Kill people and save money: a libertarian proposal

Day after day, I read the same thing: government is evil per se, and we shouldn't have to pay any taxes. The old and poor are a burden on the rest of us.

So are the sick and disabled, but the time for overt Nazism isn't quite yet. However, we are making encouraging progress.

Since 1967, some 7 million unborn British children have been killed. Some of them on grounds of "serious handicap" such as having a cleft palate (shame they didn't get Lord Byron, with his club foot) - but the overwhelming majority of abortions are simply because the child is inconvenient. That's against the law as it stands, but who cares?

This old-style-Oriental solution to problems (Stalin would surely have approved) is weighted towards the lower social classes so, as the authors of "Freakonomics" pointed out, it has a beneficial side effect, in that we're executing common criminals before their career can begin. And compared with the cost of arrest, trial, appeal, imprisonment etc a little fake-objective "pregnancy advice" and a swish of the scalpel are so much cheaper, quicker and final. After all, since 1965 we can't kill adult criminals and despite what Parliament was promised in return for giving up the death penalty, "life" doesn't mean life in jail except in the rarest of cases.

Like so much other bad law and practice, self-deception, poor logic and inconsistency bedevil our approach. Apparently it's okay to terminate a foetus under 24 weeks old, because it doesn't feel pain and is therefore not alive; so with the prior use of a really good anaesthetic, we could make inroads on the prison population right now.

We're doing this already for the sick and depressed, but first we have to send them to Switzerland, sometimes accompanied by a popular children's author who lards his work with references to death and total spiritual annihilation. However, the courts are winking indulgently at those who top their relatives here and are now paving the way for advance carte blanche so the doctors involved won't be prosecuted.

Really, criminals are the glaring exception to our enthusiasm for the short way with those who trouble us.

And after that, we can have a really good go at all those born with deformities (not just the ones whose mum doesn't want them), plus cripples, orphans etc.  Worldwide, there's something like 5 million new cases of people permanently disabled each year because of road accidents alone, so there's much to do. And we could always reinstitute forcible sterilization, which was a policy in many countries but which the Germans did so much more thoroughly, as they do everything. In short, let us off anyone who costs more in taxes than he's paying.

Yes, death is not the end, it's the answer. After we have rid ourselves in this way of all social and fiscal burdens, we shall have a thousand years of peace and prosperity. Those who still have life will have liberty, and only libertarians will live.

And money, dear money, the fount and origin of happiness, the fifth element that creates and sustains all, will be safe at last.

Greece has defaulted - Dagong

Chinese credit rating agency Dagong has re-rated Greece to "D":

"The Greek government bond exchange action in March 2012 violates the will of the holders of the Greek law governed bonds, and inflicts substantial losses to them. Accordingly, Dagong determines that the Greek government has defaulted."


Emperor's new clothes, and all that.

Fun with sport

Following the suspension of the Boat Race, what other events - sporting or otherwise - would YOU like to see interrupted by The Swimmer?

Thick as a brick? No, much thicker: how Samantha Brick mugged Daily Mail readers

All that fuss about Samantha Brick's April 3 article, "Why Women Hate Me For Being So Beautiful". Mail readers obviously didn't do any research at all before keying in their bilious online comments, for if they had they'd have come across one of hers from almost exactly a year ago: "I'll always be that fat girl: Samantha Brick has always obsessed about her weight... all because she was a chubby child".

The latest, controversial hit was published two days too late, for it's made fools out of millions.This is about beauty versus brains, and brains win hands down every time.

What clever Brummie (and there's another preconception exploded) Samantha has discovered is what Malcolm MacLaren said years ago: you can make much more exploiting yourself than exploiting others. I'd like to know who at the Mail gave her the space to do this one, but I guess it's enough of an obvious coat-trailer to justify publication on its own meretricious merits, without having to speculate on the possible use of her feminine wiles at the workplace, delicious journalistic follow-up though that might be.

Can men do the same? You may care to copy and paste her article, and swap the sexes to make a comic spoof. The exercise is comically revealing, because male attractiveness is measured differently in a woman's eyes.  They say a woman is what she is, and a man is what he does. He does confidence, action, aggression  - like Lord Flashheart in the Blackadder series:  



... and again here (from about 4:07 in):



Traditionally, the strategy for women is to have a sponsor, and to be set in a context of focused admiration, as Roger Vadim did for Brigitte Bardot in the cinematic launch vehicle "And God created woman":



But a young, slightly chubbier in those days Madonna broke the mould - it became "look at me", not "look at her", though again it's be piquant to know the who and how behind getting her the film deal:



Like Madonna, what's smart about Brick is her use of brash self-assertion - and if she hasn't really got the confidence, she's faked it very well for the purposes of her piece. She's played it the man's way.

Good luck to her.

Patenting the debt bomb

It's only occurred to me today that Collateralized Debt Obligations might actually have been patented, and thanks to Google's patent search option here's one, by George H Butcher III, which he sold to Goldman Sachs. The application was filed in 2000, but the patent was finally granted in September 2007.

And here's one of the drawings:

I suppose they patent Ebola-derivative viruses, too.

Guaranteed HUGE gain for UK investors!

 A repeat of last year's opportunity, but even better: postage stamps without a stated face value represent a great buying opportunity.

"From 30th April First Class stamps will go up by 30.4% from 46p to 60p and that Second Class stamps will rise by 38.9% from 36p to 50p." - Economic Voice.

This is at a time when interest rates on variable-rate cash ISAs are 3% or less, so even allowing for the opportunity cost of leaving money in secure, tax-free deposits, you can make a rock-solid net gain of 26.6% - 34.8%.

Buy NOW (I just did) for this year's birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas - and all your business postage.

INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash, and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

"Lockerbie bomber" Al-Megrahi "innocent"

Back in 2009 (see here, here and here), as the authorities prepared to release the so-called Lockerbie Bomber to return to Libya, ostensibly on compassionate grounds, I came across a blog by Scottish law professor Robert Black. The latter, together with Jim Swire (father of one of the victims) smelt a rat.

Some suspect that not only was the wrong man accused - the wrong country, even (the operation may have been Iranian) - but that there was a deliberate miscarriage of justice and a cover-up, and that Al-Megrahi was sent home to prevent a retrial that would blow the whole affair wide open.

Now (hat-tip: Ian Parker-Joseph) Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald has published a 5-year-old, hitherto secret legal review of the case, which they say contains evidence that could well have led to Al-Megrahi's conviction being overturned. The link to the (slightly redacted) 800-page text is here.

This is a bad day for the reputation of the Scottish legal system, especially when (as Parker-Joseph does) one is tempted to rope in outstanding concerns about the 1996 Dunblane massacre and alleged child abuse victim Hollie Greig.

Time for a full public enquiry - no "safe pair of hands", please, no cripplingly narrow terms of reference, full power of subpoena, all evidence on oath and no prior indemnification against prosecution for perjury or other perversion of the course of justice. And later, possibly, a huge action for damages by Al-Megrahi and his family.

And then let's see what else needs to be cleared from the Augean stables.