From: frissell@panix.com (Duncan Frissell)
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 94 03:33:42 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: CONTROL FREAKS (nee, AIDs testing and privacy)
Message-ID: <199409091031.AA06267@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>But it is also the case that industrial countries, when they fall on hard 
>times tend to fall back on an authoritarian "bread and circuses" approach to 
>governing.  Fascism in 1930's Germany was one such govenment.  The current 
>government was unable to deal with the financial and social problems and so 
>reactionary elements were able to seize control of the government and impose 
>their own brand of totalitarianism.  

Few note how much the world has changed since the 1930s, however.  In order
to be able to pay its secret police and welfare clients, the US government
has to borrow about $12 Billion a *day* (averaging National Debt financing
over time).  In addition, the economy is depedent on quite a bit of domestic
and foreign investment.  A totalitarian takeover here would make financing
this debt very difficult and cause capital outflows on a scale never before
seen in human history.

As James Carvil (sp?) (Slick Willie's campaign manager) says - "When I die,
I want to be reincarnated as the Bond Market so everyone would be afraid of me."

DCF

Hillary to Bill:

"Why don't you play a game of solitaire?"