Archive for May 2009
Dr. Paul discusses Civil Disobedience, Self-Government & More with Motorhome Diaries
This interview really settles the whole is Ron Paul a minarchist or not debate for me.
Question: Dr. Paul, what do you say to people who advocate self-government and who don’t simply want to return to the Constitution?
Dr. Paul: Great, that’s fine, I think that’s really what my goal is. Isn’t it interesting that if you have a government they’ll want us all to be socialistic and use us, but they’ll never let an enclave to become libertarian but if we lived in a libertarian society we would have no qualms if people wanted to live socialistically?
Blasphemy Laws Violate Property Rights
What’s been lacking from the debate on the proposed Irish blasphemy law is any framing of the discussion in its proper context: property rights. Once we do this, the correct criticism of the law becomes clear.
We begin by noting that all communication has a physical form, a form which is always the property of some agent. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Birthday F. A. Hayek!
I’ve been looking for an excuse to post this picure of Hayek for weeks now. Hayek’s birthday (May 8th) will do.
The full story of how Hayek had “inflation by the balls” here.
ECB Bailout of Ireland in full swing
It’s a sign of the times that every public debt offering in Europe has become a “risk event”, with the Irish government among the most vulnerable to what would be a catastrophic collapse in demand. And no longer empowered to produce its own counterfeit money, it is ultimately reliant on the ECB to remain solvent.
The Sunday Independent reports that the ECB has finally started to play ball, providing the funds to ensure that no Irish government bond is left unbought:
Irish banks are using billions of euro from the European Central Bank (ECB) to buy up Irish government debt, the Sunday Independent can reveal.
It has emerged that the banks were “active” in a recent Irish government bond sale of about €1bn, and it was confirmed yesterday the repossession of Irish bonds at the ECB has occurred.
Irish banks are using ECB funds to “create the illusion” of demand on the international markets.
Incidentally, how reassuring that the same governments who collude in this type of activity are fighting the good fight against market abuse by private participants, defined previously here:
Market abuse may arise in circumstances where investors have been unreasonably disadvantaged, directly or indirectly, by others who:
* have used information which is not publicly available (insider dealing);
* have distorted the price-setting mechanism of financial instruments;
* have disseminated false or misleading information.
Of course, the governments themselves would never do anything like that.
Irish County Councils little more than tax-consuming worker cooperatives
Hat-tip to cyberianpan for bringing our attention to the following story in yesterday’s Times. While the gist of the article was unsurprising – public sector employees demanding time off work for spurious reasons – there were some small details which were genuinely shocking, and in particular this one:
Staff at Leitrim county council also won a Labour Court case last month, forcing management to give them time off to attend a non-existent festival.
Management had sought to cancel a traditional half-day to attend a local regatta after it was discontinued due to the worsening economic climate. But Impact argued the annual festival leave had been an entitlement to employees for many years and there were “other festivals” staff could go to.
I can attest to the deeply ingrained culture of laziness, mediocrity and stagnation within these councils. The excellent members of staff who do exist within their ranks are unfortunately no match for institutions where customer service is the lowest priority, and expanding entitlements the highest.
Things wouldn’t be quite so dire if the unions didn’t bring every petty complaint in front of the Labour Court. But it’s inconceivable that behaviour like the above could continue for any length of time if the Councils’ monopolistic, taxpayer-funded privileges were revoked.
Brian
dermotk
Graham
20000miles
