That’s what I am doing: “Nobs at the top, plebs at the bottom and me in the middle making a big fat pile of cash”. Made enough money out of investment earlier this year as to be able to completely renovate my heating system. And it didn’t come cheap.
Otherwise I share the pessimistic approach. The Western world is beyond redemption at the moment. The entitlement mentality is simply too strong. I liken the present situation to a big boiling pot of water. Free market forces are what make the water boil. Sadly the pot (non productive spending) has got progressively bigger while the flame has dwindled. Between 2002 and 2008 central banks have poured copious amounts of petrol on the dwindling flame resulting in a spectacular flash which made governments pour more water into the pot. Now petrol has run out and firewood (capital) is getting progressively scarcer. As the flame gets weaker governments and central banks are all trying to stoke it back to life without adding a single piece of wood while at the same time wanting to keep the big pot boiling. Economy is a lot like thermodynamics: you can trick it for a moment but the laws are fixed and don’t forgive. People who get their steaming plate of noodles from the boiling pot are starting to see either their ration dwindle or getting half-cooked noodles. They are obviously p***ed and instead of blaming the bumbling stoker blame the fire itself.
I think the economy will be nationalized in essentially the same way that businesses in Nazi Germany were nationalized. Mises wrote pretty extensively about this. The language of private ownership and capitalism will be retained, but what they actually refer to will be different. But as Mises wrote, every intervention either gets rolled back or fosters more interventions, until the entire economy is under (haphazard) state control.
One more reason we’re finished: Got a mass email from my colleague to my entire division: ““God Bless America” and my beautiful President.” Apparently people think personality cults are cool!
Exactly, and people call me a cultist just for being a Ron Paul fan. At least I’m not a fan of him purely because of his skin color and smooth talking.
@ shackleford
South America, seriously. There’s a lot of countries on that continent that are really going up.
we need slavery in the south, protectionism in the north, government murdering natives in the west. government claiming land without people homesteading it all over the place, government claiming rule over the private land of people that did not even want to be part of the government, a consitution that allows for taxes, a monopoly on the creation of money, a procedure for people to make it more populist at will, and rules that happen if a small percent of the population vote for those rules.
How can you compete with a party that promises free stuff, I can tell you how you will never be able to compete with a party that promises free stuff and that is promising to take the stuff they already receive for free away.
we need slavery in the south, protectionism in the north, government murdering natives in the west. government claiming land without people homesteading it all over the place, government claiming rule over the private land of people that did not even want to be part of the government, a consitution that allows for taxes, a monopoly on the creation of money, a procedure for people to make it more populist at will, and rules that happen if a small percent of the population vote for those rules.
