Une règle mathématique

La corruption apparaît quand on dépense l’argent des autres. Plus nombreux les domaines où l’État intervient, plus nombreuses les occasions de corruption. C’est une règle mathématique. Plus un gouvernement distribue des autorisations, des contrats et des subventions, plus les gens auront une incitation à recourir aux pots-de-vin pour obtenir une autorisation, un contrat ou une subvention.

-David Descôteaux

La citation du jour

As you know, I've always distinguished them this way: the Democrats definitely don't believe in economic freedom, but they say they believe in social freedom, while the Republicans definitely don't believe in social freedom, but they say they believe in economic freedom. Neither believes in both – that would make them libertarians.

-Doug Casey

Protectionnisme Américain contre la Chine: explication

Par Lew Rockwell, via son blogue:

September 30, 2010

Economic Attack on China

Posted by Lew Rockwell on September 30, 2010 08:22 AM

Despite Ron Paul and his compatriots, the US House has passed yet another predatory protectionist measure against China. Here is how the American Propaganda service puts it:

The House has approved legislation that would allow the U.S. to seek trade sanctions against China and other nations for manipulating their currency to gain trade advantages.

Translation: as the US massively depreciates its currency, in part to benefit its exporters, China has no business trying to protect its exporters. Now, both governments are running economically ridiculous anti-consumer trade policies, but the US empire, as God’s chosen vehicle for global rule, expects all to bow down before it. I do not know what the result of this latest outrage will be. Capo di tutti capi Bill Kristol and the other neocons want a new Cold War with China, facilitated by a trade war. Any rational person–and the neocons seem to all have a crazy gene–wants trade and peace with all. But this belligerent act, though the Senate may not go along, cannot, even so, be having a good effect. China is growing in prosperity while the US is declining. And our Keynesians are worse than their Keynesians. So it is not smart, even without the war wars that often follow in the wake of trade wars, for the US to exacerbate this trend.

Bonne nouvelle: les Américains croient moins à la propagande des médias de masse

Par Tyler Durden de Zero Hedge:

Distrust In US Media Hits Record High, As CNBC (And Especially Mad Money) Viewership Drops To Multi-Year Low

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/29/2010 21:40 -0500

In today's "less than surprising data point" category, the clear winner is Gallup's analysis of people's ever increasing distrust in the mass media. From 46% in 1998, the percentage of people who indicate they have "not very much/none at all" trust in mass media has grown to a stunning 57% currently. This is an all time record, as the general public perception toward the MSM has flipped over the past decade. Is it becoming increasingly more difficult to lie to the average American? In this time of unprecedented economic upheaval, where the political regime depends on just how far any given administration's lies can penetrate amongst the broader population, this may well become the most critical factor in determining policy for the future. And with ever increasing alternatives of non-traditional media, could the legacy ad-supported media model, which by definition is one which espouses the status quo, be doomed precisely by the slow but steady education of the average American, who intuitively realizes that nearly every "fact" appearing in the media, especially that supported by any given political party, is a lie?

Une (rare) conséquence positive du protectionnisme Américain...

...la Chine répond en interrompant l'exportation de minéraux essentiels pour la fabrication d'armement high-tech.

Par Mike Shedlock (L'article vaut la peine d'être lu au complet):

Last Sunday in Prepare for Currency/Trade Wars; How Might China Respond to US Tariffs? I mentioned the possibility China might shut off exports of rare earth metals used in making glass for solar panels, motors that help propel hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, and laser guided bombs.

Indeed, it was the shutoff of rare earth metals to Japan that caused Japan to "cry uncle" and release a Chinese boat captain detained by the Japanese in disputed waters.

...

The Bright Side

Although "unobtanium" is a cause of concern for warmongers everywhere, being the ever-optimist that I am, I prefer to look at the bright side.

Prices are soaring. Isn't that what Bernanke wants?

La citation du jour

To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engels' most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.

-Ludwig Von Mises

De l'importance d'enlever aux gouvernements le contrôle de la monnaie (écrit en 1995)

Par Murray Rothbard, via Lew Rockwell.com:

When the dollar and gold were set loose from each other, we saw the closest thing to a laboratory experiment we can get in human affairs. All Establishment economists – from Keynesians to Chicagoite monetarists – insisted that gold had long lost its value as a money, that gold had only reached its exalted value of $35 an ounce because its value was "fixed" at that amount by the government. The dollar allegedly conferred value upon gold rather than the other way round, and if gold and the dollar were ever cut loose, we would see the price of gold sink rapidly to its estimated non-monetary value (for jewelry, dental fillings, etc.) of approximately $6 an ounce. In contrast to this unanimous Establishment prediction, the followers of Ludwig von Mises and other "gold bugs" insisted that gold was undervalued at 35 debased dollars, and claimed that the price of gold would rise far higher, perhaps as high as $70.

Suffice it to say that the gold price never fell below $35, and in fact vaulted upward, at one point reaching $850 an ounce, in recent years settling at somewhere around $350 an ounce. And yet since 1973, the Treasury and Fed have persistently evaluated their gold stock, not at the old and obsolete $35, to be sure, but only slightly higher, at $42.22 an ounce.

...

Inflation, credit expansion, business cycles, heavy government debt, and high taxes are not, as Establishment historians claim, inevitable attributes of capitalism or of "modernization." On the contrary, these are profoundly anti-capitalist and parasitic excrescences grafted onto the system by the interventionist State, which rewards its banker and insider clients with hidden special privileges at the expense of everyone else.

Crucial to free enterprise and capitalism is a system of firm rights of private property, with everyone secure in the property that he earns. Also crucial to capitalism is an ethic that encourages and rewards savings, thrift, hard work, and productive enterprise, and that discourages profligacy and cracks down sternly on any invasion of property rights. And yet, as we have seen, cheap money and credit expansion gnaw away at those rights and at those virtues. Inflation overturns and transvalues values by rewarding the spendthrift and the inside fixer and by making a mockery of the older "Victorian" virtues.