Wednesday 8 August 2007

Fisking Crushed By Ingsoc

I have very much enjoyed CBI's blogging of late because he is good at starting a debate and holds differing views to many bloggers (including myself). He is a great addition to Blogpower.
This article below though really got to me and so deserves a good fisk.

"Ed has challenged me to explain what he calls my dislike of Capitalism.
So I shall.
Actually it's not a dislike at all, it serves me well. I live in a rich country. I live very comfortably.
I make hay while the sun shines."

Well a nice start, although this piece, suggesting that capitalism needs perpetual war and that Hitler was encouraged for this purpose is a little suggestive of a deeper view.

But I look ahead in alarm.
As does anyone in a position of power who is staring with alarm at the inevitable.
Trust me, this is what the Bilderburg Group REALLY discuss.
They discuss what to do, when they just can't control the demon anymore.
And they arm themselves against the riots. That's why they want a Police State now.

The Bilderberger group, again. Any rational argument that starts by saying there is a global conspiracy out to get us all loses much credibility immediately. It is all very well to say that world leaders discuss powerful things and would like to think they are in control of all events; quite another to prove any of it true. Show me the evidence that Bilderberger actually DOES anything. As for a Police State; where all over the world? A single world totalitarian government?

Have you seen the world lately, it is not as if the people in it get on enough to actually put up with this. Many people in Europe can't even stand the EU, a Pygmy by comparison with this idea of a world government.

It's us they fear.

All the Rich people I know fear very little. They can afford to flee to Monaco or St Kitts if the going gets tough. How many rich people are left in Zimbabwe?

If the debt was all called in, the world would be in the red.
That day is doomsday.
Because then, the whole global economy sits on a house of cards.
But that day must come.

Really? let use a basic example. In the UK people have mortgages, normally these are at 80% or less of the value of the property. plus people have credit card debt too, but this is typically under £10,000. Much less than the average 20% buffer in the mortgage. So how much do people generally really have..not a lot; however, it IS greater than zero.

Of course with companies and leveraged finance things can get a little stretched if you borrow too much, as the current credit crunch demonstrates. But will everyone go under? No. For example look at HSBC, terribly exposed to the Sub-Prime market in the US. Made a huge provision recently for all the bad debt.....but guess what. It's other businesses still posted a profit.

Bumpy times ahead for sure, but the world is not the house of cards built on nothing at all.

Lets just explain for a second, how the economy works.
In a pre-monetary culture, the value of everything is relative.

When cows are plenty, you get less turnips for a cow than when cows are scarce.

Silver being easier to carry around then cows, working out the value of everything relative to little lumps of silver is a good idea for people who seek to take the exchange of goods thing to a new level.

By watching when things are scarce or plenty and taking advantage of those cycles, they end up with more possessions.

So silver coinage becomes a facet of organised cultures.

...so far so good on economic theory

In such culture, usury can be useful to an individual, but overall it is a social nuisance, unless kept to absolute necessity.
If I borrow ten silver coins and promise to repay you eleven, it stands to reason, I am looking to find some way of making twelve.
Whatever way I choose, means someone else being down two silver coins.

Um no, the supply of silver is increasing all the time, new coins are minted. The supply is not finite and never has been. The money is also traded for new production. The ten coins might produce 10 new fields to pasture and therefore generate future revenues far greater than 11. Non one has lost out.

In a finite community, this sort of thing can spiral out of hand, because there really are only a finite amount of silver coins. In those days, money didn't just grow on trees. It's value was fixed.

How did they get these coins? They were either minted or traded for...the supply has never been finite and inflation has been present since the dawn of using a currency as a means of exchange. Even in Ancient Bablyon 5000 years ago.

So in this sort of culture usury aids those with lots of silver coins to profit from someone's misery, even if it isn't the borrower, but someone further down the line.

No it does not, see above. Cultures without currencies are inferior as there is not relative means of exchange and therefore most people live off the land. Cultures that developed a currency became far richer and stronger. Not good for everyone as they still had slaves, but relatively a greater proportion of people became richer over time.

Monarchs and Rulers could benefit from it, and thus it survived.

Yup, more soldiers, more conquest.

But the advent of world trade changed that. Now usury had a purpose.

'World trade' began over 300o years ago. Spices from East Asia reached Western Europe long before the Roman's had even settled on the 7 hills.

Usury was reinvented as a positive. Now it could provide funds for speculative ventures which would of their very nature, bring dividends. It was used to create the money tree which financed the plantations, the tea schooners and the slave ships.

Investment is not usury. Leveraging your resources to develop new ways of creating value is not usury. Paying Brunel to invent railways, propellers for ships and iron bridges is not usury. The lenders made profit, Brunel made profit, people could travel across the world more quickly and so profited. Where is the usury?

And then people saw what the money tree could do.
And it did some pretty amazing things.
It powered the industrial revolution, it taught the common people to read and write, it built railways, steamships and telegraph lines.

No it did not. The Romans had money and manpower, they never reached industrialisation. The Chinese had money and technical know-how nearly a thousand years before western Europe. The age of reason with scientific experiment, the creation of nation states and the protestant reformation are far more important than the presence of money alone.

Because there were always new markets. You borrowed ten thousand, promised to repay eleven thousand, and made twenty thousand through trade.

This was the miracle of free trade.

Brilliant is it not, trade with each other and both grow richer, no matter how different rich or poor either side is; the ricardian principle.

There is of course a problem.
Silver is finite. There is a limit to what is in the world. The world is finite.

This is technically true, but one should remember Malthus here. Productivity increases is exponential, not linear. More can be made from less as time goes on. At some point no doubt with a vast human population there will come a finite point; but we are a long way away.

Everyone can't borrow AND repay for ever. What are they going to repay with?

The excess profit they produced from their initial investment.

Now in a silver currency, you can have deflation as well as inflation. If someone finds a silver mine, the value of silver drops. Inflation.

If a fleet of Spanish ships sinks, deflation, The silver is worth more, there's less of it.

Exactly, it has a major problem....I wonder what the solution is?

But a system used to perpetual growth gains a new dynamic. A continuous pressure on prices. The only brake on this is the fact that the coinage really is finite. There is only a finite amount of silver. In fact, by this time, most countries had adopted the gold standard, linking coinage to value in gold ingots.

The pressure is simple. With so many people in debt, if there is a hiccup and trade goes bad, they owe money they can't repay. Not only that, with goods being scarce, traders are tempted to put their prices up.
Both these problems mean that those not in debt want wage rises, just to put things back on a level.
These times were hard times, but eventually trade would pick up again.

Indeed, the up's and down's of life; made worse in a smaller economy and less of a problem as the global economy is larger and can withstand the shocks.

Inflation on a modern scale was only seen in countries with 'fiat' money. This is money which is worth what people say it is. It isn't tied to anything. You CAN make as much as you like. So it keeps inflating.

Another good idea; let the government decide what money is worth rather than the owners of silver mines. Much more in the peoples' interest don't you think?

But when the growth really did slow down for good, when it really did stop, there was a problem.

There was, I guess you are referring here to the world of 1900-1935. there was also an event called WW1. This did have a massive effect on all the industrialised countries at the same time (except Japan, which unsurprisingly did just fine in this period, too well for its own good eventually).

The banks were the mainstay of the world. They lived on interest. The world was driven by the motor of profit.
But it was a demon that needed feeding, and there was no more for it to eat.
Infinity is an imaginary number.

The gold standard of the time kept everyone poor when huge investment was needed after the war. All the gold had gone the the USA which had no real need of it, hence an asset bubble in the US and depression in Europe.

And since the war, it has continued.
Eating money that isn't there.
The imaginary debt figures rise, but who would repay it, if it was called in?

After the war there was the Bretton Woods agreement, effectively a less strenuous Gold Standard which fell to bits in 1971 due to Vietnam and an Oil Shock.

The UK for example in this post-war period, despite hardship, continued to repay its debt and rebuild its economy.

The Credit side goes down, the Debt side goes up.

And no one knows how to stop it.
In a sense it doesn't really mean too much. The world won't end when the crash comes, but the economy as we know it will.

Why will it end? Did the world end in 1929? How long did the recession last...decades, centuries..or 5 years?

Not to belittle the suffering, but the world did not collapse and the places that did were the rich parts of the world anyway.

Ed, I don't hate it, I can just see that it's an illusion, a growth spurt phase in the history of humanity.
And the last few decades the growth has been an illusion- fuelled mainly by the illusion that people were 'buying' their own homes, rather than taking out loans for life.
The Economy doesn't really grow any more, it's just the Interest is still fed.

An illusion? All the developments of drugs, technology, cars, planes, phones, computers, the Internet, billions of tons more of food grown both in acreage and intensification of land use? Billions of new people and yet % wise fewer living in poverty? Diseases eradicated, global communications developed, the solar system explored.

All an illusion, where is the growth in that? Where is the sustainability of development.

When it can't eat any more, the system is f**ked.

We can all eat more than ever before, despite terrible floods in our country we barely even notice and the shops are full of food. This is no illusion, this is amazing progress.

I don't disagree that if you print money excessively you will damage the economy and there is a strong chance of this happening, but the world is not about to end. not only that but the world really is the world now. India, China, East Asia, South America; not all these places are infected by the Anglo-Saxon credit model, these markets won't die. Companies too have made great strides forward with ideas such as just in time delivery which will massively aid the smoothing out of the bumpy ride.

If you are looking for real long-term problems then resources, population and climate change are far more scary than money; but there is time to fight these. The world does not end tomorrow. (Asteroid strikes apart).

18 comments:

Crushed said...

I suspected you'd have an opinion on this piecve :)
OK, here goes...

'this piece, suggesting that capitalism needs perpetual war and that Hitler was encouraged for this purpose is a little suggestive of a deeper view.'

I don't think he was encouraged. I think the Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia, game replicates the Democracy, Nazism, Communism relations that led up to the war. Three power blocks uniting their peoples through the depression by whipping up fear of the others.
The war was a cock up.

'The Bilderberger group, again. Any rational argument that starts by saying there is a global conspiracy out to get us all loses much credibility immediately.'

I never suggested conspiracy. I subscribe to the theory that they just don't want to admit they haven't a clue. The Bilderburg group exists, as we would expect in the world of today. It's actually a good idea.
They make contingency plans. Ones that benefit those who actually have the wealth.

'So how much do people generally really have..not a lot; however, it IS greater than zero.'

For now. How many people own more than they owe?

'Um no, the supply of silver is increasing all the time, new coins are minted.'

But they can only be minted from silver. This is limited. Most new coinage then, was old coinage melted down and recast.

'No it does not, see above. Cultures without currencies are inferior as there is not relative means of exchange and therefore most people live off the land. Cultures that developed a currency became far richer and stronger. Not good for everyone as they still had slaves, but relatively a greater proportion of people became richer over time.'

Usury played a tiny part in trade relations then. Only merchants who were sure they could profit would take advantage of it.
For it to be viable, more money has to come into the economy. Only a growing economy can get by on usury.

'The excess profit they produced from their initial investment.'

This profit has to come from somewhere. We can't ALL make a profit. If EVERYONE IN THE WORLD is in the same economy, where does this profit come from?
Moving assets around doesn't create a real material increase, it just inflates the fiat money and transfers more mythical money from the black to the red.

'Another good idea; let the government decide what money is worth rather than the owners of silver mines. Much more in the peoples' interest don't you think?'

No. Because then the real value of money, as a way of regulating exchance disappears. It becomes susceptible to manipulation. Inflation serves as a safety valve to release the continuous eating up of wealth by interest.
For example, the government don't seem to realise that putting up taxes on alcohol and tobacco above the rate of inflation, is bound to cause inflation in itself, because it alters the values of these goods relative to everything else. The market subtly resets the value of everything else.

'Why will it end? Did the world end in 1929?'

No, but the free growth phase of Capitalism ended. Since then we've lurched from trying to spend ourselves rich (Keynes) or hope the market will solve it itself (Friedman), which it does by creating debt.
As I say, it doesn't mean much. The world won't end. The Economic cycle will.

'An illusion?'

Yes. It grows by eating the wealth it created in the first place.
It needs more consumers than producers to survive. That's how the growth worked in the first place.
Technological progress is linear. Man's knowledge of the world around him ALWAYS increases.
Quality of life is different.
Do you really think you're happier than your grandparents were?

I'm fairly sure we're not.

'If you are looking for real long-term problems then resources, population and climate change are far more scary than money'

All things within our power to sort out, if we used our intelligence and energy more constructively.

The real social function of money, was to have a method of knowing who was entitled to what.
We don't even need it know. Theorteically, we could use our cards to pay for everything, it's a pure accounting tool.

The system could easily be rationalised into a simple method of credit points. It would be much simpler. It exists largely on computers, it might as well be all there.

The system of exchange ultimately fills the function of moving resources around to maximum efficiency.
Really, that is it's ONLY function, if you look at its place within the organisation of the species.
Is it the best method we can think of, to acheive that most efficiently?
I don't think so.

pommygranate said...

Slicker

I too like CBI's blog. There's always an entertaining debate about some topical issue.

But i worry about his politics - i cant work out whether he's a fascist or an anarchist :)

Steven_L said...

I haven't read it all, I'm too drunk.

I had a similar arguement with some Marxist on Webcameron a few months ago.

You can't win CU, you just have to let them grow out of it.

I must admit I was a bit shocked when I first learned a bit about fractional reserve lending and how money works in general. The way the Marxist's put it is scary if you've never really been exposed to the financial world.

It's goof that the internet allows people to learn more about the world, but don't expect people not to be shocked from time to time.

Old BE said...

Thanks for the work, CU - I wanted to do a similar analysis but hadn't the effort to do it!

CBI misses one crucial point which is that we improve practices and technology all the time so we can keep growing for quite a while yet.

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid you are both wrong. Debt works simply because it gioves me today what I need today but CAN pay for tomorrow. A simple example is my home. I need that TODAY. I can pay for it tomorrow by building someone else a home. To allow this to happen I need a debt mechanism. To pay someone for the debt I need to build two homes - one to pay for the one I live in, and one to pay for the debt I was given (i.e. the creditors margin). As long as I am in a position to build both houses to pay for the one I am living in NOW we ALL benefit and the system is perfectly satisfactory and stable. In countries where borrowing money is a tad difficult (such as Islamic countries where it is against Islamic law) people are naturally living in poverty as a direct result of the lack of debt instruments.

However, capitalism falls down in situations where supply cannot meet demand. Liquidity bubbles always form. This is particularly true where land is in short supply. In the UK we have a shortage of building land which has caused an asset bubble of epic proportions to develop. Such bubbles do not persist forever and since the land is always where those that wish to live on the land are located, the REAL problem can usually be contained.

However, it is interesting that wheat futures have grown enormously over the last year as developing contries with large populations have found themselves with the cash they need to buy Western food - which will naturally make our own daily bread more expensive. More food in developing countries usually means more people, more production and less food in the West. I suspect that the West will be forced to resort to protectionism to avoid having to share its food with more fecund nations in the East, thus bringing the era of unrestrained globalisation to an end. Unless globalisation is brought to an end by the behaviour of the Chinese, who are currently threatening the US with dumping dollars causing a dollar slide of huge proportions.

Capitlism needs to be restrained where demand exceeds supply to ensure long term stability. The EU CAP is a method of restraining capitalism that has for many years now ensured that we have a ready supply of food on the tables of Europe of all kinds, regardless of temporary fluctuations in production. The UK should really consider how to manipulate the market for building land to ensure that asset bubbles in property do not form - easing planning restrictions would be a start.

James Higham said...

I'm really surprised at this comment, CUS. Either it's cynical and you are muddying the waters or you just don't know, which, given your position, is a little hard to swallow. Don't forget I'm also in contact with many of these individuals and there's much I'm not going to say publicly.
The president, Etienne Davignon, when charged with running a secretive organization of influence replied by saying they were simply good talent spotters. They are - Brown [1991] and Blair [1993]. Why did Blair lie to Stoddart when charged with attending a conference? What's so wrong with attending which Blair had to lie about?
They've also groomed Balls and have their man Kaletsky in at the Times. There are countless others. You're right about not actually "doing". They influence. Take Davos, from which 70% of recommendations have been adopted. Their major work is as a think tank.
Thus you take Veronique Morali, whose connection with Tesco [Non Executive Director on a mammoth salary], followed by Fiske of whom I'm sure you're aware - just look at whose deputy she was there and where he went in Europe after that - then look at her work for Force Femme, with Françoise Million, Sylvie Ruggieri, Isabelle de Segonzac, Marie Artzner, Laurence Heilbronn and look at the policy changes on top cabinet positions in France and Luxembourg following that - and she's just one of dozens.
Anywhere major moving and shaking is going on in Europe, there are names who pop up elsewhere in major companies and organizations as well and also on the Bilderberger attendee list - except politicians, who when approaching power, start denying their connection.
They're just one or two things but Martin Kelly could do much better than that. It's ludicrous to say they don't influence, in their private capacities - that's why they're on the salaries they are and it's equally ludicrous to say that they are not influenced by think tank policy recommendations, just as the CFR's role is in NA.
Bilderbergers are hugely influential. the only question is whether this is a bad thing or not.

Anonymous said...

"Capitlism needs to be restrained where demand exceeds supply to ensure long term stability."

That's as neat a summary as ever I've seen of dim-bloke-in-the-pub economics.

CityUnslicker said...

CBI - thanks for thre response, glad to see you take it in the manner of a gentleman.

in asnwer to your points

- Eastasie, Oceania etc. No way was the war planned. the last thing the people of europe wanted was another war. Stalin did not want a war either, he was happy murdering his own people. Only the nazi's and japanese nationalists whipped their publics up.

- Bildeberger, I will address below when I get to JH's.

How many people own more than they owe, plenty is the answer as I explained.

The silver mines existed forever, you are just ignoring inconvenient fact.

As for merchants only investing where they were gauranteed profits; nonsense. Foreing trade in ancient society was about the most dangerous and difficult one could try and do.

Yes everyone can make a profit, it is called producing surplus from investment. Even farmers manage that, don't they?


To inflation, yes it is a necessary and governments are still learning how to control it.

As for the end of the world, the current cycle has been the richest in hsitory, beating the proceeding one which was also the richest in history. look at the graph, what does it predict the next cycle will do?

to skip some due to time constraints I would say that techological progress is exponential not linear; go wiki Moore's Law for example.

Finally the one point I do agree with is on credit points. Effectively that is what we have an d a cashless society is not far away. Why not...it will be even more efficient.

CityUnslicker said...

Anon - Thanks for your post and I humbly disagree. The CAP is a terrible example of market interference. We have grown far more food than we needed, thrown it away and held back genuinely poor people across the world.

Food will get more expensive. This is not capitalism, it is popultaion growth. The answer is to grow more food; not pay farmers to keep land fallow!

CityUnslicker said...

StevenL/Ed - thanks for the support on this one.

JH - You may not believe me, but from your part of view I am ignorant. I don;t know the detail as well as you and do not dispute many of the facts you give because I am not in a position to know. However, I think influence is one thing, an elite looking out for itself, sure. People have done this throughout history.

I have though been to Davos and it is far more innocent, pehaps I was in the wrong smoke filled rooms. It was just people bigging themselves up to want to solve the world problems. if anything it was a positive achievement. But people did not all agree, the US still hate Iran there. No one discussed a collective world government.

I don't see the threat, just people feathering their own nests and playing stroking their massive ego's.

Crushed said...

CityUn- I agree. No one wanted war.
They wanted war fever.
Hitler didn't want to fight. He wanted to march in to little counties who wouldn't fight back- remember the footage of the Polish CAVALRY facing Panzers.
Nor did Stalin.
Nor did we.

But we all painted the others as bastards quite cynically.
To unite our respective peoples behind us.

The National Government united people through the depression by saying' Back us, because you could be run by them. It united people.
Hitler and Stalin did the same.

The war WASN'T the idea.
But the Nazi Soviet pact (Main achitect- Guy Burgess)- created problems.
They'd hyped up the Nazi threat (Hitler said in Mein Kamp he NEVER wanted to fight Britain, because a war on two fronts was unwinnable and Lebensraum was the ultimate aim- move EAST) and noe the people were crapping themselves. The tyrants had united, what do we do?

Fight the one nearest- the closest threat.
It was a cock up. But as I say, post Potsdam, they had learned how to do it.
No conspiracy. Just self-interst from vested intersts- we'd do the same, were it us.

James Higham said...

CUS, we're not in fundamental disagreement. I know, as you well know, some of the places you've been because I am one of the people who would know these things. :) As you know.

Yes, the Conference is innocent in itself - a good knees up and a lot of chin-wagging. It's all positions which have already been agreed upon.

The influence comes in with the sort of person who is invited. This person is by definition in a position to influence, e.g. Kaletsky [and I didn't name the two others at the Times]. Morali was the example I quoted.

The agenda is globalist. No question - read Kaletsky's summary of Davos resolutions. These are no dreamers. They are heads of departments and organizations. If they agree with the thrust, then it is implemented.

Once again, you can see that as good or see it as bad.

Anonymous said...

"Anon - Thanks for your post and I humbly disagree. The CAP is a terrible example of market interference. We have grown far more food than we needed,"

How do you define "far more food than we needed"? In precentage terms it is not so great. And what would you do with that farmland anyway?

"thrown it away"

It is better to throw it away to create an artificial but stable market rather than allow farmers to throw it away themselves to artificially push prices up - which is what they were doing before CAP was interoduced.

"and held back genuinely poor people across the world."

There is some truth in this statement - however, it is only true because the EU is a political as well as an economic entity. If the EU dropped its political aspirations and became purely an economic entity then in principle anybody could join the party. Furthermore, there is no reason why other nations shouldn't form themselves into similar groups to trade between themselves on a level footing, rather than continually trying to gain acccess to Western wealth. The latter actually distorts markets in the developing world since the presence of Western cash encourages the creation of large famrs held by landowners who use low-paid labour to line their own pockets. Growing flowers in Kenya for the European market - how many ordinary Kenyans benefit from that do you think? Such behaviour is only an example of the EU economy extending beyond its own borders creating micro-economies elsewhere.

CityUnslicker said...

Anon -

In the UK I would build some more houses and towns as we are desperately short. Also farm incomes would have risen as land fell out of use, instead of remaining subdued by state funded.

CAP aslo benefits France disproportionately; why so? I woult not despise is so much if it had helpe the poorer member states; it is instead a racket.

As for what is too much - wine lakes and butter mountains were too much. Dumping food into poor countries and preventing them becoming self-sufficient was too much. The US does the same as we know; all very politically, morally and economically wrong.


Your last point is sound. The EU creates huge market distortions with its subsidies that lead to sub-optimal outcomes everywhere; especially in the 3rd world.

As for the EY becoming just a trade zone; that is not what the Bureaurcracy wants and won't happen. I get closer to wanting the UK to fully withdraw each day.

Anonymous said...

Good grief, where do you get this stuff?

The only reason food is dumped into the third world is that the third world can't feed itself due to its own fecundity. The population of Africa and India outgrew what even the "Green revolution" could provide some twenty years ago. In fact, Europe steadfastly refused to give the third world food that it hadn't paid for until blob Geldof got into the act.

The fact that we arranged a closed economy for our own food and then arranged over-production within it was a good thing. If only the rest of the world would do the same! Sadly the rest of the world is breeding like rabbits and economic growth lags behind. In a world where food is scarce the law of demand exceeding supply ensures food naturally takes up the entire incomes of the poor preventing other forms of economic progress from developing. (Just as scarcity of housing in the UK causes house prices to rise to absorb all our free cash - it becomes a case of not what it is worth, but how much can you PAY). The ONLY solution to third world poverty is to reduce population size so that it can be accomodated with food production grown locally. It really isn't a problem of the West's creation. We cannot solve it (unless we let off a few neutron bombs....). We have made it far worse by trying to solve it with unsustainable technological solutions and exports of grain, thus allowing the world population to grow still further because we couldn't handle the guilt of living in well run economies.

Deliberate over-production of food within the protected market of the EU has ensured that food is cheap. Consequently it only takes up 1% of our GDP which means that the other 99% can be spent on something more useful, like healthcare. Of course we are British and a bit thick, so we also like to spend 300,000pounds on houses that cost just 50,000pound to build and then take the rest of our working lives paying for it. If we could overproduce housing like we overproduce food we would all be rich.

CityUnslicker said...

Anon -

yes the world has a population problem.

no most of the world is not starving; yet, althe the idocy of biofuels might make it so.

The CAP is still crazy. You are arguing now that having lots of food production is a good thinh; but how does this apply to whole of my lifetime. food has been overproduced and I have paid taxes, huge ones, for it...why?

Also you argue we have spending left over for non-food investment. Quite right and without the CAP we would have more. With out the CAP we would not starve, we would just produce and import the food we need. If the price goes up due to population growth then we will need more.

But in Europe the problem [from a certain point of view, not mine] is depopulation not overpopulation.

Thanks for your posts though, very interesting discussion. i have not heard anyone try to defend the CAP on non-political grounds.

Unknown said...

Now that we face hard times ahead, it is probably best that you know as much as you can about money (fiat money). This is a good article, and check out this report on fiat money; I found it very useful.

Fiat Currencies

-Cheers!

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