AngloAustria

The New Paradigm

2011-07-13T23:18:00.002+01:00

As I am currently engaged in a hugely complicated property deal in Greece, I have little time to write a web log. However, I have even less time to read those long articles on Cobden Centre, any more. I am much more inclined to read the new blog pieces produced by a very good friend of mine, on a new Austrian Economics web site, in England.

I cannot recommend this web site, highly enough.

The Maturin World Tour

2010-10-08T16:19:00.000+01:00

I am currently engaged in an extensive world tour of all the world's finest Shiraz, Pinot, and Gewurztraminer grape wineries.

I may be some time.

In the meantime, you may like to follow England's other source of Austrian-related information:

=> The Cobden Centre

Cheers, and Pip pip!!

Wimbledon's longest match: John Isner victorious as marathon match finally ends

2010-06-25T09:08:00.004+01:00

Incredible. Herculean. Magnificent.

Will there be a movie? There ought to be. Here's a YouTube, instead:

World Cup, Sunday: Germany versus England

2010-06-25T08:44:00.006+01:00

"Don't tell him, Pike!"
One to watch through the fingers from behind the sofa, methinks.

Here's the YouTube of Germany and England's finest encounter:

UPDATE: AngloAustrian prediction. It will go to penalties. Slight concern this end that although England are finally practicing penalties at the end of every training session, that they are not doing the full walk from the halfway line. If Maturin Towers were coaching England, then we would do this to enable full motor memory skills to come into play during the actual game. The more you do something 'for real', and the more real you make the practice experience, then the less nerve-racking will be the real thing, when it finally happens, as the body falls into a pre-programmed neuronal motor pattern, as determined by neural linguistic programming. Oh well. What the heck do we know? Not that I'm nervous, or anything.

Are those green shoots wilting, Ben?

2010-06-25T08:32:00.000+01:00

Ben Barnacle's money-printing game is beginning to go all a bit wobbly:

=> Ben Bernanke needs fresh monetary blitz as US recovery falters

Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

Barack Obama is refusing to listen to reason on economic policy

2010-06-25T08:14:00.003+01:00

See no evil, hear no evil
I rarely cover Jeremy Warner of The CoalitionGraph, because usually he is too statist for my tastes; however, today he writes a considered piece about the growing monetary divergences between Europe and America.

He has some fine words for Paul Krugman, too:

As it happens, nobody is asking America to axe and burn with immediate effect, though you might not think this to read Professor Krugman's ever more hysterical commentaries on the fiscal austerity sweeping Europe. But some sort of a plan for long-term debt reduction, other than blind reliance on growth, might be helpful.

Is the tide changing on Keynesianism? It's certainly coming in less quickly if it hasn't quite turned yet.

There is hope, after all.

The Myth of Political Consent

2010-06-24T19:21:00.003+01:00

Excellent article, by James Ostrowski.

Bernanke: "I Don't Understand the Gold Price"

2010-06-24T19:14:00.000+01:00

Ben Bernanke is either stupid or he is lying.

He may think we're idiots, which makes him an idiot, but I don't think he's stupid.

So he's almost certainly just lying.

Keynesian policies have brought Britain to the brink of ruin

2010-06-24T13:52:00.003+01:00

Professor Kevin Dowd maps out the hole that Gordon Brown and the other Keynesians have put us in:

In 1930, Maynard Keynes wrote a splendid essay (”Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren“) in which he looked forward 100 years hence. His musings did not age well: he anticipated that by then the economic problem – endless toil – would be resolved and we would be working 3 hour days to keep our hand in as it were, and he worried about the effects of so much leisure time and boredom on our mental health. This was the same genius who told us the government should spend its way out of recession and that in the long run we were all dead anyway.

How Libertarians Should Live in a State-Run World

2010-06-24T07:45:00.003+01:00

The arms of the soccer club AC Milan, which contains the arms of the City of Milan on the right, which are based upon the "Vexillum Ecclesiae" of Pope Alexander II (1061 to 1073), the bloody cross of Christ, which William the Conqueror used as a consecrated banner to justify his rape and pillage of England
Thank goodness for Uncle Murray, for helping us to understand how to remain sane in a world of statist madness.

Just to add to his thoughts, some of us occasionally encounter the argument from statists that the state 'owns' the country we live in, and that if we don't like the state's rules, then we have three choices; (1) Leave - though this is often either difficult or impossible and there's nowhere left in the world anyway, which isn't in the clutches of some state, or which one state or another won't rule out from invading at its own will, so that even your own ship in international waters can be invaded by a state in hostile violent mode with the statist press defending them for their heroic actions; (2) Stop complaining, and buckle under; (3) Commit suicide.

Well, I feel that the state 'owns' its own territory in the same way that a Mafia mob 'owns' its bit of turf in Manhattan. Yes, some of these mafias have 'ruled' their bit of turf for a long time, but that doesn't make it any better or any more morally legitimate when they 'ask' you for protection taxes. In fact, so weak is their position on their original 'ownership' of a territory, that states usually turn to some deity or other to justify their possession of a controlled territory in which they run a monopoly on forced payments in return for monopoly 'protection' provision.

A case in point is the British government. Duke William of Normandy got the distant Pope of the day to give him 'permission' (presumably on behalf of the Christian God) to invade England. Even today the flag of England, the bloody cross of Christ, is that same papal emblem, the Vexillum Ecclesiae, which William carried into battle with him at Hastings after it was sent to him by Pope Alexander II.

It does seem rather ironic, of course, that the same flag that millions of Englishmen are draping themselves in as they watch the World Cup, is the same flag that was used to wrap them in chains; it must be some kind of Stockholm syndrome writ large. But I digress.

Having decapitated the previous regime, William then took over England, slaughtering, taxing, and regulating, as he went, handing over massive parcels of stolen land to his lieutenants, keeping the best lands for himself. Oh, and while he was at it, he got his state-appointed judges to declare that he did in fact own all the land he could see (and much land that he couldn't see), and that all of these grants of land to the Dukes of Northumberland, Montgomery, Norfolk, et al, could all be revoked at the King's pleasure.

To this day, the Queen of England still 'owns' every square inch of land in England, by right of conquest emanating directly from William. It is at her blessing that the 'freehold' you may possess underlying your English castle is not revoked back to her, at her discretion. Hence, the British government can legally (under the British state's common law ruled upon by British state judges who work for and who swear allegiance to the crown) put a motorway through your back garden, should they so choose to do so, at any time, and if you die without any heirs, then 'your' land goes back to the crown.

But William was a murdering raping bandit. And although it has admittedly been a long time since his band of robbers decided to swing by England and settle down, cataloguing the people as tax cattle in the Doomsday Book, this time effect does not make the English crown's 'ownership' of England any more legitimate. Just as the Romans were not the legitimate 'owners' of Britain by conquest when they raped this land, or just as the EU - the modern descendant of the Roman Empire - is not now the current legitimate 'owner' of Britain, because the crown's ministers signed us over to them in the Lisbon treaty; we weren't theirs to give away in the first place, as they are basing this right to hand us over on the right of conquest a thousand years ago, which was a criminal act.

In the same way, the US government does not 'own' the Moon, just because they planted a few flags there, paid for with stolen money, and does not own virtually the entire western half of continental America because Jefferson used stolen money to buy a piece of paper from a corrupt French government, in the Louisiana purchase, covering millions of acres of land no Frenchman had ever seen, let alone any King called Louis.

Forget John Locke and mixing your labour with previously unowned land. Buying everything from a bankrupt French King, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, without any European having seen much of it, with money stolen from the American people, is a neat trick if you can get away with it; I wonder how the native American peoples who occupied the land at the time thought about this? Let's face it; they probably didn't even know about this piece of paper going from one white man to another for fifty years, until some more white men turned up in their village with guns to shoot them up, one day, while waving this grubby piece of paper as justification for the slaughter.

But just supposing for a second that we accept that the British state does 'own' Britain. Does that mean we must knuckle under and obey, tug our forelocks, and pay our taxes? Of course it doesn't.

If you are in a prison for a crime you didn't commit, or even if you have just been captured as an enemy combatant by some repulsive state or other, or even if you have been locked up just for disagreeing with the powers-that-be, then as far as I am concerned you are at perfect liberty to try to escape or to make the life of the guards as much hell as possible, or to burn down the prison camp to replace it with a better place, just as you would be if you were born in the Soviet Gulag, the biggest prison camp of all time.

The prisons the state has built to house us as tax cattle may be 'owned' by them. But the land they built these prisons on was stolen and the money they used to purchase the bricks and cement of the prison, and to pay the guards with, was stolen; often from us!

Everything the state builds and owns was done through either theft or violence, or both. Therefore, it can never be 'legitimate' if you believe in a system of morals in which theft and initiated violence are repulsive. Thou shalt not steal is at the bedrock of every form of law in the world; it doesn't become okay just because you call yourself a state rather than a gang.

The state is nothing but an immoral band of robbers writ large. And it should be treated as such.

Is the world's supply of oil virtually inexhaustible?

2010-06-24T02:16:00.003+01:00

Crazy stuff from an Austrian physicist named Gold.

Or is it crazy?

I hope no-one tells the Mogambo Guru. His oil futures may be worth less than he thought.

England Slay the Mighty Slovenia

2010-06-24T01:48:00.004+01:00

Yes, once more into the breach, the David of England slayed the mighty Goliath of Slovenia by one incredible stone's-throw goal to nil.

I am now going to bet my house, my shirt, and my farm, on England beating Germany, Brazil, Spain, and Argentina, in that order, to win the World Cup!

I believe.

Where is Slovenia, BTW?

Gold bubble? What Gold Bubble?

2010-06-24T01:46:00.002+01:00

Casey Research think talk of a gold bubble is years too early (scroll down a bit).

AngloAustrian Advice: Stay away from America

2010-06-23T10:18:00.003+01:00

The US police state grows more dangerous each passing day. If you don't need to go, stay away.

Beware of Mr. Wolf

2010-06-23T08:55:00.003+01:00

Dear God, it's more densely packed than the matter in a neutrino star, but Sean Corrigan's demolition of the Keynesian position is both intense and wonderful, like a seared bloody Aberdeen Angus steak drenched in hot fresh Puttanesca sauce.

Brilliant!

Peter Schiff: Connecticuters can now vote for him

2010-06-22T21:56:00.000+01:00

The Duke takes one step closer to the US senate:

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher

2010-06-22T20:17:00.000+01:00

John Gatto delivers another seminal lesson on what state schools are for.

Brilliant.

Vuvuzelen sind verboten

2010-06-22T19:57:00.000+01:00

Adolf gets himself in a sauerkraut pickle over the nine-year-old South African cultural implement:

You don't get this kind of service on LewRockwell.com! :-)

Gold reclaims its currency status as the global system unravels

2010-06-22T08:26:00.000+01:00

Ambrose finally spots the Austrian elephant in the room.

Look out for the interesting comments at the bottom, BTW.

I haven't left one myself; I was simply too busy laughing! :-)

Stand by your wallets

2010-06-21T22:20:00.004+01:00

The British government in action
Tomorrow morning, that economic klutz George Osborne is going to attempt to empty your wallet to make you pay for the British government's mistakes, to ensure that British government staff don't have to suffer for these mistakes and to make sure that you bear the cost of all of this jobbery.

Osborne's plan won't work, of course, and they'll still end up printing their way out of this, rather than daring to take a real axe to all of that spending above their means.

So when the recession comes back again, for Part II, after its rest while the Keynesian stimulus was tried, we'll really know how George's desperate plan has done.

It ain't gonna be pretty.

Make sure you get a good accountant. Avoid as much of this theft as you can. Spend what you can save on physical gold and store it in such a way that the British government cannot steal it from you when they get really desperate in a few years' time.

Uncle Gary's 101 on Keynesianism

2010-06-21T21:57:00.002+01:00

Crikey.

That Uncle Gary's a card, and no mistake.

Just check out this 101 on why the US economy is in such a mess.

Try seeing if you can get through the whole thing without taking more than one breath:

=> 101 Thoughts on America's Economy

'How to save the NHS £12bn in one year without stopping a single operation'

2010-06-21T15:35:00.001+01:00

The blue-rinse socialists at ConservativeHome have a central plan to improve the governmental efficiency of the NHS.

Yes folks, they really don't get it at all.

Here's my pointless response which no-one will read, and even if they do, completely ignore, but it does make me feel better to know that at least they have seen a glimpse of the truth, even if they are incapable of understanding it:

Jack Maturin said...

I hate to sound too radical, ConservativeHome, but none of the measures you have outlined will work. The tens of thousands of overpaid bureaucrats who would administer any such cuts are far too well buried and camouflaged to be outed by such measures, and they are the ones who make the decisions anyway.

If the central government tries to cut down these useless people, these rent-seekers will sack doctors, nurses, and ambulance drivers instead, to cover their own tracks and to deliberately create a crisis, in which they will keep their bloated pensions and salaries, and all the palaces that they work in (often located in leafy grounds well away from the dreadful hospitals they use as excuses to rape the taxpayer).

The central state cannot do anything about these people. It appointed them and it pays them to make the decisions on the ground. These people will always choose themselves first, seeing as they are human beings (though largely immoral ones).

Central planning, can never work. It has never worked. And it will never work, even if the central plan is to cut spending. The Men from the Ministry only ever ending up cutting what is useful and keeping what is useless.

There is only one answer. And until it is tried, we will never be rid of 'Save Our Hospital' campaigns, and the like, and a wasteful inefficient system which prefers people dying within its bowels to cut down on bed usage, with 'death committees' (e.g. NICE) deciding who lives and who dies on the basis of political influence.

What is this radical answer? I don't know whether I dare whisper its horrific name.

Privatise the whole shooting match.

It's heady stuff, I know, but can you imagine (even for a second) a 'Save Our Hospital' campaign, if the whole thing was privatised? Do we have 'Save Our Supermarket' campaigns in the much more private food-provision market? Can you just imagine how terrible a 'National Food Service' would be, if the government put the same level of central control into food provision as it does into health service provision? We would first starve and then there would be a revolution.

Why do we put up with this miserable government control in the health system then? Because you do not die within weeks if the government controls the health system, as you would if they controlled the food system, that's why. And so we don't notice just how bad they are at managing it. Instead, we die years earlier than we should, usually in miserable conditions.

And I don't mean American-style privatisation either, which is massive government control and spending fronted by privileged 'private' front organisations, and run by a union, the American Medical Association, to keep doctors rich and patients poor.

I mean full-blown complete removal of government interference in the health market completely. Everything government touches it turns to dust. The more government involvement you have, the worse things get. The less government involvement you have, the better things get.

You chaps may have heard of this radical solution before.

It's called the 'free market'.

Or are you blue-rinse socialists still too afraid to dare say its name?

The system wasn't even broken before the Labour party created the NHS monster, based upon the soviet system. There was a slight shortage in arthritis treatment services, and that was it.

The entire nationalisation was a political scam to try to socialise the people into politically correct thinking. They wanted to make it literally unthinkable, in the Orwellian sense, for people to dare to remove their socialist controls.

It would appear that this scam worked.

UPDATE: Oh dear, I have upset the controllers of the memory hole. My comment has been deleted by the bed-wetting blue-rinse socialists of ConservativeHome. What a miserable bunch of feeble and pathetic cowards. No doubt there'll be some technical reason for this. It will have nothing to do with daring to mention the taboo phrase of 'the free market' in relation to the NHS.

No wonder I left the Tory party.

HT to Archie Dean

UPDATEII: After Archie D. pointed out that my initial comment had been deleted, I left the following hilarious rejoinder which I fully expected to be deleted too.

Jack Maturin said...
Oh dear, Blue Beep, it appears you don't like it up you. What a terrible shame.

I was right then. You really are a bunch of bed-wetting blue-rinse socialists.

Remarkably enough, it wasn't deleted! Instead, my original comment popped back up again. Crazy.

Even better than that, some nitwit called Allan had decided to tear a strip off me by accusing me of believing in the free market.

Well, duh?! :-)

I won't bother boring you with his witless pathetic reply. Here's my rejoinder, instead:

Jack Maturin said in reply to Allan...

So Allan, you believe that the market fails and must be bolstered by socialised government interventions. In the old days, this would have meant that you were a SOCIALIST. I suppose nowadays it means that you're a 'radical conservative'.

Why are such radical conservatives so terrified of the free market?

Why does the free market have to be defended from attacks by these radical conservatives?

I'm not even going to try, as it's pointless. You either believe in the free market or you do not. You either believe that the free market can deliver ALL services better than socialised government or you do not. No amount of argument ever made a single socialist give up socialism, with extremely rare exceptions such as Hayek.

But Allan, please do not think that you are NOT a socialist. Everyone who 'believes' in the NHS is a socialist. Just as everyone who 'believes' in the BBC is a socialist. And everyone who believes in subsidies for farmers is a socialist.

Your pet groups as to who gets subsidies forced out of others may differ from those of the Labour party or the Liberal party, but it's a question of degree, not of substance. If you want socialised systems of service provision then you are a socialist.

That's what the word means. Look it up in a dictionary:

so·cial·ist (ssh-lst)
n.
1. An advocate of socialism.

so·cial·ism (ssh-lzm)
n.
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

Now please define the NHS in a way which isn't trapped by that definition above? I would be fascinated to see how you do it.

Please enjoy the rest of your socialist life.

That should raise his blood pressure a bit. If he goes down the NHS, I suppose they'll treat it for him with a life-long treatment of expensive Big Pharma drugs.

Peter Schiff Roundup

2010-06-21T07:25:00.001+01:00

The Duke is worried about the signs for business in the US of 'political risk', and how Barry Ocuda may use the BP situation to ram through more communism:

The Duke then discusses a new article by Ally Greenfin and the appreciation of the Sinopian's currrency:

Labour's legacy is a choice between unpleasant cuts in public spending, a sovereign debt crisis or currency debasement

2010-06-21T06:51:00.000+01:00

Steve Baker, the Misesian MP for Wycombe, writes the finest exposition on real (i.e. Austrian) economics, that I have ever read.

And yes, I'm including Rothbard and Hoppe in that.

It would seem that Ursula really does appear to have found our very own English Dr. No:"The Government does not have an inexhaustible horn of plenty. Government has nothing to give without first taking. Government funds itself by taking today, by borrowing against a promise to take a greater sum tomorrow and by debasing the currency. We have reached the limits of all three."

We're all Prussian Now - Why Schools Really Exist

2010-06-20T10:56:00.003+01:00

We have likened schools to Nazi prisons before, here on AngloAustria, but nobody puts this argument better than John Gatto, the former high school teacher from New York state. Here are his six reasons why schools, particularly state schools, exist, and no peeps, it's not to educate people. In fact, it's the very opposite:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

As Murray Rothbard reveals in his brilliant Conceived in Liberty, the state school system in the United States sprang directly from the theocracy of Massachusetts and its need to make children obey the theocrats. The rigid Christian theocrats in Massachusetts copied this school system directly from Prussia, where it was used to make children obey the Prussian state, the same state which eventually became the Third Reich national socialist state.

So now you know why Massachusetts 'liberals' are so like Nazis.

Subsequently, we in Britain copied the 'progressive' American schools system. So now you also know why Gordon Brown used to like visiting Massachusetts for his 'political inspirations' before he became Chancellor and really screwed this country over. (And no, it was nothing to do at all with visiting Provincetown, and its famous gay colony on the seminal tip of the phallic Cape Cod. Because Gordon Brown isn't gay. Oh no. He's a happily married man.)

Sick of Obama yet?

2010-06-19T12:35:00.001+01:00

Don't worry. You will be.

Here's that video, again, lest ye forget:

Gold price hits new record of $1,258

2010-06-19T11:10:00.002+01:00

Funky.

The euro's inevitable failure will be horrendous for all of us

2010-06-19T11:02:00.003+01:00

The rope dancer Charles Moore gets it right, for a change.

England unlikely to win World Cup, shock

2010-06-19T10:26:00.003+01:00

In what must have been the most tortuous game of soccer I think I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing, at least since the last World Cup, the England team once again failed to perform despite being filled by some of the alleged best soccer players, in the world. (You have to say that last bit like Jeremy Clarkson.)

These world-class players are very lucky in that they can still rescue the situation by beating Slovenia in their final group game, but I wouldn't bet my house on it.

Oh well, there's always 2014.

It seems that the expensive Capello magic has stopped working. Has he fallen for the old England manager trap of refusing to do the obvious thing (i.e pairing Rooney with Gerrard, removing Heskey, and bringing on Joe Cole from the left)? Or is he incapable of doing anything except 4-4-2? Hmmm....

There's obviously something very wrong in the heart of the England camp.

One wag I was with last night said, 'all they need is a goal, that's all I'm looking for.'

Personally, I'd be happy with a completed pass from midfield.

Shocking.

I think, however, that there's one thing for certain. Despite even Henley On Thames being festooned with cars bearing England flags, if England do win this year's World Cup, then the greatest miracle on Earth will have occurred since Moses split the waters of the Red Sea.

Don't, in other words, hold your breath.

No wonder I prefer rugby.

ECB must buy 'hundred of billions' of bonds to tame Europe's debt crisis

2010-06-18T11:10:00.003+01:00

It's not the criminality of the ECB counterfeiters robbing wealth from the billions of people who hold euros which most sickens me, it is the corruption of language.

When Fitch Ratings say the ECB must purchase hundreds of millions of euros, it is a desecration of the word purchase, which implies that you are swapping some asset of value for another asset of value.

Whereas what the ECB is actually doing is moving a digital number from one computer memory slot to another, and in return getting enhanced promises from governments to rob their victims for the next few decades, via government bond repayments, and diluting the savings of these same victims by handing their wealth to the government via this electronic chicanery and its generation of currency handed to these miserable governments.

The whole thing is bizarre, and as Toby Baxendale notes at the Cobden Centre, these thieves only get away with this robbery because very few of these government victims know how the monetary system operates. If they did, then there would be instant revolution; which is why the process is kept so shrouded by the corruption of language itself.

So how does a corrupt entity, the EU state, bail itself out? I have no clue.

Let's change that headline to what it should really say:

'ECB must inflate the paper currency stock by printing up hundreds of billions of more new euro currency tickets'

Most people would still not realise what lay behind that, in the way that they have been fooled by 'quantitative easing', but if we are to even start tackling these swindlers, we must start using language truthfully and picking up on it where it is used dishonestly.

Though having said that, I'm sure the odd politician does occasionally tell the odd word of truth. But only by mistake.

Doug Casey Revisits the Greater Depression and Explains the Realities of Investing in the 21st Century

2010-06-16T13:16:00.006+01:00

Worth reading every word, from The Guvnor, to protect yourself from the damage your stupid government is going to inflict upon you in order to protect its own future:

"The Greater Depression began, I believe, in 2007, and will get much worse because not just the US government, but every major government in the world, has been doing not just the wrong things but exactly the opposite of the right things.

The right thing would be for these governments to get totally out of the picture. What they are doing instead is inserting themselves further into the economy. But I suppose this is what the average person wants them to do because, idiotically, the average person thinks that the government is some kind of a magic cornucopia and is the solution to their problems – when actually government is the basic cause of all these problems. Its only products are taxes, regulations, and inflation – along with wars, pogroms, persecutions and the like. Government produces nothing. So I guess I'm not overly sympathetic to them; they are pretty much going to get what they deserve in the years to come.

The Greater Depression is on a temporary hiatus at the moment because the stimulus measures and extra debt these governments have created to deal with the crisis have given the appearance of a recovery; but in the months to come, things are going to devolve back to the financial chaos of a year or two ago and actually get much, much worse. I hate to make such a gloomy forecast, if only because people that draw wacky conclusions from sources like Nostradamus, the Bible, and the Mayan calendar are so prone to do so. But I'm not talking about the end of the world, just a bit of a social and economic upheaval – and we've had plenty of those over the centuries.

So, in brief, we're kind of in the eye of the storm at the moment, but I expect this thing is going to be much worse on the other side of the hurricane. And it's not going to be brief; this could linger on for years with a lot of consequences, not just the obvious economic and financial ones."

The Duke: Markets, Ron Paul, Rubini, BP

2010-06-16T10:53:00.002+01:00

The Duke predicts an explosive movement upward in the oil price, as well as talking about gold and other investments:

Euro Declines on a Sea of Bankruptcy and Paper Promises

2010-06-16T10:47:00.002+01:00

The only way is down
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

The Mogambo Guru explores the infinite stupidity of everybody.

Which is a neat trick, if you can do it.

The Correlation Between Morons and Government Debt

2010-06-16T10:41:00.002+01:00

There's only one sentient being alive who could come up with an article title like that.

Yep, it's that Mogambo Guru, describing his new Mogambo 55-Year Cycle Theory (M55YCT), which he just made up.

But it sounds convincing! ;-)

Ask the Fool: Is Gold a Bubble?

2010-06-16T10:35:00.001+01:00

It's make up your mind time.

Is the Euro dying before our eyes?

2010-06-16T10:30:00.000+01:00

I hope so:

=> Spain plays high-stakes poker game with Germany as borrowing costs surge

A Fishy Tale

2010-06-16T09:40:00.002+01:00

The Cobden Centre reviews the new Schiff brothers' book.

Britain goes to cock, shock

2010-06-16T09:34:00.001+01:00

It's all falling apart over here in England. Even Sir Bufton Huffchester is now saying that we should shrink government by increasing taxes.

If even Sir Huff has lost his sanity, then we really are in trouble.

I would comment on all of the related articles, but alas I have work to do to help protect myself from this mess, and there's simply too much madness around at the moment to comment constructively upon it:

=> A programme to horrify politicians, but save Britain (Sir Huff finally loses it and claims that by taxing food and by increasing all other taxes, that we can get a smaller government. Go figure, as the Americans say.)

=> UK faces life in the economic slow lane (Jeremy Warner thinks we can get 'growth' in Britain by "countering" fiscal contraction with an accommodative monetary policy. My tailor is good at stuff like that. "Yes sir, if we widen your waistband your diet will start working.")

=> The critical point for peak inflation is drawing nearer, believe it or not (Roger Bootle is mystified by the visitation of price inflation upon us, from outer space. Go carefully there, Roger.)

Like I said, madness has descended.

We're not all Keynesians now.

We're all nutters.

An Austrian Speech in a British Parliament

2010-06-13T15:07:00.003+01:00

Tremendous work, by Mr Baker, above, in slipping Austrianism into the British government's parliament building.

Unless you want to hear about the beauty of the Hambledon Valley and Wycombe Hospital, zip through to four minutes for the real action.

(BTW, the Hambledon Valley is about four minutes' drive from Maturin Towers, and both of our regular viewers will know exactly what it looks like if they've ever seen the film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.)

Time for the home brew kits to come out of the cupboard

2010-06-13T10:30:00.003+01:00

An overpaid government civil servant drone, yesterday
This useless current British government is going to hammer the public with increased consumption taxes in the forthcoming Osborne budget.

What Osborne and his crew haven't realised yet, alas, is that every penny spent by government is a wasted penny and that the best way of tackling government over-spending is not by taxing more, but by spending less.

This way, they leave more wealth in the pockets of the people which will then be spent wisely on the optimum blend of production and consumption rather than all wasted on more government consumption rubbish, such as paying the grossly inflated salaries of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of useless public sector drones who earn more than the prime minister.

They also haven't learnt Arthur Laffer's insight that if government's raise taxes sufficiently, then they raise less revenue as people work less and/or avoid the taxes. From my 'Imagined Minarchist' standpoint, there is a sweet spot of tax rates which generates the most amount of revenue.

But we are way past that point already, after 13 years of Gordon Brown (remember him?), and all more taxes will do is to depress government revenue even more, as people consume less alcohol, get more crates of booze in from France, drink cheaper drinks at home rather than in the pubs, and dust off their old home brew kits. The Treasury found that when they raised tobacco taxes sufficiently, their rake off plunged dramatically as people gave up smoking and/or shipped in crates of tobacco products from France.

The cheapest cigarettes come from Dubai, where no tax is paid on tobacco, and you often see people coming back from there with the maximum tobacco allowance, even if you never see them actually smoking them.

I wonder what's going on there?

An old Saudi hand also told me recently how to keep a continuous supply of lager going with a minimal amount of equipment and effort, and I may be following his advice in order to cut down the amount of money I waste on propping up this useless government with alcohol taxes.

With my 'Fully Realised Anarchist' hat on, of course, I feel it is a total disgusting outrage that I pay any protection racket fees at all to these criminals, but they do have guns and they are prepared to use them so the two bottle fridge trick may be an easier way to get back at these scum Westminster politicians, and other low life.

Who I feel really sorry for are the publicans and innkeepers of this land. The Nanny-State smoking ban hammered thousands of them out of work, and this proposed ravenous tax hike on alcohol is going to hammer thousands more of them out of work.

All they were doing was providing people with enjoyment and entertainment. But all this must be sacrificed so that fat useless pigs in NHS trusts and legions of other parasites can continue to receive vast salaries and pensions for producing bugger all except misery and red tape.

Roll on the revolution, brothers and sisters.

Let's round up all of these muppets and put them all on a one-way boat to Sweden.

Marc Faber — There’s no other way out but to print money

2010-06-12T10:16:00.002+01:00

Precisely.

Peter Schiff: Markets, Bernanke, Rule of Law

2010-06-11T21:35:00.004+01:00

The Duke's financial roundup of the week, including his use of Ben Barnacle as a contrarian indicator:

Good news on The Duke's bid to get on the Republican ballot in Connecticut:

Insufficient Silver to Supply China’s Growing Demand

2010-06-11T21:29:00.002+01:00

The Mogambo Guru explains the Can’t Miss Thing (CMT) that is silver.

The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years

2010-06-11T21:16:00.002+01:00

Professor Hoppe explains the roots of his Property and Freedom Society:

"On the other hand, negatively, it was to unmask the State and showcase it for what it really is: an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots—an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches."

On so-called "insta-books" and their alleged faults

2010-06-11T12:03:00.002+01:00

Another review of Meltdown, this time at Samizdata.

What? You haven't got a copy yet?

Tish, tish.

UPDATE: Here's some more thoughts from Mr Pearce, about Meltdown:

=> War did not "solve" the Great Depression

CGT: investors rush into gold coins to beat tax rise

2010-06-11T09:45:00.002+01:00

It might be best to wait until Osborne announces his CGT plans and then waiting for the next major gold dip before trying to acquire any more physical sovereigns, as it's all gone manic. No wonder spreads are up so much.

Anthony Baird, managing director of gold dealer Baird & Co, said the company could not deliver any Britannia coins until August because of lack of supply.

In the meantime, get the other bullion coins and get them safely offshore. You won't need to pay CGT to the British government on these offshore coins once you ship out permanently to Thailand.

What's really awful, of course, is that you never make 'capital' on gold, so why the hell should you pay any tax. What is happening is that paper currency rubbish is devaluing against gold money, not the other way around.

Oh well. As long as the men who reserve the right to themselves to hold guns disagree with that, do what you safely can to avoid them stealing your wealth through inflation, taxation, and regulation.

Meltdown review at the Cobden Centre

2010-06-11T09:41:00.002+01:00

Mr Woods' superb book is reviewed by the Cobden Centre.

Nick Clegg’s wife lands lucrative job on board of Spanish building firm

2010-06-11T09:26:00.003+01:00

"Wouldn't some wind farms look nice just here, dear" — "Only if you wear the stockings and the suspenders, tonight"

Nick Clegg's wife has secured a lucrative job on the board of directors of a Spanish construction firm which has held contracts in the United Kingdom.

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a Spanish born, high-flying lawyer, will act as an independent adviser to Acciona, the world’s largest provider of wind farms.

So, no chance of corruption or conflict of interest there, then.

I'm sure they hired her for her objective brilliance. Just as I'm sure JP Morgan hired Tony Blair for his erudite mind.

Cobden Centre Annual Lecture 2010 – honest money and the national debt

2010-06-11T09:14:00.003+01:00

I was going to write a post about Toby Baxendale's excellent annual lecture at the Cobden Centre, on Wednesday evening, but as I was sitting right next to the man who has already written the definitive review, I'll let Mr Tom Burroughes take up the slack instead.

(Both of our regular Maturin Towers readers will also be pleased to know that I was first to the bar, afterwards, to keep up tradition.)

The scary truth about your banks and your savings

2010-06-11T09:05:00.002+01:00

Edmund Conway, of the CoalitionGraph's parish, is following the Cobden Centre.

Incredible.

Well done Toby Baxendale, England's leading Austrian.

Ursula finds what she's looking for — Dr No is in the building

2010-06-11T08:59:00.002+01:00

Cobdonian and Misesian maiden speech in UK parliament by Wycombe MP, Steve Baker.

Central Banks and Gold

2010-06-11T08:54:00.002+01:00

Skip down the following article to the bit about central banks and gold.

Why no price is too high for gold

2010-06-11T08:50:00.000+01:00

Indeed.

HT to Mr G

Debt interest will still cost 10p in every pound even after Tory cuts

2010-06-09T08:22:00.002+01:00

Dearest Edmund is as cynical as Sir Huffchester about David Cameron's squeals of economic pain, delivered by the man whose wife can afford to give up a £400,000 pounds a year job to spend more time with her husband.

The dishonest general election campaign has given us a cynical Government

2010-06-09T08:12:00.001+01:00

Wearing my minarchist hat, there is only really one sentence I could have any umbrage with, but Sir Bufton Huffchester has really nailed David Cameron's Glorious Coalition, in this piece.

Obviously, wearing my secret anarchist hat, there's a lot more wrong with it.

But let's not quibble.

Ben Bernanke describes the mental age of most politicians

2010-06-09T05:24:00.002+01:00

"It's really tiny!"

Ben Bernanke all but rules out double-dip

2010-06-08T22:36:00.002+01:00

"No, if it even looks like a double-dip, then it's helicopter time again until we're all drowning in dollars. There will not be a double-dip on my watch. Not while there's any paper left in the world. I'd rather have a catastrophic collapse than a double dip, any day of the week."

Ben Bernanke, yesterday

And an interesting catastrophic collapse is exactly what you're going to get, Ben, as soon as the printing presses run out of ink.

Gold price hits new record as it breaks through $1,250

2010-06-08T22:23:00.003+01:00

It's going much higher than this, pilgrims.

However, there will be dips.

Some of these dips will be immense.

Buy your physical gold in these dips.

I could be wrong about the dips.

It could just be going straight up.

Inflation Corroded Copper Coins

2010-06-08T22:14:00.002+01:00

The Mogambo Guru comes up with The Fabulous Mogambo Plan (TFMP) to save Canada.

He also explains Mogambo's Law; though for some strange reason, he fails to abbreviate this to ML?

I am confident he will have his Mogambo Reasons (MR) for this omission.

Financial Collapse Explained in Three Minutes

2010-06-08T22:12:00.002+01:00

If you haven't seen it yet, here's a great video Lew Rockwell uncovered on his blog:

Photograph waits for article, shock

2010-06-08T19:24:00.002+01:00

The photograph above is crying out to be linked with a story here on Maturin Towers.

But fear ye not, pilgrims. For as soon as the right story turns up, we'll be on the mother, as they say in Quentin Tarantino movies.

It will probably be something to do with Ben Bernanke.

Pure Austrian Thinking from Bagus on Banking Reform

2010-06-08T18:55:00.003+01:00

Ye Gods and Dear Lord,

Someone at the Cobden Centre is daring to challenge both Murray Rothbard AND Ludwig von Mises for being too cosy with government!

But this is why Austrianism is NOT a religion.

Because Uncle Murray would have loved it.

‘Meltup’ (or, ‘Lewrockwell.com: The Motion Picture’)

2010-06-07T22:25:00.002+01:00

Although it's a heavily US-centric video, David Kramer has uncovered a superb YouTube which pretty much covers us in the UK too (and most other people in the 'western' world). Just translate dollars into pounds and change the Hugh Laurie American accent into his real English one. It's the same story:

Do You Really Believe They’re Going to Pay Off This Debt?

2010-06-07T22:00:00.001+01:00

Vin Suprynowicz gets it.

Government debt repudiation.

It may be the only way out of this mess.

And it will stop the buggers taxing unborn children for perhaps a hundred years.

Athens Hosts the Olympiad of Debt

2010-06-07T21:38:00.002+01:00

Uncle Gary writes about the Homer Simpson economy:

"In my previous report, "There Is No Money," I surveyed Europe's sovereign debt markets. I argued that the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury of Great Britain, Liam Byrne, hit the nail on the head when he placed a note on his desk for the incoming Chief Secretary to read: "There is no money." He did this as a joke, as he later explained to the media, but the joke was on the incoming government: there really is no money. But there are expenses – lots and lots of expenses. These expenses will increase. Tax revenues will not cover them."

Make mine a large one.

Schiff Roundup

2010-06-07T17:58:00.002+01:00

Mr Schiff discusses Friday's worldwide falls in stock values and the Hungary situation. He also Laughs With Mogambo Scorn (LWMS) at all the Wall Street analysts who are still under the mistaken impression that we are in a 'recovery':

He then fills us in on his latest political situation and his petition drive:

Mogambo Roundup

2010-06-07T17:56:00.001+01:00

=> Inflation Still a Problem, Despite “Evidence” to the Contrary

Our hero examines how governments are going to deficit-spend themselves into the Giant Black Hole Of Debt (GBHOD)

=> Leading Indicators Indicate a Lagging Economy

The Marvelous Mogambo (TMM) wonders why he doesn't rule over the rest of us mere earthlings as a living god whose every wish is a command

=> Government Desperate. Gold Tax Imminent?

The Mogambo Guru laughs in Rude Mogambo Scorn (RMS) at all those who doubt him

=> Re-Animating a Debt Dog

The Guru genuflects on his Whole Freaking Life (WFL) and find that others are left wanting

"I am going to inflate massively", says Cameron

2010-06-07T13:50:00.000+01:00

Well, no, he didn't quite put it like that, but he did put it like this:

=> David Cameron: Economic measures will be 'unavoidably tough'

When he says 'unavoidably tough', what he means is that he may really cut government spending by £6 billion, rather than pretending to do so.

But he's been banging on about how 'painful' this will be for so long, and got people into such a pre-dentist-drill state of alarm, that even the smallest twinge of discomfort is going to set off a hysterical reaction, particularly amongst all the Guardian-reading parasites who infest the UK.

So what's he going to do? The British government collects approximately £500 billion in tax, and spends approximately £700 billion. He might actually cut this to £694 billion. If we're going to be really generous to him, he might cut it by what the Guardian-reading classes will consider the gargantuan amount of £50 billion, taking government spending down to a mere £150 billion over its actual revenue. (Which is like earning £50,000 a year and spending £65,000 a year.)

Also, with the new tax increases which are coming (e.g. capital gains tax), taxation income for the government is going to drop, not go up, and there will continue to be negative economic growth. But we've been having growth, I hear you cry! There has only been a failed Keynesian quantitative easing stimulus which has fooled people into continuing to invest in broken business models, in a frenetic attempt by Gordon Brown's miserable inept government to get re-elected again.

So, let's be generous to Dave. He won't manage it, but let's assume he gets government spending down to £650 billion (Miracles may never cease). As the economy keeps slowly going through a road crash slowdown, and as new 'politics of envy' investment taxes from the liberals keep hitting government tax receipts, he could be left with an income of £450 billion, which means he's still £200 billion short.

So for all this 'pain' he's going to introduce (massive 'pain' for the Guardian readers, if he cuts £50 billion) there will be no perceived benefit and the economy will still be slowly spiralling into the ground. Dave's political fortunes will be toast, except perhaps for one road out. (And can you guess, kids, what that's going to be yet?)

Yes, Mervyn King was right when he said that this really was an election to lose.

So what's the Maturin Towers position on this, I hear you cry?

Well, let me first start off by saying if you wanted to get out of this, then you shouldn't have started from here. Given that Cameron lost the election he SHOULD NOT HAVE got into bed with the socialist liberals. They will stop him from doing what needs to be done. Their instincts are to increase taxes and to keep government spending up.

That is why he made a serious strategic mistake in getting together with them. He is now completely hamstrung.

He should have instituted New Zealand style cuts in government spending and privatised everything that could move, everything that could not move, and everything else that was left (in the style of Norman Tebbit).

If I was prime minister and actually pretended to care about 'democracy', then I would also repudiate the British government's debt and tell everyone who holds gilts that I would be re-structuring this debt and giving them a substantial hair cut. This would be to punish them for lending to the British government in the first place and to stop them from lending to it again, in the future, allowing these gigantic government spending bubbles to form in the first place.

This repudiation would then force me to only be able to spend what the government takes in, in revenue. The spending party would be over and we would be back to Gladstonian liberalism.

Even from my high and mighty tower of anarchism, I could live with that. It would certainly be a damn sight better than what we're going to get.

Because Cameron will not be able to do any of the above, because he is:

A wet mushy liberal in conservative clothing
He is in bed with the liberals
As a member of the metropolitan elite, he wants nothing more than to get rich and to be loved doing it

So what is he going to do then, O Mighty Sage?

He is going to inflate. There is no other way out for him, given the kind of man he is, given who his friends are, and given his lack of courage in facing up to the Guardian readers.

Buy physical gold on the dips, and if you can, get this gold out of the country to where it cannot be confiscated by whatever government comes after Dave, when the riots push him out. (Switzerland is probably good.)

You'll be glad you did.

Euro 'will be dead in five years'

2010-06-06T12:29:00.002+01:00

Good.

If they want to keep the damn thing, then they should re-invent the euro as the 'Gold Euro'.

1 G€ = 1 gold gramme

Job done.

The Sure Thing

2010-06-06T12:18:00.001+01:00

Casey Research (yesterday):

Digging through the entrails of the fundamentals associated with the global economy and markets, it increasingly strikes me that there is really only one investment I’d now consider a “sure thing” – and that is buying gold on dips...

...Of course, the sovereign nations could decide to resolve their massive debt problems through default – and some most certainly will. But at this point, that these nations will reduce their current, let alone future, obligations to manageable levels without crushing their respective economies – never a politically palatable choice – is literally impossible.

Thus, while there will be much grandstanding about making tough choices and hard budget cuts, when push comes to shove, you can bet that the choices made will be those most likely to return the politicos to office, and the cuts nothing more than window dressing, quickly offset by spending increases.

In a world awash in funny money, gold is the only sure thing...

Money supply, the stimulus & where is the inflation?

2010-06-04T17:38:00.002+01:00

Really excellent piece by Midwesterner (and Laird) at Samizdata.

Very good indeed.

Peter Schiff: Gold bullion vs. Numismatics — investors want the wood, not the furniture

2010-06-04T14:48:00.001+01:00

Peter Schiff: The wrong way to buy gold

2010-06-04T14:27:00.002+01:00

The Duke talks about Goldline, a US gold coin seller. He is not impressed by their value for money:

Always check the spot price of gold before you pay for coins. Only deal with reputable dealers, hopefully whom a personal friend has recommended. You should be able to find gold coins for somewhere between 2-4% over the gold spot price, if you are not fussy about numismatic values or getting the 'latest' issues. (Though this must be tempered by the very high volatility in gold prices, at the moment.)

For instance, when buying UK sovereigns, if you want the 'latest' 2010 mintings, you will probably expect to pay more, but if going for something from 1964 or 1973, you should be in the 2-4% over gold spot range. (At least, in less volatile times.)

UK gold coin buyers should buy sovereigns. As these are still 'legal tender', they do not attract capital gains tax. Though do expect the Glorious Coalition to cut this escape route off from the horrors of being forced to use legal tender paper scrip.

Alas, because of this tax status, you will probably have to pay 'over the odds' at the moment, as every Jack Bull in England is buying sovereigns to try to avoid the Glorious Coalition's imminent rack-up in capital gains tax.

I hope all those conservative party voters out there are glad who they voted for.

Bank of England: 'Inflation not the way out of debt'

2010-06-04T09:27:00.000+01:00

This reminds me of the Maturin Towers political law statutes:

Maturin Towers, Law of Politics No. 1:

"How can you tell what a politician is thinking? Simply reverse the meaning of everything he says."

Charles Bean is the deputy governor of the Bank of England, which means he must be a consummate politician. Therefore, using the law above, this is what he really said:

Charles Bean raised the spectre of hyperinflation, saying it is "severely misguided" to hope that a rise in prices would help Britain out of its current predicament.

"We instituted quantitative easing last year to try to raise asset prices, to help get Britain out of its current predicament. We will ramp this up again, as necessary."

His comments come amid growing suspicion that politicians around the world may eventually resort to inflation as a means of reducing what they owe in capital markets, and follow the Swedish Riksbank's decision to change its inflation target.

"We all met in Berne recently, at the BIS, and decided we would all inflate together. Doing this in synchronisation hides the worst aspects of it. The only problem is the gold price. But we have ramped up more sales of gold and are constantly using our influence to peddle the story that gold is in a bubble. We're really worried about the Indian and Chinese central banks. But we have helped them fund their own gold mines so they don't need to make gold purchases on the open market. In the end, the only way out of this will be a single world global currency managed by the IMF. We're working on it."

In an opinion piece for Telegraph.co.uk on Friday, Mr Bean writes: "Some people have suggested that a bit of extra inflation now might actually be a good thing. After all, wouldn't it help to get the economy going by reducing the real value of public and private debt? This is severely misguided.

"Some government ministers and Treasury mandarins are constantly banging on to us about revving up the electronic money printing machines. We have to be a bit more cunning about it though, to stop it being obvious."

"Aside from the dubious morality of redistributing wealth from savers to borrowers, we have seen from past experience that a bit of inflation has a nasty habit of turning into a lot of inflation."

"Which is why we're working on further ways of massaging the CPI and RPI figures downwards."

He said the MPC should stick to its 2pc inflation target.

"Which is why the current CPI figure is 3.7% and RPI is at 5.3%. I'm really hoping a deflationary shock in China helps us slip a lot more money pumping in."

Where the Monster Came From

2010-06-03T17:14:00.002+01:00

Uncle Murray explores the criminal origins of the Bank of England, an institution designed from the ground up to steal wealth on behalf of the state and to fund its wars.

Soaring inflation delivers an early warning to the new Government

2010-06-03T16:23:00.002+01:00

We ain't seen nothing yet, Madsen.

Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Gun Crime Rate In The World

2010-06-03T09:50:00.007+01:00

Which country in Europe has the lowest gun crime? (Yes, there's a clue in the title of this piece, but just go with it.)

Which country in Europe has the highest number of guns per capita?

Yep, you guessed it.

It's Switzerland!

As a regular traveller there myself to visit my Swiss relatives, I still flinch a bit when I see groups of men wandering around Zurich Hauptbahnhof railway station carrying machine guns and other automatic weapons, or when some badly-moustached bloke who lives upstairs in the apartment building hops on a tram with rifle (which one always presumes is fully loaded), but you get used to it.

You also get used to feeling TOTALLY SAFE in Switzerland. Yes, the federal government there has tried to ingratiate itself with the EU by allowing in lot of immigrants who the Swiss people would rather had stayed in the old Yugoslavia because of the crime they commit, and I'm sure there's SOME gun crime amongst these badly-integrated immigrants. However, do not let the British press in the next few days bamboozle you with stories of gun-crime USA or gun-crime Britain, to further restrict your rights to bear arms.

Ask yourself, if so many people in Switzerland carry guns (and legally, every Swiss man over a certain age MUST bear arms), and if gun crime in Switzerland is so low, then why must all Englishmen be stripped down to lockless penknives with blades less than an inch long (and they'll probably ban these too, eventually).

Just look at the equation:

HIGH GUN Switzerland = LOW GUN CRIME Country (actually, virtually non-existent gun crime)

LOW GUN England = HIGH GUN CRIME England

Will lowering the amount of legal guns in England even further somehow make this equation magically reverse itself? If there are no legal guns left in the country whatsoever, except those possessed by angels in state uniforms, do you really think all gun crime will disappear?

Yes, Tonto. But only if you read about Fantasy Land in The Guardian.

As Dr Gabb said yesterday, until an Englishman can once again go into a gun store with nothing but cash and no ID, to buy any amount of weaponry and ammunition he likes, as was once his right, then gun crime is going to do nothing but get even worse, especially once the disastrous economic effects of government money printing really start ramming home.

Guns started being really restricted in this country in 1920, when the British government feared a Russian-style revolution. It was NOTHING to do with crime figures. Ever since that time, gun crime has increased in Britain, until we now expect a Hungerford-style massacre every ten years.

The more we control guns, the lower this ten-year figure will shrink, until it just becomes an annual or semi-annual 'going postal' event. There will be much gnashing and wailing of teeth, and more and more controls, but that won't stop me from being any more right about it, will it?

HT to Mr G

The crime that daren't speak its name? Stealing

2010-06-03T08:11:00.004+01:00

David Cameron tosses David Laws overboard for stealing — "Don't get caught, next time!"
Richard Littlejohn gets its, on the David Laws £40,000 rent boy story:

"Meet the new politics, same as the old politics."

Consent of the Governed?

2010-06-03T06:41:00.002+01:00

Robert Higgs, one of our greatest living historians, discusses the social contract none of us has ever signed. Here's a quote incorporating that social contract which none of us ever actually get to see or to sign:

I, the party of the first part (“the ruler”), promise:

(1) To stipulate how much of your money you will hand over to me, as well as how, when, and where the transfer will be made. You will have no effective say in the matter, aside from pleading for my mercy, and if you should fail to comply, my agents will punish you with fines, imprisonment, and (in the event of your persistent resistance) death.

(2) To make thousands upon thousands of rules for you to obey without question, again on pain of punishment by my agents. You will have no effective say in determining the content of these rules, which will be so numerous, complex, and in many cases beyond comprehension that no human being could conceivably know about more than a handful of them, much less their specific character, yet if you should fail to comply with any of them, I will feel free to punish you to the extent of a law made my me and my confederates.

(3) To provide for your use, on terms stipulated by me and my agents, so-called public goods and services. Although you may actually place some value on a few of these goods and services, most will have little or no value to you, and some you will find utterly abhorrent, and in no event will you as an individual have any effective say over the goods and services I provide, notwithstanding any economist’s cock-and-bull story to the effect that you “demand” all this stuff and value it at whatever amount of money I choose to expend for its provision.

(4) In the event of a dispute between us, judges beholden to me for their appointment and salaries will decide how to settle the dispute. You can expect to lose in these settlements, if your case is heard at all.

In exchange for the foregoing government “benefits,” you, the party of the second part (“the subject”), promise:

(5) To shut up, make no waves, obey all orders issued by the ruler and his agents, kowtow to them as if they were important, honorable people, and when they say “jump,” ask only “how high?”

Quote of the Day

2010-06-03T06:35:00.001+01:00

"To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, trans. John Beverley Robinson. London: Freedom Press, 1923, p. 294

Cumberland Shootings: Libertarian Alliance Statement

2010-06-02T21:39:00.000+01:00

Terrible news from the North of England. Twelve shot dead by a lunatic, and twenty five badly injured:

What can you say?

Sean Gabb gives us his libertarian alliance position, which is endorsed by this web site:

"CUMBERLAND SHOOTINGS: GUN BANS MEAN MORE GUN CRIME" SAYS FREE MARKET AND CIVIL LIBERTIES POLICY INSTITUTE

The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties institute, today calls for the relegalisation of civilian gun ownership in the United Kingdom as the only way for ordinary people to protect themselves against gun massacres. [This news release is prompted by the killings of at least five people on the 2nd June 2010 in and around the Cumberland town of Whitehaven.]

Speaking today in London, Dr Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, comments:

"This outrage will certainly bring calls from the police and other victim disarmament advocacy groups for further gun control. However, bearing in mind that civilian ownership of handguns was outlawed in the two Firearms Acts of 1997, we fail to see, unless the murder weapon was a shotgun, what there is left to be outlawed.

"The Libertarian Alliance notes that these shootings would have been extremely difficult in a country where the people were allowed to arm themselves. We understand that the killer, Derrick Bird, was able to drive in perfect safety around Whitehaven, shooting people at random. None of his victims was in any position to return fire. Only when armed police could eventually be brought in did he feel it necessary to run away.

"In the United States, at least one campus shooting was brought to a premature end by armed civilians. The same is true in Israel, where many members of the public go about armed. Only in a country like England, where the people have been systematically disarmed, can a killer go about like a fox among chickens.

"The Libertarian Alliance believes that all the Firearms Acts from 1920 onwards should be repealed. The largely ineffective laws of 1870 and 1902 should also be repealed. It should once again be possible for adults to walk into a gun shop and, without showing any permit or proof of identity, buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they can afford. They should also be able to use lethal force, at home and in public, for the defence of life, liberty and property.

"Only then will ordinary people be safe from evil men like Derrick Bird."

Anarchist Tie

2010-06-02T18:42:00.001+01:00

I've gots to get me one of those! :-)

These greed merchants are just the tip of the iceberg

2010-06-02T17:13:00.003+01:00

Leo McKinstry delves into the disgusting Guardian Reader world of the public sector trough-emptying elephants.

Frank Shostak — Stop the Money Printing!

2010-06-02T12:46:00.000+01:00

Money statistics watchers will be interested in Mr Shostak's latest prognostications:

=> A Visible Fall in US Money M3 Worries Some Analysts

Man of the Day — Hugh Hendry

2010-06-02T09:03:00.005+01:00

Newsnight 26th May 2010: Hugh Hendry: "I Would Recommend You Panic"

Look out for Mr Hendry's dissing hand wave towards the tenured Professor Sachs, while the good professor opines on the nature of enlightenment.

Superb.

Iceland and the Western Banking System

2010-06-02T08:49:00.001+01:00

Excellent Insight piece by Gordon Kerr, at The Cobden Centre:

"It is not impossible to devise a fractional reserve regulatory system that will work if its practitioners are expert bankers and fully appraised of everything that its banks are engaged in post reform. But this is fraught with risks.

A far easier solution for Iceland is to make one simple law change. Grant depositors title to their deposits, stipulate that the state and taxpayers will never again bail out the banks, and allow free market forces to create a safe and transparent banking system. A ban on the maturity mismatching of assets, combined with a clear policy of NOT bailing out the banks in future, will enable free markets to flourish.

Do not blame the bankers, they were merely acting like rational capitalist players in a wrongly regulated system. If we are to allocate blame then look to yourselves right here in the Brussels Parliament. It is you rulemakers who have made the mistakes. You should have worked this out."

Keiser Report № 46: Social Fury builds up!

2010-06-02T07:40:00.000+01:00

In the first half of his latest show, Huffington Post's Max Keiser wonders if the guillotines are coming, especially for those 'in charge' of the world's finances, in a major worldwide revolution.

But much better than that is the second half of the show (starting from 12:50 onwards), in which Mr K interviews Dr Joern Berninger, from Frankfurt, a.k.a. Dr B.

In this interview, Dr B claims that the major reason behind the recent Greek bailout by Germany was a back-door bailout of France, by Germany, because the French banking system is exposed to Greek government debt to the tune of €700 billion euros; if the Greeks had gone into an Argentinian-style default on May the 7th, then the French banking system would have collapsed in domino fashion, taking the French government with it.

So now we know why Merkel and Sarkozy looked so grim the other day. They might have sacrificed Greece in a heartbeat to save the euro, but if the price was France being kicked out of the euro too, then the whole 'Project' really would have been over (incidentally, along with Sarkozy's career, but I shouldn't say this, because disinterested politicians never consider their own personal futures when discussing high policy together).

Dr B also wonders whether the Chinese central bank is the absolute key player in this, on deciding whether to support the euro and the dollar (and I suppose, the pound).

So that's what it has come to, my friends.

We are now all ruled over by the Chinese communist party, proving that Karl Marx was right all along. Social Democracy really does equal Communism.

Excellent.

Spain is trapped in a 'perverse spiral' as wage cuts deepen the crisis

2010-06-01T22:13:00.004+01:00

Ambrose lays it on the line for Berlin.

It's either Weimar-style inflation across the whole of Euroland or Auf Wieder Sehen Das Euro.

You choose.

And just look at what Weimar-style inflation got us last time:

Guarding Your Money from Government Onslaughts

2010-06-01T22:04:00.002+01:00

Our Hero, the Mogambo Guru, squirms in delight and exclaims, “Whee! This investing stuff is easy!”

The new politics is as obsessed with propaganda as the old was

2010-06-01T21:49:00.002+01:00

Hmmm...

Sir Bufton is getting testy.

Bank of England made £8bn profit from quantitative easing fund

2010-06-01T16:43:00.002+01:00

Cobden Centre review the £8bn pounds the Bank of England claims to have made on its quantitative easing programme.

Austrian Light on the History of Bubbles

2010-05-31T21:16:00.002+01:00

Review of Doug French's Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money on Mises.org.

The Coming Economic Catastrophe

2010-05-31T19:45:00.002+01:00

Forget all those sweaty teenage encounters. This may be the most illuminating hour of your life.

Just listen, as Marc Faber explains everything:

Peter Jackson's going to have to do it

2010-05-31T12:05:00.003+01:00

Forget 'The Greatest Depression', and all the other financial woes.

We'll come out the other side. The market will take care of that. So long as it can successfully push government out of the way and we can stop these idiots starting World War III to try to cover up their unbelievable blunders.

No, what's really important is that someone makes 'The Hobbit'.

And I think it's going to have to be Peter Jackson, now that Guillermo del Toro has quit.

Yes, it is weird that a film which will almost certainly make a ton of money has been so horribly delayed by MGM's long term bond woes, but that's what you get when you let governments spend a hundred years infesting the world's monetary systems to the point of complete breakdown.

Everything good gets shafted. Everything bad gets subsidised.

Let's just hope that when Peter Jackson finally makes this film that he's in 'Lord of the Rings' mood and not 'King Kong' mood.

Liam Halligan for Chancellor

2010-05-31T11:34:00.001+01:00

He's a star:

=> Herman and his Frankenstein euro have done enough damage already

Bonson Jorris for PM

2010-05-31T11:14:00.003+01:00

There are very few politicians in the world who would be invited to a Maturin Towers bash, but Sir Bonson Jorris is one of them.

God hail him, and all who sail in him.

=> All our limo-loving politicians should be sent down the Tube

Danny Alexander, new Treasury chief, avoided capital gains tax on house

2010-05-31T10:53:00.003+01:00

You couldn't make it up.

In the words of Albus Dumbledore, I would like to say a few words:

Crooks, thieves, swindlers, liars, degenerates, charlatans, bandits, criminals, deviants, granny robbers, shysters, and self-regarding toe-rags.

These are just some of the words I could use to describe the counterfeiting pelf merchants in the Glorious Coalition.

Doug Casey — The Greater Depression Has Arrived, so What's Next?

2010-05-31T01:01:00.001+01:00

Half an hour more from The Guvnor:

The Austrian Phyle

2010-05-30T20:08:00.002+01:00

In the world of the future, when we will have ditched the nation state and replaced it with Neal Stephenson's phyles, I was wondering which phyle you would be in?

I'll be in 'The Austrian Phyle'.

Our 100% gold-backed currency will be 'The Rothbard', with One Rothbard representing one gold Troy ounce.

Our flag will be the old imperial flag of Austria emblazoned with the coat of arms of Ludwig von Mises.

And we will all be extremely heavily armed.

Anyone in 'The Guardian' phyle need not apply for dual-citizenship.

Doug Casey — FreedomFest 2009 and "The Greater Depression"

2010-05-30T20:00:00.003+01:00

While we're on the subject of The Guvnor, here's Doug Casey last year predicting everything that's happened in the last year. Mr Casey may actually be nudging ahead in my pack of Austrian favourites, even edging out Mr Schiff and Mr Rogers. And that's saying something!

No video, alas, only scratchily-recorded audio. But still brilliant, for all that:

Quote from Einstein, relayed by The Guvnor in his speech:

"The second most abundant element in the Universe after hydrogen is stupidity."