Imprudent citizens should pay for their rescue missions

The Regional Parliament of the Basque region in Spain has passed a new Taxation Act which charges the cost of rescue missions on whomever takes part in sports in a imprudent fashion. The main Spanish political parties, PSOE and PP, voted in favour of this clause, already in place in Cantabria and Cataluña, as they indicate it will foster a "responsible citizen". The parties opposing this clause claim that the activities considered "extreme sports" were chosen arbitrarily and that the general taxation already fund these rescue missions.

I advocated this rule earlier this year when discussing the rescue missions of Spanish fishermen and mountaineers. At the time some people considered my idea outlandish, ruthless, and heartless. This is a typical response to lots of my libertarian ideas, even though some of them become mainstream later on and then none of those naysayers say anything about it.

Let's remember what I wrote back in April 18th, 2011:

Should there actually be one, the "contract of the taxpayer with the State" should not include a clause like the following one: "The State shall make every effort to save the life of those citizens who put themselves in danger for private interests."

Such contract should include the following [clause]: "Any citizens who put themselves in danger (eg., mountain climbing, working in Lybia) should cover the costs of their rescue if not on a mission ordered by the State".

This latter clause simply follows one of the basic rules that should govern human societies: "benefits and risks must be borne by the same person or entity". Otherwise we are socialising the risks (everyone pays for rescue missions of private adventures) whilst privatising the benefits (the adventurer doesn't share the profits with the taxpayers). This basic rule would induce everyone to perform a correct benefit/risk assessment and would prevent countless opportunities for injustice.

Love and Freedom.

En castellano:

En caso de que realmente sea necesario que exista, el "contrato del contribuyente con el Estado" no debería incluir una cláusula del tipo: "El Estado debe hacer todo lo posible para salvar la vida de los ciudadanos que se ponen en peligro por intereses privados"
Tal contrato deberá incluir lo siguiente: "Aquellos ciudadanos que se pongan en peligro [por ejemplo, montañismo, trabajando en Libia...] deberán cubrir los costos de su rescate si no era una misión ordenada por el Estado".

Esta última cláusula simplemente expone una de las reglas básicas que deben regir las sociedades humanas: "Los beneficios y los riesgos relacionados deben ser recibidos por la misma persona o entidad". De lo contrario estamos socializando los riesgos [todo el mundo paga las misiones de rescate de las aventuras privadas], mientras que privatizamos los beneficios [el aventurero no comparte los beneficios con los contribuyentes]. Esta norma básica induciría a todos a realizar una correcta evaluación de la relación beneficio/riesgo y evitaría un sinfín de oportunidades para la injusticia.

Amor y Libertad.

Eguiguren confirma la mezquindad de Zapatero

Cuando el ominoso ex-presidente Zapatero dijo después del atentado de la T4 que había ordenado "suspender las negociaciones" con la ETA, alguien muy cercano me indicó lo sinvergüenza que era por no haber ordenado la ruptura de las negociaciones ni siquiera después de un atentado mortal. Era otro ejemplo más de su inmundicia moral. Y siguió siendo un mentiroso cuando negaba que las negociaciones para vender Navarra a la ETA continuaban.

El ruín Eguiguren lo confirma ahora en El País, el mismo periódico que insultaba a los que alertaban de que las negociaciones habían continuado y el Gobierno mentía. Los defensores del PSOE y de El País deberían ahora dar explicaciones: escuché decir el 13 de marzo de 2004 que los españoles merecen un gobierno que no les mienta. Disgusting.

Love and Freedom.

Ruego al Rey que abdique

Nunca me había pronunciado sobre el Rey aunque sí tenía una opinión sobre él. Sin embargo, si me preguntan ahora sí que diría algo parecido a Federico Jiménez Losantos: si me llamara el Rey, le diría: "Su Majestad, los españoles le agradecemos los servicios prestados y le tendrán siempre en sus corazones por haber traído la Constitución; pero, por el bien de España, yo le ruego que abdique en el Príncipe."

Love and Freedom.

HBOS case

A bit more info on HBOS case. I lived in the UK through the summer of 2008 and I was outraged by this case because I was a taxpayer in Britain and I knew we would end up shouldering the burden (as it happened).

On the wake of the subprime mortgages HBOS was going under given the illiquidity inherent to the banking . Meanwhile, Lloyds (the most boring bank in the UK) was doing ok as it hadn’t gone into fancy financial toxic stuff.

But HBOS was Scottish, the UK PM Gordon Brown is Scottish and the Labour Party obtained lots of votes from Scotland. The government would be harmed by the demise of HBOS (as it had been with Northern Rock) and, as governments always do, they acted in their own interests: Gordon Brown pushed Lloyds’ CEO to acquire HBOS for political reasons, not for economical reasons.

Lloyds’ active shareholders didn’t want Lloyds to acquire HBOS: they kept appearing in the press. The independents in the press indicated that it was a very bad deal. It was apparent to everyone! HBOS’ own shareholders hadn’t taken up the rights issue in July 2008. It didn’t matter: Gordon Brown personally brokered the deal with Lloyds TSB. An official said: “It is not the role of a Prime Minister to tell a City institution what to do”.[that official was right, but the PM Brown intervened anyway].

The Lloyds TSB board have stated that merchant banks Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley were amongst the advisers recommending the takeover. [mmm wasn’t Morgan Stanley the underwriter that had been caught out? Banks have a too cosy relation with and too much influence on the governments. This will always happen: IMHO the solution is to curtail governments’ power.]

UK government assurance to save the banks and dispensation with respect to competition law and “don’t worry, public money is no one’s and the government will give it away” convinced just enough Lloyds shareholders to approve the takeover.

Result of the government’s strategy:

In late 2008 UK government loaned heaps of cash to Lloyds and ended up nationalising not only HBOS but the whole of Lloyds. [hey taxpayers’ money is free, isn’t it!]

From FT 2010: The dramatic scale of losses suffered by Lloyds Banking Group through the acquisition of HBOS was laid bare on Friday when the part-nationalised UK lender’s full-year results revealed it had made £30bn of provisions over the past two years on loans inherited from the deal.

Well done, Gordon. Thanks so much.

Still bastards in PSE-PSOE

The terrorist group ETA claims to have given up terrorism. They have played the same trick several times in the past, usually when they were being weakened by the police. Whoever believes them now is either a fool or one of their advocates.

The Spanish Socialist Party PSE-PSOE are now trying to give the ETA what these wanted to get through their terrorism. I recover an old post which still holds "Bastards in PSE-PSOE".

José Luís Rodríguez, Jesús Eguiguren, Alfredo Pérez: seréis recordados como viles traidores a España.

Love and Freedom.

Facebook discussion on the BBC

Borjabrela: The only way ahead with the BBC (and any other state-funded media) is scrapping the TV licence, thank her for her services and wish her a better life.

STOP STATE INDOCTRINATION.

RandomSpaniard: Done. My email to these guys: "I write to inform you that I live in the year 2011 Anno Domini and was not aware there was a Common Era.
I will not be paying my TV licence until the BBC returns to the same time dimension I live in. The ...See more
Less dramatic than it sounds, given we don't own a TV or pay the licence anyway.

Borjabrela: Excellent!

Labour-leaning colleague: I wish there was a dislike button, as having travelled in other countries I thank god we have the BBC every time I flick a TV on switch. The state/establishment bias on the BBC is no worse than the corporate bias of the commercial media and it has been the the commercial media that has used wholesale mysogny, xenophobia and scientific illiteracy to debauch our culture these past forty years.

Borjabrela: I don't pay for the corporate bias of the commercial media. I pay for the bias of the BBC. You like the BBC, you pay for it. I don't like the BBC, I should not be made pay for it. Period.

Labour-leaning colleague: The BBC is democratically accountable: this sometimes means the wishes of the majority(those who want a counterweight in the form of state funded media) sometimes outweigh the minority (those who would not pay for it). The BBC is a good thing for society and we know this because people keep voting for it. All you have to do to get rid of it is elect a party with its removal on their manifesto. This democratic accountability is in stark contrast to the corporate media, where whilst I have never bought a Murdoch paper, the minority that do are considered sufficiently powerful to corrupt the political and law enforcement fabric of this country - something which directly affects me as a non-purchaser.

RandomSpaniard: LLC, nobody has ever been given a choice on the BBC so stop fantasising about democratic accountability. All the main parties have colluded to keep it place and not give voters a choice.

Labour-leaning colleague: They haven't colluded. If there was a strong move in public opinion against it you can bet it would appear on a manifesto. The conservatives in particular despise it - Thatcher hated the BBC, but recognised it would have been electoral suicide to touch it. Even when the establishment does feel brave enough to move against public opinion and attack the BBC (Hutton report) or after the tv faking scandals of a few years ago people still love the BBC. It is one of the core British institutions and a huge part of the nation's intellectual and cultural life.

Borjabrela: LLC, "democratically accountable" are two words used by authoritarian people who want to force unwilling individuals to fund their wishes (just like you). The same way that the fact that Hitler and Franco won polls didn't make them any more "democratic". What is "democratic" by the way? It is one of those words manipulated by socialists/authoritarians to deceive the population. Any time anyone uses the "democratic" argument is discredited in my opinion in the same way that you claim any time anyone uses the "nazi" argument is discredited.

Also I don't need a strong move in public opinion against the BBC for me to deem the BBC a despicable attack to my liberty and therefore for me to consider retaliation actions. The same way that the strong move in some countries to chop female gonads doesn't make this practice any more acceptable in my opinion. STOP STATE INDOCTRINATION still beholds.

It happens that individuals who are against the State are less organised and have less will to use the resorts of power offered by the State (ie., libertarians don't hold a grip in any political party like the unions do) or the mass-manipulation methods (like the liberals do with the BBC). This causes a bias in favour of the state in the governing elite. This does not indicate that my opinion is less valid.

Finally, it makes me laugh that socialist/authoritarians usually use the argument of "evil corporativism influencing the government and hence people's lives" against anti-statist individual-freedom advocates. Don't you guys realise that the main issues in that sentence are: 1, there is a government which can be used as a channel to dominate people's lives, so the solution is to limit government's power; and 2, corporativism is the result of no freedom of competition usually endorsed by the governments. People in power both in government and business collude, but it happens that Tesco/Times can't send me to prison whereas the government would send me to prison/fine me if I don't pay the BBC licence.

Love and Freedom.

Film on Mitterrand

Heidi Ellison's review of the film Le Promeneur du Champ-de-Mars, directed by Robert Guédiguian and based on the book Le Dernier Mitterrand by Georges-Marc Benamou, casts some light on the real person of Socialist François Mitterrand, President of France for 14 years (1981-95).

He was also a consummate politician who was not above lying to preserve his position. Although he knew he had prostate cancer and a short life expectancy at the beginning of his first term in office, he never told the public [...].

Shortly before his death in January 1996, the existence of a long-term mistress and a teenage daughter, Mazarine Pingeot, was revealed in the press, which had known about them all along but dared not reveal their existence because of France’s strict privacy laws and for fear of retribution from the president.

A man who did not tolerate opposition lightly, Mitterrand went so far as to order illegal wiretapping of his perceived enemies. Even the actress Carole Bouquet’s phone was tapped, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

And, in an issue treated in the new film, he never really came clean about his participation in the collaborationist Vichy government during World War II before he switched sides and joined the Resistance.

This last bit about the collaboration with dictatorships before switching to the winning democratic side is something many Spanish Socialist politicians know a lot about.

My old post gives more interesting information on Mitterrand.

Love and Freedom.