Archives for February 2010 | Talk Of Liberty

US Gov’t Authorizes Assassination of US Citizens Reports Washington Post 2/4

On February 26, 2010, in Thoughts, by Matt

I’ll admit I was a little slow to this story, but no doubt this is a very serious as well as scary policy. The US has taken one step closer to a total dictatorship in my eyes.

The Washington Post

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged Wednesday that government agencies may kill U.S. citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are “taking action that threatens Americans.”

If someone in government can make the decision to wipe out a life without any sort of due process, what makes us different than Germany 1940? I am sure this guy is a complete dirt bag and deserves death, sure, however we must hold ourselves to our high American moral standards. The idea of assassinations before due process is clearly a way too slippery slope for me.

As usual only one American in our congress stands up for us.

Tagged with: Foreign Policy

Greedy Insurance Companies Raise Premiums 39%

On February 24, 2010, in Thoughts, by Matt

I found this article in the NY Times today. It is about the executives of the insurance companies explain why premiums need to rise so much. Obviously on the other side of it, is everyone thinking it is just more GREED.

When reading an article like this consider what Thomas Sowell had to say about greed which I think is more correct. He said something along the line of we shouldn’t question why someone or a company takes the money, we should question why someone or a company pays it.

In a free market we are all free to choose. In our insurance market people are only free to choose what the kings of the state have made legal for them to buy. The same applies to insurance companies and what they are allowed to offer.

The reason people pay more even after a massive increase in premiums is because the STATE LAWS and FEDERAL LAWS restrict medical choice and freedom, and then people must pay. Thank you our heroic politicians.

Health Executive Defends Premiums

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: February 24, 2010

WASHINGTON — A top health insurance company executive told a Congressional committee on Wednesday that higher premiums were justified by soaring medical costs, and warned that pending legislation could make the problem worse, further driving up costs for young, healthy people.

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The executive, Angela F. Braly, president of WellPoint, made the comments in testimony prepared for a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The hearing comes amid growing criticism of WellPoint and the health insurance industry by President Obama and Democrats in Congress, who say the proposed rate increases show the need for federal review and regulation of insurance premiums.

Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of WellPoint, recently informed subscribers in California that premiums for individual insurance policies would rise an average of 25 percent, with some rates going up as much as 39 percent.

“Raising our premiums was not something we wanted to do,” Ms. Braly said. “But we believe this was the most prudent choice, given the rising cost of care and the problems caused by many younger and healthier policyholders dropping or reducing their coverage during tough economic times. By law, premiums must be reasonable in relationship to benefits provided, which means they need to reflect the known and anticipated costs they will cover.”

The increases in premiums are driven by prices charged by doctors, hospitals, drug companies and other suppliers, and by increases in the use of health care by an aging population, Ms. Braly said.

“For 2010,” Ms. Braly said, “we expect hospital inpatient and outpatient costs in California to grow by over 10 percent, driven primarily by hospital reimbursement rates. Additionally, we expect pharmacy costs in California to grow by over 13 percent.”

Ms. Braly said health care providers were charging more to the private sector, “including our members,” because payments from Medicare and Medicaid did not fully cover providers’ costs.

Families with commercial insurance pay almost $1,800 a year more for coverage as a result of this cost shift, Ms. Braly said.

She criticized health care bills passed by the House and the Senate, with strong support from Mr. Obama. The bills would require insurers to accept all applicants and would require most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.

But Ms. Braly said the “personal coverage requirement” would not be fully effective, because millions of people would be exempted and others would make a “logical choice” to pay the penalty rather than buy insurance, unless they needed health care.

“The result,” she said, “will be a national health insurance market that is similar to New York, where the average individual market premium is over twice the average individual premium in California.”

Ms. Braly said the legislation pending in Congress “would increase California individual market premiums for the young and healthy by as much as 106 percent, before premium subsidies for certain eligible individuals” are taken into account.

Democrats have said insurers are raking in large profits while raising premiums. But Ms. Braly said profits accounted for “a very small percentage of a member’s premium.”

Another witness invited to the hearing, Lauren Meister of West Hollywood, Calif., said she was told in January that her Anthem Blue Cross premium was being increased 38 percent, to $516 a month, from $373.

Ms. Meister said she was offered the option of switching to a lower-cost Anthem plan that covered only generic versions of prescription drugs. But she said that was not feasible because she took several brand-name drugs for asthma.

In her prepared testimony, Ms. Meister called for more regulation.

“We saw what deregulation did to the cost of utilities in California,” Ms. Meister said. “We saw what the lack of regulation has done on a national level to our financial and banking system. Well, it’s doing the same thing to our health care system.”

Ms. Meister added: “The City of West Hollywood, where I live, regulates how much landlords can raise the rent each year to keep rents stabilized. Why can’t the federal government regulate how much health insurance companies can raise their rates per year, in order to stabilize premiums?”

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Tagged with: Health Care • Socialism

A Tale Of Two Views At CPAC – Ron Paul VS Glenn Beck

On February 22, 2010, in Thoughts, by Matt

After reading the reviews of CPAC it has become incredibly clear. There seems to be a double standard in the air. I found a million articles regarding the vote for Ron Paul and how the CPAC has been hijacked by young libertarian crazy kids, that nobody can take CPAC serious, and even boos when the most conservative loyal member of congress was voted by the largest majority in CPAC history as the best Candidate for the President of the United States.

In the same event however, Glenn Beck made a glowing speech to which nearly had the crowd in tears. It was as if Obama was speaking that day in Denver, however this time it was Glenn Beck. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the speech, and also enjoy watching Beck. He is refreshing to see on the mainstream media.

My point is the double standard of the Republican party. Maybe I am the only person who noticed, but Beck has basically taken the Ron Paul and John Stossel playbook and run with it. What does Glenn Beck who gets standing ovations offer at the same place where Ron Paul receives boos? Is it crazy to think that the Republicans would love to have Glenn run for office, or is he too insane and libertarian? My question is not to tear down Glenn, but on what platform or issue does everyone love Glenn and not Ron?

I have watched Glenn evolve closer and closer to a true libertarian’s view of how politics should be. He has gone through that process the same way everyone eventually does. At this moment the only difference of views between the two comes down to foreign policy. Recently I have been hearing Glenn moving inline with that as well. Glenn has become the full blown libertarian that Mike Huckabee hates, and I say good.

My point of this post is that if you love Glenn Beck and think his ideas can help America, then maybe you should consider Ron Paul is probably where he learned it. Though Ron Paul is may not ever be president, he has changed the way young people think. He has given capitalism a lifeline which it desperately needs. He has been grooming the next generation, that will need to lead us out of our road to serfdom. He is the father of the Tea Party to which Republicans are forever in debt to him.

As the idiots in charge of the GOP keep arguing for a bigger tent, America has said the opposite. American’s are mad how both parties are spending. If you say you don’t believe in Socialism, than Libertarian seems to be the only option.

Tagged with: Ron Paul

TED And DAVID CAMERON

On February 17, 2010, in Thoughts, by Matt

Here is a video of David Cameron on the future of government. He makes great points regarding transparency and accountability with government.

Socialist Bank Not So Socialist

On February 16, 2010, in Thoughts, by Matt

I found this article in the Huffington Post today on my daily peruse for socialists looking to claim the credit as if anything socialist has ever succeeded. It would be no surprise to hear an uneducated person cite this story titled “Bank Of North Dakota: America’s Only ‘Socialist’ Bank Is Thriving During Downturn” and suddenly say aha, I told you socialism is good. This however is not what it seems on the surface. The story of our banking system is very complex, and I am just a simple man. Here is my view on why this is yet another case for free markets rather than socialism.

This bank in North Dakota is the only state owned bank in the nation goes the story. It is claimed that this partnership of the State with the People, has created stability for the North Dakota economy. It is as if this is proof socialism works.

I see this differently, sometimes there is something called “the lesser of two evils”. Consider the first glaring flaw in the argument that this bank is the only State owned bank. This is not true, the Federal Reserve Bank is actually a State owned bank. This means that every bank in the United States is State owned. In the article it amazes me that they even go as far to say “We think of ourselves as kind of a little mini-Federal Reserve”. There you have it in their words. Right away we know that they are not the only State owned bank in the nation, they are owned however buy a smaller State instead of the USA it is North Dakota. Any free market believer would say a smaller government owner / partner is going to lead to less problems.

My second case for why they are less socialist of a bank than our current banking system is the fact that even though they are a Mini Federal Reserve (their words) they are not the central planners that our divine leader Ben Bernanke is. They do not set interest rates like our lords of the Federal Reserve who sit around a table crunching numbers and creating formulas only those educated like Bernanke and company have can understand and compute the trillions of decisions happening in an economy every second. These near god like men are the only ones who can decide that a short term interest rate should be 1% for months and months while they deny the existence of a massive housing bubble being blown. Only Ben and company can decide to raise interest rates a quarter percent as needed. This is central planning which is always doomed.

The Fed could simply float the short term interest rates just like every other rate they let float (yes it happens already) and let the free market decide where interest rates should be. Instead our foolish leaders get it wrong and blow the largest bubble since the great depression. Our mini federal reserve in ND doesn’t have the same dictatorial powers that it’s bigger brother does. For this second reason the bank of ND is more free market than our banking system.

Case 3 is the fact that the socialist bank of ND doesn’t offer FDIC insurance. FDIC insurance is the moral hazard which puts taxpayer money on the hook in the case of a bank blowing up. FDIC insurance is the reason that individuals dump their life savings of which they work every single day of their life at a difficult job into a bank that may lose everything from poor practices. People do not worry about how crazy a bank is lending money and putting their life savings at risk. Their money is FDIC insured. This guarantees bad practices because unsound banks offer higher CD rates to attract capital and people move their money into bad banks. This is the definition of moral hazard. As mentioned in the article the ND bank doesn’t have FDIC insurance. This means that they must be more sound in the banking practices because if they are being to risky, they risk scaring the depositors because they offer no FDIC insurance, again less socialist.

My final point, which I am not sure but would like to make a point of is the lack of FRL or Fractional Reserve Lending. FRL allows our banks to lend more money than they have. This guarantees massive runs on banks since banks are allowed to create money out of thin air. Mish does a great article of why FRL is a disaster.

The bottom line is that a case can be made that the North Dakota Bank is actually a good example of how free market banking works not socialism. Don’t be fooled by the socialist who take credit. They will never explain the reasons things work, but rather just claim credit for things they can’t explain.

Below is the Huffington Post write up.

Bank Of North Dakota: America’s Only ‘Socialist’ Bank Is Thriving During Downturn
But now officials in other states are wondering if it is helping North Dakota sail through the national recession.
Gubernatorial candidates in Florida and Oregon and a Washington state legislator are advocating the creation of state-owned banks in those states. A report prepared for a Vermont House committee last month said the idea had “considerable merit.” Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore promotes the bank on his Web site.
“There’s a lot of hurt out there, a lot of states that are in trouble, and they’re tying the Bank of North Dakota together with this economic success that we’re having right now,” said the bank’s president, Eric Hardmeyer.
Hardmeyer says he’s gotten “tons” of inquiries about the bank’s workings, including questions from officials in California, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio and Washington state. North Dakota has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at 4.4 percent, soaring oil production and a robust state budget surplus – but Hardmeyer says the bank isn’t responsible for the prosperity.
“We are a catalyst, perhaps, or maybe a part of it,” he said. “To put this at our feet is flattering, but it frankly isn’t true.”
The Bank of North Dakota serves as an economic development agency and “banker’s bank” that lessens the loan risks of private banks and helps them finance larger projects. It offers cheap loans to farmers, students and businesses.
The bank had almost $4 billion in assets and a $2.67 billion loan portfolio at the end of last year, according to its most recent quarterly financial report. It made $58.1 million in profits in 2009, setting a record for the sixth straight year. During the last decade, the bank funneled almost $300 million in profits to North Dakota’s treasury.
The bank has the advantage of being the repository for most state funds, which can be used for loans and occasional relief for private banks that need a jolt of cash during sluggish credit markets.
“We think of ourselves as kind of a little mini-Federal Reserve,” Hardmeyer said.
The state earns roughly 0.25 percent less interest than state agencies would get from a commercial institution. The bank also pays no state or federal taxes and has no deposit insurance; North Dakota taxpayers are on the hook for any losses.
The Bank of North Dakota was a cornerstone of the agenda of the Nonpartisan League, a farmers’ political insurgency spawned by anger about outside control of North Dakota’s credit and grain markets.
Founded in 1915 by A.C. Townley, who became a Socialist Party organizer after he went broke raising flax in western North Dakota, the NPL advocated state-owned banks to provide low-interest farm loans, along with state flour mills, grain elevators, meatpacking houses and hail insurance.
Supporters gained control of the legislature and the governorship within five years. The movement’s power quickly waned, but two of its state-owned businesses survived – the Bank of North Dakota and a state flour mill and grain elevator in Grand Forks.
From the 1940s until the early 1960s, the bank served mostly as a public funds depository and municipal bond buyer, said Rozanne Enerson Junker, author of a 1989 history of the bank. Its economic development activity has greatly expanded since.
Gary Petersen, president of the Lakeside State Bank of New Town, a community on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in northwestern North Dakota, said the state bank is often willing to take a stake in local development projects.
“In my experience, you make a contact with the (Bank of North Dakota), and their question is, ‘How do we get this done?’” Petersen said. “They’re not looking at ways to knock it down.”
Alerus Financial, a Grand Forks bank, has sold about $115 million of its $600 million loan portfolio to the Bank of North Dakota, both to spread its risk and provide itself with additional loan money, said Karl Bollingberg, Alerus’ director of banking services.
“If you’re left to find other participating banks, that can be very challenging,” he said. “They don’t have the same interest that the Bank of North Dakota has in helping you to do deals.”
Mauro Guillen, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, said it is unlikely other states would open similar banks, in part because “the political culture here is very much against that kind of a thing.”
Some state and federal agencies, such as the Small Business Administration, already have economic development programs similar to those at the Bank of North Dakota, Guillen said.
Bollingberg said the idea of other state-owned banks would also likely rouse opposition from private banks that wanted to keep their share of state deposits. “Because the (Bank of North Dakota) has been here so long, no banks know what it was like to have those deposits,” he said.
Hardmeyer said he, too, was always doubtful others would take up North Dakota’s model, but now he’s not so sure.
“When I see what’s going on around the country, it’s not quite as far a leap as I thought it once was,” he said.

Tagged with: Free Market Banking • Socialism

Lowering The Drinking Age To 19 In Vancouver

On February 11, 2010, in Thoughts, by Matt

Here is a story out of Vancouver of a college kid working to lower the “legal” drinking age to 19. I personally found myself done with drinking once I turned 21. As you watch the video, you see everyone guessing how bad it would be. That reaction is common on any sort of change. Imagine we asked about raising road speed limits. Everyone is always worried about everyone else. I wouldn’t be the problem, but others would.

We know the facts are that America has one of the highest drinking ages to consume alcohol, yet we also have the most problems. Giving kids legal ways to live their life makes sense. We need to enforce laws when people break them not make laws that are victimless. Who is the victim if a 19 year old drinks? If your answer is, but what if that 19 year old drives drunk? Well then your law should address drunk driving, not the victimless law that protects no particular person.

I see 19 year old Americans returning home from war. These mere 19 year old kids are entrusted in protecting our nation, going door to door on missions, they are negotiating peace with warlords, they are bandaging the dying after bombs rip apart hundreds of victims. These 19 year old children are fearlessly doing the work that our 50 year old men would be too afraid to do themselves. If our 19 year old kids can handle these responsibilities, I think they can handle themselves.

Tagged with: Victimless Crime

Communist Unions Use Scorched Earth Policy

On February 10, 2010, in Thoughts, by Matt

I am reading about the unions in Greece and how they are declaring war on the people of that country. It’s so surprising to see the words communist-party and labor union, not really actually.

“It’s a war against workers and we will answer with war, with constant struggles until this policy is overturned,” said Christos Katsiotis, a representative of a communist-party affiliated labor union.

Greece is currently facing a serious budget crisis which currently is threatening the viability of the entire European Union. One would assume that a fellow comrade communist is looking out for his fellow brothers and sisters of the union. The truth however is that Unions are far greedier than any corporation could ever be. Unions are so dangerous to citizens and their country. Consider how in Greece the Unions are shutting down everything with their strike.

The strike left state hospitals working with emergency staff only and disrupted national rail travel, although urban mass transport was unaffected.

Unions would rather see everyone die before considering a concession. Considering how the government merely proposed very conservative ideas to solving the national debt crisis and this is the reaction.

Air traffic controllers, customs and tax officials, hospital doctors and schoolteachers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest sweeping government spending cuts that will freeze salaries and new hiring, cut bonuses and stipends and increase the average retirement age by two years to 63.

Wow raising retirement a full two years to 63 and they shut down the country. Here is what Card Check will likely do to America. Public Unions are dangerous to liberty.

Tagged with: Union

12 years of reading of another woman’s love letter wakes her husband up from coma

On February 8, 2010, in MyFavoriteBlogs, by Liberty

From Sina:

Liu Hong, a 40-year-old woman in Minquan, Shangqiu City, woke up her husband from a 12-year coma by repeatedly reading her husband’s love letter from his period of puppy love for the entirety of the 12 long years when he was in a coma.

Some 13 years ago, a car accident turned Huang Jianjun, Liu Hong’s husband into vegetable patient. Liu stumbled upon Huang’s well-kept secret of a love letter as she turned their house upside down trying to find anything valuable to pay for Huang’s expensive treatment. Though heartbroken, and knowing that Huang had kept his true love buried, Liu chose to keep reading him the letter after she found out Huang’s always had a subtle reaction to the letter. Throughout the 12 years, Liu has read the letter thousands of times as her husband’s consciousness is restored bit by bit.

The 40 year old still bore gentle love in her eyes as she talked about their marriage. Liu met Huang in 1990 through friends, and they got married in the same year, their two sons joined the family before long. In 1996, Huang brought a truck and started a long distance delivery job to make a living. Though not rich, the family was able to live with sufficient means and it was going well until the accident that took away Huang’s consciousness. It happened on Sept 7^th 1996, at four in the morning when Huang is driving into Nanle County, Puyang City. Severely injured, he was sent to Puyang People’s Hospital by police. The only signs he was alive was his feeble breathing and heartbeats.

Liu took him home to take care of him thereafter. Besides daily intimate care, Liu tried every thing she could to stimulate her husband, including recreating the scenes when they are young and in love and singing his favorite songs. Nothing was effective until the letter she found a year later.

“You naughty devil, in fact I want to ask you out too, but you know my parents…”

Said the love letter, with a date at the bottom indicating that it was written before their marriage.

“I was so shocked, I started reading the words without knowing” recalled Liu, “then I found he moved the corner of his mouth. After all that I’ve done, he only reacted to this love letter.” Liu said that reading the letter, she felt like her heart was ripped open, and started crying devastatingly, which caused Huang’s mother’s to be concerned.

But she resumed and went on reading:

“I got your letter long time ago, I hope you understand and forgive me for not writing you back soon…”

At this point, Huang smiled. Huang’s mother thought it was the love letter between the couple and praised Liu for trying this method. But she took the letter and almost tore it apart as she learned that its writer was another woman. Liu stopped her and said to her: “this is not a love letter, this is the cure for him.” Liu’s words made Huang’s mother dissolve in tears.

Liu started reading her rival’s letter every night, from that night on, swallowing the hurt in mind.

“I don’t care how people perceive me, all I care is how you feel about me…”

Liu said she always had mixed feelings as her husband gave more and more reaction to the letter, “I am happy for my husband’s graduate recovery, but it hurts that he cares so much about the other woman.”

April 2004, Liu took her husband to Shangqiu NO.1 People’s Hospital to check. Doctors were shocked to find Huang had partly regained his memory, and sense of texture and feeling – he was no longer a vegetable patient.

“Now, I don’t read that letter that often, because Huang is basically conscious now. He still cannot talk, but he will shake his head to show his embarrassment when I read the letter, sometimes he will touch my hands with silent tears.” Liu said her husband was still far from fully recovering, but looking back on the years of reading a rival’s love letter to her own husband, she felt much better and comfortable now due to his noticeable improvements.

Previously, Liu had taken Huang’s medical record and latest CT pictures to Beijing Armed Police General Hospital, from which she was acknowledged that Huang could stand again after two surgeries. But the two surgeries will cost her 120 thousand yuan. To pay for Huang’s treatment all these years, Liu is already in mountains of debt. However, according to Liu, people kindly offered the couple financial assistance as soon as they learned about their situation, including the companies that they originally worked for.

“We have raised 40 thousand by far, we will be in Beijing soon to complete the surgeries,” said Liu, with absolute confidence.

“Overseas Chinese driver” in Formula One

On February 8, 2010, in MyFavoriteBlogs, by Liberty

The following is a guest post by Randy – AlleyCat

“Overseas Chinese driver” in Formula One

The Chinese usually identify a person by ethnic origin instead of nationality.’Overseas Chinese’ are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Chinese territories. As long as the person is of Chinese descent, that person is considered Chinese, and if that person lives outside of China, that person is “overseas Chinese”.

Ho-Pin Tung (董荷斌) was born and raised in the Netherlands, but he races with a Chinese license. His dream: to become a Formula One race driver. Few of us will ever have been any closer to achieving our dreams, when he became the first Overseas Chinese driver to be named in a Formula One team line-up. The Dutch-born 27-year-old, already the first Chinese national to drive a grand prix car, will be Renault’s official third (reserve) driver this season. When he tested for the team in December, he immediately impressed with his speed and feedback, which convinced Renault that he was ready to become part of the team.

“Since the day I started racing, Formula One has always been my objective”, said Ho-Pin Tung. “So to reach the pinnacle of motorsport and become part of such a famous team as Renault is an amazing opportunity. It’s really a dream come true for me, but it’s also the start of a new adventure. In many ways everything starts from now.’ And: ‘My objective is unchanged, I want to race and I want to win, for China, for my fans, for the team, for my partners and for myself. Formula 1 is what I really want. My new position with Renault is excellent news for China, for Chinese sport and the fast growing number of Formula 1-fans there.”

As a dutch reporter, part of me was excited, and the other half was disappointed. I couldn’t make up my mind. I’m not naive, I know how it works. To be an ‘overseas Chinese’ might be much more profitable these days, even more so if you are in competition for one of the few chairs in a Formula One racing car. Yet couldn’t he have spoken just one or two words in his native language, so that we, his Dutch fans, could also share in his glory and co-celebrate his future pole positions?

“Please Ho”, the reporter asked in Dutch. “Just a small sign? A kind gesture, for the country that provided your human rights, education and opportunities? Ho-Pin Tung? Are you there? Ho? Ho? Ho?” Reporter tried again and again, but there were too many people that wanted to speak to Ho-Pin Tung. All of them were asking the same questions, and Ho would be answering in many languages, but Dutch was not one of them. Ho would not listen, or seemed to suffer from a sudden amnesia and appeared to have completely forgotten where he was born. Some reporters went home, feeling very disregarded, very obsolete, and very Dutch.
So in spite of us feeling a bit neglected, we shall still look out for Ho-Pin Tung at the next Grand Prix, as we can’t help to regard him as one of our own. Although by now we also know: whether moving slow or at high speeds, living abroad or born ‘overseas’ -a Chinese will always be Chinese…

Presenting Atm-Art: Chinese artists and photorealism of China

On February 8, 2010, in MyFavoriteBlogs, by Liberty

Tiananmen

Michael Van Den Heuvel is Dutch and Thor Selander is Danish, and they are combining elements of painting and sculpture to depict China – especially China’s present in contrast to its future, and Chinese artists from angles that are not traditionally examined. They wrote to ChinaHush looking for a platform to expose their art to a greater audience. We found their artwork to be engaging and confrontational, truthful and personal. Also, we thought that the sporadic nature of their decision to work together and backgrounds before going into art to be fascinating. Below, you will find an interview that ChinaHush conducted with Michael, where he goes into the motivations, inspirations and process of their art. Also, there is a digital gallery of their work at the end, so please enjoy!

For any inquiries about the work, please e-mail Michael and Thor at info@atm-art.com. Also, the whole series will soon be displayed at a gallery in Amsterdam (link: www.kerseboom.com).

Interview

ChinaHush: What is the history of Atm-art?

Michael: Neither of us have a classical background in art. As a matter of fact, Thor used to work as a lifeguard for the Danish queen and I used to be responsible for removing landmines.

ChinaHush: What is Atm-art?

Michael: Atm-art started with just the two of us, Thor and I (Michael). We are two friends who met each other in China working as part-time guides while taking groups of tourists around China. One day sitting on the back of a cruise on the Yangtze River, we found each other as artists. One mostly by means of painting and the other by sculptures , but more important they both had a feeling that art should make people think and provoke them in a subtle way. Not necessarily kicking them in the nuts, but just giving them a sort of itch. We both had some background in South Africa so we decided that our first show should be there, but we also wanted to have a show in the parliament building. And, well, with some bribes we got our way. One late night, we invited 53 guests and officially had our first showing. In 2007, we decided to have a moving exhibition and we chose the Trans-Siberian Express to have our showing. We made 26 rail paintings to hang in the train and to hang in some stations where the train would stop. The show was a success, in a way. Before the train got to Ulan Bator, all the paintings had been stolen.

ChinaHush: What kind of art do you consider your paintings are? Any specific styles?

Michael: Photorealism is our preferred style, but we also work with sculptures.

How did your exhibition in Beijing in 2009 go? What kind of feedback did you get?

Michael: We could not get official permission to show our art in China , so we smuggled them into China and then had a small and selective exhibition for invited guests only. But the ones who came were impressed an happy.

ChinaHush: Talk abut the upcoming exhibition.

Michael: In a way, our upcoming show in Amsterdam is a message to the people of China. In the years that we have been traveling and working in China, we have seen that China is very fast changing – there are buildings everywhere, people talk more and more about money, there is pollution all over China, and somehow we felt that this was a pity, and we felt that it would be ok if we made some paintings that showed how people from the outside see China. But our paintings were not made to mock people than to make people aware that they should not lose this great culture they already had and not lose that.

One way of doing that is by making paintings of the future of China, the way we see it. However, we have not been able to post any onto a BBS forum without them being deleted in a few minutes.

ChinaHush: What do you mean by “the future of China” and how do you depict this in your paintings?

Michael: For example, if you look at Qianmen Square, that is a very important historical building, but you can see that in China advertising is moving in all over the place. Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC are everywhere. There is no place in CHina where one can be without advertising, so we made the entrance to the Forbidden City with lots of advertising to reflect this.

ChinaHush: What attracted you to China in the first place?

Michael: What attracted me to China is the diversity, the growth, the positive attitude that most Chinese people have, and their ability to hope for and work for a better future.

ChinaHush: What are your future plans?

Michael: Besides the the “Look at China now” show in Amsterdam, we are also part of a group show in the Netherlands that will take place in a few months, then we have a short period where we will concentrate on making sculptures. We are currently negotiating with some of the major libraries in Europe to put up sculptures that will focus on banned books, and we will also create a few paintings that are related.

ChinaHush: How do you feel about your interactions with Chinese people who are not necessarily artists?

Michael: During our travels, we of course met lots of people. These people generally fell into two groups. One group will try to sell you something and bother you for a while about this, and the other group is very interested in who you are and often very friendly. Eventually, and especially in small towns, we found that getting stopped to drink some tea became very normal, even though we could not speak with many of them.

ChinaHush: In your artwork, there are Chinese artists depicted from the front and the back. Who are these Chinese artists and what is their relationship to you?

Michael: The Chinese artists are Sheng Qi, Miao Xiaochun, Wang Qingsong, Chen Wenbo and Qiu Shijie. We wrote to them and now we are friends with some of them.

ChinaHush: What do you think about them? Why did you pick these artists?

Michael: Of course, they are different from us, but all of them are very special in their field. The way we seet it, Wang Qingsong is definitely the best art photographer in the world, and then there are few people that master the light in paintings as well as Chen Wenbo. So we really admire them and like I wrote before, in the future we might collaborate with them and we also felt that they are very open to listen to how we see things.

The Artwork