Monday, August 23, 2010

An Unsafe Haven

Republic of Haven

During its first centuries of existence, the Republic of Haven was one of the most prosperous human worlds in the galaxy...

In 1700 PD, the Republic was renamed the People's Republic of Haven and used a kind of deceit that transformed the poor sections of society into a welfare state, in which citizens were entitled to a specified standard of living adjusted for inflation known as a Basic Living Stipend.

The economy of Haven was very fragile, and to help stabilize the economy, the government kept a constant state of warfare and conquests.

The legal currency of Haven (throughout all its changes of government) was the Havenite credit.

Two centuries of deficit spending had wrecked Haven's economy to the point that the Legislaturists and the Dolist Managers were unable to fix the problem...

Fortunately, that's just a work of science fiction. It could never happen here!

The first book of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, published in 1993, can be read free here . That's a substantial discount to the price I paid. Isn't deflation wonderful?

This review closely matches my own thoughts on the series.

6 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

I had to take off my Dow 10,000 hat for a moment as the stock market fell this morning. Oh the humanity!

Okay, okay, I don't actually have that hat. I don't even have a Dow 10,000 towel. I threw that in the ring long ago.

Anyone have a Dow 10,000 flag? If it has white lettering on a white background there are probably worse times to start waving it, lol. Sigh.

mab said...

Stag,

Here's a good one:

the fed won't allow deflation

Hahahaha! They already have! Just ask the millions of underwater homeowers. It wasn't inflation that put them underwater it was deflation.

CPI has deflated too and will continue to do so. Bernanke is a fool. Even if he understood the problems and wanted to fix them he wouldn't be allowed.

The majority are screwed. Deflationary depression looms.

Anonymous said...

I would love for a simple stagnation of the stock market and anemic growth for a few years...or decades...

I am worried the wheels really fall off - deflation + depression = not fun

I am still in my dividend play but feeling less comfortable now. Should set up a short hedge.

Still have a lot of money in Chinese cash. One advantage of that is that I can't go mess with it like I do with my stocks, even though I know I should not. Arrrgghhh.

Coba

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab & Coba,

In my opinion, about all the Fed can really do is spread out the pain. If it could actually generate prosperity then it would have been doing that even before the crisis.

So...

Would you like 30 punches to the face today? Or would you prefer one punch to the face every day for the next month?

Um, spread them out I guess. I think the former might kill me, lol. Sigh.

Troy said...

America is now like the last minutes of a Monopoly game . . . one or two winners and everyone else down to their last rolls.

But the board is built full of houses & hotels, the problem is one of distribution of claims to these productive assets, not the quantity.

I think if our tax system more accurately taxed rentierism we'd be able to avoid these end games.

Australia backing down from the 40% severance tax on profits is a sad event for my ideology here.

Monopoly was originally invented by a Georgist to explain the feedback flaws in the system.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Troy,

Interesting Monopoly analogy.

Charles Darrow

After losing his job at a sales company following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Darrow worked at various odd jobs. Seeing his neighbors and acquaintances play a home-made board game in which the object was to buy and sell property, he decided to publish his own version of the game, with the help of his first son, William, and his wife Ester. Darrow marketed his version of the game under the name Monopoly.

Very interesting.