Great Interview with Doug Casey, Simon Black on the Difficulty of Crossing Borders, and a Planned Financial Tax for the EU

Every time you see an interview with Doug Casey posted somewhere, always be sure to read it.  While Casey's message is always the same, it is bound to be chock-full of great quotes.  See his latest interview with The Gold Report:

TGR: Do you see that changing after the next election?

DC: No. I think the chances of Obama being reelected are high, simply because more than half of Americans are big net recipients of state largesse. The U.S. has turned into a larger version of Argentina politically, where the electorate is effectively bribed to vote for the biggest thief.

TGR: Considering what you said a moment ago, that the world doesn't need to stimulate consumption, you must find some irony in the Obama administration's plan to stimulate consumption again in the U.S. as a way to spur some economic growth.
DC: I'm afraid that after being counseled by the fools that surround him, Obama talking about economics is like the blind leading the doubly dismembered. They want to spend $450 billion trying to create new jobs—but these are government jobs, where you have people digging holes during the day and filling them up at night to create the appearance of employment. No government has any idea what the market really wants and needs. There should be zero government involvement in this. The government cannot and should not even try to create jobs. If Obama wants to stimulate the economy, he can decrease the size of the government. I would say a 90% reduction would be a good starting figure.

The most interesting part of the interview is Casey's reply to the notion that the world will hold onto its dollars in order to keep up the mercantilist/Keynesian/export subsidizing industries that have powered their economies at this point:

TGR: Given that the U.S. is the world's biggest consuming nation, wouldn't fleeing the dollar create a big consumer vacuum in the international community? Doesn't the rest of the world want to keep up the high level of exports to these U.S. consumers?
DC: That's exactly why the U.S. is in such trouble; it's idiotically focused on consumption, while only production can create prosperity. The world doesn't need to stimulate consumption. This is another canard, because everybody has an infinite desire for goods and services. I know for myself, I'd like not just a car, but 10 Ferraris, a couple of Gulfstreams and 10 houses around the world. So, by myself, I have an infinite desire for goods and services. Multiply that by 7 billion other people. The only way to gratify those desires is by producing enough to trade with other people to give you what you want. When so-called "economists" think the problem is that we don't have enough consumption, that shows that the profession itself is bankrupt. It's actually quite embarrassing.

The interview is, of course, highly recommended.  Since I am staying on the topic of highly recommended reading for this post, check out Simon Black's newest post at Sovereign Man on his troubles globe trotting:

My current US passport, for example, was issued last February while I was in Thailand. By late summer, there was barely a single square inch of space remaining, so today I had the unfortunate displeasure of heading down to the US consulate in Cape Town to have them insert more pages.
Each time I’m forced to demean myself in this way– sitting around those sterile government waiting rooms and filling out useless paperwork only to justify the salary of some bureaucrat– I have plenty of time to reflect on the nature of this system.
You see, for hundreds, even thousands of years, people moved about the earth without any bureaucracy whatsoever. Just like the African elephants I encountered last week who roam freely between Botswana, Zambia, and DR Congo, people too used to travel freely without worrying too much about invisible lines on a map.
Even up until World War I when boundaries between empires were clearly defined, people could still cross borders without the need of a passport.
After the war, some do-gooders at the League of Nations decided that we couldn’t have all those people traveling freely without government intervention… so they sponsored a series of conferences aimed at designing an international travel document, and worked to establish global border checkpoint protocols that required having one.

As for the cost of new passport pages:

I’ve had fresh pages inserted into my passports so many times, I keep watchful eye on the ever-increasing cost of doing so.  Just over 2-years ago, it cost me nothing at the consulate in Panama. Last year, around $40.  Today in Cape Town? $82. Needless to say, this is pretty significant price inflation from a government that pretends inflation doesn’t exist.

One of the features of truly free society is the ability to move around freely without being hindered.  The exception comes with private property of course.  As we see though, open borders is a tough policy when people vote themselves entitlements and understandably don't want to share.  Rick Perry is obviously having this problem right now.  Open borders could be a viable option if it weren't for two things: warmongering and entitlements.  Wouldn't it make sense that our two political parties support both though claim to only support one?  Our overseas adventurism surely isn't making us any friends while free education, healthcare, and a virtual police state prove too tempting for some to stay away.  That is till it all becomes too expensive and oppressive to live under, but might as well take advantage while you can, right?  In the end, open borders is a policy of peace, cooperation, and beneficial trade.  Welfare and warfare retard such policies by bureaucrats and politicians picking winners and losers

A perfect example of distorting the free interaction of trade are transaction costs, so wouldn't you know it that the EU is attempting to do as such:

The European Commission approved in principle the tax proposal on Tuesday, and the head of the EU executive Jose Manuel Barroso may outline the plan on Wednesday in a "state of the union" address to the European parliament in Strasbourg.
On the commission's drawing-board for more than a year, the idea was given fresh impetus last month when given the nod by Europe's power couple, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"The idea is to force a contribution from the financial sector, which enjoys fiscal privileges thanks to a sales tax exemption, meaning it saves 18 billion euros a year in Europe," an EU source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
If adopted -- not before 2014 -- the tax could ring in between 30 billion and 50 billion euros a year -- possibly half for the European Union budget, the remainder for national governments.
The rate suggested would be minimal with member states free to hike the tax.
The financial transactions tax is slated to target a wide field, with the latest known proposals aiming to slap 0.1 percent on shares and bonds and 0.01 percent on derivatives.

If someone is gonna keep bashing their head against a wall despite all attempts at reason and logic to stop them, there isn't much you can do but let the pain and idiocy occur.  As Mish points out:

Short term traders add liquidity. Would .1% drive them away? Yes, it might. Think of it this way, 10 quick flips is 1%. 100 trades is 10%. In the short-term trading world 100 trades is not a big number.

It's almost painful to watch such self destruction though it's entertaining to see what kind of idiotic ideas the geniuses across the pond come up with next.

I will end with a very apt image for idiocy:

Funny, I know a politician running for president that would do a bang-up job at counseling.  He made an appearance on The Daily Show last night.