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 salty tears of the parasites This gem of a remark is to be found here in an article about people planning to protest against largely trivial ‘cuts’ in state expenditure (but note, lower state spending is not “austerity” and I refuse to call it such).
Please come along and let them know that we have no intentions of accepting this oppressive, draconian lifestyle they are trying to impose
This thug wants the state to impose his tax funded lifestyle on other people purse, yet sees a life with less state looted largess as being ‘imposed’ on him? Most parasites have a shameless sense of entitlement and this one is clearly no exception.
Oh how I wish these turgid excuses for ‘conservatives’ we have truly stuck it to them, with genuine cuts that hacked entire limbs off Leviathan, for then I truly would bathe my smiling face in their salty tears each morning. Sadly I cannot see Cameron doing more than fiddling around at the edges.
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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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The tears of parasites make a wonderful bedtime aperitif. Their wails of despair a soothing lullaby.
Nice? Me? Please …
Cannibalism is socialism in a hurry. We are dealing with a cult, the cult of socialism, that rejects reason, evidence and truth, and rejects the necessity to lead an economic life. Their own chosen course leads to death and misery, which they should be permitted to impose only on themselves.
When I visited Angkor Wat many years ago I was feeding monkeys in the temple compound. The monkeys cheered my policy of handouts for nothing until the food was gone. Suddenly the monkeys became upset to the point of physical aggression.
As we can observe, some humans, although supposedly much higher primates, are no better. Oh yes, and the most aggressive monkey looked very much like Russell Brand. I must find the old pictures I took then.
Are you certain it was not in fact Russell Brand?
In all fairness to the protesters, they have an education provided by the local comprehensive education system so one should not expect them to understand the meaning of the word “draconian” or “oppression”, nor the irony of using them to mean exactly the opposite of what they actually mean.
Cuts and austerity are very real for an increasing number of people.
Many jobless, underemployed people and working people on pitiful wages have been treated dreadfully by the Tories. Their poverty is real and a disgrace to an affluent, supposedly civilised nation. Don’t bore me with how they are not starving to death like ‘real’ poverty in Africa.
However, nearly all of the squawking about cuts and austerity has come from comfortably off, securely employed public sector workers who have suffered much less from our current economic difficulties than anyone else.
Yes, but you see, if “we” give YOU the money, then “we” won’t have enough police to stop folks who MIGHT start crackin’ heads at the next “peaceful protest” blocking the street!
And those Welfare Administrators don’t work for FREE ya’ know…..!
Conservatives in general are terrified of being labelled as cruel, esp. If it is combined, as it usually is, with some other -ist violation. Nobody wants to be the boogey man.
What is endlessly fascinating to me is the delusional slogan-mongering that condemns as cruel the economics of freedom, which have lifted billions from abject poverty into a life of available food, shelter, work, and education, while it is documented beyond any honest doubt that collectivism’s inevitable product is graves filled with the innumerable corpses produced by it’s vaunted “compassion”.
It’s really a shame we can’t just pick one f*cking country on this planet (New Zealand? It’s beautiful there and I’m willing to shift hemispheres) and arrange to ship all the socialists/progressive/anti-capitalists to some other country in exchange for being left the f*k alone.
We seem to have a similar problem this side of the pond. Where a slight decrease in the rate of increase is ZOMG!!! We’re all going to DIE!!!
William O’B I’m with you on this, but how about picking the most atrocious hellhole in Africa? Call it ‘Flip This Country’ later, ‘Flip This Continent’.
I’m trying to embed this You-Tube video.
Here it is in copy and paste:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7XySPdg5DQ
Abolishing pensions and ending all rail subsidies would be a great start. Better still, demolish the loss-making railways and replace them with roads.
Heres a parasite at the Guardian explaining to poor retarded me why government spending is always, in every possible manner a good thing.
You may have to read it more than once to appreciate the awe inspiring squandermonkeyness of it.(there’s about 4 times this much in the comments, this is the final summation)
“Now HMTreasury spends £100 billion after the sale of the £100 billion of new bonds, on the usual things government spends its money on. This Treasury spending adds back £100 billion to a range of checking accounts from army suppliers to the people who provide services to the NHS. This means the non-government sector now has its £100 billion of checking accounts back AND it has the £100 billion of new bonds in saving accounts.
So to keep it simple one buyer say Pfizer bought £100 billion bonds from HM Treasury. HM Treasury then spends £100 billion with Pfizer for drugs in the NHS. Bottom line- is the deficit spending of £100 billion directly added £100 billion of savings in the form of bonds to Pfizer. The savings of the buyer of the £100 billion of new bonds shifted from money in his checking account to his holdings of the bonds(savings accounts). Then when the Treasury spent £100 billion after selling the bonds, the savings of recipients of that £100 billion of spending saw their checking accounts increase by that amount.
So, to the original point, deficit spending doesn’t just shift financial assets (U.K pounds and bonds) outside of the government. Instead, deficit spending directly adds exactly that amount of savings of financial assets to the non-government sector ( Pfizer). And likewise, a budget surplus directly subtracts exactly that much from our savings.
What Jan Hatzius and Warren Buffet and Carney will also tell you is….
This also means that the £1.5 trillion national debt is really and equates to £1.5 trillion wealth ( financial assets) in the non government sector to the penny. Me, you and the private sector have this £1.5 trillion in our assets or bank accounts.
Yet the right just can’t see it that way. They are too busy thinking we have a household budget.
It’s crazy o’clock in right wing land.
Every time they cut the defict to try and eliminate the debt they cut the wealth ( financial assets) in the non government sector to the penny.”
…….
In short, government debt spending is adding wealth to everyone in the form of goods and services. Government not spending makes everyone poor.
There is no logical limit placed on this debt spending=wealth creating in this persons mind.
To be fair, thefrollickingmole, this stuff is not easy to think about and seems to be beyond even some Nobel laurates we know. Getting it wrong at first pass is easy enough. The ‘sin’ is to stop thinking once one has reached a conclusion that satisfies prior beliefs (in this case, government spending is good) even though it is patently absurd (why work? Just issue lots of debt).
David Crawford: yes the Interrupters were solid Ron Paul supporters 😉
thefrollickingmole writes:
The view of the ‘Guardian parasite’ is indeed confused; also confusing. Maybe this interpretation of the classical liberal (and even classical conservative) view helps:
1. The money is there (except QE money).
2. The only thing that changes with taxation and government bond issue is who spends the money, on what and when.
3. On nearly everything, the private sector spends the money more wisely than the government.
4. Sometimes the private sector spends the money later, after thinking carefully about it. Prior to that, the money is usefully deployed on short-term deposit. A major plank of government intention is to spend the money now. As this government spending ranks “now” well above “wisely”, the total amount of money available for wise use is reduced.
5. Thus it is better overall for government to tax much less and bond-issue much less, than is currently done.
Best regards
A factor always missing in that type of grossly superficial “analysis” is that all that “wealth” (financial assets) created by government spending represents deferred taxation. It has to be paid back somehow, someday. It no more creates net (aggregate) wealth than does household borrowing.
Ignorant people should refrain from opining on economic matters.
Perry,
That’s good to know. I kind of figured they weren’t lefties when they mentioned taxes. A little known fact, every state a band plays in they have to fill out a tax form for, and pay state income taxes to, that state. Same goes for professional athletes. And if your band gets lucky to tour Canada, or if you play in MLB, NBA, or NHL, you get to fill out and pay Canadian federal taxes plus provincial taxes. Oh, and to make your life suck a little bit more are city income taxes in places like NYC and St. Louis. Why every single rock band aren’t libertarians is beyond me. Instead most of them want to fight the power by bringing in another and more powerful power.
“ . . . we have no intentions of accepting this oppressive, draconian lifestyle they are trying to impose . . . ”
They’re going to get jobs? Good for them!
“Why every single rock band aren’t libertarians is beyond me.”
The problem is that it always seems that the most prominent rock musicians with the highest visibility are *usually* not particularly deep thinkers. Most of them (at least until they’r on the receiving end of a bout of management fraud) don’t think (or really need to think) about things like unintended consequences and received wisdom, least of all focusing on anything as dull as deferred gratification. With sufficient success, your life (even at 97% taxation) looks infinitely better than it did before you learned to strum 4 chords (badly).
Indeed, the few C-list musicians I know have exactly the same political maturity as a cushion. Their grasp of everyday economics is often tenuous and anecdotal at best. They simply remember the last forceful impression made upon them.
There are some notable exceptions, of course, but in general, I fully endorse this straw man.
A point to remember when handing out freebies to bears: you don’t get to decide what is “enough”, the bear does.
Nomination for SQUOTD:
–Mr Ed, May 26, 2015 at 7:42 pm