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Mister Polark

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http://lfb.org/pikachu-shrugged-pokemon-go-libertarian-utopia/

 

"Why the pokemon world is libertarian"

 

 

1.] Small Government, No Taxes

“There is no discernable form of government. You never hear of any nations in Pokemon, nor any form of government except for the occasional local city government. If there is any government at all, it must really keep to itself. Likewise, taxes are so low that they are seemingly non-existent, so anything you earn, you keep.”

2.] Private Self-Defense

“Everyone is armed. While guns don’t seem to really exist in the land of Pokemon, everyone seems to be carrying around and is in command of some dangerous pokemon, which they can use to defend themselves and their loved ones and property against criminals.”

3.] Citizens Dispense Justice

“Justice is swift and criminals always succumb to ‘citizens arrest.’ The government and local authorities don’t ever tend to succeed in fighting crime, it is always the well armed citizen that prevails in foiling evil schemes. In a short order, the side of law and liberty always wins.”

4.] The Only Fair is Laissez-Faire

“Small businesses and barter of services rule the day. In the world of Pokemon, small businesses tend to be the best kind and hold their own against large corporations. Case in point, the best charcoal doesn’t come from the factory that mass produces it, but rather comes from the that guy who lives near the Ilex woods in Johto, who goes out with his Farfetch’d, cuts and collects the wood himself, and hand chars the bricks.

 

“Everyone recognizes this. Likewise, if you want a pokeball, you can get the generic mass-produced ones, but the good pokeballs come from the guy in Azalia Town who hand makes them with skill and discipline. Also, people tend to exchange services with each other. Case in point, in Azalia Town, Ash solved the problem for the town at the Slowpoke Well, so the pokeball guy offered to make him some brand spanking new pokeballs, assuming he’ll go out and collect them, for his trouble. Throughout the series, Ash and gang get by on quid quo pro deals like that.”

5.] Self-Determination & Hard Work is Duly Rewarded

“Anyone who is willing to work hard can be successful. No matter what your station in life, you can make it through hard work and dedication. For instance, every time Jesse and James need a new giant robot for their schemes, you will often hear them complaining about having to work some crappy jobs to pay for it.

 

“Likewise, being a successful pokemon trainer is obviously quite lucrative if you are good at it, as demonstrated by Gary Oak, who could afford to support a fancy sports car and a half dozen floozies (and they didn’t look like cheap floozies either).”

6.] Strong Sense of Personal Responsibility & Values

“Large regard for values. Everyone in pokemon world seems to be uniformly one with the 50s style “values”. For instance, with Brock, when we see the horny lad shimmery-eyed fantasies about the woman of the moment, his little mental thought cycle always has the girl and himself falling madly in love and getting married in a traditional ceremony.

 

“Everyone is idyllic and moral and responsible, and those that aren’t tend to come to see the error of their ways by the end of the episode or get an assbeating.”

 

And now you know.

 

 

:D

 

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FDIC was hacked by China, and CIO covered it up

 

A report published by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology today found that hackers purported to be from China had compromised computers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation repeatedly between 2010 and 2013. Backdoor malware was installed on 12 workstations and 10 servers by attackers—including the workstations of the chairman, chief of staff, and general counsel of the FDIC. But the incidents were never reported to the US Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) or other authorities and were only brought to light after an Inspector General investigation into another serious data breach at the FDIC in October of 2015.

 

The FDIC failed at the time of the "advanced persistent threat" attacks to report the incidents. Then-inspector general at the FDIC, Jon Rymer, lambasted FDIC officials for failing to follow their own policies on breach reporting. Further investigation into those breaches led the committee to conclude that former FDIC CIO Russ Pittman misled auditors about the extent of those breaches and told employees not to talk about the breaches by a foreign government so as not to ruin FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg's chances of confirmation.

[..]

 

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C'est intéressant. Même s'il y a eu pas mal de subvention, et de dépense des mairies mairie.

Ca pourrait être utile pour la promotion du libéralisme : Le libéralisme est compatible avec l'économie "solidaire/local" et avec l'écologie. Ne rien devoir à personne, ne dépendre de personne. Que le libéralisme n'est pas que l'économie et le libéralisme. Qu'avec de la volonté, il est possible si on le souhaite de créer des modèles alternatif. Qu'en réduisant les dépenses publiques, la fiscalité, et en supprimant des normes, ce sera plus facile de concrétiser des projets de se type, que les normes tue les agriculteurs et qu'en les supprimant, on redynamisera le milieu rural

EDIT : On pourrait rajouter que non les banques et la finance ne sont pas particulièrement libéral. Gaver d'argent publique, proteger par des normes des nouveaux entrant, les sauvetages. Que la monnaie local (que l'extrême gauche dit : antilibéral)c'est 100% libéral ...

Enfin, j'ai la fibre écolo et un peu local/solidaire, mais je pense que c'est le libéralisme qui permet le mieux le développement d'un système alternatif

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http://lfb.org/refugee-crisis-solved-free-havens/

 

"Refugee crisis solved: free havens"

 

 

Those who do not find safe shelter in the Middle East have very few options: They can either drown in the Mediterranean, get snapped up and enslaved by human traffickers, or, if they’re lucky enough to reach the Western world, deal with endless government bureaucracy which often rips families apart and causes more chaos and confusion than is necessary.

 

How about, instead, we allow refugees fleeing from war and crippling poverty to forge their own paths? Let’s let them empower themselves economically, and create new opportunities for their fellow men and women — and on their own terms.

 

Let’s create free havens for them to go to and interact with one another on a voluntary basis. Privately-funded cities, backed by the rule of law, built from scratch.

 

Best part, a “free haven” wouldn’t need to cost our national, and supranational, organizations a dime. Nor is coercion necessary. And no need for thousands of “charity” organizations or foundations — throwing thousands of swanky donation parties — often dedicated to making poor people suffer under large, grubby thumbs.

 

No need, either, for endless subsidization to undercut the market economy in impoverished areas and keep people dependent upon foreign aid.

Because here’s the thing…

The vast majority of refugees do not need endless handouts. They are able-bodied enough to leave their country, so they can, and want to, work. Most of them leave because they want to start a new life away from war and constant conflict. Let’s give them the choice.

 

Free havens — even if just funded privately — could provide reasonably stable rule of law, strong private property protection rights, and opportunities for investment and growth.

 

“For this project to be a success,” Pieter Cleppe writes on the CapX blog, “it needs to become more safe than the most unsafe place in the world and its investment climate should beat the most horrible place on earth to do business, to attract those fellow human beings who actually have to survive there at the moment. Surely that shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Would it really be so hard to do better than North Korea, Syria or Congo? Either way, the modest solutions have failed.”

 

And, of course, there’s precedent: “What was Hong Kong,” Cleppe points out, “other than a city governed by Western officials and populated largely by refugees from Maoist China? If it was possible for the British to provide a safe home for millions of people on the run in much more challenging times, why wouldn’t it be possible for the whole of the developed world — not just Western countries — to give any refugee the most precious thing the developed world can offer them: the protection of the rule of law, which has propelled the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, and parts of East and Southeast Asia to the levels of wealth they enjoy today.

 

“Refugee camps at best, offer refugees safety, but Hong Kong offered those Chinese refugees something which even the best refugee camps can’t offer: the opportunity to develop yourself.

“This project,” he goes on, “which could be driven by the private sector, states, supranational organisations or various actors working together, doesn’t exclude everything that’s already happening: opening borders for trade, trying to develop poor countries, attempting to pacify violent conflicts, providing emergency aid to the most needed, allow more migrants to enter wealthy countries or develop refugee camps when no other option is there.”

 

Again, let’s provide a place for refugees to trade freely amongst one another, where their rights are protected, backed by rule of law. Create a place where business can thrive with no barriers to entry or onerous regulatory climates. A place where those in need can come and go as they please.

 

“This project simply offers a solution for immigrants who are not or insufficiently helped by what is already been done: the vast majority of them. If it is so simple, why not just take action?”

 

Indeed.

 

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Oui. Mais les gouvernments ne vendent pas des piéces du pays et reconaissent son indépendance,

 

Il y a un commerce en camps:

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/worlds-largest-syrian-refugee-camp-has-developed-its-own-economy/

 

"World's largest syrian refugee camp has developed it's own economy"

 

 

Zataari in Jordan, the largest Syrian refugee camp in the world with 80,000 people, was supposed to provide temporary housing when the government and United Nations opened it in 2012. But since residents have not been able to leave, they have started 3,000 businesses and cities nearby have loosened employment restrictions.

 

Peut-être quand la situation devient bien pire, les gouvernments adopten la solution du milliardaire égyptien.

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Il y a un commerce en camps:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/worlds-largest-syrian-refugee-camp-has-developed-its-own-economy/

"World's largest syrian refugee camp has developed it's own economy"

oui. Il y a eu un article sur Contrepoints sur Calais qui faisait un constat analogue.

 

Peut-être quand la situation devient bien pire, les gouvernments adopten la solution du milliardaire égyptien.

... ou peut-être un jour les réfugiés eux-mêmes. Sans demander d'autorisations.

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Pour continuer dans la ouin-ouinterie ambiante qui sévit sur le forum entre "Sites de rencontres" et "féminimse". Un nouvel article ouinouin pour vous, amis homo et hétéro, qui subissez les graves pressions psychiques du physico normatif.

 

 

 

Mais pourquoi les gays ont-ils des corps si musclés?

Pour les homosexuels, la pression sociale associée aux représentations de leur corps est forte.

 

«Je suis bien foutu pour un hétéro, mais mal foutu pour un gay.» Cette petite blague de la série American Dad est devenue un mème sur internet. Si elle est si drôle, c'est qu'elle pointe le paradoxe selon lequel on peut être plus ou moins bien foutu avec le même corps. Mais elle est un peu triste aussi. Parce qu’un peu vraie: quand il s’agit de physique, les attentes ne sont pas les mêmes pour un homme homo ou hétéro.

 

On trouve de nombreux témoignages en ligne sur l’expérience que vivent des homosexuels et l’image qu’ils ont de leur corps. Sur Slate, Mark Joseph Stern expliquait avoir «lutté pour garder ses épaules et mon dos poilus loin du regard d'autrui»Ici, Kenneth Miller, un blogueur américain, raconte la façon dont il perçoit son corps:

«Depuis que je suis sorti du placard, j’ai toujours ressenti cette pression de devoir présenter le meilleur de moi-même, explique Peter, un Parisien de 26 ans. Je ne suis pas certain que j’aurais ressenti la même chose si j’avais été hétéro.»

 


«En tant que jeune gay, je me sens en décalage. Comme si les petits bourrelets de ma poitrine me définissaient comme moche et que mes poignées d’amour me catégorisaient comme imbaisable.»

 

 

Bien entendu, il est plus facile de comparer son corps quand son compagnon a le même genre, que dans un couple hétérosexuel. En découle une sorte de compétition entre gays, notamment dans les jeux de séduction. D’après une étude réalisée par le site de rencontre Match.com, le physique est plus important chez les homosexuels lors de la recherche d’un partenaire:

Ce sentiment de devoir «toujours présenter le meilleur de soi» se retrouve chez de nombreux hommes homosexuels. Bruno Boniface, psychiatre cognitif et membre de Psygay, confirme que c’est le cas de nombreux de ses patients. Ceux-ci vivent également «une grande inquiétude face au vieillissement», explique-t-il.  

«Avoir un partenaire qui est attirant physiquement est important pour 90% des hommes gay (…). 22% des homosexuels (contre 12% pour les hommes hétérosexuels) ont aussi exprimé un désir fort que leur rencontres soient plus athlétiques qu’eux mêmes.»

Cette insécurité physique a des conséquences sur la façon dont les gays vivent leur sexualité. En Grande-Bretagne, une étude réalisée en 2012 par le Central YMCA de l’UWE Bristol, indique que 48% des hommes gays interrogés seraient prêts à sacrifier une année de vie pour obtenir le corps parfait. En comparaison, seul un tiers des hommes hétérosexuels seraient prêts à faire la même chose.

L’idée était de montrer des corps en forme et esthétiques pour contrer l’image du gay malade et malheureux. Ça a été repris

Même s’il existe très peu de travaux chiffrés sur ce sujet, les conséquences de ce mal-être gay ont été étudiées par quelques chercheurs, notamment aux États-Unis. Comme l’expliquait le site Salon en mars 2014, les hommes gays ou bisexuels ont trois fois plus de chances que les hommes hétérosexuels de souffrir de troubles alimentaires:

Ce malaise bien sûr ne se limite pas à une simple question d'apparence. Mais une certaine pression sociale est directement liée à nos systèmes de représentation. 

«Des statistiques du Journal international des troubles alimentaires suggèrent que 15% des hommes gays et bisexuels ont été victimes de troubles alimentaires durant leurs vies (…). Et dans les hommes victimes de troubles alimentaires, 42% s’identifient comme gay et bisexuels.»

L’après-Sida

Alors, ce corps gay parfait justement, il ressemble à quoi? Il suffit de faire un tour sur le site du magazine Têtu pour se rendre compte qu’il est, la plupart du temps jeune, musclé et épilé. Ouvrir l’application de rencontre gay Grindr, c’est se retrouver devant une pléthore de torses plus musclés les uns que les autres.

Le sociologue Sylvain Ferez, maître de conférences à l'université Montpellier-I et auteur du Corps homosexuel en jeu, Sociologie du sport gay et lesbien, estime que cette image du corps gay s’est mise en place à la fin des années 1980:

Le constat est également partagé par Arnaud Lerch, sociologue et co-auteur de Sociologie de l’homosexualité«Il y a eu une réaction épidermique à l’épidémie», admet-il mais aussi une volonté de contrer le cliché selon lequel un homme homosexuel ne pourrait pas être viril. Lerch parle d’«une réappropriation collective du stigma. On va alors inverser les normes et on va présenter une masculinité qui est parfois caricaturale, comme avec les YMCA».

«Cette image s’est imposée dans l’après-Sida. L’idée était de montrer des corps en forme et esthétiques pour contrer l’image du gay malade et malheureux. Ça a été repris. Et maintenant on a une pression normative qui est excessivement forte.»

Un porte-parole unique

La banalisation de l’homosexualité ces vingt dernières années, du Pacs au mariage pour tous, n’empêche pas le fait que les homosexuels sont la plupart du temps représentés comme des hommes parfaits par les médias généralistes ou la publicité.

En France, quand un personnage gay est intégré dans une série ou un film, il est rarement bedonnant ou âgé de plus de 40 ans. En 2014, la série de France 2 Hôtel de la plage mettait en scène un couple gay, une bonne nouvelle pour la représentativité gay au petit écran. Sauf que sur la plage, les deux personnages étaient de loin les plus musclés, contrairement aux personnages hétéros qui présentaient des physiques plus variés.


Florian Ferez juge que l’on retrouve là le besoin de la société française d’avoir des porte-paroles bien marqués pour les minorités:

Pression normative et société hétéro-normée

«Ces images sont aussi le résultat du système français qui recherche une représentation légitime et unique. C’est très rassurant pour la société qu’il y ait un groupe homo homogène.»

Avec la mise en avant d’un type de physique particulier, peu représentatif, c’est aussi une pression normative qui s’est installée à l’intérieur même de la communauté homo. C’est ce que note Arnaud Lerch: 

Le sociologue ajoute: «Les hommes gays se vivent comme regardés. On est dans une logique réactionnelle, d’abord à l’intérieur de la communauté, mais aussi extra communautaire puisque la masculinisation est un projet à destination de l’extérieur.»

«Dès qu’il y a un personnage gay, tous les homos y vont de leur commentaire pour savoir si toute la communauté est bien représentée. Sauf que c’est impossible.»

Je suis entouré de gens qui, malgré avoir subi la même oppression que moi en tant que gay, refusent de m’accepter à mon poids actuel

Louis Peitzman

Cette pression est d’autant plus grande que la société (médias généralistes, sphère politique), majoritairement hétérosexuelle et dominée par des hommes, cherche à donner une image rassurante des homosexuels. Pour Sylvain Ferez, le cliché voulant que tous les gays soient musclés rassure la majorité de deux façons contradictoires: 

Et puis, à l'inverse, faire du sport est aussi une façon pour les homos d’être perçus comme des «vrais mecs». «Se montrer viril, c’est une façon de se conformer aux attentes de la société et de dire: “je suis gay, mais…”», explique le sociologue.

«D’abord parce que prendre soin de soi, féminise le gay ce qui permet de dire: “ah il y a une erreur de genre, c’est une femme”.»

Sous-cultures

Reste une question: comment se sortir de la surenchère du physique? Comment exister quand l’on ne se reconnaît pas dans les catégories édictées par le milieu gay? Sur Buzzfeed, Louis Peitzman explique avoir toujours été rejeté par la communauté parce qu’il est en surpoids: 

Arnaud Lerch pointe, comme une réponse à cette pression normative, la création de sous-cultures gays. À titre d'exemple, les «Bears» mettent en avant le ventre et le poil comme une façon d’échapper à la dictature du corps musclé. Mais là aussi, les critères d’appartenances sont bien définis –et du coup excluant. Au final, comme l’explique le sociologue, l’évolution de ces normes passe tout simplement par la représentation que l’on fait des homos dans les médias généralistes et gays.

«La honte que j’ai internalisée à cause de mon poids est largement dû au fait que la société traite les gros comme des citoyens de seconde classe. (…) Mais je suis entouré de gens qui, malgré avoir subi la même oppression que moi en tant que gay, refusent de m’accepter à mon poids actuel. Le résultat final étant que même si je suis sorti du placard depuis dix ans, je me sens toujours comme exclu de la communauté gay.»

Une série comme Looking de HBO, qui met en scène des amis homos plutôt normaux, va par exemple dans le bon sens, puisqu’elle présente aussi aux spectateurs d’autres types de physiques.

 
 

L’existence de lieux gay-friendly, autre qu’un bar ou une boîte de nuit, est aussi importante. Sylvain Ferez note par exemple les équipes sportives gay, comme des lieux de socialisation «plus ouverts au niveau du corps». Contacté par Slate, Anja Andriamanantena, secrétaire du club de rugby gay-friendly les Coqs sportifs, confirme que nombre de ses membres sont là pour échapper à la dictature du physique.

Un monde plus gender-fluid

Reste quand même, la difficulté d’échapper à la «pression normative» présente sur les minorités. C’est à «chacun de faire un travail sur soi», explique le psychanalyste Bruno Boniface. Cette pression normative, justement, est largement due à ce qu’attend la société lorsqu’un individu se définit comme homosexuel. Mais que se passe-t-il si l’on refuse de mettre une étiquette sur sa sexualité?

C’est le cas de plus en plus de personnes, notamment chez les jeunes, depuis quelques années. Le chanteur Shamir, la mannequin Nyle Dimarco voire l'acteur James Franco refusent de mettre une étiquette sur leur sexualité. Et si l’on pourrait croire que cette appellation est réservée aux stars, de plus en plus de jeunes choisissent de ne pas se définir.

En Grande-Bretagne, une récente étude Yougov indique que 24% des jeunes britanniques ne se définissent ni comme gay, ni comme hétéro. Un signe que les représentations évoluent et que de plus en plus de personnes ne se reconnaissent plus dans l’image classique d’un gay au corps musclé et épilé.

 

 

 

http://www.slate.fr/story/109683/corps-gays-muscles#xtor=RSS-2

 

 

Alors, les homos, shallow or not shallow ?

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Pour continuer dans la ouin-ouinterie ambiante qui sévit sur le forum entre "Sites de rencontres" et "féminimse". Un nouvel article ouinouin pour vous, amis homo et hétéro, qui subissez les graves pressions psychiques du physico normatif.

Alors, les homos, shallow or not shallow ?

:D

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https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/08/thomas-sowell/feminist-myths-racial-myths/

 

"Old lies (feminist myths, racial myths)" - Thomas Sowell

 

 

We expect to hear a lot of lies during an election year, and this year is certainly no exception. What is surprising is how old some of these lies are, and how often they have been shown to be lies, years ago or even decades ago.

 

One of the oldest of these lies is that women are paid less than men for doing the same work. Like many other politically successful lies, it contains just enough of the truth to fool the gullible.

Women as a group do get paid less than men as a group. But not for doing the same work. Women average fewer annual hours of work than men. They work continuously for fewer years than men, since only women get pregnant, and most women are not prepared to instantly dump the baby on somebody else to raise.

 

Being a mother is not an incidental sideline, and being a single mother can be a major restriction on how much time can be put into a job, either in a year or over the years.

People like Hillary Clinton can simply grab a statistic about male-female income differences and run with it since her purpose is not truth but votes. The real question, however, is whether, or to what extent, those income differences are due to employers paying women and men different wages for doing the very same jobs, for the very same amount of time.

 

We do not need to guess about such things. Many studies have been done over many years — and they repeatedly show that women and men who work the very same hours in the very same jobs at the very same levels of skill and experience do not have the pay gaps that people like Hillary Clinton loudly denounce.

As far back as 1971, single women in their thirties who had worked continuously since high school earned slightly more than men of the same description. As far back as 1969, academic women who had never married earned more than academic men who had never married.

 

People who are looking for grievances are not going to be stopped by facts, especially if they are in politics. But where are our media pundits and our academic scholars? Mostly silent, either out of fear of being denounced as anti-women or because they have chosen to take sides rather than convey facts.

 

Nevertheless, there are enough scholars, including women economists, who have done enough honest studies over the years that there is no excuse for continuing to repeat a discredited lie, based on comparing apples and oranges. A book written by two women and titled “Women’s Figures” shows the results when you compare women and men with comparable qualifications.

It is much the same story with black-white comparisons. More than 40 years ago, my own research turned up statistics on black and white professors who had Ph.D.s from equally high-ranked institutions in the same fields, and who had published the same number of articles.

 

When all these things were held constant, the black professors earned somewhat more than white professors. But, since all these things are not the same among black and white professors in general, there is a racial gap in pay that allows some to loudly denounce racial discrimination among academics.

 

Those who wish to check out my statistics can get a copy of my 1975 monograph, “Affirmative Action Reconsidered.” It has not been updated because not all the same statistics will be released now. This is not unusual. Statistics that might undermine some other popular conclusions — whether on affirmative action, global warming or whatever — have been kept under wraps when other researchers tried to get them.

 

Too many people in the media and in academia abandon their roles as conduits for facts and take on the role of filterers of facts to promote social and political agendas.

In all too many educational institutions, from kindergartens to postgraduate university programs, students may never hear any facts that contradict the prevailing groupthink.

 

How many students taught by Keynesian economists will ever learn about the 1921 recession, when the Harding administration did nothing — and unemployment dropped steeply as the economy recovered on its own?

 

There are many reasons why old lies, refuted long ago, are still heard every election year, and in all too many other years.

 

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http://www.internationalman.com/articles/looking-forward

 

 

So, let’s have a snapshot look at what the overall landscape might look like after the dust has begun to settle. What will some of the greatest powers in the world look like in, say, five to ten years’ time?

To begin, we’ll assume that the more catastrophic events of economic collapse have taken place in the world and we’ll be observing the subsequent knock-on effects – the deterioration that would occur thereafter.

 

Historically, any government that’s leading up to a collapse invariably tightens controls to the max, as it’s aware that, following a collapse, it will lose control, either entirely or in part.

Once markets have collapsed, we can expect a deflationary trend that governments will respond to by creating massive inflation, very possibly leading to hyperinflation. At some point, we can expect to see a collapse in currencies, as a result of the unsustainable debt load - the heroin that has kept them going for decades. This is particularly important with regard to the US, as the US presently possesses the world’s default currency. A collapse in the dollar will send other currencies into a tailspin.

 

Following a currency collapse, it will no longer be possible for governments to continue to expand their debt loads, as there will no longer be any takers. In addition, government income streams will be diminished. As businesses decline, the tax revenue will be greatly diminished. Whether they like it or not, for the first time in their careers, political leaders will be forced to cut costs, and cut them dramatically.

 

So, where will they cut? In the US, Social Security represents 24% of recurrent expenditure; Medicare and Medicaid represent another 25%; poverty entitlements are another 10% and a further 16% goes to “defense,” or more accurately, “foreign aggression.” Together, that’s 75%, yet, to diminish any of these (with the possible exception of foreign aggression) would make the blood of Americans boil.

 

Interest on national debt represents another 6%, but that would quickly be defaulted on. Next to be cut would be the “non-essentials” – the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Immigration, plus prisons, drug control, conservation and national parks. Cuts in each of these would cause less civil unrest than diminishing the “big four” that make up 75% of the budget.

 

They would likely keep funding for Homeland Security, the IRS, and the Capitol Police and, in fact, would be likely to increase funding for all three. (Bear in mind that the Capitol Police is unlike any other police force; it is a virtual army, designed to protect legislators within the beltway from what will soon be classified as “domestic terrorism.”)

 

Along the way, those states that are net receivers of largesse from the federal government will find their allowances cut dramatically. This will mean that, for state and city governments, roads, garbage collection and departments such as Fire and Motor Vehicles, will all receive cuts, along with state and city police departments. This latter move will not only result in increased lawlessness, but will result in police themselves becoming more lawless, or a law unto themselves, sometimes acting in sympathy with the public against the central government, sometimes acting with aggression towards the public.

But these cuts will only be the beginning, as they will be insufficient to address the shortfall. Confiscations of bank accounts will take place, but they too will be insufficient. Cuts in Medicare and Medicaid will eventually be put into effect, along with cuts in Social Security (primarily through inflation). For the over 50% of people who are presently recipients of these mainstays of collectivism, the cuts will quickly create anger, unrest, then riots.

 

As stated above, veterans (some 10% of the population) will be unceremoniously dumped. They will react by joining those who protest the cuts. Those still employed in the armed forces and Homeland Security will be torn as to whom to side with. (Remember, the invasion of ancient Rome by the barbarians was made possible when the mercenary Roman soldiers simply walked away.)

 

In total, what we’re looking at is a government that will no longer have the level of control to operate an effective tax collection service, capital controls, or outbound migration, let alone to continue to aggress against other nations. The U.S., more than any other nation, is therefore most greatly at risk of holding itself together following a collapse. As stated in The Art of War, by Sun Tzu in the fifth century BC, “Those who are waging war should get rid of all the domestic troubles before proceeding to attack the external foe.” Essential advice today, as it was then.

 

As space here is limited, we can only offer a thumbnail sketch of these events; however, it’s not essential that we labour over the fine details of conditions that will exist after the collapses have taken place. A sketch suffices to allow us to plan our own agenda – to locate ourselves geographically away from the hot spots and shift our investments into those things that might be likely to be more depression-proof. And we can move whatever wealth we might have to jurisdictions where its safety is most assured. Those concerns are more urgent than ever and the time remaining is decidedly uncertain.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Enfin une position pas trop simpliste sur l'immobilier.

Manque juste le fait qu'être propriétaire peut devenir très rentable si on habite plusieurs décennies dans son logement, qu'on a pas le besoin d'en changer et qu'on est suffisamment soigneux (ce qui est le cas de beaucoup de gens).

On pourrait faire la comparaison avec la voiture, pour peu qu'on l'utilise beaucoup, qu'on ait pas besoin d'avoir le dernier modèle et qu'on soit suffisamment soigneux, l'achat, même neuf, peut être plus rentable que la location.

Dans les deux cas, les préférences subjectives pour certaines libertés (pour casser un mur, personnaliser sa voiture, etc..), pour la mobilité (changer de logement ou de voiture), etc.. jouent beaucoup. Les généralités sont nécessairement foireuses, ne serait-ce que parce que le marché équilibre spontanément les arbitrages de chacun (le prix d'un logement dépend du niveau des loyers et réciproquement, de même entre location et achat d'automobiles). Ça n'empêche pas que certains consommateurs-investisseurs finissent par regretter leur décision, hein (et ce sera souvent parce qu'ils ont appliqué une généralité foireuse...).

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http://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/weekend-edition-looking-forward

 

 

Since its inception, International Man has offered prognostications about what the future will bring – economically, politically and socially. The principle writers of the publication have been at this for decades. Each one began by studying world economics and politics in order to make the best choices as to where to live, where to invest, where to store wealth, etc. Over the years, each one got better at researching, better at reading the signs and, ultimately, better at predicting future events.

 

But, today, we’re approaching a worldwide crisis point and the study that we undertook decades ago has become important for literally hundreds of millions of people who, whether they realise it or not, will soon be impacted by events in a major way.

 

The foremost concern for readers of this publication is that the world’s leading governments have become decidedly fascist and are rapidly heading in a totalitarian direction. There are a number of facets to this development, all of them disturbing: The elimination of personal privacy, the creation of capital controls, confiscation of wealth, the conversion to electronic banking as the sole form of currency, international taxation standards and the creation of a police state. (There are many, many more facets, but these few tend to be at the core of concern.)

 

We can expect to see all of these concerns come closer to reality in the near future. The events that bring them about will increase in both frequency and magnitude as we get closer. (Historically, this is always the case, as governments that are in trouble race to get controls in place, as their continued ability to control events unravels.)

 

In these pages, we do our best to provide projections as to “where it’s all headed” and how it will affect the reader. In doing so, we generally discuss events that we believe will occur sometime soon (within a year or two). Often, we delay discussing events that we’ve anticipated many years previously, because they’d appear to most people as being so unlikely that their prediction would seem absurd.

However, we’re getting much closer to the crisis and, consequently, much of what once might have seemed absurd may now look quite possible to more people.

 

But, even now, we tend to confine our prognostications to the international crisis itself. We rarely discuss what the world will look like after the market crashes have occurred, after the currencies have failed, after the governmental systems have broken down.

 

So, let’s have a snapshot look at what the overall landscape might look like after the dust has begun to settle. What will some of the greatest powers in the world look like in, say, five to ten years’ time?

To begin, we’ll assume that the more catastrophic events of economic collapse have taken place in the world and we’ll be observing the subsequent knock-on effects – the deterioration that would occur thereafter.

Historically, any government that’s leading up to a collapse invariably tightens controls to the max, as it’s aware that, following a collapse, it will lose control, either entirely or in part.

Once markets have collapsed, we can expect a deflationary trend that governments will respond to by creating massive inflation, very possibly leading to hyperinflation. At some point, we can expect to see a collapse in currencies, as a result of the unsustainable debt load – the heroin that has kept them going for decades. This is particularly important with regard to the U.S., as the U.S. presently possesses the world’s default currency. A collapse in the dollar will send other currencies into a tailspin.

 

Following a currency collapse, it will no longer be possible for governments to continue to expand their debt loads, as there will no longer be any takers. In addition, government income streams will be diminished. As businesses decline, the tax revenue will be greatly diminished. Whether they like it or not, for the first time in their careers, political leaders will be forced to cut costs, and cut them dramatically.

So, where will they cut? In the U.S., Social Security represents 24% of recurrent expenditure; Medicare and Medicaid represent another 25%; poverty entitlements are another 10% and a further 16% goes to “defense,” or more accurately, “foreign aggression.” Together, that’s 75%, yet, to diminish any of these (with the possible exception of foreign aggression) would make the blood of Americans boil.

Interest on national debt represents another 6%, but that would quickly be defaulted on. Next to be cut would be the “non-essentials” – the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Immigration, plus prisons, drug control, conservation and national parks. Cuts in each of these would cause less civil unrest than diminishing the “big four” that make up 75% of the budget.

 

They would likely keep funding for Homeland Security, the IRS, and the Capitol Police and, in fact, would be likely to increase funding for all three. (Bear in mind that the Capitol Police is unlike any other police force; it is a virtual army, designed to protect legislators within the beltway from what will soon be classified as “domestic terrorism.”)

 

Along the way, those states that are net receivers of largesse from the federal government will find their allowances cut dramatically. This will mean that, for state and city governments, roads, garbage collection and departments such as Fire and Motor Vehicles, will all receive cuts, along with state and city police departments. This latter move will not only result in increased lawlessness, but will result in police themselves becoming more lawless, or a law unto themselves, sometimes acting in sympathy with the public against the central government, sometimes acting with aggression towards the public.

 

But these cuts will only be the beginning, as they will be insufficient to address the shortfall. Confiscations of bank accounts will take place, but they too will be insufficient. Cuts in Medicare and Medicaid will eventually be put into effect, along with cuts in Social Security (primarily through inflation). For the over 50% of people who are presently recipients of these mainstays of collectivism, the cuts will quickly create anger, unrest, then riots.

 

As stated above, veterans (some 10% of the population) will be unceremoniously dumped. They will react by joining those who protest the cuts. Those still employed in the armed forces and Homeland Security will be torn as to whom to side with. (Remember, the invasion of ancient Rome by the barbarians was made possible when the mercenary Roman soldiers simply walked away.)

 

In total, what we’re looking at is a government that will no longer have the level of control to operate an effective tax collection service, capital controls, or outbound migration, let alone to continue to aggress against other nations. The U.S., more than any other nation, is therefore most greatly at risk of holding itself together following a collapse. As stated in The Art of War, by Sun Tzu in the fifth century BC, “Those who are waging war should get rid of all the domestic troubles before proceeding to attack the external foe.” Essential advice today, as it was then.

 

As space here is limited, we can only offer a thumbnail sketch of these events; however, it’s not essential that we labour over the fine details of conditions that will exist after the collapses have taken place. A sketch suffices to allow us to plan our own agenda – to locate ourselves geographically away from the hot spots and shift our investments into those things that might be likely to be more depression-proof. And we can move whatever wealth we might have to jurisdictions where its safety is most assured. Those concerns are more urgent than ever and the time remaining is decidedly uncertain.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/09/mark-nestmann/just-another-day-pentagram/

 

"What would the IRS do if this happened to you?"

 

 

You’ve just arrived home from work. As you walk through your front door, your wife hands you a cocktail.

 

“Honey, we’ve got to talk,” she tells you as she pours herself a double. “I was balancing the checkbook today, and guess what. We’re missing $6.5 trillion from our account.”

“No problem,” you respond, as you take a sip from your cocktail. “I’ll just call up Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen tomorrow. I’m sure she can help us make good on the shortfall. After all, the Fed has the authority to create money out of thin air.”

 

Of course, this scenario would never occur. While the Fed can create monetary reserves “ex nihilo” – literally, “out of nothing” – it acts on behalf of the US Treasury, not private citizens.

On the other hand, if you’re the Pentagon, losing $6.5 trillion is just another day at the office. Indeed, in a report released in June, the Defense Department’s inspector general admitted that just one branch of the military, the Army, made $6.5 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries. In many cases, the Army had no receipts or even invoices to support those expenditures. Incredibly, according to the report, in some cases, the Army simply invented the adjustments out of thin air.

 

Just like the Fed.

In case you are wondering, this isn’t exactly a new problem. Back in 2001, former Department of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made this astonishing admission:

“According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”

 

At the time, that amount represented more than $8,000 for every person living in the US. For the “lost” $6.5 trillion, the loss per US resident exceeds $20,000.

Obviously, $6.5 trillion is a lot of money. But what’s amazing is that almost no one in the Land of the Free is talking about it.

 

When was the last time you heard Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump criticize military spending or call on the Pentagon to clean up its books? The last time I remember anything like this was in 1968, when former Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN) ran for president on an anti-Vietnam War platform that included deep cuts in military spending. He lost the Democratic nomination for the presidency to then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

 

You can imagine the reaction of the IRS if you’re audited and it discovers you had $6.5 trillion in unreported income that you suddenly “lost.” Heck, even unreported income only one-billionth that size – $6,500 – could get you in trouble with the taxman.

 

I’d wager that $6.5 trillion is just the tip of the iceberg. How many trillions have the Air Force and Navy lost? What about expenditures by other federal agencies?

Now, it’s true that the military has unique difficulties when it comes to keeping track of expenditures. After all, US military forces are stationed in more than 150 countries. That fact, combined with the sheer scale of the Pentagon’s budget – $573 billion in 2016 alone – makes nailing down spending to the nearest penny or even the nearest dollar next to impossible. But it should be able to do better than the nearest $6.5 trillion.

 

Where did it all go? I don’t have a clue, although, in 2004, the Pentagon flew nearly $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq. It then distributed the funds with almost no oversight – 363 tons of $100s in all. In 2011, Pentagon officials admitted they had no idea what happened to at least $6.6 billion of the cash.

 

It turns out that this cash actually came from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food program, and seized Iraqi assets. But whatever its origin, it demonstrates the incredibly lax oversight the Pentagon exercises over multi-billion-dollar operations.

 

And consider what would happen if you decided to do something similar. Anyone entering or leaving the US with more than $10,000 in cash must complete. And if you fail to do so? In that event, you face:

 

Civil and criminal penalties, including under certain circumstances a fine of not more than $500,000 and Imprisonment of not more than ten years, are provided for failure to file a report, filing a report containing a material omission or misstatement, or filing a false or fraudulent report. In addition, the currency or monetary instrument may be subject to seizure and forfeiture.

 

But that’s just not how it works at the Pentagon nor throughout the federal government. I’ve never heard of anyone being held accountable for the loss of the $6.6 billion in cash, must less the “missing” $6.5 trillion. Those who create the money out of thin air make the rules, and the recipients of those funds break them with impunity.

 

Maybe it’s time to consider your “Plan B.”

 

"6.5 trillion"

 

"2.3 trillion"

 

"6.6 billion"

 

Personne vole des millions? Seule milliards et trillions?

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  • 2 weeks later...

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/09/ron-paul/israel-rich-powerful-armed-hundreds-nukes/

 

"Why are we sending $ 38 billion to rich and powerful Israel?" - Ron Paul

 

 

Last week’s announcement of a record-breaking US aid package for Israel underscores how dangerously foolish and out-of-touch is our interventionist foreign policy. Over the next ten years, the US taxpayer will be forced to give Israel some $38 billion dollars in military aid. It is money we cannot afford going to a country that needs no assistance to maintain its status as the most powerful military in the Middle East.

 

All US foreign aid is immoral and counterproductive. As I have often said, it is money taken from poor people in the US and sent to rich people overseas. That is because US assistance money goes to foreign governments to hand out as they see fit. Often that assistance is stolen outright or it goes to the politically connected in the recipient country.

 

Just as bad is the fact that much of what we call “foreign aid” is actually welfare for the wealthy here at home. The aid package to Israel is a very good example. According to the agreement, this $38 billion will all go to US weapons manufacturers. So the real beneficiaries are not the American people and not even Israeli citizens. The real beneficiaries are the US military-industrial complex. Perhaps the money won’t even leave Washington – it may simply go across town, from the Fed to the Beltway bomb-makers.

 

While even US government aid to desperately poor countries should be opposed on moral and practical grounds, it is even harder to understand US aid to relatively rich countries. At a nominal per capita GDP of over $35,000, Israel is richer than Japan, Italy, and South Korea. Not long ago Business Insider published a report by the Institute for the Study of War showing that the Israel is the most powerful military force in the Middle East. We know they have hundreds of nuclear weapons, a sophisticated air force, drones, and even nuclear weapons-equipped submarines.

 

So why is the US giving a rich and incredibly well-armed country a record amount of military aid? Part of it is that the US government believes it can coerce Israel to do Washington’s bidding in the Middle East. History shows that this is a foolish pipe dream. If anything, US aid subsidizes Israeli human rights abuses in Gaza and elsewhere.

 

Another reason is a very powerful lobby in Washington, AIPAC, that pressures Members of Congress to focus on Israel’s interests instead of US interests. Members of Congress should look at our economy, with effectively zero interest rates, an anemic non-recovery from the 2008 crash, historically low participation in the workforce, and inflation eroding the value of the dollar and conclude that this might not be the best time to start handing out billions of dollars in foreign aid. Unfortunately, most Members of Congress find it impossible to say no to special interest groups like AIPAC.

 

Here’s a better aid package for Israel: free trade, travel, friendly relations, and no entangling alliances. Israel should be free to pursue its national interests and we should be free to pursue ours. If individual Americans feel compelled to provide assistance to Israel or any other country or cause overseas they should be allowed. But the rest of us should not be forced to do so. Trade, not aid.

 

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http://blog.swaliafrica.com/whats-missing-from-celebrity-activism-in-africa-the-people/

 

"What's missing from celebrity activism in Africa? The people"

 

Partie:

 

 

As recent research has shown, the problem with celebrity causes is that they tend to de-politicise policy and activism. They too often obfuscate the complex dynamics of power and socioeconomic relations in favour of a simple, catch all, solution. Celebrities can improve this situation by bringing back into the debate more stakeholders, researchers and local voices.

 

Thus celebrities speaking truth to power, rather than half-truths that may inadvertently serve the interests of power, may be a more promising way forward if celebrity advocacy relating to Africa is to lead to meaningful socioeconomic change.

 

The celebrity advocacy circuit for change in Africa lacks celebrity participation in bottom-up movements, as opposed to top-down advocacy. Bottom-up celebrity advocacy, à la Charlotte Church and Russell Brand, should itself not be void from criticism.

 

Yet if the cycle of simplified celebrity advocacy messages leading to ineffective – even harmful – African policy is to be broken, genuine engagement with, and commitment to, the people they advocate on behalf of is critical. It may provide a welcome step forward from the current status quo.

 

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https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/09/thomas-sowell/favors-blacks/

 

"Favors to blacks" - Thomas Sowell

 

 

Back in the 1960s, as large numbers of black students were entering a certain Ivy League university for the first time, someone asked a chemistry professor — off the record — what his response to them was. He said, “I give them all A’s and B’s. To hell with them.”

 

Since many of those students were admitted with lower academic qualifications than other students, he knew that honest grades in a tough subject like chemistry could lead to lots of failing grades and that in turn would lead to lots of time-wasting hassles — not just from the students, but also from the administration.

 

He was not about to waste time that he wanted to invest in his professional work in chemistry and the advancement of his own career. He also knew that his “favor” to black students in grading was going to do them more harm than good in the long run because they wouldn’t know what they were supposed to know.

 

Such cynical calculations were seldom expressed in so many words. Nor are similar cynical calculations openly expressed today in politics. But many successful political careers have been built on giving blacks “favors” that look good on the surface but do lasting damage in the long run.

 

One of these “favors” was the welfare state. A vastly expanded welfare state in the 1960s destroyed the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression.

In 1960, before this expansion of the welfare state, 22 percent of black children were raised with only one parent. By 1985, 67 percent of black children were raised with either one parent or no parent.

A big “favor” the Obama administration is offering blacks today is an exemption from school behavior rules that have led to a rate of disciplining of black male students that are greater than the rate of disciplining of other categories of students.

 

Is it impossible that black males misbehave in school more often than Asian females? Or Jewish students? Or others?

Is the only possible reason for the disparities in disciplining rates that the teachers and principals are discriminating against black males? Even when many of these teachers and principals in black neighborhoods are themselves black?

 

But Washington politicians are on the case. It strengthens the political vision that blacks are besieged by racist enemies, from which Democrats are their only protection. They give black youngsters exemptions from behavioral standards, just as the Ivy League chemistry professor gave them exemption from academic standards.

 

In both cases, the consequence — unspoken today — is “to hell with them.” Kids from homes where they were not given behavioral standards, who are then not held to behavioral standards in schools, are on a path that can lead them as adults straight into prison, or to fatal confrontations with the police.

 

This is ultimately not a racial thing. Exactly the same welfare state policies and the same non-judgmental exemption from behavioral standards in Britain have led to remarkably similar results among lower-class whites there.

 

The riots of lower-class whites in London, Manchester and other British cities in 2011 were incredibly similar to black riots in Ferguson, Baltimore, and other American cities — right down to setting fire to police cars.

 

One of the few bright spots for black children in American ghettos has been some charter schools that have educated these children to levels equal to, and in some cases better than, those in affluent suburbs.

 

You might think that this would be welcomed by those who are so ready to do “favors” for blacks. But you would be dead wrong. Democrats who have been in charge of most cities with sizable black populations, for decades, are on record opposing the spread of charter schools. So is the NAACP.

 

That is a de facto declaration of moral bankruptcy in both cases, just as in the case of the Ivy League chemistry professor. In all three cases, it is a question of promoting one’s own special interests, while offering “favors” to blacks.

 

The Democrats’ special interest is in serving the teachers’ unions, which oppose charter schools and support Democrats financially. The NAACP’s special interest is in serving the same donors — and in keeping ghetto schools controlled by racial activists, as part of their turf.

 

 

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