I want to express HUGE gratitude and give big, big thanks to the people of the Language of Liberty Institute and the others who made the LLI Liberty and Entrepeneurship Camp in Martin, Slovakia possible.

You are:

• Mary Lou Gutscher — Top organizatrix, cruise director, mama bear
• Glenn Cripe — Flow steerer, piano man, inspirational focus
• Andy Eyschen — Co-[redacted], [redacted] of [redacted] and [redacted]
  
• Radovan Ďurana — Semi-detached Master of All Things, glue man
• Dušan Viluda — Súdruh, kolaborant, opatrovateľ, spolupracovník a kamarát všestkým

At the camp, I made a bunch of new friends, met several new co-conspirators, a collaborator, a couple of secret society bothers, at least two business partners and a handful of new comrades.

None of this would have been possible without your dedication and perseverance. I have great luck to have been able to ride along in the wake of the energy you mustered and deployed, and to have thus made such connections.

Major thanks to all of you for making the week in Martin something amazing — something brilliant.

Milý súdruh Dušan! Okrem toho, že Ti srdečne ďakujem, poprosil by som, aby si mohol viezť moje poďakovanie aj Barborke, ktorá nás dala takú dokonalú a povznášajúcu demonštráciu slobody (i naozaj šikovnosti a zručnosti) v akcii! Zároveň ďakujem Tvojmu synovi aj ostatným zamestnancom hotela. Súčasne, uvidíme sa, kedy môžeme sa rozprávať na tému toho obchodého nápadu… že?

Last year I attended as a regular dude. This year I’m going as a volunteer helper-outer, and will probably lead some discussions as well.

Those of you with the time might wish to check it out.

Mainstream media:

Today I have a studio interview with Radio Slovakia International. Will update with broadcast times and audio if and as available.

News sites:

Anarchistnews.org: Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release)

Digg: American renounces citizenship, becomes stateless person (self-submission)

G-Vision: Obyvateľ bratislavy sa zrieka amerického občianstva (press release snippet, in Slovak)

INESS: Osoba bez štátnej príslušnosti (press release, short commentary in Slovak)

Infoshop.org: American renounces citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release)

reddit /r/Anarchism: American renounces citizenship, becomes stateless person (nostate.com) (self-submission, 44 comments)

UK Indymedia: American renounces citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release)

vybrali.sme.sk: Američan žijúci na Slovensku sa vzdal amerického občianstva (Slovak-language social news site, press release snippet linked to Ambience blog post below, unfriendly commentary)

Blogs:

Ambience: Američan žijúci na Slovensku sa vzdal amerického občianstva (press release, mixed commentary, in Slovak)

After Armageddon News: Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release snippet)

(A)utonomous Resistance: American Renounces Citizenship, Becomes Stateless Person (press release)

Corktageous: Mike Gogulski Foolishly Rejects The “Freedom” Of The US Dictatorship (press release, friendly commentary)

Cryptogon: Bratislava Resident Renounces American Citizenship, Becomes Stateless Person (press release, friendly feedback) — Thanks, Kevin!

DarianWorden.com: Man No Longer Claimed as Citizen (press release snippet)

Detainees: Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release, petty comments)

Less is More: Things I read – December 12, 2008 (link, comment)

No Treason: Nostate.com blogger renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release, friendly commentary)

Optionism: Renunciating as Legitamacy (link, pro-sovereignty dissent contra renunciation)

Rabbit Creative: Pay us, or we will kill you. (press release)

Rad Geek People’s Daily: Gogulski becomes stateless (press release, friendly commentary, hilarity ensuing in the comments)

The Radical Libertarian: Mike Gogulski: Fuck America (press release, friendly comments)

See For Yourself: Man renounces US Citizenship, becomes stateless (press release)

¡Ya Basta!: Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release)

Forums:

3monkeyz.net: American renounces citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release, friendly reactions)

The Cassiopaea Forum: Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person (press release)

diskusné fórum.sk: Fico boduje (random linkage, Slovak)

FreeMarkets.ca Forum: Mike Gogulski Of nostate.com Renounces His U.S. Citizenship (press release)

The Road Home: Re: General News (press release snippet, friendly commentary)

At the risk of a bit of self-promotion, well, here I am self-promoting a bit.

I’m very pleased to announce the unveiling of the English version of Cena Štátu, The Price of the State.

The website is an overview of the cost of the Slovak state, broken down into budget areas, with some added features:

• What do YOU pay? — a calculator that allows taxpayers of Slovakia to determine roughly the level of their enslavement, with handy graphs and just a few easy numbers to enter.
• Buy Your Own State — an e-shop that gives you the chance to fill your shopping cart with just those state services you want. Roll your own minarchist utopia or just can the whole thing and save the rest of us some cash!
• If you can read Slovak, or just enjoy cool financial visualization diagrams, check out The Universe of Public Expenditures.

The website is an ongoing project of INESS, the Institute of Economic and Social Studies, a free-market oriented think tank based in Bratislava. My rather minor contribution is the translation (nearly complete, but hey, we’re live!) from Slovak to English. The folks at INESS do all the hard work.

Enjoy!

Mike

Attendees came from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, and Slovenia.

Instructors/organizers/facilitators came from the USA, UK, Switzerland, France, Malaysia (more on him later!), Slovakia and Canada.

A grand time was had by all. These photos are mostly from student presentations during the camp’s final evening.

The quality is often poor, unfortunately. My camera does a rather poor job indoors, and has a slow shutter speed so there’s plenty of blurring, which can sometimes be amusing

UPDATE 27 May 2009: I have moved the photos to Photobucket.

I’ll be attending the Liberty English Camp in Vrútky, Slovakia. It is organized by INESS, the Institute of Economic and Social Studies, a Bratislava-based free-market think tank, and The Language of Liberty Institute.

Depending on coverage, I’ll have wireless internet access there via a laptop borrowed from a friend. I don’t expect to be blogging much if at all, as the program there is quite full.

Now if only the State would take a week off every so often…

Me, I’m off to go jack up the rates I charge to translation agencies now, so they can’t jail me later.

From The Slovak Spectator:

Put up prices: go to prison

Businesspeople may face jail for euro price hikes under planned law

9 Jun 2008

UNJUSTIFIED price hikes prior to the adoption of the euro as Slovakia’s currency might result in businesspeople being sent to jail if a government plan to protect citizens from pre-euro price inflation becomes law.

[...]

Children branded by their new currency masters

The revision, which would impose a prison sentence on anyone who violates price discipline rules, would become valid in September.

Prime Minister Robert Fico described the law as a tool to penalise those who plan to make a fortune at the expense of others during the euro-switch.

“If someone is such a crook that they elevate prices only to become rich at the expense of someone else, the penal code will be applied,” Fico told a press conference on June 4.

[...]

Judging by details available so far, it seems that any citizen who feels they have suffered from an unjustified price increase will be able to report the business concerned to the police.

[...]

The revision indicates a lack of understanding of the basic principles of the market economy, where the optimal price is generated based on demand and supply, said the executive director of the Slovak Business Alliance, Robert Kičina.

“The freedom to set prices is a basic right of businesses operating in a competitive environment, and price changes are not a reason for criminal proceedings,” Kičina told The Slovak Spectator.

Richard Ďurana, director of the economic think-tank INESS, agrees that such legislation has no place in market economy. “It certainly won’t help businesses if the prime minister flatly throws them into the same group as criminals,” Ďurana told The Slovak Spectator.

[...]

“Instead of explaining the advantages of the euro, the government is evoking an unjustified suspicion among people that businesses want to use the switch to the euro to elevate prices,” Kičina said. “The revision criminalises the business environment.”

The best price regulator is competition and a watchful customer, say business professionals.
Lifting prices above the optimal level is disadvantageous for businesses because sales drop, Kičina said, adding that if prices fall beneath the optimal level consumers also lose out because production falls.

An important pre-condition for a functioning market is free access, so that if a business elevates prices in an unjustified way alert competitors can immediately enter the market and compete with lower prices, Ďurana said.

“The solution is to erase regulations, not to create more,” Ďurana said.

Neither Ďurana nor Kičina expect businesses to use the euro-switch to push up their prices to any great extent.

“If there was currently room to inflate prices, businesses would increase their prices today and would not wait for the euro,” Kičina said.

No country entering the eurozone before now has implemented criminal penalties for raising prices. However, in Slovenia businesses and the government signed an agreement about not elevating prices before the euro’s adoption, in order for the country to be able to meet the inflation criterion, said Kičina.

“The moment the term of the agreement expired, prices jumped and Slovenia is now struggling with the highest inflation within the eurozone,” Kičina concluded.

According to Ďurana, Malta installed a tough regime of price controls and a system of reporting price increases, with the added pressure of financial penalties.

“Such artificial intervention in prices meant that once regulation ended, inflation increased rapidly from 0.9 to about 4.5 percent,” said Ďurana.

Related: Police to pursue pricing

Slovak daily SME reports today that left-wing Prime Minister Robert Fico is proposing to make “speculative” pricing around euro adoption a crime (my translation from Slovak):

Police to Pursue Pricing

BRATISLAVA. Speculation with the prices of goods and services upon converting to the euro should be a crime. According to Justice Minister Štefan Harabin, the Ministry of Justice has responded to statements from Prime Minister Robert Fico and begun working on an amendment to the Criminal Code.

The amendment should set so-called “machinations” around the euro transition outside the law. It would concern unjustified speculation around transition to the euro currency which harms consumers. According to the Ministry, prison or fines should befall all who would wish to “enrich themselves or harm others in determining pricing for goods or services in euros.”

The Ministry did not make clear, however, what precisely is meant by machinations around the euro transition.

[...]

Socialist economics

“This is in conflict with a market economy; it is a principle of socialist economics,” said [lawyer] Gazareková at length. In her view, it is interference in the functioning of the market.

Juraj Karpiš, an analyst with the institute INESS, cautions that such regulatory activity from the government could lead to early price increases even before euro adoption. Businesses will be particularly afraid that after the euro transition they won’t be legally able to change prices so as to provide for a new situation in the market. Thus, they’ll prefer to do so in advance.

“Pricing is purely a matter for businesses, and it’s up to them alone how much they will sell their property for,” Karpiš said.

But let’s not allow reality intrude to now, Messrs. Fico and Harabin. And let’s not call out the hypocrisy of using the law as a tool to benefit the “little guy” consumers here as opposed to the “big bad” businesses when the Slovak central bank has been sticking it to importers (meaning anyone buying anything from outside the country: food, clothing, medicine, etc.) to the benefit of (a comparatively few) exporters through its own “machinations” under the ERM II exchange rate criteria in the face of a continuously strengthening local currency for years. No no, that wouldn’t do at all.

Related, and in English: Fico: Government Ready to Regulate Prices against Chisellers