One of the worst aspects of living in these apocalyptic times is that whenever you look around the world, wondering where you might escape to, you begin to realise that everywhere else is just as bad if not worse.
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Indeed.
A daydream of mine is to buy some land and declare UDI. Fellow Libertarians welcome. I wonder about the feasibility of doing this.
Yeah, listening to late night radio, here on Queenslands Sunny Gold coast, I just heard James latest column, on our brand new shiny carbon tax, read out on air.
Never heard that before.
CC: Which radio station was this, and who actually read it out?
I’ll be on the sunny Gold Coast myself in a couple of weeks, if you feel like a beer.
This may be slightly off-topic, but the Frasier Institute’s “Economic Freedom of the World 2011 Annual Report” ranks New Zealand as #3 and Australia as #5 in economic freedom, both well ahead of the US at #10. (There’s a nice table in Chapter 1 of the Report.) Any thoughts on that from Samizdatistas Down Under?
Iceland. They’ve had their Depression.
As an antipodean Samizdatista I could recommend both Oz and NZ (Canada would make the cut now too).
All three seem to have avoided the worst of the mess the world’s ‘elite’ have got us into. The one proviso would be with NZ – if the All Blacks don’t win the RWC this time there could be an extended period of national mourning…
Delingpole is another in a series of professional miserabilists that inhabit much of our print media.
If someone is not miserable when commenting on the current state of the global economy then either they are not paying attention or they are selling you something.
Thats when you start to stock up on ammunition and canned goods.
Sheesh, what a Gloomy-Gus.
Perhaps a bit morbid Pollyanna-ish, but…(mostly Europe)
What were once farmlands, conscripted into horrendous battlefields, torn up, turned over, loaded up with blood, severed body parts and nitrogen from expended munitions…
are now pretty Poppy covered Fields, leveled, and PERFECT as rich fertilized farmland. (well, except for the occasional UXB) I understand that Viet Nam etc. is NOW a very pleasant place for a simple farmer these days.
WHAT? Too soon?
I also understand that battle sites on American real estate, once reserved by da gub’mint as parks, are succumbing to development with concrete. “International” hotels, and junk shops hawking crap made in China.
Laird:
Canada is far from a libertarian land of wonder, but it’s not getting worse as fast as most other places seem to be. I don’t really have a good explanation for it, but I believe one important factor is that we have two main parties on the left and one on the right, and have had for many years. That causes the Liberals, our “center left” party (for lack of a better description) to be less radicalized than comparable parties in other western countries (such as the U.S. Democrats, for example).
I’ve not been a big fan of our Liberals for many years, but credit where it’s due: since the 80s they’ve tended to be influenced more by what might be called the conservative end of the party. For example, in the 90s they embraced free trade (in deed, if not in word) and turned the deficit into a surplus. And they have avoided many (though not all) of the nuttier ideas to come from the left end of the spectrum in the last few decades. I believe that having a party even further on the left has tended to siphon off the worst ideas.
Perry’s comment – yes.
James Delingpole’s words (brought to us by Brian).
Mostly yes.
The ideology is univeral, the influence (by various sorts of leftist) over education (both at school and university level) has produced a political elite (almost regardless of party – or nation) that is under their influence.
For example, why did little Andorra adopt a Welfare State in the prosperious 1960s?
Where old people dying in the snow? Of course not – they adopted government “insurance” schemes” because it was the political FASHION to do so.
Why did Switzerland (in the 1970s) adopt unemployment “insurance”?
THERE WERE NO UNEMPLOYED IN SWITZERLAND – it as done because of the power of IDEOLOGY.
Ditto the breaking with gold (Switzerland was the last country to have a gold link with its currency) and the selling off of much of the gold reserves.
There were no real logical arguments or empirical evidence – just ideology (univeral – world ideology).
Every country (or rather – every ruling elite) reacts to an economic bust by “fiscal stimulus” (wild government spending) and “monetary stimulus” (i.e. more of the increase in the credit money bubble that caused the boom/bust in the first place).
This is not Marxism (so “conservatives” feel comfortable doing it – I will ignore the various efforts to combine Marxism and Keynesianism by P. Straffa and others) – it is Keynesianism (although this word is not much used – instead we are told the above is just “economics”).
Why do polticians, administrators and media people always support reacting to an economic crash this way? For example even in Australia (where the banks were NOT in trouble) the government rushed to give them money after 2008.
There is no real argument for acting this way, and no real “empirical evidence” either.
It is IDEOLOGY – the stuff the ruling elite (includng many of the business elite) were taught in school and university.
Unless and untill people come into positions of power who reject (not only do not share – but reject) this ideology there is no hope. (none).
However, if only one country (in the world) moved away from this ideology – then there would be hope.
For as things collapse people will be desperate for an alternative that works.
But I fear that for a country to move away from this ideology it would first have to have an education system that was not under the influence of the left.
And I know of no such country.
Indeed whilst education remains government dominated (in terms of its finance) I doubt whether a nonleft dominated education system is at all likely.