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arrotsevni's avatar

Restrictions to free speech have long been a Hallmark of the Eurozone. This is not new but more blatant. Suppression of free speech is directly connected to suppression of creativity, innovation and a society's productivity. One can see this in the stock market indices of Emerging Markets which have such poor performance that it makes one amazed that Wall Street can recommend. China's indices are lower today than when Xi took office. The Eurozone indices underperform the the SP500 by a factor of 4x. One can measure the degree of protections to free speech and protections to property rights in any area by looking at their stock market history over time. Socialist governments suppress the growth normally present and autocratic governments destroy growth eventually leading to the collapse of the central bank and currency. The nominal US$ has been in an uptrend since Putin and Xi took power and increased global chaos. Capital flows to where it is treated best even if today's environment is less favorable in the US than 20yrs ago.

It may prove out that that the control the elites have tried to impose has only served to awaken the sense of freedom inherent in the human spirit. Every day, some one new and prominently known comes to the realization that free speech is the most valuable individual right anyone has.

Most of us believe the 'system' is too big for an individual to influence. Not so. Just being a thoughtful independent thinker and not supporting those trying to manipulate how we spend our earnings is the most important thing we can do. But, we must be alert and consistently make the choice for free speech every day and withhold spending where we can identify a threat.

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Crapp's avatar

Lily - a great summary. It is extremely worrying - this, alongside the rapid militarisation of police forces, could well be the final two nails in humanity’s coffin. We’re going to have to start getting all John le Carré and leave notes in books, stop writing and get into speaking (the same applies, harder to analyse at the moment) and pass flipping usb keys around.

Not that it will help in Ireland, where they have the power also now to enter properties and seize phones, hard drives etc.....

but still, resist we must.

As the great Slim Smith puts it....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rTxFJsc1gms

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