x
Those who trade liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both.
John Adams
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all—security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished foremost was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
Edward Gibbon, English historian and member of Parliament, commenting on Ancient Athens in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788.
Libertarians (myself included) now grind their teeth on a daily basis, as they watch the parade of irresponsible economic measures concocted by First World political and banking leaders. Each measure seems more outrageous than the last, both in its inability to correct the situation and its outright thievery from the purse of the populace.
The EU recently announced that they will introduce a level of quantitative easing (QE) that promises to be the economic equivalent of an overdose to a heroin addict. In addition, the EU, the US, Canada, and other First World countries have created bail-in legislation that will allow their bankers to literally steal the funds of their depositors.
Further, political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have announced that pensioners’ funds are “in danger,” and their solution is to make it mandatory for the funds to contain a percentage of investment in government bonds—an investment that promises to go off the proverbial cliff in the coming years.
So, what’s the plan? Are the leaders of the world’s most “advanced” nations planning collective economic and political suicide? Or are they simply so stupid/arrogant/out of touch with reality—pick your explanation—that they just don’t understand thateconomic collapse is now baked in the cake and it is now only a question of time?
Or do they have an alternate plan?
I must confess that I’m cynical enough to regard many of the leaders in question as being stupid, arrogant, and out of touch with reality. However, I do also believe that some of them are clever enough and devious enough to have a plan in place as to how they might continue to not only hold their power, but expand upon it. (That desire is, of course, a virtually universal truth, as regards world leaders—to always be planning greater power for themselves.)
