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

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.

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

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.