The Freedom Search

If days ago I was speaking about cities becoming soviet theme parks reality shows gulags, now it is the very Government which is taking one more step to the Paradise of Equality.

Last November, in a diversion tactic from Spanish PM Mr. Shoemaker (english translation for Zapatero), the Government proposed a new law by which surnames to newborns would be given… by alphabetical order.

Absolute nonsense? Let me explain. Thanks to The Inquisition, spanish citizens have two surnames: the first from dad, second from mum. This was to ensure purity of blood after the expulsion of jews back in 1492, as Spanish sephardim followed the mother’s line.
Having both surnames of the parents publicly shown, The Inquisition eased any inspection denounce or Auto de Fe by automatic check: bad second surname = let’s have a long talk.

600 hundred and something years later, the Socialist Government thought about it and resolved that equality of surnaming should be applied, so now, surnames are given by alphabetical order, unless both parents are against it.

But after that, the Government was not fully satisfied. Spain needed more equality. Even more equality than other countries. So the The Ministress of Tic-tac-toe The Healthcare™, The Equality™ and The Social Policy™ launched another equally bullshitting proposal: the Law on Equal Treatment and Non Discrimination.

By this law, the Spanish Government pretends to promote and defend freedom of discrimination… sorry, I meant being free from discrimination. The Ministress wants

to create a society that does not humiliate anyone and also a society that does not allow anyone to be humiliated. A society where they feel safe and where they feel protected by the law.

But what the news I linked does not say, but really appears on the draft (although not this way as The Government excused), is that with this law, anyone can accuse anyone of discrimination by birth, racial or ethnic origin, sex, religion, belief or opinion, age, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, illness or any other condition or personal or social circumstance, and the accused will have to prove that he or she did not discriminated. In spanish legal slang, this is called inversion of proof charge.

This is how a big door will be opened to all those really charming people who shouts “Racist!” (or anything) when they don’t get what they want, giving them legal advantage, and providing equal odds to every person in the country to be sued by a bullshitter.

I think I’m going out to earn redistribute some non-discriminatory monies from all those people I can’t stand… oops… I obviously meant that I will be going out to be a Good Citizen and report all those damn discriminators to the new State Authority for Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination.

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Shout Racist poster by Maksim @ ThePeoplesCube.com

That security crowd-sourcing is fashionable these days is not really big news. In the Netherlands, the police asked plain citizens to sniff for illegal marijuana plantations, and here in Spain, We The People™ are the ones who must enforce the new anti-tobacco law.
The Ministress of Tic-tac-toe The Healthcare™, The Equality™ and The Social Policy™ herself encouraged us to inform denounce anonymously, and on the radio I heard about “Bars and restaurants who were enforcing the law pretty good”.

But in a little city near Tarragona, The People™ has decided to fight the economic crisis in a funny way. It is no longer a city, but a real gulag in which a network of informants good citizens work with the police to warn of Suspicious Behavior™ as exchanging objects, two people shaking hands, new cars in the neighbourhood, or just what they deem appropriate.

I don’t know if the initiative is to assemble a sort of theme park related to the STASI and the GDR or the KGB and the USSR, but it’s really… eeerr… surprising?

Best of all is that the network of informers is made of retired grannies who, instead of looking at the street works and annoying people pretending to be deaf, now they can put their critical capacity to new uses.

As the Mayor say, cities such London already launched similar initiatives, but what is not being discussed are the results: electrified diabetics, citizens being dramatically arrested in the street in broad daylight while bearing a music player…

Untrained and plain citizens should not and can not be the first line of defence or to be responsible for security tasks. In any case. One thing is the cooperation of citizens, but this is a kibbutz, a gulag which encourages everyone to watch everyone, destroying personal trust in the name of security and the Common Good™. The worst thing of all is that some people are applauding…

Not long ago, we were enjoying a tremendous traffic jam and listening to the radio, when we found an interesting interview. In it, a well known entrepreneur commented some aspects of his new book, Against the culture of subsidy.

He said that in Spain there is a tremendous fear of failure, and therefore the level of entrepreneurship is the lowest in Europe. I agree, but let me add one more cause: hate to success. The model of the dog who neither eats nor lets eat.

Let me explain: you try to build upon an idea, but nobody pays damn attention (at best, at worst they laugh at your face), so you have to go to the other side of the world. But when you say it, voices start to reproach, precisely, about you going taking the idea elsewhere. And be careful if it works and you dare to come back …

That anger, that hatred towards the one that gets or tries to leave by its own means off the stagnant well of shit, is terrible. In a country of lordly fops and deal-obtainers, those who dare not to go along by their rules, are faced with death. Social, and economic if possible.

We can find another example, a website of links to TV shows and movies, that a journalist decided to ‘investigate’, publishing full names of those responsible, company name and, tadaaa: estimated monthly income, based on some esoteric calculations from other similar websites.
At the time, the guys in charge opted to close some of its accounts and blogs, I guess to avoid the trolling or a DDoS attack, so fashionable lately.

Another plausible option is that these people do not want to be in the public eye, under the scrutiny of the mass of commentators, pundits and other screaming zombies. Because unlike ants, when humans gather in large numbers creating a “mass”, “collective intelligence” becomes “subprime intelligence”.
It did take no time to start reading out pearls and diamonds the size of “those who go down, has something to hide”, “now we have a live Wikileaks of our own”, or to launch accusations to those guys of being freeloaders, usurpers, thieves and other niceties when, little less than two years ago, these same pundits boasted of distributing similar products for free. Pure Party Approved Bullying®.

Being in business in this country is really difficult. Procedures are slow, stupid, expensive and sometimes duplicate. Obviously, everyone will be eager to suck money at the expense of who had the audacity of wanting to be different.
And when things do not go well, the same way in reverse. Even to close the firm, friends of your money appear everywhere. From the state to the notary, through the accountant.

But as the thing goes minimally good, then they start to appear: critics, ethicists, researchers and opinion leaders who are dedicated to systematically destroy, brick by brick, the house that one took so long to build.

Earn money for your work? Benefiting from an idea? And, moreover, economic profits? Who the hell would think that! Capitalist pigs… damn bloody oppressors … let’s redistribute their wealth! Collectivization for The Common Good®!

Oh, and I forgot the “If not for me, not for anybody®”.

It is nobody’s business what this or that company bills or fails to bill. If someone gets mad when a company moves forward and charge for their services or products, I believe that in North Korea there are still some untapped field of beets.

But, it’s always more important to wikilick the deal-obtainers, and that those who have ideas, those who bring them out and build a boat, which by the way, the state slashes them with taxes, it is important that these people end up disgusted and closing the shed (and incidentally stopping to pay those wonderful, succulent taxes, although it seems that nobody has thought of it).

Either that or going somewhere else where the winds are more favourable, and the population of zombies is as small as possible, or in the process of extinction. Perhaps this is the solution, the creative brain drain increasing to a level that the country will finally sink completely, being able make tabula rasa.
But do not expect me.

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Poster by Red Square @ ThePeoplesCube.com

If you do not know who was Richard W. Sears, you’re not an “entrepreneur.” You should go back to school and repeat the whole cycle of education. But as I am in a good mood, you must only see Chapter 6 of the show America: The Story of Us (a show tremendously recommended otherwise)

Back in 1886, Richard Warren Sears was working as an agent-telegrapher at a railroad line in Minnesota. A shipment of 2500 gold pocket watches arrived at the station where he worked. As no one had asked for them and nobody wanted, he decided to buy them all. He then offered the watches to their railroad colleagues using the telegraph… and sold them all at $14, earning $2per clock. $5000 profit, clean… in 1886.

The success of the sale was in Richard’s ability to observe and recognize opportunities: at the time, late nineteenth century, pocket watches were considered a sign of urban sophistication. Moreover, due to the recent connection of both American coasts by the iron horse, a new concept which was applied a few years ago in England, was implemented there too: time zones.

Already in 1840, British Great Western Railway synchronized, for the first time in history, a series of local times in different towns of England with a standard time, Greenwich Mean Time.
Ten years later, what in England was known as Railway time, started do be implemented in America, to set and synchronize the five rail lines that crossed all the continent, coast to coast.

Among the labour need for rail operators to use new and more accurate clocks, and these watches being considered a luxury and a provider of social status to the inhabitants of rural America, Richard sold them all in six months, winning 10 times his salary rail. He bought more watches and started a mail order service along the railroad line of Minnesota.

Richard Sears saw yet more clearly the opportunities offered by the railroad for the sale and distribution of goods. And so was born the catalog sales, and so it was founded Sears Roebuck & Co., the largest retailer in the United States until the end of the World War II.

Sears began selling watches. Alvah Curtis Roebuck, a watchmaker, the first employee and eventually founding partner, was hired to repair those watches that were returned. And then joined Julius Rosenwald, a tailor, which extended the offer in the catalog.
Watches, ladies and gentleman clothes, plows, bicycles, refrigerators, pianos, lamps … all in a 700-page catalog.

Richard teamed two decentralized networks, railways and telegraph, and clearly saw an opportunity: Sears Roebuck & Co. could sell anything and send it from Boston to California in less than a week.

A hundred and so years later, Sears joined the bandwagon of selling and renting movies via streaming.

While here in Spain there are some who miss the good times, all around the world there come out new businesses that only those with sight will take some profit of them. 100 years ago, Sears sold 10,000 units of sewing machines using a decentralized network, the railroad, and that was the first step in creating the largest national economy in history. Today, they sell and rent movies using the distributed network of fiber optic cables: the Internet.

Those who wants to see, they will see. Those who do not, are going straight into the ravine, whilst following the piper.

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Pied Piper – illustration by Kate Greenaway – Project Gutenberg eText 1834

After some months lurking there, I think it is time to come back. Autumn is here, and with it some chilly winds which will require work to deal with.

These days I’ve been doing a somewhat ‘spring break’. Sorry for not updating, I will be back.

Who is John Galt?
Both questions have completely different meaning… or at least they should.

Years ago I was a partial time wage-earner doing what is known as “working for somebody else”. Then I met some people and start collaborating with them in my free time, for free.
Years later, they offered me a free-lance partial time job working at home as the editor of an electronic newspaper, which combined with my other partial-time job, made a good income. Life was good, and then it started to change.
In exchange of that, and in 4 years maximum, me and my wife where supposed to build our own firm and economically sustainable business, for which we would receive all help needed. And so we did, in one year, with these people as financial partners and shareholders.

I quitted my first partial job, and also did my wife, and started to dedicate almost full time to our new company, keeping some time for the newspaper.

Since our partners and I we were writing and thinking togheter for years, we were supposed to grow together, and with time, they developed a life system.
6 months after we quitted our former jobs, my wife and I chose to leave our home, family and friends back, and join our partners. Integrate with them and their life-system:

• The company pays all: rent, food, tools and devices, healthcare and whatever you may want.
• Cash money: after having all your expenses paid, you could have your own cash money for your own expenses, without having to give any explanation. Just pass the invoice and get your transfer.
• Everyone works for everyone: the strong business helps the new one to grow, and in exchange, when the small becomes strong, returns the investment.
• Easy leaving: if you wanted to have some vacation, you were supposed to resign the ‘all paid service’ but continue receiving your cash money for your private expenses. If you wanted to leave and build another business, you received all necessary funding and collaboration, in exchange of joining the companies group once the business was running.

We had all our needs fulfilled. We had computers, e-readers, paid travels… as in Atlas Shrugged, we’ve found Galt’s Gulch, Mulligan’s Valley… we found Atlantis.
With this scheme, you are supposed to be happy and, as much work you do, the better for you, and your brothers.

Atlantis sinking

But then things started to screw. Reality was starting to be distorted. What one day was white, it was black the next, grey the day after, and completely unexistant the day after.
The thing went on for six months. Four of the eight people who were there were forced to leave, and we started to become even more paranoid, until we decided to leave and get back home.
After we said that, we did not received anything, neither support nor a single penny, and had to pay the truck moving our stuff back. We were almost on the street, without a job and without any money.

What was the thing that broke our Atlantis dream? We were supposed to work for ourselves and, this way, promoting the common wealth, but in reality, all of us where working for one person’s only dream and project. He was letting us enjoying a tiny part of the benefits, but paying a high price: our soul.

Joining other people projects can be really profitable, but only when the rules are clear, pre-accorded time before starting and one never changes them every hour, pretending it was like that since the beginning.
Written proof and contract is always mandatory, as for foolers, scammers and evil people make profit from the ones that still give a strong meaning to ones own word, while they change this word to whatever their insane mind needs in that precise moment.

Working for yourself, alone, can be not as quick as working in team. But it is always more profitable, sane and better. If you fail, you will be the only one to blame. But if you do success, you will get all the benefits.

For whom I work? What can I do for myself?
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Greece, the craddle of western civilisation, at last is saved. This is not like in the movie, but for real. The European Union decided to rescue Greece from total failure and becoming another bankrupt state, as indeed became Iceland not so far in time.

Finally, Germany and France achieved their first objective: not to pay for ransoms and bailouts. But at what price? Having the International Monetary Fund inside the kitchen, telling what to do and, eventually, having some extra devaluation.

And this is ‘good news’, may be not as good as expected, for Spain. Did anyone wondered why Mr. Zapatero was talking about ‘solidarity’ between member states? Did it was because Spain holds the semestral presidency? Or did it was because he is preparing the field, as The ‘S’ goes behind the ‘G’ in PIGS?

The socialist president of Spain is hardening and preparing for what it can be the worst time in Spain for years. Let me draw the picture:
He and his ministers are repeating ad nauseam that the country has left the crisis behind (and if it don’t, it will, very soon).
On the other hand, we have a bunch of people (more than 4 milion) which lost their jobs, in a somewhat sustained rate between january and july in 2008, but with a significant boom starting in the second semester of the year, which slightly ended in july 2009 (as Spain is a tourist-living country)… but then started going up again and it is not appearing to stop.
Almost 80% of those 4 milion people applied for, and were granted, unemployement subsidies.

The most of these subsidies where granted between the end of 2008 and july 2009, and they last one year and a half. As summertime jobs will ease the thing a bit, this brings us to next september, when unemployement subsidies will start to finish, and people will starting to get without any sort of income whatsoever.

There are programmes to ease self-employement of course… but the most of them are subsidiers to franchise owners to sell their products to people who does not have 15000€ to 30000€ to buy it. And for the small and middle companies, the state behaves as a leech, sucking them to the bones and forcing them to go inoperant or worse: close and throw more people to the unemployement office.

But the picture is even worse, as thanks to the government baby cheques of 2500€+3600€ per baby, spanish natality rate peaked into the highest since 1990 (surprisingly 2 years before the last crisis…) and now it is normal that at least one parent is unemployed and taking care of one or two childs.

But the picture can get ever worse! Thanks to these months of ease and the thought of overcoming the crisis, real estate and housing prices experienced a slight recovery, and started to rise up again. Banks started to grant mortgages, and many people whom were waiting to buy, took the decision and stepped up to what they hope to be great bargains.

So, to resume, it can be that next autum, 4 milion people and their 3 year old childs find themselves without any sort, kind or way to get input money at all, unable to pay their loans and mortgages.

Usually, families rely on parents or near relatives, but this will not help then, because it is helping now and parents in their 50′s and 60′s are starting to give their savings to their sons and grandsons in order to help them pay the rent and get their food.

Spain is now in the calm before the storm. And it will be a huge storm, as things can get extremely nasty. With the state’s vaults empty thanks to ‘progressive bailouts’ of banks and construction scammers, blank cheques and so, you may get a look at Argentina and its ‘corralito’ back in 2001. This could be a very real picture for the next christmas in Spain.

What the EU will do then? What will the IMF will do? What Germany, France or the craddle of western civilisation (Greece) will do? Will they be wanting to bail out a failed and bankrupt state, full of very angry people? Or will they leave the rescue to Russia, or China? Will the EU and its currency resist?

2009 was a great punch in the nose, but 2010 could be a complete KO. Now it is time to dig a trench, as deep as anyone can, get covered in there, and look to the horizon, waiting one of the worst hurricanes to pass.
What can it take on its way? No one knows. It could be the ‘world’s economic system’ or lots of people’s savings, but it can easily bring the failure of democratic ‘nation-state’. It can experience a great setback and, who knows, even dissapear.

I do not care, whatsoever.

Last week a video came out from the dust. It shows a fancy guy in a freaky stage, singing some unintelligible sounds in the worst playback of the world. It is one of the most creepy videos I’ve seen in my whole life. I saw it for the first time in a late show TV program, last thursday:

It seems that after being ‘asleep’ during almost a year, as the first uploaded video seems to be from february 2009, it came to life after some sites echoed the song. From there, it jumped into Colbert Report and Jimmy Kimmel TV programmes, and once there, the Trololo Guy, as it is known now, became mainstream and skyrocketed. After that, russian news and TV programmes rescued The Artist Formerly Known As Andrew Hill and got it back under the spot, interviewing him and showing him all the worldwide buzz in which his 70′s song became.

As in every fashion trend, unknown-book-becoming-a-best-seller or cult-director-going-commercial, It only took the time to reach the proper persons, and that those persons made a short review. That’s called the tipping point. When something reaches the most pre-eminent nodes some social network, and this node chooses to talk about it, or to pass it to its contacts, it usually booms exponentially. Social network software, as facebook or twitter, are simple tools that makes the thing a bit quicker.

It happened in Philippines in 2001 with the overthrowing of President Estrada, in Spain in 2004 after the government lied about the 11-M bombing, and again in 2004, this time in Ukraine and the Orange Revolution, after the rumours of the pro-russian government stole elections.
It did not happened two years after in Belarus and the Denim Revolution, as the armed police disrupted the crowd before it reached the tipping point.

Taking in consideration the differences between the cases, as the results from Orange or Denim revolutions were so different between them, and somewhat permanent, the system works the same way for anything: from books to songs to videos to comics. It just takes to find the correct node in any social network.

The Trololo Guy will keep his momentum and continue his race around the world for some weeks (note that the facebook profile is now booming with spanish users), but eventually will start to go down as the next “whatsoever guy” appears and asks for its one month of glory. It does not matter how brilliant, how awesome, how ugly or how disgusting (remember goatse?) the thing is. Once it gets over the tipping point, there is no stop but memory.