Skiing Freedom Quotes

Some say it's wrong to profit from the misfortune of others. I ask my students whether they'd support a law against doing so. But I caution them with some examples. An orthopedist profits from your misfortune of having broken your leg skiing. When there's news of a pending ice storm, I doubt whether it saddens the hearts of those in the collision repair business. I also tell my students that I profit from their misfortune—their ignorance of economic theory.

Economics today creates appetites instead of solutions. The western world swells with obesity while others starve. The rich wander about like gods in their own nightmares. Or go skiing in the desert. You don’t even have to be particularly rich to do that. Those who once were starving now have access to chips, Coca-Cola, trans fats and refined sugars, but they are still disenfranchized. It is said that when Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought about western civilization, he answered that yes, it would be a good idea. The bank man’s bonuses and the oligarch’s billions are natural phenomena. Someone has to pull away from the masses – or else we’ll all become poorer. After the crash Icelandic banks lost 100 billion dollars. The country’s GDP had only ever amounted to thirteen billion dollars in total. An island with chronic inflation, a small currency and no natural resources to speak of: fish and warm water. Its economy was a third of Luxembourg’s. Well, they should be grateful they were allowed to take part in the financial party. Just like ugly girls should be grateful. Enjoy, swallow and don’t complain when it’s over. Economists can pull the same explanations from their hats every time. Dream worlds of total social exclusion and endless consumerism grow where they can be left in peace, at a safe distance from the poverty and environmental destruction they spread around themselves. Alternative universes for privileged human life forms. The stock market rises and the stock market falls. Countries devalue and currencies ripple. The market’s movements are monitored minute by minute. Some people always walk in threadbare shoes. And you arrange your preferences to avoid meeting them. It’s no longer possible to see further into the future than one desire at a time. History has ended and individual freedom has taken over. There is no alternative.

Freedom is necessary for true sanity,” she said. “Because if you’re not free then some part of you has to live in ignorance – or live a lie. Living a lie is worse than any lie ever spoken. Truth isn’t democratic – is part of what I’m trying to say. Two plus two equals four – that isn’t decided in an election. The majority does not define sanity and yet that’s all we’re taught – in our family, school, church, work, politics – get along, go with the crowd, listen to authority, get good grades, don’t talk back, stand in line, wait your turn, cooperate. Wait your turn? But what if your turn never comes unless you get outside of the line and unless you start talking back?

Location-based macro amenities include things like scenic views, river or lake access, nearby hiking trails, or proximity to a winery, ski resort, or national park.

You can choose to focus your advertising within a certain mile radius of your listing and target viewer interests, such as hiking, mountain biking, and skiing. You can also target any major nearby attractions, such as national parks or wineries.

Aside from France, I was baffled by the puzzle of Sweden and other Nordic states, which are often offered as paragons of the large state “that works”—the government represents a large portion of the total economy. How could we have the happiest nation in the world, Denmark (assuming happiness is both measurable and desirable), and a monstrously large state? Is it that these countries are all smaller than the New York metropolitan area? Until my coauthor, the political scientist Mark Blyth, showed me that there, too, was a false narrative: it was almost the same story as in Switzerland (but with a worse climate and no good ski resorts). The state exists as a tax collector, but the money is spent in the communes themselves, directed by the communes—for, say, skills training locally determined as deemed necessary by the community themselves, to respond to private demand for workers. The economic elites have more freedom than in most other democracies—this is far from the statism one can assume from the outside.