A Arte da Fuga

all about EU institutions getting more power

2009-07-15T18:34:00.000+01:00

Nigel Farage: one uplifting moment of Czech EU-Presidency - Vaclav Klaus

Madoff vs. Uncle Sam

2009-07-15T18:27:00.002+01:00

Bernie Madoff Was Only a Petty Crook Compared with Uncle Sam por Robert Higgs no The Beacon:

Madoff caused people to lose billions of dollars. The U.S. government has caused people to lose trillions of dollars, and it’s not finished yet. The public’s losses mount during every minute of every day. By its effects in discouraging work, saving, and investment, and thereby reducing capital accumulation, the U.S. Social Security system has caused the nation’s gross domestic product to fall significantly below the levels it would otherwise have reached.

Madoff, in contrast to the government, carried out his fraud in a civilized way: he merely misrepresented what he was doing, purporting to invest his clients’ money and to obtain a high rate of return on these investments. People dealt with him voluntarily.

The U.S. government, however, does not bother to claim any prowess in investing the money it forces people to surrender to its scheme .... the government threatens violence against anyone who fails to participate as it commands him. Thus, the government operates its Ponzi scheme in a markedly more thuggish manner than Bernie would ever have dreamed of. He might have been a crook, but he was not a thug.

o sequestro da ciência

2009-07-15T18:22:00.002+01:00

EPA Cover-Up por Walter E. Williams:

"cap and trade" is just about the most effective tool for controlling most economic activity short of openly declaring ourselves a communist nation and it's a radical environmentalist's dream come true.

"You are being deceived about global warming. ... The Earth has been cooling for ten years. ... The present cooling was not predicted by the alarmists' computer models." .... "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

"New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases." .... "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" Obviously, 10 years is not enough.

Elmer Fudd Explains Capitalism

2009-07-15T18:13:00.003+01:00

Via The Bastiat Society (a partir dos 5 minutos):

Warner Brothers cartoon - Yankee Doo It

olha um colega meu no Economist

2009-07-15T17:51:00.001+01:00

In the beginning (The Economist):

Daniel Callaghan says entrepreneurialism is in his blood. His family boasts a proud history of self-made men. Unlike them, though, he is the only one to have gone to business school first.

Having graduated this year with an MBA from IESE, in Spain, he saw what he believed to be a gap in the market and started MBA & Company, an internet platform that allows companies to find MBAs for short-term, freelance consultancy roles. The firm is particularly focused on small- and medium-sized enterprises, which are not only faring better than their larger counterparts in many instances, but also often slip through the net of business school careers services.

aplique-se o mesmo raciocínio à Educação e à Segurança Social

2009-07-15T12:42:00.003+01:00

read my lips por joaquim no Portugal Contemporâneo:

O SNS é uma instituição de tipo soviético, destinada a prestar serviços de saúde à população, em regime de monopólio.

Todos os meios de produção são estatais, os trabalhadores são funcionários públicos, os cuidados são gratuitos, no acesso, e todo o sistema é planificado e centralizado.

Alguém que pense que é possível, com medidas economicistas, pôr o monstro a funcionar como um Ferrari, ou é doido varrido, ou é professor na Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, ou vive pendurado das tetas do OE.

Disaster Obamunism

2009-07-14T17:00:00.000+01:00

Naomi Wolf: 'Obama can lock any US citizen up without trial'

Zombies e progressivismo

2009-07-14T16:57:00.004+01:00

Zombies, Man, They Really Creep Me Out por Damon W. Root na Reason Hit&Run:

... what ensures survival in a zombie story are the progressive ideals of common cause and collective action. A small group of people from varying backgrounds are thrust together and find that they can transcend their differences of age, race, and gender (the typical band of survivors is a veritable United Nations of cultural diversity).

They come to understand that if they're going to get out of this with their brains kept securely housed in their skulls and not travelling down some zombie's gullet, they've got to act as though they're all in it together. Surviving the tide of zombies requires community and mutual responsibility. What could be more progressive than that?

But the survivors rarely act as if they're "all in it together," as George Romero's movies make abundantly clear. The humans always turn on each other. By Land of the Dead, Romero was basically rooting for the zombies.

We Are All Fascists Now

2009-07-14T16:54:00.001+01:00

We Are All Fascists Now por Roger Koppl no ThinkMarkets:

The real original fascism of Benito Mussolini and his followers combined militarism and collectivist economics with the leadership principle. Under Adolph Hitler, Germany’s National Socialist Party (the Nazis) adopted this basic model and turned it into something far worse than Mussolini and his gang of thugs ever dared to imagine. Nevertheless, Italian fascism was pretty nasty stuff. And when the war was going badly for them, they caved in to German pressure to round up the Jews for collective slaughter. No Hitler is rising in the American firmament, nor can we imagine genocide within our shores.

But we have come dangerously close to the thuggery of original Italian fascism.

ou não sabem o que fazem, ou fazem o contrário do que deviam; ou ambos (2)

2009-07-13T19:45:00.001+01:00

Via O Insurgente,

The Pinochet-Zelaya Connection

2009-07-13T19:16:00.003+01:00

Has anyone noticed what seems to be the (very real) similarities between the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya and that of Salvador Allende? Plus ça change… (Needless to say, the Apologizer-in-Chief recently voiced regret about Augusto Pinochet's "coup" as well…)

President Allende became a tyrant when he broke his solemn oath to respect the Constitution and the Chilean laws [and because] his government [had] fomented the creation of armed militias … the origin of the Pinochet government is that of any revolutionary one, in which only the use of force was left in order to remove a tyrant [and to] "put immediate end" to these constitutional violations. It must be agreed that this was, in fact, an unequivocal call to remove by force the President who had initiated the use of force with the purpose of imposing a communist dictatorship.

Giving Privatisation A Bad Name

2009-07-13T18:12:00.002+01:00

Via Burning our Money, Contracting Out in Defense: Lessons from the British Experience for the U.S. and Great Britain por Ted R. Bromund no Heritage Foundation:

.... some broader conclusions that are well worth summarising:
Risks cannot be wholly transferred to the private sector - that's because in some areas - certainly defence, but also key infrastructure - outright failure is not an option for government.
Contracting out should promote efficiency and improved quality, not hide spending - Labour's Enron approach to PFI has been costly and inefficient, and PFI contracts have also been used to meet top-down targets for "staff cuts".
Contracts with the private sector require effective government contractors - as we've seen over and over again, the public sector simply does not have the staff to negotiate and manage cost effective contracts.
But the Big Point we should take from Ted's paper is this:
"Contracting out is not privatization because it does not reduce the government’s responsibilities: it increases them.

The Fed Under Fire

2009-07-13T18:08:00.001+01:00

Real News Network: The Fed Under Fire

Ratzinger e a doutrina social(ista) da Igreja

2009-07-11T11:58:00.003+01:00

Ratzinger y la doctrina social(ista) de la Iglesia por Pablo Molina no Libertad Digital:

Ratzinger nos habla de una "humanidad en vías de unificación", de la "fraternidad universal" (sic); acusa a las multinacionales de no respetar los derechos de los trabajadores en los centros deslocalizados, critica la existencia de la propiedad intelectual en el campo sanitario, pide que los gobiernos intervengan más (¡más aún!) en la economía y las finanzas y, en fin, solicita que se reforme la ONU, pero no como paso previo a su disolución, que sería lo higiénico, sino para que tenga más poder del que ya tiene.

Todo ello, claro, bajo la inspiración de los principios del humanismo cristiano, que, como es conocido, son los que informan la acción diaria de los gobiernos más progresistas (Zapatero es un ejemplo), y no digamos de la ONU, cuya asamblea general es casi un coro angélico de querubines preocupado por el desarrollo moral y humano de los pueblos de la Tierra.

Benedicto XVI no desconoce que el mercado es el único sistema de ordenación socioeconómica capaz de proporcionar desarrollo y bienestar, pero, al tiempo que constata esta evidencia, sugiere que el poder político debe intervenir y regular la economía mucho más de lo que ya lo hace para garantizar la "justicia redistributiva" y la "justicia social".

A juicio del Papa (como de Zapatero, salvando la distancia sideral entre ambos intelectos), la escasez de controles estatales de la economía ha sido una de las causas principales de la actual crisis. Esperamos que en una próxima encíclica detalle en qué aspecto o sector de la economía los estados no ejercen un poder regulador absoluto, al menos para que los fieles católicos sepamos dónde podemos montar una empresa a resguardo de la coacción institucional de los políticos, información que, de paso, valdría su peso en oro.

En todo caso, la opinión del Papa de Roma en materias mundanas es como la de cualquier hijo de vecino, así que los católicos somos muy libres de seguir sus recomendaciones o no, en función de la propia conciencia.

Lord Vader entrevista Sócrates

2009-07-11T11:51:00.002+01:00

Directo do 31 da Armada,

Lord Vader entrevista Sócrates - parte 1 | parte 2 | parte 3

o europeísmo é incompatível com o regionalismo

2009-07-11T10:52:00.003+01:00

Inauguração da Expomadeira/2009 (Jornal da Madeira)

Jardim salientou que a Europa “vive uma crise” porque “está a ser construída apenas com base nos Estados soberanos, não se ouvindo as regiões e muito menos se ouvindo os cidadãos, quando os cidadãos deviam-se pronunciar por referendo”.

Adiantou ser esta uma matéria em que “a Região está totalmente subordinada às regras do Estado Português, por sua vez subordinado às regras da UE, e da qual não temos escapatória constitucional”.

Assim, referiu que uma das razões para a Região querer “suscitar na próxima Assembleia da República”, que terá poderes de revisão constitucional, é “a transferência para a Região Autónoma de todas aquelas competências que tenham incidência quer na economia, quer na educação, no ordenamento do terriório, e nas áreas fiscais e financeiras”.

Eco-comunismo

2009-07-11T09:57:00.002+01:00

It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted por Gary North:

Global warming is based 100% on junk science. The most vocal promoters are not interested in the details of physical science. They are interested in two things: political control over the general public and the establishment of international socialism.

###

This strategy was stated boldly by economist Robert Heilbroner in 1990. Heilbroner, the multi-millionaire socialist and author of the best-selling history of economic thought, The Worldly Philosophers, wrote the manifesto for these bureaucrats.
The direction in which things are headed is some version of capitalism, whatever its title. In Eastern Europe, the new system is referred to as Not Socialism. Socialism may not continue as an important force now that Communism is finished .... to cope with the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment. From this perspective, .... Communism leads through capitalism into a still unexplored world ....

one company solution to dealing with recessions

2009-07-11T09:51:00.002+01:00

Como a empresa mais aynrandesca da América está a lidar com a crise:

Lincoln Electric Case — parte 1 | parte 2

Dar as ovelhas a guardar aos lobos

2009-07-10T17:53:00.004+01:00

Via John Stossel, Parsing the Health Reform Arguments por George Newman:

- "We need a public plan to keep the private plans honest."

The 1,500 or so private plans don't produce enough competition? Making it 1,501 will do the trick? But then why stop there? Eating is even more important than health care, so shouldn't we have government-run supermarkets "to keep the private ones honest"? After all, supermarkets clearly put profits ahead of feeding people. And we can't run around naked, so we should have government-run clothing stores to keep the private ones honest. And shelter is just as important, so we should start public housing to keep private builders honest. Oops, we already have that. And that is exactly the point. Think of everything you know about public housing, the image the term conjures up in your mind. If you like public housing you will love public health care.

Obamacare uma cópia descarada

2009-07-10T17:45:00.001+01:00

"Free Socialist Health Care Model Of DPRK" (Songun Blog):

Even in Amerikkka the new president has decided to import and impose the Free Socialist Health Care Model of DPRK to the so-called United "States". This proves once again that the Korean people were right to choose the Juche Idea of President Kim Il Sung and the superiority of the Korean-style socialist system they have chosen for themselves out of the volition of their own free will with no coercion over the inferiour jew-controled capitalist system of profit-driven capitalist jaywalking.

Morre sempre solteira, a culpa

2009-07-08T11:17:00.003+01:00

É evidente que tem o seu quê de caricato ver a Ministra da Educação, ou alguém por ela, responsabilizar pessoas sem qualquer intervenção no processo educativo das crianças pelos maus resultados nos exames de matemática.

Mas aquilo que é mais chocante nessa atitude, e que vai muito além do caricato, é que esta Ministra e este Governo persistam na ideia de encontrar responsabilidades por toda e qualquer falta ou erro no sistema educativo fora do circuito Escola-Alunos-Familias.

E esta persistência, que é partilhada por toda a esquerda bem pensante, agora apenas entretida a gozar com as responsabilidades assacadas à comunicação social para se que não note que, no essencial, concordam com a Ministra, tem sido a coveira do nosso sistema educativo.

Ninguém pode tocar nos professores, ninguém pode tocar nos alunos, ninguém pode tocar nas famílias. E assim vamos andando.

Obamageddon is coming

2009-07-07T23:47:00.002+01:00

Gerald Celente: Obamageddon is coming

ou não sabem o que fazem, ou fazem o contrário do que deviam; ou ambos

2009-07-07T23:34:00.002+01:00

Previsão da evolução do desemprego nos EUA, sem e com plano Obama (dados elaborados pela equipa económica da Administração Obama), e valores observados do desemprego.

Ou não sabem fazer previsões, caso em que qualquer intervenção é um tiro no escuro. Ou se a previsão estava certa, os efeitos do plano Obama foram diamentralmente opostos aos pretendidos. Diz a teoria económica (Mises, Hayek) que as duas coisas estão a acontecer. God save America.

Analogia parva do Dia

2009-07-07T22:42:00.000+01:00

Twitter é como abocanhar a conduta de lixo da Enron no dia da fiscalização.

The Obama-Zelaya Connection

2009-07-06T21:15:00.002+01:00

Via Volokh Conspiracy, o site End22.com:

In times of crisis, it takes consistent leadership to ensure our success. President Obama now leads us out of Economic Crisis and through the War on Terror much as FDR lead us through World War II and out of the Great Depression. The American People and the United States of America must have the ability to choose the best leader for the country.

We petition the government to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment to the United States Constitution.

Redação parcial da 22ª Emenda:

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.