Our minister of finance, Mike Arman, tell us not to believe in everything that is being said about the crisis in world economy etc.
“Your Minister of Finance reminds the Cabinet of Ladonia that 99% of what is printed, published, posted, or otherwise disseminated by the mass media is poorly researched, factually baseless and interested primarily in increasing circulation, which increased circulation is used as justification for higher advertising rates. The other 50% is utter nonsense. (Yes, that is more than 100%, but the media have an unending supply of drivel.)
The world has NOT come to an end, the revolution is not imminent, the sun will rise tomorrow
morning, and hysterical reports to the contrary are simply the frantic efforts of mindless
attention-seekers desperate for even 15 seconds of fame.
A few years ago, we were being warned that the world was inexorably slipping into an ice age, global cooling was about to occur on an unprecedented scale and at an alarming rate, it is all our fault and we were all going to die!
Somehow this didn’t happen.
Now, we are being warned that the world is inexorably heating up, that global warming is about to occur on an unprecedented scale and at an alarming rate, it is all our fault and we are all going to die!
Somehow I don’t think this is going to happen either.
What’s the truth? I don’t know, but what I DO know is that it is not likely to be what you read in the newspapers and on the internet, and if you do believe what you read in the papers and see on the internet, then you ARE going to die – of fear.
There is an old Arab saying (while we are talking about mass-media perceptions!) which goes “When buying a camel, look also at the seller.”
A significant number of global warming advocates stand to make a lot of money over this, whether or not global warming actually happens or not. Al Gore has a global warming foundation – if global warming isn’t real, his funding dries up. If it is, he’s going to be able to say “I told you so!”
Governments stand to make a lot of money on global warming, too. Carbon taxes and carbon trading are being eyed as a source of revenue – and what will they do with all the money, stuff it into the holes in the ionosphere? Will that fix global warming? And if the global warming theory turns out to be wrong, do we get a refund? Somehow I doubt it.
Follow the money – I think you will find that the loudest warnings are being trumpeted by the people and organizations who stand to make the most money if people believe them – whether or not global warming is real, whether or not it is going to happen later today, next week, next year or never.
None of the above should be construed to mean that global warming isn’t real – my own personal opinion is that it might be, and we need to do some more *unbiased* research on it. I also have no problem with better insulation in homes and smaller, more efficient cars. I look forward to buying an electric car for several reasons – first is they are significantly less expensive to operate, and second, I can then gleefully tell Gulf/Mobil/Texaco/Saudi Arabia and Chavez to stick their oil, preferably someplace painful and embarrassing to them, and get out of my wallet and my life.
The world economy isn’t collapsing either. Yes, there is dislocation, unemployment, there are bank failures and various scandals, but these happen in “good times” as well as “bad”. The economies of the world do not grow continuously, sometimes they pause for breath, sometimes they stop and re-trench, and sometimes they falter.
Nevertheless, they always come back, stronger than before, and then they have a whole new set of failures, scandals, and a certain amount of unhappiness and unemployment even while things are “good”. Capitalism is far from dead, it has NOT failed, the USA is not about to fragment, and in a year or two the “recession of 2008-2009″ will be studied mostly in economics textbooks while everyone else is out making lots of money just as fast as they can. (And probably repeating the same mistakes that got us into the recession of 2008-2009 in the first place.)
Most of the time, the media gets it thoroughly wrong even when their intentions are honorable (and sometimes they are not), so why live in a constant state of panic based on media misinformation?
This too will pass.”
