mercredi 21 décembre 2011

Témoignages du cuisinier de Kim Jong Il

Il est clair que le train de vie du 'Dear Leader' était sans comparaison possible avec celui de ces sujets, ces derniers vivant dans une abjecte pauvreté sous un état policier très répressif.

Par The Atlantic (ceci n'est qu'un petit extrait):

From 1989 through 1991 I was invited often to Kim Jong Il's official residence. There he kept a very large liquor cellar. Famous liquor brands from around the world were lined up, maybe about 10,000 bottles in all.

At the time, Kim Jong Il drank Johnnie Walker Swing for whiskey and Hennessy XO for cognac.

The liquor cellar also had a karaoke set, a piano, and a round table that could seat fifteen or sixteen people. There, I remember, we often sang together the Japanese song "The Bride in Seto."

Un 'geek' attrape quelqu'un qui vole chez eux...

...avec un système de caméra de surveillance lié à son iPhone, le tout coûtant 50$!

Via Economic Policy Journal:

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2011

$50 Motion Detector Camera Catches a Crook
NyPo reports:
A computer whiz yesterday busted a brazen burglar at his Manhattan pad — all while sitting at his work desk six blocks away.
Levent Cetiner, 30, an IT ace at the School of Visual Arts in Gramercy, had set up a motion-detection camera in his West 21st Street apartment that sends him real-time photos of his home by e-mail when triggered.

“I live on the top floor and thought it would be easy for someone to come in off the fire escape,” Cetiner told The Post.
“I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to use it, but I thought it was a good idea to have. Plus, I work in IT, and I thought it would be a cool thing to play with.”

“I hoped I wouldn’t actually have to use it, but I thought it was a good idea to have. Plus, I work in IT, and I thought it would be a cool thing to play with.”

But sometime early yesterday afternoon, it snapped a photo of José Perez-Quinonez, 30, of West Harlem climbing into Cetiner’s fourth-floor window in Chelsea, authorities told The Post.

The high-tech gadget — which Cetiner bought online for about $50 — then promptly sent the picture by e-mail to him.
The stunned Cetiner immediately called 911 and raced home.

He arrived to find his apartment locked and Perez-Quinonez allegedly still inside rummaging through his belongings, snatching his laptop computer and iPad.

“I couldn’t get in because he locked the deadbolt from the inside,” Cetiner said.

The frantic gizmo geek said he then pounded on the door and shouted: “You’re being recorded, and the police are on the way!”
About a minute later, the cops arrived, and Cetiner used his smartphone to show them the picture of Perez-Quinonez scrambling into his top-floor apartment through a window off the fire escape.

samedi 17 décembre 2011

La citation du jour

Champagne Socialism: Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune or does not live the exact lifestyle he wants others to follow.

-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Les auteurs de South Park: libertariens et irrévérencieux

Par Jean Philippe L. Risi, via le Québécois Libre:


South Park, la série télévisée fort connue de Matt Stone et Trey Parker, aura attiré beaucoup de controverses en 15 saisons. C'est en effet depuis 1997 que les quatre enfants protagonistes de la petite ville de South Park au Colorado observent des situations dignes de Monty Python. Mais puisqu’il s’agit d'un dessin animé, est-ce approprié pour un jeune public?

Pas vraiment, puisque l'auditoire visée est évidemment adulte. Qui plus est, l'avantage du médium est que les créateurs peuvent se permettre un certain niveau de vulgarité qui ne passerait pas avec une méthode plus traditionnelle. Les premières saisons présentent des scénarios assez surréalistes et vulgaires, quoiqu'on remarque déjà que les figures d'autorité sont d'une stupidité effrayante. On y affiche également une grande quantité de stéréotypes qui ne servent qu'à choquer les lobbys sociaux traditionnels ‒ pensons au chef de cafétéria de l'école, qui est un homme noir chantant comme Barry White à toutes les deux minutes.

Peu à peu, on commence à y voir des critiques sociales très claires et dirigées. Lors de la quatrième saison, on y parodie ouvertement la notion de « crime haineux » lorsque des agents fédéraux traînent en justice l'un des enfants qui a insulté un de ses camarades de classe de race noire. « La prochaine fois que tu intimides une personne à l'école, assures-toi qu'elle soit de la même couleur que toi », lui explique un juge après la délivrance d'une sentence de deux ans dans un pénitencier juvénile.

De l'éducation sexuelle à l'école au traitement des mourants aux soins palliatifs, de l'immigration illégale à l'homosexualité en passant par la régulation du taux d'urine dans les piscines publiques, un ensemble de sujets concernant la société civile et le gouvernement y sont abordés avec humour, vulgarité et désinvolture, d’autant plus que l'ensemble des positions du spectre politique américain y sont sérieusement ridiculisées.

« We find just as many things to rip on the left as we do on the right. People on the far-left and the far-right are the same exact person to us », explique Trey Parker lors d'une entrevue.

South Park: message

South Park: message

lundi 12 décembre 2011

Le Disneyland fantôme de la Chine...

Par Robert Wenzel:

I am not making things up when I say a good chunk of China's GDP is fake. Things have been built in China, through government planning that register as part of the phenomenal GDP, but have no real value, like 30 to 50 million vacant apartments.

Here's the latest. China has a fake deserted Disneyland-type amusement park. David Gray writes at Reuters:
Along the road to one of China’s most famous tourist landmarks – the Great Wall of China – sits what could potentially have been another such tourist destination, but now stands as an example of modern-day China and the problems facing it.

Situated on an area of around 100 acres, and 45 minutes drive from the center of Beijing, are the ruins of ‘Wonderland’. Construction stopped more than a decade ago, with developers promoting it as ‘the largest amusement park in Asia’. Funds were withdrawn due to disagreements over property prices with the local government and farmers. So what is left are the skeletal remains of a palace, a castle, and the steel beams of what could have been an indoor playground in the middle of a corn field.

Pulling off the expressway and into the car park, I expected to be stopped by the usual confrontational security guards. But there was absolutely no one to be seen. I walked through one of the few entrances not boarded up, and instantly started coughing. In front of me were large empty rooms and discarded furniture, all covered in a thick layer of dust, along with an eerie silence that gave the place a haunted feeling – an emotion not normally associated with a children’s playground...

All these structures of rusting steel and decaying cement, are another sad example of property development in China involving wasted money, wasted resources and the uprooting of farmers and their families...
Click here for pics of the deserted "Disneyland"

The Chinese crash that is going to hit the stock market is going to be very loud. Not only are there empty apartments, children's amusement parks, but also train stations, airports and super trains.

samedi 10 décembre 2011

Le Canada: plus de similitudes qu'on pense avec la Grèce

Via Hardcore Value:

George Athanassakos is a finance professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario. For those Canadians who are lucky enough to have started value investing at a young age, aim for this program. For most of us who are passed the formal education stage of our life check out the Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing where George is Chair. There are some tremendous in-depth videos with well known value investors (Watsa, Chou, Klarman just to name a few).

George recently wrote an article for the Globe titled Can Canada go the way of Greece. Check out the full article on Globe Investor but I want to highlight some of the key points.

An overleveraged economy: Although Canada has a low government debt to GDP level when you add in household debt Canada is actually worse than Greece. "203 per cent for Canada vs. 195 per cent for Greece. In fact, Canada is in the top five countries in the world when you include government and household debt; Greece is not." (I talked about household debt here.)

George also mentions the future promises of social programs and CMHC's insane mortgage liabilities (Canada's Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, which I briefly wrote about here.)

lundi 5 décembre 2011

George W Bush annule un voyage en Suisse...

...de crainte d'être arrêté pour torture! Un peu de justice, enfin?

Par le Daily Mail britannique:

Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland over fears he could have been arrested on torture charges.
Mr Bush was due to be the keynote speaker at a Jewish charity gala in Geneva on February 12.
But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the country.
Criminal complaints against Mr Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials said.
Human rights groups said they had intended to submit a 2,500-page case against him in the Swiss city tomorrow for alleged mistreatment of suspected militants at Guantanamo Bay.

vendredi 2 décembre 2011

L'occupation de Occupy Montreal

Par Michel Kelly-Gagnon:

One of the most revealing and ironic illustration of the importance of those basic rules occurred last week. As in other cities, the camp had gradually been invaded by drug addicts and homeless persons who found there a place to stay and food distributed for free. The situation finally became untenable: at night especially, there were continual fights, some tents were transformed into shooting galleries, death threats were being uttered.

The occupiers, who had appropriated land that did not belong to them* in the name of a vague right to express their indignation, got a taste of their own medicine: they themselves became occupied!
And how did they react? Just like typical property owners would do when faced with invaders: they asked the police to expel these "undesirables," as they called them. Hilariously, the police said they had no way to justify expelling some of the occupiers while tolerating others. And indeed, from a legal as well as a moral perspective, nobody had more reason to be there than others. The two groups, occupiers and undesirables, are interchangeable, depending on one's perspective.

A group of occupiers then decided to take drastic action to get rid of the undesirables: they refused to give daily food rations to those who could not prove that they participated in the camp's organization. The food distributed in Occupy "people's kitchens" across the continent was of course not bought by the participants themselves but donated by outside organizations and supporters. Occupiers realized that handing over free stuff encouraged unproductive and parasitic behaviour, and that this could not go on without obvious economic and social disadvantages.

jeudi 1 décembre 2011

Climategate 2: Silence médiatique (tout comme en 2009)

Par Nathalie Elgraby-Levy:

Vous souvenez-vous du Climategate? En novembre 2009, il avait fallu patienter plusieurs semaines avant que nos médias locaux daignent rapporter le séisme qui secouait la science du climat et qui occupait sans relâche la presse internationale. On apprenait alors qu’une source anonyme avait rendu publics plus d’un millier de courriels échangés entre des chercheurs particulièrement influents auprès du Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat (GIEC). Ces courriels révélaient que les données qui avaient servi à la rédaction de rapports alarmistes, lesquels continuent d’orienter les politiques publiques, avaient été délibérément manipulées afin d’occulter le fait qu’aucun réchauffement climatique n’avait été enregistré depuis presque 15 ans.

Nous sommes le 1er décembre 2011 et l’histoire se répète. La même source anonyme vient de dévoiler plus de 5000 nouveaux courriels incriminant encore et toujours les chercheurs dans le giron du GIEC, dont Michael E. Mann de l’Université Penn State et Phil Jones l’Université d’East Anglia. Or, encore une fois, nous avons droit à l’omertà médiatique. Alors qu’on nous rapporte des faits divers souvent sans intérêt, personne ne souffle mot de la nouvelle bombe qui ébranle la science climatique officielle. Il faut croire qu’un vol d’essence dans une station-service est plus important que les pratiques douteuses des scientifiques du GIEC!

lundi 21 novembre 2011

La bulle immobilière de Vancouver

Mish décrit des exemples de cette bulle épique.

La sagesse des bureaucrates de l'Union Européenne

Il est maintenant illégal, sous peine d'amendes et d'emprisonnement, pour les fabriquants Européens d'eau embouteillée d'affirmer que l'eau peut prévemir la déshydratation.

Via The Telegraph.

lundi 31 octobre 2011

Capitalisme vs Capitalisme de copinage

Par Bill Bonner, via EPJ:

When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, we saw how state-managed capitalism works. Favored companies are allowed to make as much money as they can. But they are protected from going broke.

Certain firms are deemed “too big to fail,” by virtue of the key role they play in the economy, or at least by the role they play in a politician’s plans for re-election or future employment. But state-managed capitalism is very different from the real thing. It is capitalism in a degenerate form.

Real capitalism progresses in fits and starts, described by Josef Schumpeter as “creative destruction.” It is like a jungle…not like a zoo. It cannot be managed. You cannot take out the predators or feed selected species without upsetting the balance of nature. Take out the destruction, and you block the creative process too.

jeudi 27 octobre 2011

L'indignation actuelle: légitime mais mal placée

Par Nathalie Elgrably-Levy:

Les occupants du square Victoria ont fait du capitalisme l'objet de leur indignation et invitent maintenant l'ensemble des Québécois à suivre leur mouvement. Certes, le capitalisme est perfectible et le système financier a ses torts, mais ce n'est ni en tant que consommateurs de produits et services fournis par de grandes entreprises ni en tant que clients d'une institution financière que nous devrions descendre dans la rue. C'est en tant que contribuables! Les raisons pour nous indigner sont nombreuses. En voici quelques-unes.

Indignons-nous du fait qu'en dépit des 2310 bureaucrates qui gèrent le budget de plus de 28 milliards de dollars du réseau de la santé, l'attente dans les urgences est plus longue que jamais, des patients meurent faute de soins en temps opportun et des malades se voient refuser l'accès à des médicaments contre le cancer.

Indignons-nous du fait que nos routes s'écroulent au point de devenir un danger pour notre vie alors que le ministère des Transports dispose d'un effectif total de 7324 employés et d'un budget annuel de 849 millions de dollars.

Indignons-nous quant à notre système d'éducation qui donne des diplômes à des analphabètes fonctionnels, et qui affiche un taux de décrochage systématiquement plus élevé que celui observé dans le reste du Canada, et ce en dépit d'un budget de 15,5 milliards de dollars et de dépenses globales par élève supérieures (par rapport au PIB par habitant) à celles des autres provinces.

Indignons-nous du fait que Québec a usé de comptabilité créative pour nous faire croire au déficit zéro alors que la dette n'a jamais cessé d'augmenter.

Indignons-nous d'être obligés de cotiser à la Régie des rentes du Québec alors qu'elle s'apparente à une chaîne de Ponzi.

Indignons-nous du manque de transparence des syndicats qui refusent de révéler l'utilisation qu'ils font des cotisations obligatoires qu'ils perçoivent.

Indignons-nous de la formule Rand qui bafoue le droit de non-association et qui nous force à financer des activités syndicales que nous n'approuvons pas nécessairement.

Indignons-nous devant le système de gestion de l'offre qui permet aux producteurs laitiers de former un cartel et de gonfler artificiellement le prix du lait.

Indignons-nous de la complexité des lois sur l'impôt qui comptent 3305 pages à l'échelle fédérale et 2467 pages à l'échelle provinciale, et qui nous placent parmi les contribuables les plus imposés en Amérique du Nord.

Indignons-nous d'avoir à payer les impôts sur le revenu, la TPS, la TVQ, les taxes d'accise, les taxes municipales, les taxes scolaires, la taxe d'arrondissement, la taxe d'agglomération locale, les tarifs douaniers, les frais d'immatriculation, et les cotisations à l'assurance-emploi, au RRQ, à l'assurance médicaments et à l'assurance parentale.

Les contribuables ont plus de raisons que quiconque d'être outrés, mais ils resteront silencieux. Ils n'occuperont pas la rue pour exprimer leur indignation. Ils sont trop occupés à travailler pour financer l'appétit gargantuesque de notre gouvernement qui promet tout, mais livre bien peu! Et s'ils devaient manifester, ce n'est pas le square Victoria qu'ils investiraient, c'est le terrain de l'Assemblée nationale!

Nathalie Elgrably-Lévy est économiste senior à l'Institut économique de Montréal.
* Cette chronique a aussi été publiée dans Le Journal de Québec.

L'État-nounou frappe le Danemark de plein fouet

Au début, ils sont venus pour les cigarettes, après pour le bacon et le beurre...

Via Mises.org:

You knew it was coming.

First they came for the cigarettes, then Hank Williams Jr. got knocked off Monday Night Football for being politically incorrect, and now they're coming for the butter.

Denmark, on October 1, put a $1.29-per-pound tax on all foods that hit 2.3 percent in saturated fats. That's on top of a 25 percent surcharge imposed last year by Denmark's food police on all ice cream, candy, sugar, soft drinks and chocolate.

So now it's cupcakes being added to Denmark's targets for hiked taxes, plus bacon, whole milk, shortening, avocados, whipped cream, sausages, sardine oil, nuts, egg yolks, meat drippings, hydrogenated oils, seeds, cheese, dried coconut, cod-liver oil and skin-on ducks.

mercredi 26 octobre 2011

Le 'Club des 100 000$': financés par vos taxes!

Par David Descôteaux:

Appelons ça la redistribution de richesse, à l’envers.

Montréalais, votre compte de taxes foncières grimpe chaque année. Dans la métropole aux 103 élus, on taxe maintenant via les parcomètres, les stationnements, l’essence, l’eau, la voirie, les voitures. Vous essayez de fuir en métro ou en autobus? On va vous chercher avec votre carte mensuelle (la CAM), dont le prix augmente pas mal plus vite que l’inflation.

Mais n’ayez crainte, votre argent est bien dépensé. La preuve : le nombre d’employés de la Ville qui gagne 100 000 $ et plus a triplé entre 2009 et 2010, rapportait la chaîne Global il y a deux semaines. Quelque 1700 employés — surtout des cadres supérieurs — font maintenant partie du club des 100 000 $ et plus. Ils étaient 626 un an plus tôt. Grâce à vous, ces gens peuvent éviter la récession et se payer une belle vie. On appelle ça la solidarité. C’est ce qui nous distingue des capitalistes sans-cœur.

Si vous pensez que notre générosité se bute aux limites de Montréal, c’est mal connaître les Québécois. Cette semaine, on apprend que dans les tours à bureaux, à Québec, 2795 fonctionnaires gagnent 100 000 $ et plus. C’est plus du double qu’en 2005! Et six fois plus qu’en 2001, selon La Presse.

Mouvement 'Occupy Wall Street': L'État est le véritable 1%

Par Lew Rockwell:


The "occupy" protest movement is thriving off the claim that the 99 percent are being exploited by the 1 percent, and there is truth in what they say. But they have the identities of the groups wrong. They imagine that it is the 1 percent of highest wealth holders who are the problem. In fact, that 1 percent includes some of the smartest, most innovative people in the country — the people who invent, market, and distribute material blessings to the whole population. They also own the capital that sustains productivity and growth.

But there is another 1 percent out there, those who do live parasitically off the population and exploit the 99 percent. Moreover, there is a long intellectual tradition, dating back to the late Middle Ages, that draws attention to the strange reality that a tiny minority lives off the productive labor of the overwhelming majority.

I'm speaking of the state, which even today is made up of a tiny sliver of the population but is the direct cause of all the impoverishing wars, inflation, taxes, regimentation, and social conflict. This 1 percent is the direct cause of the violence, the censorship, the unemployment, and vast amounts of poverty, too.

Primes de rendement chez CBC et Radio Canada: indécentes?

Par le blogue du QL:

Les primes au rendement battent tous les records à Radio-Canada et son pendant anglophone, CBC. Depuis le début de l'année, la société d'État a accordé tout près de 10 millions à 581 employés, selon un document obtenu en vertu de la Loi sur l'accès à l'information. La somme totale des primes distribuées en 2011 pourrait être plus élevée puisque les données que La Presse a obtenues couvrent la période du 1er janvier au 14 septembre. Alors qu'il reste trois mois et demi de l'année, Radio-Canada a tout de même déjà battu le record de 8,3 millions établi en 2008. En tout, Radio-Canada a versé depuis 2005 la somme de 53,8 millions en primes au rendement. Selon son plus récent rapport annuel, Radio-Canada compte 7285 employés à temps plein, 456 temporaires et 979 contractuels. Le budget de Radio-Canada s'élève quant à lui à 1,8 milliard, dont 1,2 milliard provient du gouvernement fédéral.

dimanche 16 octobre 2011

Les protestations d''Occupation': confusion idéologique

La Banque Centrale Européenne, un symbole du capitalisme? Vraiment?

Par Jeffrey Tucker:


“In other European cities, including Berlin and London, the demonstrations were largely peaceful, with thousands of people marching past ancient monuments and gathering in front of capitalist symbols like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.” NYT

A government-created institution that creates a government-issued paper currency that is a shabby piece of paper thanks to government intervention in order to bail out government-subsidized and government-sustained institutions. And they call this a capitalist symbol? Utterly bizarre.

3000 fonctionnaires provinciaux gagnant plus de 100 000$

Via le Blogue du QL:

Le chiffre du QL : 3000

Le club des fonctionnaires provinciaux qui ont dépassé le cap des 100 000$ en salaire annuel a explosé en une décennie. Ils étaient 400 il y a 10 ans, on en trouve désormais près de 3000. Des statistiques que La Presse a obtenues en vertu de la Loi sur l'accès à l'information montrent que Québec comptait 2795 fonctionnaires gagnant plus de 100 000$ par année en 2010-2011. On en trouvait 1276 en 2005 et ils n'étaient que 424 en 2000-2001.

«Ce n'est pas que le nombre de cadres au gouvernement a augmenté», a insisté Isabelle Mercille, porte-parole de la présidente du Conseil du Trésor, Michelle Courchesne. Cette augmentation vient surtout du fait qu'un groupe important, les «cadres 3», était tout près du seuil de 100 000$ au début de la décennie. Leur progression normale dans les échelons salariaux a accéléré la croissance de ce groupe. Les données du Trésor montrent aussi que deux fonctionnaires ont reçu entre 300 000$ et 400 000$ cette année, un revenu constitué de salaire et de primes de départ, explique-t-on. Ces chiffres ne tiennent compte que des fonctionnaires - les dirigeants d'organismes et de société d'État ne font pas partie de cette compilation.

Au début du mois de septembre, La Presse a relevé que la fonction publique fédérale comptait 20 000 fonctionnaires gagnant plus de 100 000$ par année, une croissance de plus de 168% en cinq ans, un peu plus forte que celle constatée à Québec. À Ottawa, la progression a été rapide, de 2009 à 2010, à la suite de la signature d'une convention collective. À Québec, la croissance a été plus progressive, mais a aussi été influencée par la signature de conventions en 2001, 2004 et 2009.

lundi 10 octobre 2011

Les manifs d''occupation': bonnes intentions, mauvais coupables?

Par David Descoteaux:

Occupons Montréal?
david.descoteaux - 9 octobre 2011
Samedi prochain, des milliers de personnes vont faire du tapage devant la Bourse de Montréal, au square Victoria. C’est la version montréalaise d’« Occupons Wall Street ». Un mouvement né à New York, qui enflamme un nombre croissant de villes américaines. Un groupe Facebook réunit déjà plus de 2400 membres.

Les manifestants dénoncent, entre autres, les banques de Wall Street et les multinationales.

Scandaleux

Je partage leur dégoût. Les sauvetages de banques me puent au nez. Si les gouvernements européen et américain crachent des milliards de dollars de leurs contribuables depuis 2-3 ans, ce n’est pas pour aider la veuve et l’orphelin. C’est pour sauver le cul des banques (françaises, allemandes et américaines, notamment), qui ont gaffé et prêté des milliards à des pays comme la Grèce, le Portugal ou l’Italie.

On assiste au plus grand détournement de fonds de l’histoire. On fouille dans les poches des citoyens, et on donne l’argent aux banques et à leurs actionnaires. On redistribue la richesse des pauvres vers les riches.Pendant qu’on impose au peuple des « mesures d’austérité » (baisse de salaire, réductions de services, hausses de taxes…)

Les manifestants d’« Occupons Wall Street » accusent aussi les banques américaines de saisir illégalement leurs maisons. Dans bien des cas, c’est vrai. Ce scandale porte un nom : le foreclosuregate. Des banques comme Bank of America ou JP Morgan ont évincé des propriétaires sans même détenir les papiers pour le faire. On soupçonne qu’elles auraient même fabriqué de faux papiers, et trompé volontairement des investisseurs.

Ces idiots devraient se trouver en faillite à l’heure qu’il est. D’autres méritent peut-être la prison.

jeudi 6 octobre 2011

Apple ne jouait pas le jeu politique

Ou à tout le moins, beaucoup moins que la plupart des autres compagnies technologiques.

RIP Steve Jobs

Un article très étoffé de Bloomberg, qui relate la vie de ce grand homme nous ayant quitté hier soir après avoir longuement combattu la maladie.

mercredi 5 octobre 2011

Une nouvelle étude jette une (autre!) douche froide aux propagandistes du cholestérol

Tel que relaté par Anthony Colpo:

New Study: Women With Higher Cholesterol Live Longer
Anthony Colpo | Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Study # 10,675 Showing the Cholesterol Theory is Still Garbage

Recently, some refreshingly non-brainwashed researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) noted that “the predictive properties of cholesterol might not be as straightforward as widely assumed.” Now there’s a huge understatement. So they set out to document the strength and validity of total cholesterol as a risk factor for mortality in a sizable sample of Norwegians without known CVD at baseline. As part of the HUNT 2 study, they ended up with 10-year follow-up data from 52,087 individuals (24,235 men and 27,852 women) aged 20–74 years and free from known CVD at the start of the study.

And what did they find, you ask?

Screw Diamonds: Cholesterol is a Girl’s Best Friend

Among women, serum cholesterol had an inverse association with all-cause mortality. Meaning that, as cholesterol went up, the risk of visiting that big Zara outlet in the sky went down. Compared with women whose cholesterol was under 5.0 mmol/l (193 mg/dl), those with a reading over 7.0 mmol/l (270 mg/dl) enjoyed a 28% relative risk reduction of dying. This risk was determined after adjusting for age, smoking and systolic blood pressure.

An almost identical relationship with cardiovascular disease (ie, CHD, heart failure, stroke) was observed. As cholesterol went up, risk of dying from cardiac arrest and stroke declined.

When coronary heart disease mortality was examined in isolation, the association with cholesterol appeared to follow a U-shaped curve. The lowest CHD risk was seen between 5.0-6.9 mmol/l, which hardly supports the simple-minded “lower is better” mentality that has come to dominate the CHD prevention arena.

And, at the end of the day, the most important figure of all is overall mortality. No matter what the cause of death, if you’re the last one left standing, then you achieved the best result. And among this sample of over 27,000 Norwegian women, the higher the cholesterol level, the more likely this result.

So ladies, next time a monopolistic South African diamond cartel employs a Madison Avenue firm to convince you some rock that may have been taken from impoverished miners at gunpoint or removed from a disemboweled smuggler in the African Congo is your “best friend”, just ignore them. There’s a new ester in town, and it doesn’t cost a cent! Go cholesterol, go cholesterol, go cholesterol…

samedi 24 septembre 2011

L'internet et le 'Cloud computing': puissantes extensions de la plus vieille invention humaine

Via Economic Policy Journal:

The Hayekian Explanation for Why We Beat Out Neanderthals
By Matt Ridley

The crowd-sourced, wikinomic cloud is the new, new thing that all management consultants are now telling their clients to embrace. Yet the cloud is not a new thing at all. It has been the source of human invention all along. Human technological advancement depends not on individual intelligence but on collective idea sharing, and it has done so for tens of thousands of years. Human progress waxes and wanes according to how much people connect and exchange.

Histoire et lessons de 2 ponts

Via le blogue du QL:

I’m not someone who thinks everything was better back in the good old days. Not only have computers, cameras, and cars improved, but the rights of women and minorities are far better respected than they were a hundred years ago. But neither can I embrace a Panglossian view that nothing of any import has been lost along the way. The equanimity with which we expect and accept violations of private property and huge cost increases and overruns and delays in government infrastructure projects is an indicator of what has been lost: the character to stand up and fight against government corruption and incompetence.

mercredi 14 septembre 2011

Un pionnier de l'âge digital

Par Jeffrey Tucker, via Mises.org.

Michael S. Hart (March 8, 1947 — September 6, 2011) got it. He understood. He saw what others missed. And he was nearly alone at the time.

After he was permitted access to an Internet account at the University of Illinois as long ago as 1971, he had a mind-blowing revelation. He realized that this tool had the potential to universalize all knowledge. It could liberate ideas from their static existence on physical media and put them into a form that could be copied, copied, copied, and copied unto infinity, not just for today but forever. This was the Star Trek replicator. Amazing.

How is it possible, he wondered, that this tool exists and yet it is being kept under wraps, used only for the most superficial purposes and only by a few?

He grabbed a copy of the Declaration of Independence, typed it in, and posted it — despite being warned that this was not allowed, that he might crash the system, that there was just something wrong with letting ideas escape the small group that controlled them and allocated them to physical things only.

Bosh, he said. He would dedicate himself and his entire life to the universal distribution of anything and everything he could. Over the rest of his life, he ended up personally typing hundreds of books and distributing them.

His medium was and is called Project Gutenberg — a perfect name for his plan and agenda. Virtually alone, he saw that the Internet was the next stage. The whole history of publishing technology was about reaching ever more people with knowledge at ever-lower costs. This was the driving force at work in publishing for thousands of years, and the whole key to progress.

lundi 12 septembre 2011

mercredi 17 août 2011

La citation du jour

Some might find whiling away the day over a cold Corona culpably unproductive. Que se chingen. It is less degrading than a federal job, and a lesser waste of time. The company is better.

-Fred Reed

vendredi 29 juillet 2011

Le mythe de l'armée volontaire - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

The Myth of the Voluntary Military - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action.… Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom."

jeudi 21 juillet 2011

Superman a besoin d'un Agent - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Superman Needs an Agent - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Volontariat vs travail rémunéré

Nelson Mandela and Volunteerism - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: "It's typical to say that people in Congress are in the business of 'public service,' but that's ridiculous. The politicians in DC take my money against my will, and spend it on things that I don't want and often consider downright criminal. That's not serving me at all."

mercredi 20 juillet 2011

L'épargne: la clé de voûte du progrès économique et technologique

The Central Role of Saving and Capital Goods - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily

George Orwell sur la guerre

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

-George Orwell

lundi 18 juillet 2011

L'historique des métaux précieux en Chine

China's Hard-Money History - Dan O'Connor - Mises Daily: "Over the past few centuries, central banks have secretly imposed a hidden tax on their citizens by printing paper money and destroying the savings of the paper holders."

Planification centrale de l'économie: de la famine à grande échelle

Mass Starvation in North Korea « LewRockwell.com Blog

mercredi 13 juillet 2011

Scurvy, among Other Problems, Went Away - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

Scurvy, among Other Problems, Went Away - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "We should be conscious of the cause-and-effect relationships operating in the world of human action that give rise to the globally extended order we call the market economy, an order fueled by human choices, entrepreneurship, and relentless learning and copying — and kept together by pricing signals, private property, and the freedom to trade. These institutions are what are bestowing miracles on us every day, the Jetsons world that amazes me every day.

We also need to be aware of its opposite, the gargantuan apparatus of compulsion and coercion called the state, which operates on principles that are anachronistic to the core. Its principle is violence, and its contributions to the social order are prisons, economic upheaval, and war. It is lumbering, stupid, and angry as hell, and it is the main drag on the world today. The contrast with the market is overwhelming."

dimanche 10 juillet 2011

L'or: indissociable de la liberté

Gold means freedom – a notion also highlighted by the fact that Lenin,
Mussolini, and Hitler banned private gold ownership at the outset of their dictatorships.
-Ronald Stoeferle

jeudi 7 juillet 2011

Qui dit qu'il n'y a pas de bulle en Chine? Le cas de la station Centrale de Guangzhou

Via Zero Hedge:

Submitted by Tim Staermose of Sovereign Man

Guangzhou South Station: Something Out Of A Zombie Movie

When I left my hotel bound for the new Guangzhou South Station the other day , I didn’t know much about the station– where it was, how far from the hotel, etc. After about 25 or 30 minutes in the cab, I still hadn’t seen any signs for the station and grew concerned that the cabbie was just taking me for a ride.

As we eventually approached the station, I began to understand why it was so far out of town. Clearly, the only way they could find enough contiguous land to build this monstrosity was to go WAY into to the outskirts of the city.

In the end, it was a 27.82 kilometer (17.39 miles) cab ride from my downtown hotel, and took 49 minutes to get there. I know this because Chinese taxis are very efficient and give you a highly detailed receipt.

Guangzhou South Station is absolutely COLOSSAL. By comparison, it is much bigger than any of the 3 international airport terminals in Manila where I live… and I’d say it’s over 8 times larger than the Central Airport Express Station in Hong Kong.

...
All of this certainly begs the question– how many more empty buildings and unused train stations can they possibly build? More importantly, what happens to China’s economy when all this fixed asset spending starts to subside?

mardi 5 juillet 2011

La citation du jour

There are 2 ways to sleep well at night: to be ignorant or to be prepared.
-Simon Black

jeudi 30 juin 2011

L'inversion du progrès par l'État

How Blessed Is the State That Thus Destroyeth the Car - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "Is reversing a century of progress a good way to make life better? The planners think so, because they have a different idea of what life should be like. They want the city to be more like an ant farm than a place for choosing, dreaming, and accomplishing."

dimanche 26 juin 2011

Les États Unis continuent leur descente vers le totalitarisme

A 95-year-old, 104-pound woman dying of leukemia is forced by the TSA to remove her adult diaper for a patdown. (via Reddit)

The Sickening State « LewRockwell.com Blog

vendredi 17 juin 2011

Doug Casey sur la monarchie

Doug Casey on the Royal Wedding - Casey Research:

"We read about some great kings who united their people and defeated their foreign enemies, like Alexander the Great. But that just means that Alexander killed his local rivals and set out to plunder others around him, just like any successful gang member might in Los Angeles today. The fact that Alexander built great cities and monuments, encouraged scholarship and learning, and was more enlightened than many of his rivals doesn’t mean that he had the right to kill all the people he killed to build his empire."

jeudi 9 juin 2011

La Citation du jour

Violence is a bit like eating tofu – you should only engage in it when absolutely necessary.

-Anthony Colpo

And You Thought “Getting Shredded” Meant Getting Real Lean… | AnthonyColpo: "Violence is a bit like eating tofu – you should only engage in it when absolutely necessary."

John Hussman sur le 'succès' de la politique inflationniste de la FED

So while the Fed has been successful in fostering speculation, further impoverishing the world's poor through commodity price increases, and subsidizing banks by driving funding costs to zero (at the expense of the risk averse and the elderly), QE2 has clearly failed from an economic standpoint.
Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: Handicapping QE3 - June 6, 2011: "So while the Fed has been successful in fostering speculation, further impoverishing the world's poor through commodity price increases, and subsidizing banks by driving funding costs to zero (at the expense of the risk averse and the elderly), QE2 has clearly failed from an economic standpoint."

mercredi 25 mai 2011

Les règles de Insider Trading Américaines: 2 poids, 2 mesures...

...quand on apprend qu'elles ne s'appliquent pas aux membres du Congrès ni du Sénat!! Quelle blague!!

The Astounding Trading Abilities Of Congress | Benzinga.com: "According to a fascinating, and disturbing, article posted at Minyanville today, members of Congresshave an extremely impressive investing and trading track record. Furthermore, the implication is that they are able to achieve 'abnormal returns' due to insider trading, which is NOT prohibited for Senators and members of the House of Representatives and their staff.

Specifically, 'the Securities and Exchange Act does not apply to members of Congress, according to Craig Holman, legislative representative at government watchdog group Public Citizen.'

“Any inside, non-public knowledge they gain can be acted upon,” Holman told Minyanville. “Some of the stories are just… breathtaking.'

A new study titled 'Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives' published in the journal Business and Politics reveals that 'a portfolio that mimics the purchases of House Members beats the market by 55 basis points per month (approximately 6% annually).'"

Fred Reed discute du patriotisme

Patriotism is everywhere thought to be a virtue rather than a mental disorder. I don’t get it.

Patriotism is of course incompatible with morality. This is more explicit in the soldier, a patriot who agrees to kill anyone he is told to kill by the various alpha-dogs—President, Fuehrer, emperor, Duce, generals.

-Fred Reed

Fred On Everything

mercredi 11 mai 2011

La technologie, allié de l'homme libre dans la lutte contre l'oppression

"There is an inextricable connection between freedom and technology. Information empowers people. The information age and information technology are the enemies of centralized bureaucracies and totalitarian states. As information, technological progress, and businesses move faster, it will be increasingly more difficult for the state to keep pace."

-Edward Wayne Younkins, via Mises.org:

The Triumph of Technology over Government Planning - Edward Wayne Younkins - Mises Daily

mardi 26 avril 2011

L'internet: danger pour les états répressifs

It is now a crime in parts of the US to photograph a policeman; here, as in Syria, governments move to hide the behavior of their “security forces.” This is why China censors the internet, and Washington very much wants to. When the Egyptian public erupted, the government immediately shut down the net. It is interesting that Obama wants an 'internet kill switch'.

-Fred Reed

samedi 9 avril 2011

La disparition de l'étalon-or

The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion, policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners, had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard.

-Ludwig Von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 461.

Les vraies lessons à tirer de la Suède

Via Antagoniste.net:

The Swedish Model
It's the free-market reforms, stupid.

By JOHNNY MUNKHAMMAR

In a Europe plagued by debt crises, one country has no budget deficit at all and is currently returning to surplus. This same country is consistently among Europe's fastest growing economies, with GDP growth set to hit 4% this year.

That country is Sweden. For many years, foreign policy-makers have pointed to Sweden as a positive model to follow, making Swedes like me proud. Too often, though, foreigners have drawn the wrong lessons from Sweden's success. For instance, whenever I give a lecture, anywhere in Europe, about economic reform, I always get the following response: "But you come from Sweden, which is socialist and successful—why should we launch free-market policies ?"

The simple truth is that Sweden is not socialist. According to the World Values Survey and other similar studies, Sweden combines one of the highest degrees of individualism in the world, solid trust in well-functioning institutions, and a high degree of social cohesion. Among the 160 countries studied in the Index of Economic Freedom, Sweden ranks 21st, and is one of the few countries that increased its economic freedoms during the financial crisis. Sweden gets higher scores for liberal markets than Germany and Belgium, or reformers such as Cyprus and Georgia.

It's true that Sweden wasn't always so free. But Sweden's socialism lasted only for a couple of decades, roughly during the 1970s and 1980s. And as it happens, these decades mark the only break in the modern Swedish success story.

In the mid-1800s, Sweden was one of the poorest and underdeveloped countries in Europe. Then, Finance Minister Johan August Gripenstedt, a proponent of de Tocqueville and Bastiat, launched far-reaching economic reforms that forged Sweden's transition to capitalism. Sweden was opened up to the world, to free trade, and to migration. Free enterprise and free competition were introduced. In particular, the financial sector was deregulated.

jeudi 7 avril 2011

La politique, en 1 phrase.

I hate politics; it is, after all, virtually always a struggle among criminals for the power to loot and kill our fellow men.

-Lew Rockwell

lundi 4 avril 2011

Une 4e guerre simultanée pour le Nobel de la Paix

Via Zero Hedge:

Here Comes The 4th Front For America's Nobel Peace Prize Winner: UN Attack Helicopter Fires On Pro-Gbagbo Military Base In Ivory Coast
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/04/2011

They don't make Nobel peace war prizes like they used to anymore. The 4th war front for the president of peace Barack Obama, who just started his reelection campaign, is almost here. Naturally, don't expect any actual declaration of war. From Reuters:

U.N. ATTACK HELICOPTER FIRES ON PRO-GBAGBO MILITARY BASE IN IVORY COAST'S ABIDJAN - TWO WITNESSES
More as we get a list of casualties, whom we expect will be more than just chocolate lovers worldwide. In the meantime, the black market for Blood Chocolate is percolating.

dimanche 27 mars 2011

Sagesse pré-moderne

The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onwards, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all. This ideal, I believe, will be realised in the world twenty or thirty centuries after I have passed from these scenes and taken up my public duties in Hell.

H.L. Mencken (1922)

lundi 14 mars 2011

Différence d'attitude: responsabilité individuelle vs assisté social

Then--and here's the point--somewhere in our 30s, we refuse all further change. The purest coincidence got us to where we live. The merest fluke put us in the present job. Now other parts of the world may beckon, other jobs may offer more. No matter. However capriciously we got to where we are, even if simply because our car broke down, we insist on staying there. Further change has become out of the question, no matter how miserable we are.

This behavior has always mystified me. I'm a fan of capitalism and freedom. Capitalism assumes that if you're unhappy with what you're doing, you'll change.

But that's not how the world works. If people are unhappy with their jobs, they agitate, join a union, go on strike, lobby for political change, maybe blow up the workplace. But most never even consider changing jobs.

Similarly, when the landlord raises the rent, people vote for rent control, or sue, or withhold payment, or seek help from city hall.

But most people never consider moving.

-Paul Terhost

dimanche 13 mars 2011

Sagesse intemporelle

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War”
(Esquire, September 1935)

mardi 8 mars 2011

La citation du jour

We now have TSA, which couldn’t catch cholera in a sewage outfall in Mumbai, but it has a huge payroll and a degree of corruption that would make the sewage outfall a cause for nostalgia.

-Fred Reed

dimanche 6 mars 2011

Testez vos connaissances immobilières dans le contexte de la bulle Britanno-Colombienne!

Amusant et...épeurant (pour les gens qui réalisent les conséquences des bulles immobilières):

http://www.crackshackormansion.com/

lundi 28 février 2011

La 'création d'emploi' par les gouvernements, en résumé

If governments could easily create jobs they would. Look no further than the US for proof. Only private enterprise can create jobs, at least lasting ones.

Governments can only take wealth from one place and distribute it elsewhere, by taxation, by force, or by the hidden tax of inflation that comes from printing money. When the stimulus ends, so do the jobs, except the bureaucratic ones, where massive pension problems and needless bureaucrats remain.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

La bulle immobilière au Canada

Dur de la nier quand on voit ça...

4541 BELMONT AV, Point Grey, Vancouver West, $2,199,000.00



Rare opportunity to own 1/2 block from Locarno Beach on freehold. 60 x 95 RS-1. Build your dream home on one of Vancouver's most prestigious streets.


Merci à Garth Turner de Greater Fool.

samedi 26 février 2011

Le conflit intractable entre l'État et la Société

Without appropriation there cannot be a State, and the power of the State is in direct proportion to the amount of property it appropriates.

Contrariwise, social power is measurable by the amount of property the individual producer is able to retain and dispose of as he sees fit.The State thrives on taxation, Society suffers from it. The difference between a free Society and a dominated one is in the percentage of property the State lays its hands on.


-Frank Chodorov, via Mises.org

lundi 21 février 2011

L'héroisme des protestants arabes


It is a fact: these people hate the tyrants. It is also a fact that these are "our" tyrants. Their very existence exposes the gross hypocrisy of US foreign policy.

God bless these protesters. They are losing their chains. They are changing the Arab world — and the whole globe — by destabilizing and overthrowing the dictators. They are not only doing it without US help. They are doing it despite US support for the dictators they oppose.

These revolutions can mean more than the overthrow of despots; they can end in overthrowing the despotic policy and empire headquartered in Washington, DC. Want to join me in the streets?


-Lew Rockwell

mercredi 16 février 2011

Hillary Clinton se contredit en essayant de justifier la guerre à la drogue

A few weeks ago Hillary Clinton said they can't legalize drugs because "there's too much money in it" – an extremely odd statement. Too much money being spent fighting drugs by a bankrupt government? Too much money dealing in them by the narcotrafficantes, who use a lot of it to pay off the police, the DEA, and other government types? If the stories from the days when Bill was governor of Arkansas – the goings-on in Mena and such – are true, she knows a lot more about the drug business than I do, and from hands-on experience.

The only reason drugs are so profitable, of course, is because they're illegal. If they were legalized, there would be about as much profit in them as any other chemical or agricultural business – maybe less, since marijuana can be grown in useful quantities in a one-bedroom flat. And of course, the more draconian the drug laws, the higher the price drugs command – which draws in more entrepreneurs.

The drug business is problematical – like so many activities – in a number of ways. But it certainly offers giant-sized entrepreneurial profits precisely because it's currently illegal. A drug lord must necessarily make corruption his friend.


-Doug Casey

mardi 15 février 2011

Le président de la banque Mondiale Robert Zoellick affirme que les politiques des banques centrales...

... ont plongé 44 millions d'humains sous le seuil de la 'pauvreté extrême'.

Via Zero Hedge:

World Bank President Zoellick Says Surging Food Prices Have Pushed 44 Million People Into Extreme Poverty

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/15/2011 13:21 -0500

We give Robert Zoellick 4 to 6 weeks before he follows Axel Weber, Kevin Warsh and the COO of one of the bankrupt GSEs (we forget his name) into the sunset. The reason? After breaking ranks with the Criminal Bank Cartel last year and calling for a return to the gold standard, the president of the World Bank has dared to be the first among the institutional elite to point out that the cotton in the emperor's clothes, were he to be clothed in the first place, would have surged by 100% in less than a year. According to AP: "World Bank President Robert Zoellick says global food prices have hit "dangerous levels" that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries." Not to worry. According to Fed VP Christine Cumming who spoke earlier somewhere, rising commodity costs merely indicate "stronger global demand." Oddly enough, it is this supposed demand for products that has forced 44 million people to enter "extreme poverty"... out of their own volition. We are not sure, but something tells us the Fed's Cumming has a Ph.D.

From AP:

The bank says in a new report that global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. Zoellick says the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food.

The World Bank estimates higher prices for corn, wheat and oil have pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty since last June.

Zoellick said he expects food prices to continue to rise, and that export bans and weather disruptions are partly to blame.

lundi 14 février 2011

La véritable lutte des classes

The aim of that query is to differentiate between those who acquire wealth from voluntary, consensual interactions within a free market and those who secure material gains through the use of coercion. The top of the pyramid in Egypt is not comprised of villains just because they are rich, but as a result of the way that they obtained their riches. The state, then, having the overarching monopoly on the "legitimate" use of force within society, is distinctly the instrument of the class of individuals who would rather steal and exploit than work and produce.

-David S. D'Amato, Mises.org

dimanche 13 février 2011

Les vraies raisons pourquoi Mubarak a délayé sa sortie du pouvoir...

Via Zero Hedge:

The Reason For Mubarak's Power Hand Off Delay: Plundering The Gold

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2011

It's official: as Egypt was burning, Mubarak was stealing the gold. When we reported, presumably jokingly, two weeks ago that the Egyptian Central Bank may have been plundered, it turns out we were pretty much accurate once again. For all those wondering why Mubarak was refusing to hand over power for the past two weeks as hundreds of people were dying, we now have the answer - it was all just to make sure he transferred his assets, especially gold, to safe regimes (in the process paying tens of millions in commissions to that most noble of jobs - the banker class). The Telegraph reports: "A US official told The Sunday Telegraph: "Hosni Mubarak used the 18 days it took for protesters to topple him to shift his vast wealth into untraceable accounts overseas, Western intelligence sources have said...There's no doubt that there will have been some frantic financial activity behind the scenes. They can lose the homes and some of the bank accounts, but they will have wanted to get the gold bars and other investments to safe quarters. The Mubaraks are understood to have wanted to shift assets to Gulf states where they have considerable investments already – and, crucially, friendly relations. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have frequently been mentioned as likely final destinations for Mr Mubarak and possibly his family."As usual, we remind readers that according to the World Gold Council, Egypt had 75.6 tonnes of gold at the end of 2010. Should this number not be reduced following Mubarak's plundering, we will know just how pervasive Tungsten is in the world central banking cartel.

From Telegraph:

The former Egyptian president is accused of amassing a fortune of more than £3 billion - although some suggest it could be as much as £40 billion - during his 30 years in power. It is claimed his wealth was tied up in foreign banks, investments, bullion and properties in London, New York, Paris and Beverly Hills.

In the knowledge his downfall was imminent, Mr Mubarak is understood to have attempted to place his assets out of reach of potential investigators.

On Friday night Swiss authorities announced they were freezing any assets Mubarak and his family may hold in the country's banks while pressure was growing for the UK to do the same. Mr Mubarak has strong connections to London and it is thought many millions of pounds are stashed in the UK.

But a senior Western intelligence source claimed that Mubarak had begun moving his fortune in recent weeks.

"We're aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets," said the source, "And we think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around. If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now."
Perhaps Goldman Sachs can take a proactive PR step and disclose to the population that the flow trade-frontrunning hedge fund had nothing to do with facilitating the transfer of Mubarak's billions in stolen wealth from point A to point B. And perhaps all other banks can follow suit. Either that, or we can all just wait for Mubarak's sworn deposition when he is put on trial for crimes against the Egyptian people some time in 1-2 months. Doing text searches for "Goldman" in those thousand page PDFs will be breeze...

vendredi 11 février 2011

Le succès d'une révolution pacifique

Photos via Zero Hedge.

Et une autre petite tuile pour Mubarak, qui voit une partie de sa fortune illégitime mise hors de sa portée, via Zero Hedge également:

Jordan Islamists Say Mubarak's Fate "Should Be A Lesson To All Arab Regimes" As Switzerland Freezes Former President's Assets

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/11/2011 12:24

Barely an hour has passed since Mubarak's departure, and the religious tensions in the middle east are already starting to flare up. First up: the Jordan Muslim Brotherhood has immediately taken advantage of a vacated podium and said that what happened in Egypt should be a lesson to all Arabs. While hopefully nobody will be able to hijack the success of the Egyptian people, one wonders just how heavily the various Middle Eastern regime are sweating tonight...

From Dow Jones:

Jordan's powerful Muslim Brotherhood said Friday Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's decision to step down should be a "lesson" to all Arab regimes.

"Arab regimes should learn a lesson from what happened. All Arab peoples suffer from the corruption of their regimes," Jamil Abu Baker, the movement's spokesman, told AFP. "Mubarak's departure should have happened from the start. It is natural after his oppression and corruption. Congratulations to our people in Egypt."

Abu Baker said the group is in "touch with Muslim brothers in Egypt."

"We are listening to their views although they are busy now," he said.

Many Jordanians flocked to the Egyptian embassy in Amman to celebrate.
Elsewhere, Al Arabiya reported that the Swiss foreign ministry has announced that all of Mubarak's assets have been frozen. That, of course, excludes all the gold that Mubarak has with him. Notably, however, Switzerland refuses to indicate how much money was frozen.

From Reuters:

Switzerland has frozen assets possibly belonging to Hosni Mubarak, who stepped down as president of Egypt on Friday after 30 years of rule, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said.

"I can confirm that Switzerland has frozen possible assets of the former Egyptian president with immediate effect," spokesman Lars Knuchel said, declining to specify how much money was involved.

In recent years, Switzerland has worked hard to improve its image as a haven for ill-gotten assets and has also frozen assets belonging to Tunisia's former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali as well as those of Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo.
Where is Hosni by the way?

jeudi 10 février 2011

De l'importance du pacifisme, surtout dans le cas d'une révolution

Threats, torture, murder, beating, caging, these are the tools of the State. We, the opponents of the State, cannot possibly beat it at its own game, nor should we try. But with non-violence, we have a chance.

-Lew Rockwell

Les bienfaits de l''aide étrangère'

Via le Telegraph:

WikiLeaks: Egyptian 'torturers' trained by FBI
The US provided officers from the Egyptian secret police with training at the FBI, despite allegations that they routinely tortured detainees and suppressed political opposition.

By Steven Swinford 9:00PM GMT 09 Feb 2011

According to leaked diplomatic cables, the head of the Egyptian state security and investigative service (SSIS) thanked the US for “training opportunities” at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia. The SSIS has been repeatedly accused of using violence and brutality to help prop up the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. In April, 2009, the US ambassador in Cairo stated that “Egypt’s police and domestic security services continue to be dogged by persistent, credible allegations of abuse of detainees.
“The Interior Ministry uses SSIS to monitor and sometimes infiltrate the political opposition and civil society. SSIS suppresses political opposition through arrests, harassment and intimidation.”
In October, 2009, “credible” human rights lawyers representing alleged Hizbollah detainees provided details of the techniques employed by the SSIS. The cable states: “The lawyers told us in mid-October that they have compiled accounts from several defendants of GOE [Government of Egypt] torture by electric shocks, sleep deprivation, and stripping them naked for extended periods.

Un Wikileaks québecois à venir

Bonne nouvelle pour la transparence et la liberté d'expression.

Via Cyberpresse:

QuébecLeaks: un WikiLeaks à la québécoise
Philippe Teisceira-Lessard, La Presse Canadienne (Montréal)
09 février 2011 | 16 h 18

Des internautes lanceront, le 16 février prochain, un site inspiré de WikiLeaks mais «fait par des Québécois pour des Québécois», où les individus disposant d'un accès privilégié à des documents sensibles pourront les rendre publics anonymement.

Ce site, appelé QuébecLeaks, se veut une plateforme plus locale, qui ne diffusera que des documents en lien avec les affaires publiques de la province.

«WikiLeaks étant une très grosse organisation, les documents peuvent souvent prendre beaucoup de temps avant d'être sortis, en plus d'être dilués dans une marre d'informations concernant tous les autres pays du monde», affirme le groupe d'internautes, par courriel.

Les membres du groupe refusent de s'identifier, affirmant que le nom de leur porte-parole, le Julian Assange québécois, sera révélé la semaine prochaine, en même temps que la mise en ligne du site. On cite notamment le sort de la tête d'affiche de WikiLeaks pour expliquer cette discrétion.

mercredi 9 février 2011

Les conséquences inattendues inévitables de la régulation gouvernementale

Strict regulation leads naïve people to think, "Everything is under control." That has two important effects. One, it makes them irresponsible – a belief that they don't have to concern themselves. That general attitude then permeates the society. Two, regulation always creates distortions in the market. It's like a lid on a pressure cooker. Everything looks under control until the whole thing blows up.

That's what lies at the root of the concept of "black swan" type unexpected events. The black swan lands when the amount of corruption necessary to evade laws becomes as onerous as the laws themselves.

-Doug Casey

mardi 8 février 2011

Pierre Lemieux déboulonne le mythe du 'laisser faire' Américain

Via la page de David Descôteaux:

Le mythe de l’État fantôme
08/02/2011
Le « capitalisme débridé », la dérèglementation et l’absence de l’État sont-ils responsables du pétrin dans lequel se retrouvent les États-Unis aujourd’hui?

Ce serait une explication trop simple, dit Pierre Lemieux, économiste et professeur associé à l’Université du Québec en Outaouais, dans son livre Une crise peut en cacher une autre.

Cet ouvrage, fort documenté, est une mine d’or pour ceux qui préfèrent les chiffres et les faits aux raccourcis émotionnels qui foisonnent sur ce sujet. En particulier, Lemieux déboulonne, chiffres à l’appui, le mythe du « laisser-faire » américain. (Transparence : je connais personnellement Pierre Lemieux, bien que très peu.)

Le « siècle de l’État »

La part de l’État dans l’économie a explosé au cours du 20e siècle. Elle a quadruplé partout dans le monde, et triplé aux États-Unis.

« À la veille de la récente récession, plus du tiers de ce que les Américains produisaient était détourné vers les coffres de l’État, me précise Pierre Lemieux. Au Québec, c’est environ 40 à 45 % selon les années. La différence est moindre qu’on le croit. »

Difficile de trouver une activité non réglementée aux États-Unis, écrit Lemieux, qui est aussi Senior Fellow à l’Institut économique de Montréal. Le Federal Register, qui contient les textes de loi au niveau fédéral, comptait 75 000 pages en 2007. Un quart de million de bureaucrates fédéraux appliquent la législation fédérale. S’ajoutent à cela les règlementations des États et des administrations locales.

« Si on mesure les budgets réglementaires en dollars constants de 2000, la réglementation a été multipliée par 15 entre 1960 et 2007. Une croissance annuelle de 5,9 % », dit l’auteur.

Mais les « cowboys » à Washington ont complètement déréglementé les banques, non? Non. « Les dépenses annuelles de réglementation bancaire et financière ont, en termes réels, été multipliées par 11 entre 1960 et 2007 », écrit Lemieux.

Reagan et Bush, de gauche?

On dépeint souvent Ronald Reagan et George Bush comme des fanatiques de droite, qui auraient pressé le citron de l’État jusqu’à ce qu’il ne reste que les pépins. Au contraire. Durant les années 1980 — les « années Reagan » —, les dépenses publiques par habitant sont passées de 8000 $ à près de 12 000 $. En 2007, sous George Bush, elles dépassaient 15 000 $.

Ce n’est pas juste à cause des guerres, prévient l’auteur. « Les dépenses non militaires, qui représentent 80 % du budget, ont grimpé de 49,1 % durant les deux mandats de George W. Bush. »

Idem pour la paperasse. Pendant le règne de Bush, le recueil de textes réglementaires fédéraux s’est épaissi de 7000 pages! Sous Ronald Reagan (1981 à 1988), les budgets pour la réglementation économique ont grimpé de 22 %.

Oui, les banquiers américains ont pris trop de risques et ont aggravé la crise. Mais dire simplement que la crise économique résulte de la cupidité des banquiers de Wall Street est trompeur.

N’oublions pas, comme le documente Une crise peut en cacher une autre, que les banques américaines devaient, par la loi, prêter à des familles à risque. Que c’est la banque centrale (la Fed) qui a maintenu au plancher les taux d’intérêt, ouvrant la porte au crédit facile et au gonflement d’une bulle immobilière. Que si les banques prêtaient les yeux fermés, c’était en grande partie parce que Fannie Mae et Freddie Mac, deux sociétés semi-étatiques, achetaient une quantité énorme d’hypothèques aux banques, soulageant ces dernières du risque de défaut de ces prêts.

Les banquiers, ainsi que plusieurs acheteurs de maisons irresponsables, sont coupables. Mais les faits montrent que l’empreinte du gouvernement américain est partout dans cette crise. Comme elle l’est, d’ailleurs, dans son économie.

UNE CRISE PEUT EN CACHER UNE AUTRE, Pierre Lemieux, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 257 pages.

vendredi 4 février 2011

Point de vue de Gandhi sur la soumission à l'État

Any man who subordinates his will to that of the State surrenders his liberty and thus becomes a slave.

-Mohandas Gandhi


Merci à Jeff Riggenbach, Mises.org.

La valeur nette du clan Mubarak estimée à 40-70 MILLIARDS de $ US

...on voit ici le chemin qu'a pris une bonne partie de l''aide étrangère' généreusement fournie par les États-Unis à l'Égypte depuis 30 ans...

De plus, on apprend que ces sommes sont comparables aux fortunes des autres dirigeants arabes supportés par les États-Unis (!!!).

Via Zero Hedge:

Mubaraks Have an Estimated Net Worth of $40 - $70 BILLION Dollars

Submitted by George Washington on 02/04/2011

→ Washington’s Blog

It pays well to be a dictator who terrorizes his people with U.S. backing.

As ABC News reports:

"He had a very lavish lifestyle with many homes around the country," said [Aladdin Elaasar, author of "The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age], who estimates the family's wealth is between $50 billion to $70 billion.
Remember, two of the men listed as the second and third richest Bill Gates and Warren Buffet - have $53 and $47 billion, respectively.

It's not just Mubarak. ABC writes:

The family's net worth ranges from $40 billion to $70 billion, by some estimates.

Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton, said those estimates are comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.

"The business ventures from his military and government service accumulated to his personal wealth," said Jamal. "There was a lot of corruption in this regime and stifling of public resources for personal gain."

***

Jamal said that Mubarak's assets are most likely in banks outside of Egypt, possibly in the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

"This is the pattern of other Middle Eastern dictators so their wealth will not be taken during a transition, she said. "These leaders plan on this."
The politicians in Washington, D.C., make dictators and giant banks rich, at our expense. Too bad they are not helping the American - let alone the Egyptian - people.

jeudi 3 février 2011

John Maynard Keynes: Économiste dévastateur, et sympathisant Nazi

Les théories économiques de John Maynard Keynes sont responsables de bien de nos afflictions modernes, telles que l'endettement massif des gouvernements et la croyance que dépenser et s'endetter 'fait rouler l'économie'.

Même s'il est mort depuis plus de 60 ans, il vit toujours à travers ses idées destructrices, les gouvernements appréciant bien sûr avoir une justification 'scientifique' pour vivre en haut de leurs moyens.

Je suis tombé sur une citation très illustratrice du personnage en lisant le rapport annuel de la firme d'investissement Leithner et Co, qui se passe de commentaire:

The Nazi movement is in many respects one which has my warm
sympathy; in fact, I might fairly claim that Herr Hitler has repudiated Karl Marx to enlist under the banner of Bernard Shaw.

-John Maynard Keynes, The Sunday Dispatch (4 June 1933)

mercredi 2 février 2011

Surprise! Les 'supporteurs' de Mubarak étaient des officiers de police

Ainsi, le président Mubarak d'Égypte a envoyé des policiers pour servir d'agents provocateurs et amener à la violence les manifestants anti-gouvernements (qui sont restés très pacifiques depuis le début des manifestations la semaine dernière).

Heureusement, la stratégie a été mise à jour.

Via Zero Hedge:

Busted: Pro-Mubarak Thugs Are Police Officers

Submitted by George Washington on 02/02/2011

→ Washington’s Blog


It should surprise no one that some if not all of the violent pro-Mubarak forces are plain clothes police officers.

The Guardian notes:

Sharif Kouddous, a prolific Egyptian tweeter and blogger in Cairo, describes "a brutal and coordinated campaign of violence" by the Mubarak regime, in an article posted on Democracy Now's website:
"Suddenly, rocks started falling out of the sky," said Ismail Naguib, a witness at the scene. "Rocks were flying everywhere. Everywhere." Many people were hit. Some were badly cut, others had arms and legs broken. The mob then charged in; some rode on horseback and camels, trampling and beating people. Groups of them gathered on rooftops around Tahrir and continued to pelt people with rocks.

"It's a massacre," said Selma al-Tarzi as the attack was ongoing. "They have knives, they are throwing molotov bombs, they are burning the trees, they are throwing stones at us ... this is not a demonstration anymore, this is war."

Some of the attackers were caught. Their IDs showed them to be policemen dressed in civilians clothes. Others appeared to be state sponsored "baltagiya" (gangs) and government employees. "Instead of uniformed guys trying to stop you from protesting. You've got non-uniformed guys trying to stop you from protesting," Naguib said.
AP points out:

Supporters of President Hosni Mubarak charged into Cairo's central square on horses and camels brandishing whips while others rained firebombs from rooftops in what appeared to be an orchestrated assault against protesters trying to topple Egypt's leader of 30 years. Three people died and 600 were injured.

The protesters accused Mubarak's regime of unleashing a force of paid thugs and plainclothes police to crush their unprecedented 9-day-old movement, a day after the 82-year-old president refused to step down. They showed off police ID badges they said were wrested from their attackers. Some government workers said their employers ordered them into the streets.

***

If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

And Al Jazeera reports:

Protesters in Tahrir Square shows the Al Jazeera camera the ID cards of accused plain clothed security (police ID) who came in earlier to create chaos.

This is just like when the British police attacked the non-violent protesters led by Gandhi, or the police in towns in the South of the United States attacked the peaceful protesters led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

La technologie, force liberatrice

Technology is everywhere the friend of the common man, starting with fire and the wheel. But political and religious elites – the Atillas and the witch doctors of the world – always try to keep the genie in the bottle. The printing press, gunpowder, the automobile, the computer – the elites have always hated these things, and don't want the common man to have them. Radical new technologies always work to overturn the status quo.

-Doug Casey

Les politiciens du monde et le dictateur Égyptien Mubarak...

...raconté en photos, via Foreign Policy Journal.

Merci à Robert Wenzel.

Les mensonges révisionnistes d'Al Gore

Via Antagoniste.net:


C’est toujours la faute du réchauffement

Par David

Déclaration de David Viner, chercheur au Climatic Research Unit, à propos des chutes de neige (Mars 2000)


-

The warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become « a very rare and exciting event ». « Children just aren’t going to know what snow is, » he said.

Déclaration d’Al Gore, à propos des chutes de neige (février 2011)

As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming. In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe.

dimanche 30 janvier 2011

La vraie justification pour acheter de l'or

I prefer to see buying gold as buying into the stupidity of governments, policy-makers and economists, and I'm comfortable doing that.

-Dylan Grice, via Zero Hedge

jeudi 27 janvier 2011

Du devoir de rester debout face au mal

We have a duty to speak even more clearly and courageously, to work hard, and to keep fighting this battle while the strength is still in us.... Even those of us who have reached and passed our 70th birthdays cannot afford to rest on our oars and spend the rest of our lives dozing in the Florida sun. The times call for courage. The times call for hard work. But if the demands are high, it is because the stakes are even higher. They are nothing less than the future of liberty, which means the future of civilization.

-Henry Hazlitt

Les gouvernements et la population: une relation éleveur-bétail

More generally, as long as you're a citizen of a country, that country's government is going to treat you like its property. So, if you are going to be a citizen of any place, which is unfortunately necessary, it's better to be a citizen of a small and backward country, or one that just doesn't have the ability or interest to monitor all of its citizens like prison inmates, as the U.S. does.

-Doug Casey

lundi 24 janvier 2011

Folie Keynesienne au World Economic Forum, et rapacité syndicale inouïe au New Jersey

2 articles par Mike Shedlock ont retenu mon attention.

Le premier est une réponse à une 'analyse' du World Economic Forum qui 'démontre' que l'économie mondiale a 'besoin' de 100 BILLIONS (Trillions en anglais)de dette supplémentaire d'ici 10 ans pour croître 'adéquatement'.

Je crois qu'un brin de gros bon sens est tout ce qui suffit pour comprendre le ridicule complet des opinions de ces gens, mais Shedlock démolit en détail, avec l'aide de l'économiste autralien Steve Keen, les arguments avancés par ces Keynesiens patentés.

Les deuxième illustre l'incroyable cupidité et arrogance des syndicats du secteur public, dans ce cas des policiers de Camden au New Jersey.

En effet, le gouvernement de Camden (une ville avec une population très pauvre) est pratiquement en faillite, et a du congédier 50% de sa force policière l'an dernier pour des raisons budgétaires.

Or, le maire de Camden a proposé au syndicat une offre qui aurait permis de ré-embaucher les policiers mis à pied.

L'offre demandait l'équivalent d'une réduction de salaire de 15% la première année et 5% l'année suivante.

Évidemment, le syndicat a refusé, préférant laisser 100 policiers sans emploi et la ville en manque de policiers pour assurer la sécurité, que de couper 15% des salaires des membres ayant plus d'ancienneté.

dimanche 23 janvier 2011

Le 'double merci': leçon d'économie

Par David Descôteaux:


JEUDI 12 AOÛT 2010

Le moment du « double merci »
Entendu dans le métro récemment : « Quand deux personnes échangent biens et argent, l’une gagne et l’autre perd. Sinon, il n’y aurait pas de profit. »

Ce raisonnement est plus populaire qu’on le croit. Et justifie parfois l’hostilité envers le commerce ou le libre-échange. Seul problème : il est faux.

Combien de fois ça vous arrive de payer 1$ pour un café et, quand la caissière vous dit « merci » en vous remettant le café, de lui répondre « merci » ? Ce curieux moment du « double merci » est plus qu’un échange de politesse. C’est une leçon d’économie, dit le journaliste John Stossel.

Pourquoi ces « mercis » ? Parce que vous désirez le café plus que le dollar. Et que le commerce désire votre dollar plus que le café. Vous gagnez tous les deux.

Deux personnes échangent parce que chacune d’elle veut ce que possède l’autre plus que ce qu’elle possède déjà (rappelez-vous vos échanges de cartes de hockey). Si l’une d’entre elles gagnait et l’autre perdait, le perdant n’échangerait pas.

Nous vivons ce moment du « double merci » chaque fois que nous payons à la caisse dans une boutique de vêtements ou que nous souhaitons bonne journée à la serveuse en quittant un restaurant, explique John Stossel dans une de ses chroniques.

La même chose se produit quand vous achetez quelque chose d’un étranger. On appelle ces échanges « exportations » et « importations » juste parce que des frontières existent. Mais les frontières sont des accidents de l’histoire. Le résultat d’une décision arbitraire d’un politicien. Savez-vous si Montréal « souffre » d’un déficit commercial avec Drummondville ? Non. Parce qu’on s’en fout.

En réalité, il n’existe pas d’importation, ni d’exportation. Il y a ce que vous produisez et ce que tous les autres produisent. Les échanges sont mutuellement bénéfiques. Le protectionnisme – l’imposition de taxes à l’entrée de produits étrangers – est l’outil qu’utilisent les politiciens pour protéger leurs amis chefs d’entreprise en nous empêchant d’échanger avec quelqu’un (un étranger) qui nous offre un meilleur deal.

Dans le commerce comme ailleurs, deux mots embrument notre jugement : « nous » et « eux ». Nous n’échangeons pas avec eux. Le Canada n’échange pas avec la Chine, ou avec les États-Unis, ou tout autre groupe. J’échange avec toi. Tu échanges avec moi. Tremblay échange avec Nguyen. Des individus échangent avec des individus.

Si l’économie continue de s’enliser, les gouvernements de la planète seront tentés d’imposer des taxes et autres barrières aux produits étrangers. Ce serait une erreur.

Lorsqu’ils sont libres, les gens échangent à travers les frontières naturellement. Les acheteurs, autant que les vendeurs, en profitent, dit Stossel.

« Merci. – Merci. »

Norbourg: le scandale financier 'reglé', le scandale politique étouffé?

Par David Descôteaux:

Norbourg : le problème (et le mystère) demeure

23/01/2011

Qui se réjouit le plus de l’« entente Norbourg » survenue la semaine dernière? Les investisseurs floués, la Caisse de dépôt, l’AMF ou le ministère des Finances?

Je suis bien content pour les investisseurs concernés, qui vont revoir la couleur de leur argent. Mais ce règlement — et le fait que Vincent Lacroix a plaidé coupable à ses accusations — tue les espoirs d’un éventuel procès. Procès qui aurait pu nous éclairer sur les dessous de ce scandale.

Rappelons qu’en juillet 2008, l’avocat de Vincent Lacroix, Clemente Monterosso, avait lâché une bombe. Il avait dit aux médias, dont la Presse canadienne, qu’« avec la preuve qui s’accumule et les déclarations faites et certains éléments de preuve qui se retrouvent dans les mains de plusieurs personnes, on pourra parler bientôt d’un scandale politique plus que financier ».

Souvenez-vous que c’est la Commission des valeurs mobilières du Québec (CVMQ, aujourd’hui l’Autorité des marchés financiers) qui a donné son « OK » pour la création des fonds Norbourg, malgré de sérieux doutes au sein même de l’organisme. C’est le ministère des Finances qui, à la même époque, a donné une subvention de plus de 900 000 $ à Vincent Lacroix. Et c’est la Caisse de dépôt que certains accusent d’avoir vendu, en 2004, les fonds Evolution à Vincent Lacroix sans avoir fait au préalable une vérification suffisante.

Avec cette entente, on enterre l’histoire. Personne ne sera coupable de quoi que ce soit.

vendredi 21 janvier 2011

Perspective Mexicaine sur la nature de l'État

The twentieth-century state has proved itself a force more powerful than the ancient empires and a master more terrible than the old tyrants and despots: a faceless, inhuman master who functions not like a demon but like a machine. Civil Society has almost completely disappeared: nothing and no person exists outside the state. It is a surprising inversion of values that would have made Nietzsche himself shudder: the state is Being and exception; irregularity and even simple individualism are forms of evil, that is, of nothingness.

The state is neither a factory nor a business. The logic of history is not quantitative. Economic rationality depends on the relationship between expenditure and production, investment and earnings, work and savings. The rationale of the state is not utility nor profit but power — gaining it, conserving it and extending it. The archetype of power does not lie in economics but in war, not in the polemic relationship of capital to work but in the hierarchical relationship of commander to soldier.

-Ottavio Paz, Mexicain d'origine, prix Nobel de Littérature 1990

Merci à Lew Rockwell.

La faillite des gouvernements: moralement et financièrement sain

Via le blogue de Lew Rockwell:

Government Bankruptcy Is a Great Idea

Posted by Lew Rockwell on January 21, 2011 08:51 AM

State governments, like municipal governments, should go bankrupt rather than raise taxes on their victims. In fact, as part of bankruptcy, taxes should be drastically lowered, bonds repudiated, pensions abolished, and employees fired. A great start towards solvency and decency. Remember, the money for all these “services” is extracted through violence and the threat of violence. But there is talk of constitutional problems of state bankruptcy in federal bankruptcy courts, because of states rights, so there should be a federal agency to supervise it! Oh brother. In fact, states can do it on their own and ignore the feds, using their own courts. Come on, California, get the ball rolling. Jerry Brown, unlike the awful Arnold, be a hero.