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Un nouveau topic pour les articles que vous trouvez intéressant, mais qui ne mérite pas forcément un topic.

 

 

Citation
Hayek et la dénationalisation de la monnaie  
paru (légèrement modifié) dans le numéro 75 de Sociétal (premier semestre 2012) sous le titre  « Hayek, l’euro ou la concurrence des monnaies »

http://gdrean.perso.sfr.fr/articles/denationalisation.html

 

 

Article très intéressant m'ayant permis de mieux appréhender le système de monnaie privé

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Un article assez étrange sur la générosité des "riches".

 

Results of a survey study and an experiment here show that higher-income individuals are only less generous than their lower-income counterparts under conditions of high actual or perceived macro-level economic inequality. We observed these patterns holding constant characteristics of individuals that correlate with income, such as education and employment status,as well ascharacteristics of states that correlate with inequality, such as population size.
These results challenge the prevailing view of recent research that has portrayed higher-income individuals as necessarily less generous than those of lower means (1–3). We found evidence for a multilevel perspective wherein selfish behavior by higher-income individuals is greater in structural conditions characterized by uneven distributions of resources.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1511536112.full.pdf?with-ds=yes

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  • 3 weeks later...
La justice approuve l'extradition de Kim Dotcom vers les États-Unis

Le créateur de Megaupload, célèbre plateforme de téléchargement en ligne fermée en 2012, encourt jusqu'à 20 ans de prison. Il a annoncé qu'il fera appel de la décision de la justice néozélandaise.

 

http://www.lefigaro.fr/secteur/high-tech/2015/12/23/32001-20151223ARTFIG00084-la-justice-approuve-l-extradition-de-kim-dotcom-vers-les-etats-unis.php

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  • 4 weeks later...

Oui, j'ai vu le film, c'est bien La vague - c'est le signe de ralliement du groupe - un film médiocre qui joue sur le sensationnalisme. L'expérience universitaire qui a servi de base au film est très controversée, pour ne pas dire nulle et non avenue.

 

Et puis ce n'est pas comme si on avait un exemple historique en grandeur nature qui démontre que ça prend un peu plus que 5 jours.

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Why the citizens of Flint have poisonous tap water

 

Those responsible for this calamity at the Department of Environmental Quality and other state agencies as well as the governor himself will have to live with this on their conscience.

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  • 3 weeks later...

LA CONVERSATION SCIENTIFIQUE - par : Etienne Klein - Quel rôle joue le cerveau dans notre rapport au monde et dans la fabrication de ce que nous appelons une « conscience ».

 

http://rf.proxycast.org/1132272647988584448/13957-20.02.2016-ITEMA_20918188-0.mp3

 

Lien France Culture (avec édito et refs) : http://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/la-conversation-scientifique/la-conscience-est-elle-devenue-une-affaire-de-science

 

durée : 00:59:38

 

C'était super intéressant. Vraiment.

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Salut.

 

En espagnol: http://www.miseshispano.org/2016/02/cuando-los-altos-impuestos-llevan-a-la-revolucion-2/

 

https://mises.org/library/when-high-taxes-lead-revolution

 

"When high taxes lead revolution", Peter St. Onge

 

History is full of tax revolts. It’s a fairly popular pastime, if historians are to be believed. But when do they come? What’s the spark and what’s the gasoline?

 

In Sun-Tzu’s Art of War, he argues that long military campaigns are unwise because they exhaust the people, and he says that long campaigns exhaust “seven tenths” of the wealth of the elites.

This is one of those oddly-specific claims that sometimes strike westerners as hilarious. But Sun-Tzu was a historian, and lived in an era with plenty of case studies of war’s destruction. So it’s worth exploring his rule of thumb here.

 

One of the problems we immediately face is a lack of good statistics for most historical periods. Even in the twentieth century, statistics can be incomplete, biased, or poorly collected. Before then, all bets are off — the statistics stink in history.

 

So we have two choices: either we completely ignore the past, and reinvent every wheel. Or else we estimate the past using these kinds of subjective commentaries like Sun-Tzu’s. The model is a radar, used not to “see” something but to estimate its location with fragments of data.

 

So let’s use this “radar” method on Sun-Tzu’s “seven-tenths.” One interpretation is that he thinks there’s an upper limit to the devastation that can be imposed on your own citizens. This would be consistent with modern economic “marginal analysis,” where people value a loss more as it grows bigger. For example, if you take $10 from a billionaire, it’s not a big deal, but if you take his last $10 in the world he’ll fight you to avoid going hungry.

 

In this light, Sun-Tzu is saying that once you pass the 70 percent threshold, people become desperate enough to shift from sheep to wolf.

 

We can translate this into a modern hypothesis, that the people will accept up to a 70 percent tax rate with manageable protest, but go much beyond that and you’re likely to have problems. Now, we’re still a way off this mark in the US: spending at all levels of government in 2014 was about 42 percent. The highest spenders in the world, according to the OECD, are the Scandinavians at about 50 percent.

While these are high numbers, they’re still well below Sun-Tzu’s 70 percent. And the trends are not as bad as they might seem. While the trend is worsening, we’ve still got a ways to go: OECD average tax take grew about 4 percent between 1975 and 2010. At that rate the US wouldn’t get to 70 percent for another 250 years. Fortunately we’d have a “canary in the coalmine” as the Scandinavians would hit this threshold about 100 years earlier.

 

One caveat for Sun-Tzu’s scenario is that regulation was pretty primitive in his day. By one estimate these regulations add another 11 percent to government’s “take,” bringing the number up to 53 percent, but still below 70 percent.

 

A second big caveat is that this is all assuming past trends continue. History doesn’t have perfect case studies, so we don’t know what happens when an internet-and-computer wielding state gets the upper hand. So we could get to 70 percent much faster.

 

On the other hand, the State has become much more clever at hiding its taxes. Payroll withholding and hidden regulatory costs might not stir the people the way that a direct requisition might. And then, of course, there is the hidden tax in a central banks’ inflation of the money supply.

 

Taking it all in, my guess is that this back-of-the-envelope “radar” tally suggests that current tax trends are plenty sustainable, for better or worse. Unless the trend changes significantly, taxes will likely continue rising slowly and, like the frog in boiling water, people will grumble and that’s that.

 

There may be other catalysts, of course — the “culture wars” or incessant stoking of ethnic and racial animosity could come to a head. But on current trends taxes won’t be the spark.

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Le capitalisme va arriver à Cuba.
Des millions de personnes vont sortir de la pauvreté, et après demain, les gauchistes du monde entier vont devenir inconsolables

 

en tout cas l'article est complètement surréaliste

 

encore un peu et Fidel va présenter des excuses

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Salut.

 

http://www.infowars.com/fbi-instructs-high-schools-to-inform-on-anti-government-students/

 

"FBI instructs high schools to inform on anti government students."

 

 

A new FBI initiative based on Britain’s “anti-terror” mass surveillance program instructs high schools across America to inform on students who express “anti-government” and “anarchist” political beliefs.

“High school students are ideal targets for recruitment by violent extremists seeking support for their radical ideologies, foreign fighter networks, or conducting acts of targeted violence within our borders. High schools must remain vigilant in educating their students about catalysts that drive violent extremism and the potential consequences of embracing extremist belief,” states an unclassified document released in January by the FBI’s Office of Partner Engagement, the agency’s primary liaison for the law enforcement community.

 

The document claims public school educators “are in a unique position to affect change, impart affirmative messaging, or facilitate intervention activities,” including informing on students. It calls for “observing and assessing concerning behaviors and communications” of students “embracing extremist ideologies.”

 

In addition to “designated foreign terrorist organizations,” the FBI program targets “domestic violent extremism movements,” including anti-government groups.

According to the FBI “some adults embrace domestic violent extremist ideologies [and] their beliefs can permeate family norms, oftentimes influencing their children. This dynamic fosters biases leading to hatred and intolerance, and drives the need for action.”

 

Conflating Sovereign Citizens and Constitutionalists

 

The FBI and federal and local law enforcement groups categorize many libertarian, constitutionalist and other groups and individuals as “sovereign citizens.”

According to an FBI counterterrorism analysis, sovereign citizens “may refer to themselves as ‘constitutionalists’ or ‘freemen,’ which is not necessarily a connection to a specific group, but, rather, an indication that they are free from government control.”

 

The FBI considers the Redemption Theory (the abandonment of the gold standard in favor of fiat currency), emancipation “from the responsibilities of being a U.S. citizen, including paying taxes,” and “conspiracy theories,” including the formation of global government and a police state, as  indicators of extremist or sovereign citizen ideology.

 

A National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) report produced by the Office of University Programs, Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security in 2014 lists sovereign citizens as the primary domestic terror threat in the United States, followed by Islamic jihadists, “militia/patriot” and “extreme anti-tax” groups.

The document attempts to persuade law enforcement that sovereign citizens are a direct threat to them. “Such changing perceptions about what is a serious terrorist threat is an important finding because identifying and prioritizing a threat is akin to hitting a moving target and evolves as new intelligence, data, and events develop,” the START report argues.

 

The FBI high school informer network initiative is part of a larger effort “identifying and prioritizing” supposed threats.

 

Informant Culture

 

The FBI initiative—the latest manifestation of the “see something, say something” surveillance matrix—further engenders a government informant culture that shares a parallel with East Germany’s “Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter” or informal collaborator culture.

 

This Stasi network served as a primary instrument of repression in communist East Germany. The government forged partnerships with business, state institutions and social organizations. It is estimated that the Stasi had an informal collaborator or informant network exceeding 624,000 people (in 1989, at the height of Stasi power, the population of East Germany was 16.5 million).

Former intelligence professionals are well aware the United States is on its way to becoming a totalitarian high-tech surveillance state that will soon rival the East German variant.

 

In January 2015 a delegation of Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence—which included ex-officers from the NSA, CIA and British MI5—visited the Stasi museum in Berlin.

“As the former intelligence officers-turned-whistleblowers walked among the well-preserved offices and conference rooms of a former totalitarian state’s internal spy apparatus,” writes Elizabeth Murray, who served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council, “the sense of deja vu and irony of what the United States of America has become was clearly not lost on any of them.”

 

 

Pire aspect pour moi:

 

"The FBI and federal and local law enforcement groups categorize many libertarian, constitutionalist and other groups and individuals as “sovereign citizens.”

According to an FBI counterterrorism analysis, sovereign citizens “may refer to themselves as ‘constitutionalists’ or ‘freemen,’ which is not necessarily a connection to a specific group, but, rather, an indication that they are free from government control.”

 

The FBI considers the Redemption Theory (the abandonment of the gold standard in favor of fiat currency), emancipation “from the responsibilities of being a U.S. citizen, including paying taxes,” and “conspiracy theories,” including the formation of global government and a police state, as  indicators of extremist or sovereign citizen ideology."

 

Je serai chassé dans l'avenir?

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What ?

“conspiracy theories,” including the formation of global government and a police state, as indicators of extremist or sovereign citizen ideology."

Mmhh, en quoi c'est conspirationniste ça ? Ou alors c'est une bonne nouvelle d'être considéré par l'Etat comme plus grosse menace qu'Isis ?

 

Enfin, heureusement je suis minarchiste :D

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Salut.

 

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/03/ron-paul/free-speech-civilized/

 

Ron Paul: "[...] the Government war on free speech"

 

 

During her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitted that she asked the FBI to examine whether the federal government should take legal action against so-called climate change deniers. Attorney General Lynch is not responding to any criminal acts committed by climate change skeptics. Instead, she is responding to requests from those frustrated that dissenters from the alleged climate change consensuses have successfully blocked attempts to create new government programs to fight climate change.

 

These climate change censors claim that the argument over climate change is settled and the deniers’ success in blocking congressional action is harming the public. Therefore, the government must disregard the First Amendment and silence anyone who dares question the reigning climate change dogma. This argument ignores the many reputable scientists who have questioned the magnitude, effects, and role of human action in causing climate change.

 

If successful, the climate change censors could set a precedent that could silence numerous other views. For example, many people believe the argument over whether we should audit, and then end, the Federal Reserve is settled. Therefore, the deniers of Austrian economics are harming the public by making it more difficult for Congress to restore a free-market monetary policy. So why shouldn’t the government silence Paul Krugman?

 

The climate change censorship movement is part of a larger effort to silence political speech. Other recent examples include the IRS’s harassment of tea party groups as well as that agency’s (fortunately thwarted) attempt to impose new rules on advocacy organizations that would have limited their ability to criticize a politician’s record in the months before an election.

The IRS and many state legislators and officials are also trying to force public policy groups to hand over the names of their donors. This type of disclosure can make individuals fearful that, if they support a pro-liberty group, they will face retaliation from the government.

 

Efforts to silence government critics may have increased in recent years; however, the sad fact is the US Government has a long and shameful history of censoring speech. It is not surprising that war and national security have served as convenient excuses to limit political speech. So-called liberal presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt both supported wartime crackdowns on free speech.

Today, many neoconservatives are using the war on terror to justify crackdowns on free speech, increased surveillance of unpopular religious groups like Muslims, andincreased government control of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Some critics of US foreign policy have even been forbidden to enter the country.

 

Many opponents of government restrictions on the First Amendment and other rights of Muslims support government actions targeting so-called “right-wing extremists.” These fair-weather civil liberties defenders are the mirror image of conservatives who support restricting the free speech rights of Muslims in the name of national security, yet claim to oppose the authoritarian government. Defending speech we do not agree with is necessary to effectively protect the speech we support.

 

A government that believes it can run our lives, run the economy, and run the world will inevitably come to believe it can, and should, have the power to silence its critics. Eliminating the welfare-warfare state is the key to protecting our free speech, and other liberties, from an authoritarian government.

 
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  • 2 weeks later...

Salut.

 

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/the-more-corrupt-the-state-the-more-numerous-the-laws

 

Nick Giambruno:

 

 

Today, I’m going to share one of the most important things I’ve learned traveling around the world: There’s a crucial difference between committing a real crime and breaking the law.

I’ve seen it firsthand in the Middle East as well as many other places.

 

The difference is huge and few people understand it.

 

While laws vary dramatically across countries, almost every country in the world universally considers real crimes immoral. A real crime involves harm or the threat of harm to person or property. Think murder, theft, or arson.

 

Virtually every government prohibits real crimes. Most also prohibit a lot of other things…

When someone breaks the law, it’s often not a real crime at all. He may have merely violated a particular government’s law without threatening or harming anyone or anything.

Keep in mind that the idea of a victimless crime is an oxymoron. If there is no victim, there is no real crime.

 

Insulting the Dear Leader in North Korea, being a woman who’s driving a car in Saudi Arabia, or possessing certain plants in the U.S. government all violate laws. But none of these activities harm or threaten people or property. They’re not real crimes. They simply violate the laws of certain governments.

 

Of course, I am not suggesting that anyone break the law anywhere, even if it wouldn’t harm people or property. As a practical matter, it’s foolhardy to violate any government’s laws while you’re within its reach. That is, unless you prefer the lifestyle of an outlaw or a martyr.

It would be risky to disparage the Dear Leader while in North Korea, or to possess an unapproved plant in the U.S., and so forth.

 

Distinguishing between real crimes (i.e., harming or threatening to harm people or property) and breaking the law is critical to your personal freedom. The next step is for you to minimize your exposure to arbitrary, make-believe “crimes” invented by your home government.

 

You can do this by diversifying internationally. That means moving some of your savings abroad in the form of physical gold to a safe jurisdiction, owning real estate in another country, opening foreign bank/brokerage accounts, and obtaining a second passport, among other things. Taking these steps will significantly dilute the power bureaucrats in your home country have over you.

This is what this publication is all about: maximizing your personal freedom and worldwide financial opportunities.

 

The more laws, regulations, and edicts your home government subjects you to, the more important it is to diversify internationally.

 

This problem is particularly obvious in the U.S., where every level of government is continually passing more laws…especially the federal government. There are so many vague, overly broad federal laws criminalizing mundane activities that it’s impossible for anyone to be 100% compliant.

 

Many people think felonies only consist of major crimes like robbery and murder. But that isn’t true. An ever-expanding mountain of laws and regulations has criminalized even the most mundane activities.

It’s not as hard to commit a felony as you might think. Many victimless “crimes” are felonies.

 

A study by civil liberty lawyer Harvey Silverglate found that the average American inadvertently commits three felonies a day.

Today, there are thousands of federal crimes, and the number is constantly increasing. It brings to mind the words of the great Roman historian Tacitus: “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”

 

Here’s what Doug Casey says:

Corruption can be defined as the taking of bribes of one type or another by officials in order to allow subjects to avoid taxes or regulations. Political corruption doesn't, therefore, occur in totally free markets simply because there's no taxation or regulation to avoid. Inevitably, and completely predictably, the more taxed and regulated a society is, the more necessarily corrupt it is."

 

Today in the U.S., the government won’t necessarily go after you if you break a law. After all, most everyone has technically broken some law. Instead, the government decides whom to go after and chooses which laws to enforce. A creative prosecutor can always find some crime to charge you with if he looks hard enough.

 

This doesn’t sound like the land of freedom and opportunity. It sounds like an out-of-control government.

 

If you think it’s bad now, just wait until American politicians get even more financially desperate. Like most governments in financial trouble, we think the U.S. will keep choosing the easy option…money printing on a massive scale.

 

This is a huge threat to your financial security. Politicians are playing with fire and inviting a currency catastrophe. The socio-political consequences are likely to be even more severe than the financial ones.

 

This is a big reason why we think everyone should own some gold. Gold is the ultimate form of wealth insurance. It has preserved wealth through every kind of crisis imaginable. It will preserve wealth during the next crisis, too.

 

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/beauty/78443410/US-student-straightens-own-teeth-for-85?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

 

A college student has received a wealth of interest in his dental work after publishing an account of straightening his own teeth for $60 (NZD$85).

Amos Dudley, who studies digital design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, had no dentistry experience when he decided to create plastic aligners to improve his smile. After publishing before-and-after pictures of his teeth this month, Dudley has received hundreds of requests from strangers, asking him to straighten their teeth.

 
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"Plastic straightener", mouais c'est pour la finition ça. A moins de bousiller les gencives et les racines ce n'est pas suffisant pour corriger des défauts un peu importants.

En plus il s'appelle Dudley.

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