So, what does it feel like to breathe free air again?

Invigorating…

By the way, an apology…

I just noticed that some more radio interviews seem to have disappeared from the web. This one was on the Gary Null show a few years ago. I just saw that it had been removed.  It joins a growing list: a Money Dots interview in 2008, another small interview on Dollar Daze in 2009.

What on earth could I have said that was so upsetting?

I have no idea. But I apologize because these shows were listed on my credits on this blog and their disappearance from the web makes me look like a liar….

A few random observations:

The concept of customer service is overdeveloped in the US…. and underdeveloped most other places.

A barbecue on coal is for wimps. Real men barbecue on wood fires.

Avoid changing money outside a bank and always check your money.

Always get a receipt.

32 hectares can mean 32 square meters of road frontage.

Try to avoid driving a car directly through a rice field.

There are a lot of Americans buying homes abroad. A lot.

Don´t say too much to the person in the expat group who brings up the Zionist lobby.  Tell them you love it… or better yet, say nothing.  He/she could be an informant.

My new piece, “Going Over the Mountain,” http://www.lewrockwell.com/rajiva/rajiva21.html, is posted at Lew Rockwell. So many of you had written asking where to go that I thought I’d write a piece answering some of your questions – and stoutly refusing to answer some of them.

Which questions DIDN’T I answer? Questions like is Panama better for you than Mexico. How would I know? It all depends on what you want to do and who you are.

Meanwhile,  I am going to be AWOL at this blog for a few days.  So bear with me if you don’t find your mail answered or posted here.  I value everyone of my readers and contributors and hope to help you out much better after I’ve finished making a few arrangements for myself.

When I’ve done that – it should take a few months more – I will be in much better shape to answer more of your questions…

Meanwhile, the blog isn’t broken or discontinued. I’m just unable to write for a few days.

So adios for the moment.

I wrote a long post at midnight two nights ago describing how someone was posting on my site deceptively. I described the hacking and threats/warnings [from whom I’m not sure, but the evidence points in a certain direction].

Anyone who thinks that a single individual can easily stand up to a corporation in court is dreaming. Unfortunately, some associations trail behind you like a ball and chain, dragging you down, no matter how hard you close your eyes and run away. The one thing that’s verboten in a masquerade is for someone to see through it.

Musing on how prone life is to imitating cheap fiction, I bought myself a small item of self-defense.

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness

–  George Simenon

Update

The individual who owned the blogs was upset by my post. Actually, I posted no personal information, only the IP address, country and profession of the pseudonymous mail, not the letter with the real name.  And I took the material down quickly on my own. A blog post in the middle of the night is a low-profile way to send a message.

What message?  Something like, don’t post repeatedly under different names on a blog that’s just been attacked and where the blogger suspects stalking. The targeted blogger will justifiably assume you’re the culprit. Sorry….that’s the way it is.

“We weren’t always a nation of big debts and low savings: in the 1970s Americans saved almost 10 percent of their income… It was only after the Reagan deregulation that thrift gradually disappeared…, culminating in the near-zero savings rate … on the eve of the great crisis. …”

— Paul Krugman, Reagan Did It, blaming the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, which Reagan signed in 1982

“Close but no cigar,” says Bill Fleckenstein.
“The actual offending cancerous legislation that kicked off the move toward extra reckless lending did involve then-Rep. Fernand St. Germain, a Rhode Island Democrat. But the problem legislation was the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of March 31, 1980…….”

Reagan’s real mistake was appointing Greenspan.

“Greenspan did it, aided and abetted by almost everyone in the regulatory apparatus who abdicated their responsibility.”

— Bill Fleckenstein, on Paul Krugman’s latest one-note samba (Paul’s finally over his crush on Dubya, it seems..)

In the news:

“GENEVA – The World Health Organization told its member nations it was declaring a swine flu pandemic Thursday — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years — as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.

In a statement sent to health officials, WHO said it decided to raise the pandemic warning level from phase 5 to 6 — its highest alert — after holding an emergency meeting with its flu experts.”

More in this AP report.

In the news recently:

“Reporting from Daegu, South Korea and Beijing — Two American television journalists today were convicted of a “grave crime” against North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor, a move that increased mounting tensions between the U.S. and the reclusive Asian state.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were sentenced by the top Central Court in Pyongyang in a two-day trial that started Friday as U.S. officials demanded the release of the two women.”

More here at The Los Angeles Times.

The Streets of Bakersfield

— Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakum.
Hat tip to Jeff St. Claire at Counterpunch for the link.

From the Independent Institute

“Peruvian journalist Álvaro Vargas Llosa was briefly arrested for a few hours and his passport withheld by the authorities when he arrived at the Maiquetía’s airport in Venezuela. He had been invited participated in a Democracy, Freedom, and Property Forum organized by Venezuela’s main opposition party and the Knowledge Disclosure Centre for Economic Freedom (Cedice).

Álvaro, son of the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, said that after being released he was told he “didn’t had the right to make any political comments, that I’m only a foreigner, but as a Peruvian citizen, a country that was also freed by Simón Bolivar, I don’t think I have less rights than others of Bolivar’s supporters to defend my ideas.”

The head of the Venezuelan United Socialists party (PSUV), President Hugo Chávez, said last week that Álvaro Vargas Llosa and Colombian Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza were going to Venezuela to participate in the inauguration of a new university, which he claimed would teach “neoliberal ideas.

They are coming here using the Forum as an excuse. We are warning them that we are not going to tolerate that behaviour in our country,” said on May 18th the PSUV Communication and Propaganda director, David Medina. “The PSUV will support the government’s decision if they decides to expulse them,” he continued.”

Read more at The Buenos Aires Herald.

In the news recently, events of extreme importance to Latin American economies, and thus to the global economy, since governments, businesses, and individuals from all over the world have been purchasing land (relatively inexpensive land) on the continent:

March 18, 2009 at 8:34am

Bolivian President Evo Morales has distributed thousands of hectares of land to Guaraní communities from Alto Parapetí, in the eastern Bolivian province of Santa Cruz.

At a ceremony this past weekend, Evo Morales delivered 38 thousand hectares to the Guarani, opening a process of land allocation that will end in December 2009.

The land was expropriated from huge land owners last month for failing to comply with the new Constitution. Morales himself accused them of letting the land lie fallow and making the Guarani work in slave-like conditions…….

He also said that Bolivia will continue to respect private property, “but we want people who are not interested in equality to change their thinking and focus more on country than currency.”

And more here on the principles behind Morales’ actions, the Pachamama.

Evo Morales’ Biometric Identity System

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