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 – beware Frogs asking for loans But moving away from the obvious and serious to something more jocular.
Borrowing costs imposed on France
And, no, really, just no. Yes, yes, we all know what they’re saying but it doesn’t work as a construction.
Think of the average nutter – the average socialist but I repeat myself – who’ll scream the house down about the power of The City, of “the market”. This is to make a category error, it is to reify the markets. Those markets are not, for all the linguistic ease of our saying so, “a thing”. They’re just you and me and the folk holding our chequebooks, that’s all. There’s no thing there, no market view, no market control – either control of the market or the market controlling other things. Just that interaction of 8 billion people each counting their own pennies.
The markets – as opposed to the market – do not impose borrowing costs upon anyone. They don’t impose anything at all. There’s a price at which people will lend you their pennies, a price at which they won’t. That changes over time. And, erm, that’s it. This is not an imposition.
– Tim Worstall
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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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Governments and their Central Banks create money from nothing (inflation) yet rather than use this money to fund their spending directly – they lend the money out to banks and other Corporate Entities and then borrow-it-back-again at a higher rate of interest. In this way they manage to create inflation (which they try and conceal with rigged price indices – which are about as straight as American elections) and a crushing National Debt, and debt servicing burden, at-the-same-time.
It is actually quite difficult to do all of the above – so it is hard to believe that the policy is not intentional. The deliberate aim of policy may be to create (concealed) inflation to undermine society – and, at the same time, a crushing National Debt meaning that more and more money goes to financial entities (disguised Corporate Welfare).
Both the monetary (money created from nothing) and the financial system is utterly insane – however, the international establishment are planning a new, and even worse, system. “Digital Currency” – which would enable to decide what people spent money on and when they spend it – as it will have to spent by a certain time (ordinary people will not be allowed to build up wealth – “you will own nothing”) and on what the international establishment decide it should be spent upon.
All this is supposed to be “achieved” by 2030 (it is part of Agenda 2030) – but the present monetary and financial system will probably collapse in 2025 – years ahead of schedule.
I remember discussing with Snorri whether the international establishment were evil or insane – I suppose it is possible that we are both correct, that they are both evil and insane.
The corruption of American elections continues – mail-in ballots have been sent in for days now (some of them as early as September), the University of Florida says that indications are that these ballots are from Democrats (they do NOT point out the truth about this system – but anyone who claims it is straight is just indicating which side in the, highly likely – if NOT inevitable, Civil Conflict they are on – the “mainstream media”, including the supposedly pro liberty journalists, have made their choice – fair enough, it is always best to have the enemy in front of the lines rather than in the ranks).
As for France – it has the highest government spending in the world.
The new “Centre Right” Prime Minister has an solution for this – higher taxes.
“Centre Right” just seems to be a different way of saying what Americans call “RINO” – Republicans In Name Only.
Is someone who wants even higher taxes for France (especially for the individual wealthy – who already face the highest taxes in the Western World) evil or insane? Or are they both?
Does it matter? Whether the people in control of France are evil or insane, or both, things are still going to go badly for France.
And if anyone thinks Britain is ruled by better people than France is – I have a nice bridge to sell you.
Things are going to go badly in the United Kingdom – very badly indeed.
Is it intentional, a “cunning plan” by an establishment bent on destroying nations (including the United Kingdom) in order to create a totalitarian, Agenda 2030, world order – or is it just insane people smashing up the country because they are out-of-their-minds?
Does it matter? The country is going to be hit either way.
“lend you their pennies” – this “money” is not “their pennies” – if we are talking about Euros (the currency France uses) this is created by the European Central Bank and dished out to the financial entities – and then borrowed back again, by the governments who created the European Central Bank – including the French government.
To imply that the present financial system is about real money (an actual commodity – such as gold or silver) and that people are engaging in Real Saving (the actual sacrifice of consumption) and then “lending their pennies” to governments, is not correct. The “money” is created from nothing, by government Central Banks and their pets (such as the Credit Bubble banks) in the financial world (the major financial centres of the Western World are all Corporate Welfare zones – it is just that the people getting the welfare are wearing thousand Pound suits), lent out – and then borrowed back again.
There is no connection between the present monetary and financial system and an honest monetary and financial system. The present system, both monetary and financial, is political.
And, as stated in a previous comment, the international establishment is planning an even worse system.
Paul:
As you say, since 1971 the thing we call “money” is a mere cipher, an illusion backed by nothing at all. It is created at will by central banks and then “loaned” to governments to spend wastefully.
I can only conclude that the system of taxes established before 1971 was kept in place so that the people do not realise that their “money” is backed by nothing more than the will of the state. So we have a system of taxes and debt and all the rest to disguise the fact that since 1971 governments have been conducting a big con, the biggest there has ever been. They have got away with it so far, why would they ever change? If the system ever goes under, it will not be pretty, but so far everyone seems happy to collude in the scam.
JohnK – yes in 1971 the last fig leaf went in most countries.
But, before someone speaks up, yes I know that Switzerland kept some link with physical reality till the 1990s – the new Constitution.
And the international establishment know the present system, both the monetary and financial system, is going to collapse – indeed they are planning on it, as an excuse to introduce their new (and even worse) system – which would mean full totalitarianism, total control of every aspect of the lives of ordinary people.
It is possible, just possible, that President Trump might (might) say NO to such a totalitarian system – which is why they are working to defeat him (or put him prison – or kill him).
The vicious hatred of President Trump is not confined to the American or British media – it can also be seen, for example, with France 24.
Why are they so vicious in their hatred?
It is “nothing personal” – it is not even really about Donald J. Trump.
He is just “in the way” of the plans of the international establishment – their totalitarian plans to control ordinary people, totally control ordinary people.
In the past I may have thought you’d have to be a socialist to think like this……but then then ‘The City’ did organise the so-called ‘market turmoil’ to coup Liz Truss (I never rated Truss but it’s kind of clear she was couped). It certainly wasn’t regular folk waving their cheque books around who did that.
If that makes me a socialist I guess so be it ….
No, that was the Bank of England who did that.
Martin and Perry.
“The City” and the other major financial centres (such as Wall Street and Frankfurt) are, as you know, dominated by a few players – and these vast corporate entities are, in turn, dependent on the Bank of England and the other Central Banks.
This is not capitalism – not any more.
It has been a very long process, for example in the United States some would date the start of the process way before the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 – right back to the National Banking Acts of the 1860s (which gave privileges to the New York banks), so it is very hard to point at a specific year when society stopped being free enterprise – it is shades of grey rather than black and white.
However, even in the 1980s even if we were no where near a true free market – I would still say that we were still in “as if” capitalism. Indeed we still were, I believe, much later than that.
It is, I believe, only in very recent years that political agendas such as ESG and DEI (so heavily pushed by China – but NOT in China, and the projects keep being renamed so “DEI” and “ESG” may not be the names in current use) and campaigns such as “we have got to get Truss out” or “we have got to defeat Trump” have taken over the financial centres.
Even a few years ago suggesting that political or cultural campaigns (on race, or “gender” or whatever) should tack priority over profit-and-loss would have been laughed at.
But now we have left “as if” capitalism – most shares are managed by a handful of entities (such as BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard – and these things have shares in each other) and the both these entities, and the Credit Bubble banks, are joined at the hip with the Central Banks – who are openly pushing political and cultural agendas.
“I do not think we are in Kansas any more Toto”.
It must be repeatedly stated that there is nothing “natural” about this “evolution” to concentrated, and political, control of the economy and society (the culture).
This is the “Cantillon Effect” – the effect of Credit Money being used to concentrate economic power, but on a scale that Richard Cantillon could never have dreamed of in his worst nightmares.
The BoE is in ‘the City’, and as Paul mentions, its quite obvious ‘The City’ is very closely dependent on the actions of the BoE. Even if the BoE initiated the coup, pretty much all the banks, investment funds, financial media and so on went along with it.
Martin – sadly executives have little choice, imagine being the one person in the room who said “this is morally wrong – we should not do this” – security would be called to hand you the contents of your desk in a paper bag. After all if you displease the Central Banks your corporate entity might not get any more funny money.
The head of the oldest private bank in Switzerland was critical of American monetary policy a few years ago – the “international community” destroyed the bank, they did not think twice about it.
And he was lucky – he was not dragged before an American Federal court, with the rigged system that has around a 95% conviction rate (you have to “make a deal” – because they hit you with endless charges, and threaten to put you in a hard prison where bad things will happen to you).
There are a few people who say “no” to the system – and even beat the crooked American “justice” system.
Then, by a total coincidence, one of them will die in a boating accident and the other will be run over by a car – hundreds of miles apart, on the same day.
Still we must not be “paranoid” – it is all just bad luck.
Even being high up in the security state does not save you – the ex head of military intelligence (General Mike Flynn) was hit with absurd charges in 2017 – and rather than being outraged, the media applauded. He had stepped out of line – so it was fine to threaten his family to get him to “make a deal” (plead guilty when he had done nothing wrong) – that was the media attitude.
Same with elections – rig the 2020 election, in several States, and you will not get a day in prison. But an Election Clerk who complains about the rigging of elections will get NINE YEARS in prison – for “violating err…. err” well for not keeping her mouth shut.
Again the media have no problem with this – indeed they cheer it on.
Speaking of loans and bad jokes.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2024/09/21/things-you-dont-know-you-need/#comment-991144
Rig an election and you do not get a day in prison. Indeed you get to see a senile “President” installed, and you get to put a Marxist “Pastor” in the United States Senate (Georgia).
But an election official who complains about election rigging gets NINE YEARS in prison.
This is what the United States of America has come to – and with the full support of the media.