over the edge. We simply offered popular support to an organised political coup. We are always bystanders. Sometimes we are invited to march and wave a placard or two. “The People” have only that voice which is granted them by the Insider Class.
Okay then… how can an organised political coup be orchestrated this time round? What has to happen?
Oh, that’s easy. You just need to get a majority faction of the political class, the bureaucracy, the NGOs and “charities”, the pressure group network and the media on your side. The coup follows naturally.
🙂
Many folk have already been ‘pushed over the edge’ and have been leaving the country in droves over the last 30+ years…to be replaced by those to whom the type of state we now have is more suited & who, with few exceptions, will vote, along with all the indigenous layabouts for the hand that feeds them. Socialism is so deeply entrenched that (even!) conservatives shy away from dismantling the hand-out society now so firmly embedded in the national psyche.
Under these circumstances, the chances of a coup are remote simply because, among the majority, there is no will.
I do admire those who hang on…many of whom, like myself, have experienced difficult times in their respective pasts…and have solved their problems.
There are choices of course: Stay & do the Sysiphus thing…and get screwed. Put on the blinkers & ear-plugs & pretend that all is well…and get screwed. Rat out…and get not-so-badly screwed by somebody else in a pleasanter climate 8-))
Thank you for those kind words good sir!
I am seriously thinking of moving to Italy Pexpat.
Now that might sound daft, considering that Italy has always been massively overregulated and taxed , even before they joined the EU, but the peoples attitude is what counts.
Italians naturally assume that their Government is trying to screw them, so they screw the Govt right back.
Nobody pays any tax that they can avoid or ignore. Hell they dont even pay their bus fares if they can help it.
Lovely country, RAB…it’s the screwing that bothers me a tad. If it were confined to their gumment & each other, all well & good….but the most severely reamed are northern palefaces who are the fairest (oh Lawdy) of game. I cannot conceive of spending one’s life on the eternal financial defensive. I know it’s their national pastime but gratuitous thievery amuses me not one whit…but yes, it’s a lovely country.
MarkS.
Yes there was a riot over local government taxation – but that had nothing to do with the fall of Mrs T.
By the way the poor did not pay the “Poll Tax” anyway.
The fall of Mrs T. was over the European Union – period. The Howe knife in the back.
As for what will get the taxpayers fighting in the streets – nothing will.
Partly because the British are too without hope to fight – and partly because we all know we would get smashed.
It would not even be a quick death – it would be bit of a beating and then being shoved into a police van. The humilations and so on of prison, for no purpose.
Ian B.
Libertarians invited to state schools to explain to the children why state education should be closed down.
I do not think I will hold my breath for that one.
MarkS.
Yes there was a riot over local government taxation – but that had nothing to do with the fall of Mrs T.
By the way the poor did not pay the “Poll Tax” anyway.
The fall of Mrs T. was over the European Union – period. The Howe knife in the back.
As for what will get the taxpayers fighting in the streets – nothing will.
Partly because the British are too without hope to fight – and partly because we all know we would get smashed.
It would not even be a quick death – it would be bit of a beating and then being shoved into a police van. The humilations and so on of prison, for no purpose.
Ian B.
Libertarians invited to state schools to explain to the children why state education should be closed down.
I do not think I will hold my breath for that one.
Sorry for the double.
As for off-the-books debt:
When Enron did this it was crime – when governments do it, the practice is “modern finance”.
Paul, the thing is you don’t sit around waiting to be invited. You make an offer. I don’t see they can refuse us if they let something as painful as “The Rockin’ Rev” in.