Nüchterne Ansichten zur Finanztransaktionssteuer

Gelesen im Quotidien, Ausgabe vom 28. September:

"(...) en marge de la conférence sur les fonds d'investissement, le directeur général adjoint de l'ALFI [Association Luxembourgeoise des Fonds d'Investissement], Charles Muller, a précisé que l'association est favorable à l'introduction d'une telle taxe pourvu qu'elle le soit au niveau mondial [ich unterstreiche]. En effet, une introduction uniquement en Europe pourrait avoir pour effet de rendre les transactions financières moins compétitives et pourrait, par ailleurs, inciter les acteurs financiers d'envergure à quitter l'Europe. (...)

Certains gérants de fonds s'inquiètent aussi de l'effet dissuasif que pourrait avoir une telle taxe sur des clients car, comme le rappelle Charles Muller : 'La taxe ne touchera pas, comme on l'a parfois entendu, spécifiquement les spéculateurs. Ce ne seront d'ailleurs même pas les banques qui la supporteront mais les clients avec leur petit fonds de pension ou leurs investissements à plus large échelle'.
Le directeur général adjoint de l'ALFI qualifie toutefois les craintes de certains gérants d'exagérées et précise que le montant de la taxe restera très faible."

147 Jahre Miguel de Unamuno

Aus dem Film Mourir à Madrid, Frankreich 1963.

"(...) die Menschen sind endlich gezwungen, ihre Lebensstellung, ihre gegenseitigen Beziehungen mit nüchternen Augen anzusehen."

Siehe auch: http://www.incise.org.au/2011-09-28/the-wrong-man-with-the-right-answers/

Zeitmaschine erfunden

Gelesen im Tageblatt, Ausgabe vom 24. September:

"'Wenn die Schätzungen der Arbeitnehmerkammer stimmen, werden wir uns Ende 2011 also bereits im Juni/Juli 2014 befinden', so [OGBL-Präsident Jean-Claude] Reding."

Both kinds of music (71): Ridin' the outlaw trail

Anfang der 1970er begannen einige der bekanntesten Countryinterpreten aus Nashville zunehmend genervt zu sein, vom "sauberen", konservativen Image des Nashville Sound und auch der zunehmenden Hinwendung zu den poppigeren Sounds des Countrypolitan-Sounds, liessen sich Haare und Bärte wachsen und spielten eine rauere Version der Country-Musik, die einerseits vorgab eine "Restauration" des Honky Tonk der späten 40er und 50er Jahre als "wirklicher" Country-Musik zu sein, andererseits aber auch Rockeinflüsse nicht verbarg - die ästhetischen und stilistischen Verbindungen zum gleichzeitig auftretenden Southern Rock (Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Oak Arkansas...) sind offensichtlich.

Als Geburtsstunde dieses neu-alten Stils, bald von den Medien Outlaw Country betitelt, gilt das Album Ladies love outlaws vom Nashville-Veteranen Waylon Jennings (1972), das Jennings in dieser "unfertigen" Form eigentlich gar nicht veröffentlichen wollte. Hieraus der Titel-Track:

Weiter verfeinerte Jennings den Outlaw-Stil auf dem darauffolgenden Album Lonesome, on'ry and mean (1973), das von Jennings selber ko-produziert wurde, und seinen Vorstellungen mehr entsprach.. Auch hiervon der Titelsong:


Aus dem selben Jahr stammt dieser Rezessionssong mit Mariachi-Bläsern, der später als Bonustrack zum gleichen Album veröffentlicht werden sollte: The last one to leave Seattle.

Hagbards Definitionen (Schluss)

ANARCHISM: That organization of society where the Free Market operates freely, without taxes, usury, landlordism, tariffs, or other forms of coercion or privilege. RIGHT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to compete more often than to cooperate. LEFT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to cooperate more often than to compete.

Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, nach der Ausgabe London 1998, S.624.

Hagbard Celines Definitionen (4)

SOCIALISM: The attempted abolition of all privilege by restoring power entirely to the coercive agent behind privilege, the State, thereby converting capitalist oligarchy into Statist monopoly. Whitewashing a wall by painting it black.

Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, nach der Ausgabe London 1998, S.623-624.

Hagbard Celines Definitionen (3)

LIBERALISM [hier im amerikanischen Sinn]: That school of capitalist philosophy which attempts to correct the injustices of capitalism by adding new laws to the existing laws. Each time conservatives pass a law creating privilege, liberals pass another law modifying privilege, leading conservatives to pass a more subtle law recreating privilege, etc., until "everything not forbidden is compulsory" and "everything not compulsory is forbidden."

Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, nach der Ausgabe London 1998, S.623.

Zur Feier des Tages

Hagbard Celines Definitionen (2)

CONSERVATISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which claims allegiance to the Free Market while actually supporting usury, landlordism, tariff, and sometimes [!?] taxation.

Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, nach der Ausgabe London 1998, S.623.

Hagbards Celines Definitionen (1)

FREE MARKET: That condition of society in which all economic transactions result from voluntary choice without coercion.

(...)

CAPITALISM: That organization of society, incorporating elements of tax, usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while pretending to exemplify it.

Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, nach der Ausgabe London 1998, S.622-623.

Both kinds of music (70): Back to the Nitty Gritty

Die Nitty Gritty Dirt Band ist bereits 1966 als "Jug Band" in Kalifornien entstanden und bewegte sich im Umkreis der dortigen Folk-Szene. Mit dem sehr altmodischen Auftreten konnte die Band als Kuriosität einige Erfolge einfahren, Ausflüge ins Elektrische waren allerdings weniger erfolgreich. 1969 trat die Band im Clint Eastwood-Western Paint your wagon mit dem Titel Hand me down that can o' beans auf:

Nach einem Chart-Erfolg mit der Single Mr. Bojangles 1970, spielte die Band im darauf folgenden Jar mit einer ganzen Menge von bekannten Country- und Bluegrassmusikern, deren beste Zeit allerdings schon ein paar Jahrzehnte zurück lag, darunter Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, Bashful Brother Oswald, Merle Travis, Jimmy Martin und viele andere, Klassiker des Genres ein, die 1972 als Dreieralbum Will the circle be unbroken? veröffentlicht wurden. Hier ein kurzer Dokumentarfilm über das Album:

Die Dirt Band wiederholte das Konzept noch zweimal, 1989 mit Will the circle be unbroken: Volume Two, und 2002 mit Will the circle be unbroken III. 1990 spielte die Dirt Band mit zahlreichen der beteiligten Musiker einige Konzerte. Hier der Titel Don't you hear Jerusalem moan? mit der Band New Grass Revival:

Genossin Palin?

Roderick Long wundert sich über  Palins neuen "linkslibertären" Töne in der New York Times, die geradezu aus einem Artikel von Kevin Carson stammen könnten. Hier ein länger Auszug:

"She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a 'permanent political class', drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called 'corporate crony capitalism'. Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.

Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.

'Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?' she said, referring to politicians. 'It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along'.

Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.

Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

'This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk', she said of the crony variety. She added: 'It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys'."

Ein imaginärer Kongress aus der vergangenen Zukunft

"L'après-midi, les débats furent houleux. Le président, le génial Philip W. Dick, eut du mal à instaurer le calme. Très rapidement le congrès se divisa en trois tendances opposées. Il y avait ceux qui réclamaient le statu quo: 'Continuons comme avant. Ne nous occupons pas de la science officielle. Nous verrons bien'. Plus à gauche, se situait un courant de pensée réclamant la nationalisation de la S.F. avec mensualisation des auteurs et retraite dès l'âge de 35 ans afin de laisser la place aux jeunes. Plus radicale, une minorité d'avant-garde préconisait le sabordage pur et simple: 'Assez d'utopies, la S.F. véhicule une pensée réactionnaire qui doit être dénoncée et condamnée avec vigeur'. Une motion fut même déposée réclamant que P.W. Dick soit traduit devant un tribunal populaire qui aurait à juger ses crimes contre le peuple. Le président déchira avec dédain la motion et la donna à dévorer à un robot balayeur en fonte noire qui se trouvait là, dans l'exercice de ses fonctions. (...)

Le soir, les extrémistes furent exclus.

Le calme revint. Dans la nuit, le communiqué final fut rédigé. Fort long, il est néanmoins possible de le résumer en quelques mots: 'La Science-Fiction est foutue, vive l'Histoire-Fiction!' (...)"

Aus der Kurzgeschichte "Le dégoût du futur" von R.Mille, erschienen im September 1976 in Pilote Hors-série No. 28bis.

Both kinds of music (69): Vom Studiofeger zum Songwriter zum Sänger zum Schauspieler

Kris Kristofferson landete recht ungewöhnlich im Musikgeschäft: während der Aufnahmen zu Dylans Blonde on Blonde arbeitete er als Reinigungskraft in den Columbia Studios. Zugleich begann er Songs zu schreiben wie den Viet Nam Blues, der 1966 vom Truckerkönig Dave Dudley eingespielt wurde. Nach und nach wurde aus Kristofferson ein angesehener Songwriter, er schrieb unter anderem für Jerry Lee Lewis, Roger Miller, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash. Am bekanntesten wurde der für sein zeitweiliges Date Janis Joplin geschriebene und posthum veröffentlichte Titel Me and Bobby MacGee, den Kristofferson selbst auf seinem Debut-Album Kristofferson (1970) sang. Hier eine Live-Aufnahme aus dem Jahr 1971:

Auf dem gleichen Album erschien auch Help me make it through the night, 1971 ein Hit für Sammi Smith. Die folgende Version im Duett mit Kristoffersons zukünftiger Ehefrau Rita Coolidge im altehrwürdigen Old Grey Whistle Test stammt aus dem Jahr 1972:

1972 schaffte Kristofferson endlich den Durchbruch als Sänger seiner eigenen Songs mit dem Nr. 1-Hit auf den Country-Charts Why me. Im darauf folgenden Jahr beginnt auch Kristoffersons Karriere als Schauspieler an Fahrt zu gewinnen, als er den Billy the Kid in Sam Peckinpahs Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid gibt. Hier ein Ausschnitt aus dem Film, begleitet vom Song Lover please (wieder mit Rita Coolidge; vom Album Breakaway, 1974):

183 Jahre Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj

A comparison of America and Europe (1909)

If only I had begun to preach love and brotherhood when I first began to write stories, I should have accomplished more. It was Schopenhauer and the Bible that converted me.

I am an individualist and as such believe in free play for the psychological nature of man. For this reason I am claimed by the anarchists. Even George Brandes declares that I am in philosophical harmony with the ideas of Prince Krapotkin.

The idea of communism and what it implies refers to the social conditions and it would be senseless for me to demand that every one should sleep as little as I do, eat the same food, wear the same clothes or have the same feelings which are peculiar to me. A man is not a watch. Each is a world in himself. It is therefore an illusion to believe in materialistic economy as if it were a religion. It is foolish therefore to worship the idea of socialism. I worship the soul of man, which is the only reality.

After all it does seem as if the world likes to be deceived. If we did not have our illusions we could never find the truth. Through error we come to virtue, through ignorance to knowledge, through suffering to joy.

These opinions are naturally not popular with the socialists, who therefore oppose me with bitterness. They love to spread broadcast the rumor that I am, instead a doer of the word, a mere talker.

In my preachments of love and truth I am not a partisan. I condemn both revolutionist and reactionaries. I loath the yoke of party; for I believe that all physical force is brutality.

My opposition to administrative power has been interpreted into opposition to all government. This, however, is not true. I oppose only violence and the view that might makes right.

The only government in which I believe is that which exercise a moral authority. Moses, Buddha, Christ, these are the great law-givers, the real autocrats, who ruled not by force, but by character, whose government was one of love, justice, and brotherhood.

I do not believe in a parliament as the final goal of social leadership, for instead of simplifying it only complicates human society. Parliament becomes an instrument to cheat the people in that it deceives them into thinking it truly represents them. They say, "Vox populi, vox Dei," but it is never the case; for the greatest illusions is that which supposes that society can be improved by law.

Just as I hate hereditary potentate so do I hate cheap Duma. A government which relies on iron and explosives, which executes a murderer who is so because of insanity or of poverty and which glorifies the butchery of innocent thousands is the greatest instrument for wrong, the worst of oppressors.

Now I will explain why I criticize free America as severely as I do Russia. It is because I am also tending to the rule of force. The methods may differ but the results are the same.

It is true that America does not exile one to Siberia or hang one on the gallows for protesting against the government. But nevertheless it has its lynching and, what is far worse, its judicial murders. It has its great railroad casualties by which thousands are killed by the criminal carelessness of the great corporations, and besides all this it has the exploitation of the poor by the rich.

All this proves that government can not improve the moral nature of man, and that brute force always defeats its object. There can be no coercion of the soul. Every law must have the sanction of the free will.

Where America surpasses Europe is in its personal liberty, which is the heritage of a race of heroes. But this is doomed to be extinguished by the legislatures of a time-serving generation.

The greatest indictment against any country is the presence of capital punishment -- which exists in such a form as if Christ had never been born. The judge who sentences a criminal to death is ten times more guilty himself. Oh that ideas of humanity could end this tyranny, this black hypocrisy of legal procedure under which so many crimes are committed against humanity!

Yet the root of all the evils of civilization lies in the perverted teachings miscalled Christianity. The modern church is the greatest foe of man, and the churchgoer a blind dupe.

Of course my views are extremely unpleasant to the Russian Church, and often it has plotted how to get rid of me. Many suppose that I have so far escaped imprisonment simply because of my prominence, but there may be another reason, which I am unable to explain.

I am not afraid of any punishment, and would be happy if I might share it with the many martyrs who have suffered for the truth and justice. Persecution gives freedom strength, and suffering ennobles and purifies.

Speaking of my past I condemn myself unreservedly, for all my faults and errors were the natural result of my aristocratic birth and training, which is the worst thing that can befall a man, as it stifles every human instinct. Turgeneff wrote to me: "You have tried for many years to become a peasant in conduct as well as in ideas, but you nevertheless are the same aristocrat. You are good hearted and have a charming personality, but I have observed that in all your practical dealings with the peasants you remain the patronizing master who likes to be esteemed for his benefactions and to be considered the bounteous patriarch," in which he was very right.

I am not a lover of sports and athletics, for these I consider a misuse of energy, which might do much to relieve the poor. I am greatly in sympathy with the settlement work in America, but I do not believe in institutionalized charity or in mechanical philanthropy, but only individual effort to relieve suffering.

(zuerst veröffentlicht in der New York World, 7. Februar 1909)

50 Jahre Perry Rhodan

Per aspera ad astra!

Proudhon, zusammengefasst von Shea und Wilson

"Okay, okay, I think I've got most of it. Property is theft because the Illuminati land titles are arbitrary and unjust. And so are their banking charters and railroad franchises and all the other monopoly games of capitalism -"

"Of state capitalism. Not of true laissez-faire."

"Wait. Property is impossible because the world is a verb, a burning house as Buddha said. All things are fire. My old pal Heracleitus. So property is theft and property is impossible. How do we get to property is liberty?"

"Without private property there can be no private decisions."

"So we're back where we started from?"

"No, we're one flight higher up on the spiral staircase. Look at it that way. Dialectically, as your Marxist friends say."

"But we are back at private property. After proving it's an impossible fiction."

"The Statist form of private property is an impossible fiction. Just like the Statist form of communal property is an impossible fiction. Think outside the State framework, George. Think of property in freedom."

Robert Shea/Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, nach der Ausgabe London 1998, S.410-411.

Das Bitcoin-Problem

Die Technology Review des MIT sieht Bitcoin derzeit im Zentrum einer Blase (was wohl auch seiner Entstehungszeitpunkt, inmitten einer globalen Finanzkrise, geschuldet ist), aufgrund der Tatsache dass es kaum als Tausch- und Zahlungsmittel fungiert:

"Setting aside Bitcoin's cool factor - it might just as well have leapt off the pages of Neal ­Stephenson's cult science-fiction novel Snow Crash - a peer-to-peer electronic currency uncontrolled by central bankers or politicians is a perfect object for the anxieties and enthusiasms of those frightened by the threats of inflation and currency debasement, concerned about state power and the surveillance state, and fascinated with the possibilities created by distributed, decentralized systems.

Bitcoin is not going to make government-backed currencies obsolete. But while the system's virtues, such as anonymity and the lack of bank fees, may not matter much to most consumers, one can envision it being useful in a variety of niche markets (some legal, others not, like recreational drugs). Where anonymity is valuable, where trusted third parties are hard to find or charge high rates, and where persistently high inflation is a problem, it's possible that bitcoins could in fact flourish as an alternative currency.

Before they become such an alternative, though, the system will have to overcome a major, and surprising, problem: people have come to see it primarily as a way to make money. In other words, instead of being used as a currency, bitcoins are today mostly seen as (and traded as) an investment. (...) As a result, many - probably most - Bitcoin users are acquiring bitcoins not in order to buy goods and services but to speculate. That's a bad investment decision, and it also hurts Bitcoin's prospects."

Den ganzen Text findet man hier.

Both kinds of music (68): Cash in den Siebzigern

Die 1970er begannen für Johnny Cash einerseits mit der Einstellung seiner TV-Show (1971), andererseits mit einem Hit-Duett mit seiner Ehefrau June Carter Cash, If I were a carpenter (1970):

Im Mai 1971 erschien das Album Man in Black, ein Titel den Cash seitdem als Beiname begleitet hat. Das Album ist von ernsten Songs geprägt, die sich unter anderem mit dem Vietnamkrieg und Cashs christlichem Glauben auseinandersetzen. Hier der Titeltrack, den Cash auch anlässlich einer Performance für Präsident Nixon spielte, zu dem anschließend ein freundliches Verhältnis entwickelte:

Cash veröffentlichte über 30 Alben in den 1970ern (plus unzählige Compilations), von denen allerdings nur einige einen nachhaltigen Eindruck hinterließen, so etwa das 1974 erscheinende Album Ragged Old Flag. Aus dem gleichen Jahr stammt auch diese Version von Arlo Guthries Klassiker City of New Orleans:

Das Feuilleton in der Sinnkrise

Dachte ich, mit der letztwochigen Folge sei der Artikel von Portante über den abgedrifteten Kapitalismus ("Le capitalisme à la dérive") beendet, so wurde ich diese Woche im Le Jeudi von Teil 3 überrascht, in welchem Portante die Krise des Kapitalismus auch als "permanente Sinnkrise" versteht. Portante schlussfolgert, wieder resigniert, aber man kann dem Gedankengang folgen:

"Politiquement, cela ne peut favoriser que ceux qui propagent des formules faciles à saisir [siehe auch Teil 1]. Voilà l'autre cercle vicieux qui s'est emparé des choses.

L'évidage des cerveaux remonte à la sphère politique et y installe le degré zéro de la pensée. Ce qui fait, qu'on le veuille ou pas - mais je suis convaincu qu'on [wer ist dieser "on"? Der Zeitungsleser?] le veut - le lit des dirigeants aux idées creuses, mais à la gueule grande et aux bras musclés."