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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Samizdata quote of the day “…when things go wrong, we seek bogeymen rather than face up to our own shortcomings. We expect instant, painless solutions to self-inflicted problems. Britain’s booze culture is blamed on the slick advertisements of drinks companies and the cut-price tactics of supermarkets. Our obesity epidemic is the fault of junk-food outlets and confectionery suppliers. And our personal indebtedness, the highest it has ever been, is the result of a pernicious campaign by greedy banks to enslave their customers. Oh yes, and the crash was caused by beastly Americans.”
Jeff Randall, economics columnist and broadcaster.
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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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That’s a good quote, sums up the sort of irrationality that drives British politics.
I agree with the quote, but I think it’s possible to go too far the other way. It’s undoubtedly the case that access to junk food correlates with higher levels of obesity, and it appears likely that not all of that is because of the personal failings of individuals. I don’t know where the lline between such things is, though in almost all cases I suspect that more of the blame lies with the individual than with ‘the other’.
Paul, just remove the “almost” in your last sentence, and you’ll be closer to the truth.
Kim, taking that last statement as you have amended it as true, and I think it is, have you considered a career in Microsoft technical support?
The quote and that statement would be at the same time completely accurate and yet utterly useless.
Yes it’s down to the individual. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t whole industries that have built up huge operations which, with clinical and ruthless application of tried and tested formulas do their damnedest to exploit individuals.
As an example, the billions that the Mars Corporation spend every year on sales and marketing aren’t wasted. Nothing in a retail shop is left to chance, the colour and type of the packaging, the placement of the bars in racks the Mars corporation offer provides shop keepers free of charge, the arrangements that sales reps visit and check for layout on a weekly basis; all of that is designed for one thing and that’s to separate people from their cash.
Mars are a fairly benign organisation to be honest. You should spend time at a sales training event for a finance group or similar.
The stuff works. It might not work for you, but believe me it’s depressingly easy to get people to buy from you/agree with you/give you money for no reason.
It might be legal, but it’s not always moral.
Yes it’s down to the individual. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t whole industries that have built up huge operations which, with clinical and ruthless application of tried and tested formulas do their damnedest to exploit individuals.
No it doesn’t mean that. What it does mean is that all of that is completely irrelevant in the absence of physical coercion.
That’s the line that Paul doesn’t know where it is, btw.
I recall a recent documentary about the “Little Ice Age” in Europe which described the repeated crop failures and actual famines which afflicted the peasantry for a couple of centuries before the 1789 revolution.
This was the common condition of mankind for millenia.
Famine, starvation, disease, suffering on a scale we cannot now even begin to comprehend, were the normal state of the vast mass of humanity.
Are you seriously now claiming that the great health problem of our age is that we have too much food to eat, and, instead of the backbreaking dawn to past dusk labor of our ancestors, we do not get enough exercise? And its all the fault of candy makers and hamburger stands for making their goods too attractive?
We live in the land of milk and honey that people in past eras longed for, prayed for, and died searching for.
It is only the inverted morality of the anti-moderist mentality that complains about our “big problems”—we have too much to eat, too many material comforts, we live too long, and there are too many people.
I can understand the views of those whose self-hatred extends to opposing and condemning the bounty of our modern, technical, world-wide trading culture, which has nourished them and maintained them in a manner that was only nirvana-style fantasizing just a few generations ago.
Go to one of the many hellholes that still exist, unfortunately, around our globe, and tell some woman holding her dead child in her arms that the biggest problem in the world is fat people who watch too much TV. Let me know what she says.
Of course Jeff Randle was being ironic.
But for people who have a problem with irony (I do myself – inspite of being British), I should explain.
Britain does not use the Dollar nor is their any link between the Dollar and the Pound – so the increase in the money supply here was NOT the fault of the Federal Reserve system. It was the fault of the “independent Bank of England” that British people are so proud of (the reason for this pride escapes me).
The only good thing that can be said for the Bank of England was that it did not try and cover up the M3 (bank credit/money) numbers – Alan Greenspan did try and cover them up (he “saved monet” by not publishing the stats).
As for the franctional reserve banking games that turned the Federal Reserve increase in the money supply to a massive explosion of credit/money.
Banking in Britain is under a different set of rules from the United States (although there are “international standards” – normally a bad sign, as such agreements make bad practice in one country universal).
So there was no reason for the British banks to be credit bubble joke enterprises just because the American ones were – are.
Although, at least, Britain does not have Bank of America type operations – handing millions of Dollars to ACORN and other such.
British and American banks are both welfare spongers, parasites who steal money from the taxpayer so they can drive Maserati’s.
I am frugal with my money, don’t use credit cards (only use my bank card) and when in shops ALWAYS use cash.
Anyone who uses a credit card to buy products in shops is a moron; you should always use cash whenever possible.
Whether you have a bank account on not should be a matter of choice, yet governments force everyone to put their money into banks.
Banks are in the business of managing other people’s money, if they cannot manage themselves they are clearly incompetent and should not be allowed anywhere near other people’s money.
Remember, bankers have no sense of patriotism, they don’t give a toss about Britain or any of us, so we should treat them accordingly.
Its clear that we now need to have foreign banks handling our money because our bankers are, almost without exception, utterly useless, lazy, stupid, and incompetent. Its time to sell off our useless banks to competent foreign management.
The financial sector is dying and good riddance to it; it does not make anything of value and should not be mourned.
Relugus – it appears you think I’m a moron, because I almost always pay using my credit card in shops, and most other places I can. It gives me an interest-free loan, a handy way to manage my spending, and I even get 1% cash back. And in return I pay nothing, not even interest, because I pay it off each month. So why am I moron?