Pat Barron was my Austrian Economics professor!

Think about this headline. Think what it means.

Think of all the cries of bloody murder, all the riots, all the hand wringing. They’re like a stubborn child that finally realized that threatening to hold your breath until you die won’t be taken seriously.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0426/Greece-starts-firing-civil-servants-for-first-time-in-a-century?nav=87-frontpage-entryNineItem

From Open Europe News summary:

A new OECD study has found that on average, German male pensioners receive a lower pension relative to their earnings (58%) compared to Greeks (110%), Spaniards (84%) and Italians (76%).

A Muslim preacher has been secretly recorded explaining to followers how to receive government assistance they can use to fund a Muslim holy war.

Calling it a “Jihadi Allowance,” cleric Anjem Choundary, 45, has four kids, brings in £25,000, or just under $39,000 U.S. in benefits himself, and says that this is the way it is supposed to work according to Islamic law.

Recorded by both the U.K. Sun and Telegraph, Choundary says:

– “We are on Jihad Seekers Allowance, we take the Jizya (protection money paid to Muslims by non-Muslims) which is ours anyway.

– “The normal situation is to take money from the [non-Muslims] isn’t it? So this is the normal situation.”

– “They give us the money. You work, give us the money. Allah Akbar, we take the money. Hopefully there is no one from the DSS (Department of Social Security) listening.”

– “Ah, but you see people will say you are not working. But the normal situation is for you to take money from the Kuffar (non-Muslim) So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance.

Sweden has a reputation as having the most equal relations between the sexes in the world—it’s a place where male politicians are voted “woman of the year” by feminists, where young dads on paternity leave take toddlers for play dates while their wives work, where a preschool can casually ban gendered pronouns. A recent World Economic Forum report claimed Sweden is the most gender equal country in the world.

Yet some Swedish women apparently think that the image of the Nordic country as a feminist’s paradise is just a veneer hiding deep-seated misogyny. Their evidence? Men slouching and taking up more than one seat on buses, trains, and subways.

To counter this “normalized expression of power” (that’s what they call slouching), a group of firebrand feminists have set up a blog called “Macho i Kollektivtrafiken” (“Macho in Public Transport”), encouraging readers to send in sneaky snaps of men in relaxed poses. The aim is to spread awareness of a “symbolic and active recreation not just of power, but of a stereotypical form of masculinity.” (Read more)

In January, a French court ruled that Twitter must hand over the details of people who had tweeted racist and anti-semitic remarks, and set up a system that would alert the police to any further such posts as they happen. Twitter has ignored that ruling, and now the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) is suing it for €38.5m (£32.8m) for its failure.

The case revolves around a hashtag — #unbonjuif (“a good Jew”) — which became the third-most popular on the site in October 2012. The UEJF took Twitter to court, demanding that those who had tweeted anti-semitic remarks using the hashtag be named by Twitter so the police could prosecute them for hate speech. (Read more)

“Those who warned me to covert my money into gold, go get yourself some crepes.” :)

Five Muslim extremists attacked a gay club in Paris beating the bouncers and spraying some attendants, including the vice president of IDAHO, with tear gas (Read more)

If you Google translate this article, you’ll see that the Swedish IRS filmed a series of pro-tax ads in Estonia in order to avoid paying the higher Swedish taxes!

The story:

Russia condemns ‘unfair’ Cyprus bank levy as bailout fears grow

On one hand, the economy of a government is their “sphere of exploitation” (to use Hoppe’s term from Austrian vs. Marxist Class Analysis). So why would Putin not welcome this action, which punishes those who dare escape his sphere of exploitation, and will likely discourage others from escaping?

Two reason:

1) Russia wants to improve itself by attraction rich, capable entrepreneurs from the west, like the Frenchman Depardieu.

2) In the twisted, counter intuitive world of post-Soviet economies, the exploiters are often trying to escape their own prison. I suspect most politicians of post-Soviet countries had money in Cyprus.

Now that the precedent has been set, now that a western government has simply closed banks and helped itself to between 6.7 and 10 percent of each depositor’s money, I wonder if I should close my IRA.

Waiting thirty years for a tax break under these conditions seems ridiculous. The dollar will certainly collapse before then. The only question is how audacious the crimes of politicians will be when their system is in its death throes.

Let’s wait and see how big a bank run this action sparks.

Sad Cyprus

#Cyprus Depositors Vent Fury Through Social Media

Asylum seekers: the term conjures up images of desperate families fleeing impoverished, war-torn countries.

But the Romeike family, who live in the US state of Tennessee, are not ordinary asylum seekers. Devout Christians from southwestern Germany, the Romeikes say they will be persecuted if they are made to return because their five children are homeschooled – which is forbidden in the European Union’s most populous country.

Next month, an American appeals court will hear oral arguments on whether they should be allowed to stay, in a case legal experts say will help clarify the scope of US asylum law.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, both music teachers, decided to take their children out of the public school system in 2006, claiming they were “bombarded with negative influences” and taught disrespect for authority.

As a result, the parents were slapped with thousands of euros in fines, and one day, Uwe alleged, police came to their home to take the crying children to school in a police van.

Worried the German government might eventually take custody of their children, the Romeikes moved to the United States in 2008, where an estimated 1.5 to 2 million children are legally homeschooled. (Read more)

Open Europe news summary:

German tabloid Bild asks “Will Italy’s political clowns destroy the euro?”, while in an op-ed, Ernst Elitz argues that “After these elections it is clear that the future of our continent will not be decided in Brussels or Berlin but in individual member states that have almost been declared dead already. If the voters there do not vote with understanding but rather on a whim then no bailout fund can help”. Writing in FAZ, Anton Börner, President of the Federation of German Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA), argues that “Monetary stability cannot be negotiated and we need to send a clear message to the South: For us there is life after the euro.”

I hope the 65% of Germans who oppose the Euro support these guys, but I doubt it.

Well, it was probably only a matter of time: a German anti-euro party has just come onto the scene.

Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reports that the new party will launch in April under the name “Alternative for Germany”. The party appears to be an offspring of “Wahlalternative 2013″ (Election Alternative 2013) – a group consisting mostly of academics but also including Hans-Olaf Henkel, the well-known and outspoken former head of Germany’s employers federation BDI. (Read more)