UNCOMMON SENSE

Ron Paul: Putting your money where your mouth is - - -

2011-12-26T16:57:00.001Z

Putting your money where your mouth is - - -

--Greg Mankiw's Blog: The Ron Paul Portfolio

- - - AND loving it - - -

--Ron Paul's Long-Term Holdings Outperform The Market And Most Pros - Seeking Alpha

L. Reichard White, Monday, December 26, 2011 11:49 AM

The OTHER police state - - -

2011-12-21T14:26:00.001Z

With the death of Kim Jong Il, everyone was reminded of the North Korean police state. But what about the OTHER police state - - -

Study: One-Third of Young People Will Be Arrested Before Age 23

Another study found about one-third of young people [in the U.S.] will be arrested before they turn 23. The study examined arrests - not including minor traffic violations - for kids ages eight to 23. Researchers said they found between 30.2 percent and 41.4 percent had been arrested. --DemocracyNOW! Headlines for December 20, 2011

And that's BEFORE the indefinite detention of Americans without charges or trial enshrined in the so-called "National Defense Appropriations Act."

That OTHER police state also treats its unjailed kids well - - -

Study Finds 1.6 Million Children Homeless in 2010

In other economic news, a study has found 1.6 million children in the United States - or one in 45 kids - were homeless last year. The National Center on Family Homelessness said its study is a "call to action for all of us to address child homelessness before we lose another generation." The group said the child homelessness rate has jumped 33 percent since 2007. --DemocracyNOW! Headlines for December 20, 2011

The nature of "reality" via Bohr, Feynman, & Quantum Mechanics

2011-10-17T13:43:00.000Z

"You decry "states", forgetting that without existing in a "state" you have no existence whatsoever (I am referring here to your earlier comment on how the root word "state" means "static" or unchanging)...that which is not in some recognizable state is an undefined cloud of random nothingness." --Greg

I see where the problem lies.

"States" are never unchanging -- except in someone's imagination. Those Rocky Mountains are slowly weathering away and in the distant future will be old worn down mountains like the Appalachians out east (which, aeons ago, were the tallest mountains in Earth's history), etc. We may, in such cases, ignore the changes which are, none the less, always occuring in everything and ASS-U-ME that the changes don't matter for current purposes -- and hope that assumption is right. None the less, the changes are, as any first year science student should be able to tell you, still occuring whether we like it or not.

And most folks don't like it. It makes them feel insecure. So, many seek the false security of an "unchanging condition" AKA, "state," which simply can't exist. And sometimes that imaginary concept metastasizes into a political "State."

Like it or not, universal change is solidly based on established principles of Physics -- and is a basic tenet of General Semantics.

The most basic level models we have of "reality," especially quantum mechanics, indeed tell us everything is pretty much "an undefined cloud of random nothingness." Einstein didn't like this a bit. Neither did seminal quantum physicist Neils Bohr.

Which is probably why he quipped, "If you are not surprised by quantum mechanics then you have not understood it." And, further, likely as a result,

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." --Seminal quantum physicist Niels Bohr

Another legendary physicist, Richard Feynman, agrees with Bohr about Quantum Mechanics - - -

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics." --Richard Feynman

Since quantum models show "reality" to be pretty much "random nothingness" -- and have been reluctantly accepted by main-stream physics -- this probably explains another of Feynman's famous quotes - - -

"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything"... --Richard Feynman

At this point, either you "get" it or you don't.

It took me six months of intensive discussion with one of my friends before he "got" it. Another read "People in Quandaries" and "got it" pretty much on his own. It's not easy either way.

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Fascism = Socialism = Totalitarianism

2011-10-05T23:49:00.000Z

Socialism, once it gets bigger than face-to-face , gets taken over by those who follow the Golden Rule -- as in "he who has the gold makes the rules." SEE "Capture Theory," for example. Today, the catch-phrase is "public-private enterprise." Normally that morphs into full frontal Fascism (partnership between business & government), as confessed by, among others, the Nazis.

But "NAZI," the acronym for Hitler's so-called fascists, stands for "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" or "National Socialist German Workers' Party," defining fascism and national socialism to be one and the same.

These supposedly "fascist" Nazis originated the Volkswagen, translated literally as "People'sWagon," a name one would expect to be more at home with avowed socialists. With an apparent flash of insight, head Nazi Joseph Goebbels, in a letter to a Communist leader, assured him that "Nazism and Communism are really the same thing. You and I are fighting one another, but we are not really enemies," he wrote according to William L. Shirer in his The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, (Greenwich: Fawcett Crest, 1959)

The "same thing" in the case of "Nazism and Communism" is a centralized totalitarian state which, as history proves again and again, results in death, destruction, misery, and disaster for it's citizens no matter which way it starts out.

The common denominator of "socialism" and "fascism" is that once you create a "government" it is eventually taken over by the moneyed interests and those with political influence and hierarchical tendencies -- which guarantees application of The Iron Law of Oligarchy.

These folks don't care what you call them, in fact it often serves them well to pretend "socialism." Being the power whores they are (don't mean to insult sex-workers), they'll take the power and money any which way they can.

As the quip goes, "When you go to bed with government, you get more than a good night's sleep." It doesn't matter too much whether they claim they're socialists or fascists -- invite a government into your bed and you'll likely end up with a seriously painful and persistent case of herpes in undesirable places. And, eventually, totalitarianism. --L. Reichard White, Wednesday, October 05, 2011 3:52 PM

The ABSOLUTE bottom line

2011-08-14T21:46:00.000Z

Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, Meet The Press, August 7, 2011

A really odd conspiracy? SOP? What?

2011-04-18T21:37:00.001Z

This is from a segment from Democracy NOW! between George Monbiot, excellent reporter from The Telegraph and Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician with super credentials.

So, DOES IAEA force WHO to cover-up damage caused by nuclear power accidents??

=====

HELEN CALDICOTT: George, you must listen to me. I’m a pediatrician. I’m a physician, highly trained. I was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.... George, there’s a huge literature on internal emitters and radiation. The New York Academy of Sciences, this report on Chernobyl is absolutely devastating. But there are now 2,600 genetic diseases described.... .

George, the International Atomic Energy Agency has an unholy alliance with the WHO, World Health Organization, which says WHO cannot examine any accident related to nuclear power, etc., without the permission of the IAEA. And indeed, it didn’t examine Chernobyl. Forty percent of the European land mass is still radioactive, George. Turkish food is extremely radioactive. And we have to wait to see the cancers arising and do epidemiological studies, many of which have been done to exposed populations. George, there is no debate about this. There is no debate. I speak to doctors all the time in medical schools, in hospitals, grand rounds. We all understand this. There is no debate in the medical community....

GEORGE MONBIOT:... Now, on these questions that Helen raises, I mean, if she’s honestly saying that the World Health Organization is now part of the conspiracy and the cover-up, as well, then the mind boggles.

HELEN CALDICOTT: Yeah, I am.

GEORGE MONBIOT: You know, where does this end?

HELEN CALDICOTT: The mind does boggle.

GEORGE MONBIOT: If them and the U.N. Scientific Committee and the IAEA and—I mean, who else is involved in this conspiracy? We need to know.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Helen Caldicott?

HELEN CALDICOTT: Well, yes, we do. It’s the IAEA which promotes nuclear power—sorry, Amy. It’s the IAEA that promotes nuclear power, right, but says you mustn’t build bombs from your reactor. And that negotiation took place, God, several decades, quite a lot of decades, ago. And the WHO just does nothing—

GEORGE MONBIOT: And they have conspired to cover up—

HELEN CALDICOTT:—it has not examined the results—yes. This is the biggest—

GEORGE MONBIOT: They have conspired to cover up the incidence of cancer caused by radiation?

HELEN CALDICOTT:—medical conspiracy and cover-up in the history of medicine, George. Yes.

GEORGE MONBIOT: Right, so, WHO, IAEA, the U.N. Scientific Committee—

HELEN CALDICOTT: Yep.

GEORGE MONBIOT:—on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, all of them are part of the cover-up.

HELEN CALDICOTT: I don’t know about the U.N. Scientific Committee.

GEORGE MONBIOT: Well, that’s a huge—I mean, you don’t know about it?

HELEN CALDICOTT: Well, certainly the IAEA and the WHO.

GEORGE MONBIOT: I mean, this is—the U.N. Scientific Committee is the major repository of the science on this issue. You don’t know about it?

HELEN CALDICOTT: Well, yeah, no, I’ve read about it, but the main thing is that the WHO was prevented or did not examine the results from Chernobyl, and it’s ongoing and will be for generations and generations, George.

GEORGE MONBIOT: But the United Nations did. The United Nations—

HELEN CALDICOTT: And soil, 40 percent of the soil in Europe is contaminated... <http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/prescription_for_survival_a_debate_on> --"Prescription for Survival": A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy Between Anti-Coal Advocate George Monbiot and Anti-Nuclear Activist Dr. Helen Caldicott </a>

But what about emotions?

2011-04-04T10:08:00.001Z

Unless you believe in "intelligent design" or that the process of evolution was suspended in the case of "emotions" then clearly emotions are a result of the process of evolution, which means that, at least in our small face-to-face ancestral (tribal) groups, they are an essential part of the human survival algorithm.

Do they work in modern society? FWIW I think they MOSTLY do, but that's irrelevant. We have them, get used to it. It's time to understand their evolved functions and make the most of them. --L. Reichard White, Monday, April 04, 2011 6:04 AM

ECONOMICS IN ONE EASY LESSON

2011-03-05T23:55:00.000Z

Economics is simpler than you think -- if you're an Austrian Economist (Hayek, Mises, etc.) rather than a Keynesian Economist (J.M. Keynes), monetarist (Milton Friedman), neo-Keynesian economist (Bernanke, Krugman, etc.).

1. The "law of supply and demand" applies to "money."

2. An increase in the "money" supply greater than the increase in production -- because of the law of supply and demand -- causes a general price inflation across the boards.

3. Credit (I.O.U.s of various types, including stock certificates, bonds, etc. -- that note on the back of granddad's cigarette pack), as Daniel Webster put it, is equivalent to "money" and has all the effects of "money."

3A. Most I.O.U.s start out as limited circulation I.O.U.s -- and stay that way unless a market is established which allows them to be traded, that is, makes them "liquid."

4. A sudden change in the amount of either "money" or credit -- in either direction -- disrupts trade and thus the advantages of specialization and division of labor -- which ultimately determine the physical level of well-being of the human race -- and make the "modern" large populations possible.

5. Without the advantages of trade (and thus division of labor), extremely large numbers of men, women and children would die.

6. Barring the crash of a solid gold or silver asteroid, a sudden change in the supply of gold and silver (transactional hard money) are highly unlikely.

7. Because their value depends on psychology rather on a directly perceived value of a strictly limited physical commodity, the effective supply of both credit and paper/megabyte money can change suddenly.

8. The supply of both credit and paper/megabyte money CAN change with extreme rapidity, paper/megabyte because it's easy to create, credit because it completely depends on confidence that the debtor can and will pay, and without that confidence, a credit vehicle becomes devalued or even worthless. That is, because people can lose confidence in an I.O.U. and so don't want it, it becomes less, or even completely, "illiquid." That is, "people don't want it" = "illiquid" = "devalued" or even "worthless."

9. Since most people hold money for later use, at least partially, it's important that people have confidence it will hold its trade value and NOT devalue. Thus, the main "psychology" that determines whether or not people will hold a particular I.O.U. is their expectation as to its future value. If they expect its value to drop -- or equivalently, expect prices to rise -- they will spend it quickly. That is, if they expect a general price inflation, they will lose confidence in their money and spend it quickly.

10. Once people in general start to spend quickly, this puts more money into circulation quickly, thus increasing its effective supply, which causes more inflation, more inflationary expectations, destroys more confidence, and so forth. The Austrian School of economics calls the rapid spiral that results a "crack-up boom" or "catastrophenhause." Others call it "hyperinflation." Which is why U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke and the FED are so concerned by peoples' "inflationary expectations." This is, of course, not a problem with transactional hard money -- which, barring that solid-gold asteroid, can't suddenly inflate -- or suddenly deflate.

Nature of the Beast

2011-02-15T14:32:00.001Z

"In India, the word public is now a Hindi word. It means people. In Hindi, we have sarkar and public, the government and the people. Inherent in this use is the underlying assumption that the government is quite separate from 'the people.' ...Even today, fifty seven years on to the day, the truly vanquished still look upon the government as mai-baap, the parent and provider. The somewhat more radical, those who still have fire in their bellies, see it as chor, the thief, the snatcher-away of all things." --Arundhati Roy, Public Power in the Age of Empire

"I discovered that in our country [Pakistan] there's a tiny elite who has usurped the resources of the whole country. The whole country panders to this tiny elite. By the way, I belong to them. And the rich are getting richer. And the vast majority of people don't even have basic rights.... what is happening is, the elite has basically captured the government. Whether it's one party or the other, basically the interests are the same. And so, they come into government, and they plunder the country. They usurp the resources. And so, common people are deprived of all the basic needs..." --Pakistani Opposition Leader Imran Khan, January 30, 2008

"Government is not eloquence, it is not reason; it is force, and like fire, makes a dangerous servant and a fearful master." --George Washington

The revolution HAS been scheduled

2011-02-06T17:04:00.001Z

It's Februay 6, 2011, Super Bowl Sunday. The middle-east uprisings are in full swing. Especially in Egypt.

The Egyptians are poorer than we are, had undergone Mubarak for 30 years, and believed they would never escape the totalitarian yoke. But that was 12 days ago.

In 1987 I was traveling with Monica, a Polish girl from behind the "Iron Curtain...." We had many discussions about the, at the time, Russian "Evil Empire." She believed the hated "soviets" were solidly in control -- and would stay that way for the foreseeable future, perhaps 1,000 years.

I'd read "Can The Soviet Union Survive Until 1984" by a Russian dissident and so I questioned her assumptions. She held firm.

About two years later in Nov. Dec. 1989, the Germans tore down the most prominent expression of the "Iron Curtain," the "Berlin Wall." Monica told a lot of her friends about our discussions, and as a result, I got the mostly undeserved reputation among my Polish friends of being a savvy if unconventional social historian.

I just recorded John Kerry, appearing on Meet the Press, trying to explain why the CIA was caught flat-footed in anticipating the timing of the Egyptian uprising. He correctly observed that it's impossible to predict such things.

So, the Second American Revolution HAS been scheduled - - - it's just that no one knows exactly when.

RE: Revolutions

2011-01-17T13:31:00.000Z

I've got good news and bad news:

The good news is that revolutions are usually bloody, chaotic events where innocent people die, dreams are smashed, and no one in their right mind wants one.

The bad news is that revolutions are caused by those in power who think of themselves as "governors."
And they quite regularly don't know -- or try to ignore -- this observation:

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." --U.S. President John F. Kennedy

These "governors" finally abuse this power to such an extent that, despite prudence -- and "that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed," mankind finally abolishes them anyway.

More bad news: A new crop of "governors" will immediately try to take over as per

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. ...There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." --Daniel Webster

And this - - -

"Within any society, there appears to be a minority that thinks in terms of power and measures the worth of all actions in terms of whether they increase the personal reach of the actors and increase their capacity for control. This is why practically every society of any size is hierarchical, and why hierarchy is never eliminated, only replaced by a different hierarchy -- the same wine in a new bottle." --Steven Yates, TAKING THE RED PILL, THE REAL MATRIX, PART 3, December 7, 2004, NewsWithViews.com

"The Who" got it exactly right - - -

Until we catch on to The Iron Law of Oligarchy.

There IS an answer.

What is it?

Need a hint?

I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretense of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. --Thomas Jefferson

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Why you MUST speak out. For your own good - - -

2011-01-09T16:00:00.001Z

DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, when I looked at the kind of people that would be coming under my care in palliative care, but also the kind of people who would get sick when I was in family practice, a number of salient characteristics presented themselves. One was the repression of anger. People didn’t know how to express negative emotion. They were afraid to do so or did not know when they were angry. People who were pleasers, they tried to always not to disappoint other people. They never knew how to say no. They took on everything without a murmur, because they saw their role as always being the caregivers and the caretakers. And they had an exceedingly powerful sense of duty, role and responsibility.
+
Now, if you look at the role of healthy assertion of boundaries and anger, for example, it’s actually there to protect you. I’m talking about healthy anger. It’s not there to attack anybody; it’s just there to protect your boundaries. That’s the same role as the immune system have. The immune system also functions like a brain. It has memory, it has reactive capacity, and it has learning capacity. In fact, the immune system has been called the “floating brain.” And it’s in interaction with the brain up in our heads.
+
Now, women, for example, with breast cancer, who don’t know how to express anger, they’ve been shown to have diminished activity of a group of immune cells called natural killer cells. Natural killer cells attack foreign bacteria, virus and also malignant cells. have been able to increase the natural killer cells. In other words, they protect our boundaries. Women who don’t know how to express their boundaries emotionally, they suppress their boundaries immunologically, and therefore they’re more likely to develop disease. The same is true, of course, of men, so that the immune system is in constant interaction with our emotional responses.... --Dr. Gabor Maté on the Stress-Disease Connection, Addiction, Attention Deficit Disorder and the Destruction of American Childhood

Just another I.O.U.

2010-11-11T08:28:00.001Z

There's always a discount on an I.O.U. The amount depends on its perceived likely-hood of being paid. The dollar is, in essence, such an I.O.U. The perception of repayment is dropping and you can follow it by watching the value of dollars on the market. --L. Reichard White, Thursday, November 11, 2010 3:22 AM

Game Over? What do you think?

2010-10-12T16:39:00.000Z

What do you think?

I have CNBC on wall- to-wall and there are two developments that are sub-themes there. I think both are real sleepers.

1. Retail investors are out of the markets. They took at least two beatings in the last decade and the flash-crash was the coup-de-gras. So only the pros are playing.

2. 70% of volume traded (on the equity markets) is "high-frequency" [split-second arbitrage] trading. -CNBC, October 11, 2010, 06:20:10

FWIW, the arbitrage traders don't lose, not even for a day. I think that spells the end of the markets as we know them. The ultimate wise-guys have created max entropy and game over.

What do you think?

More symptoms - - -

2010-05-14T09:32:00.000Z

- - - of unsound money:

Our parents were "The Greatest Generation," and they earned that title by making enormous sacrifices and investments to build us a world of abundance. My generation, "The Baby Boomers," turned out to be what the writer Kurt Andersen called "The Grasshopper Generation." We've eaten through all that abundance like hungry locusts. --Op-Ed Columnist Thomas L. Friedman, Root Canal Politics - NYTimes.com

These are just two more symptoms of unsound money. The boomers - - - and everyone in line behind us - - - are just following the incentives implicit in fiat (paper/electronic) money: Because of chronic yearly inflation caused by central bankers and politicians, this kind of "cash is trash" and thus saving is stupid. Our parents on the other hand, behaved in accordance with the incentives implicit in real Constitutional "hard" money (gold and silver) -- which can't be inflated.

Right between the eyes -- free vs. regulated

2010-05-13T18:28:00.000Z

Email To CNBC sent May 12, 2010:
==========
I heard two sound-bytes on your air that struck me "right between the eyes" -- in the frontal lobes.

1. In the [2008] financial crisis, it was the regulated entities, not the shadow entities that blew up. --James S. Chanos (Kynikos), May 6, 2010, 07:53:49.

2. Only about 35% of stock market trades are done on the "official" markets -- the rest are done on markets you never even heard of. --Yesterday [May 11, 2010] about 2:49PM

Can you maybe do a segment on the implications, which seem to be:

"We need to do away with the current financial establishment in favor of unregulated true free-markets."

Or perhaps,

"We're doing away with regulated markets whether we know it or not -- and unregulated works better."

Or did I miss something??

Health, happiness, & long life,
Rick

P.S. Baring the special segment, how about a personal note from Kudlow -- or Michelle Caruso-Cabrera?

Who luvs ya babe? Episode 3

2010-05-12T22:42:00.000Z

HINT: NOT politicians. In this case, not Brit politicians

...a more fundamental point is this: all these three [British political] parties agree with each other on the economic measures that have to be taken, i.e., massive cuts in social welfare public spending, which will hurt the poor, and to support the banking system and the financial system in this country. ...All three political parties are agreed that the war in Afghanistan has to continue as long as the United States says it has to ... So I'm just bemused when I hear talks of a progressive coalition. What is going to be progressive about it? All three parties are going to do more or less the same thing, which is attack the poor. --Tariq Ali on Britain's Political Deadlock, Gordon Brown's Resignation and Pakistan's Role in the Times Square Bombing Attempt

Out of Greece: The dynamics of contagion

2010-05-09T13:13:00.001Z

"As I testified before this committee in the midst of the Mexican financial crisis in early 1995, major advances in technology have engendered a highly efficient and increasingly sophisticated international financial system. ...But that same efficient financial system, as I also pointed out in that earlier testimony, has the capability to rapidly transmit the consequences of errors of judgement in private investments and public policies to all corners of the world at historically unprecedented speeds." -Alan Greenspan to House Banking Committee, 16 September, 1998. --BIG-FLOAT: The American Damocles

The Iron Law of Oligarchy: Another Case Study

2010-04-15T10:12:00.001Z

The "Iron Law of Oligarchy:" Another example - - -

...I discovered that in our country [Pakistan] there's a tiny elite who has usurped the resources of the whole country [Pakistan]. The whole country panders to this tiny elite. By the way, I belong to them. And the rich are getting richer. And the vast majority of people don't even have basic rights.... what is happening is, the elite has basically captured the government. Whether it's one party or the other, basically the interests are the same. And so, they come into government, and they plunder the country. They usurp the resources. And so, common people are deprived of all the basic needs... Pakistani Opposition Leader Imran Khan on Musharraf, Bhutto, and How the U.S. Has Undermined Pakistani Democracy, January 30, 2008

Complex systems and the "Waterfall Effect"

2010-03-28T19:40:00.000Z

The economy is such a complex organism with so many variables that it simply cannot be controlled. It is the height of arrogance that our politicians and so-called economists think they can control it. And it is the absolute height of arrogance that they attempt to do so in such a way as to ALSO benefit their selfish goals. With this level of stupidity, unintended consequences become many orders of magnitude more probable than the intended consequences. In fact, betting on the exact opposite of stated political goals is a sure bet for the long run right now. And the payoff will be tremendous! --FOFOA: The Waterfall Effect

American Star Wars: THE Synopsis

2010-03-25T13:57:00.001Z

"Zero Hedge ... remains convinced that the epic battle of our age will be between knowledge and ignorance. Moreover, we have lately become convinced that the United States is engaged in a mortal struggle with itself, split between the placating, patriarch, content to obfuscate and conceal everything -- from M3, to accounting rules, to the state of its financial institutions, to the provisions of the largest slab of legislation to pass in decades, to the very balance sheet of its central bank. A country that attacks truth tellers when they have bad news ("Shorts") and is prone to utter obvious falsehood platitudes like "We can never run out of money." And, contrary, a country that loves discourse, debate and, by extension, markets. A country that punishes falsehoods, concealment and that revels in projecting a bright beam of sunshine to the dark corners of... well... everything. Which country do you think you live in? Next time you hear some elected or appointed official talking, ask yourself: "Is he/she working to create or suppress knowledge." The lines draw themselves after that" Zero Hedge | The Dark Side

How inflation led to totalitarianism in Rome

2010-02-12T16:23:00.000Z

The episodes of extreme inflation took a standard form. ... The government ...resorted to debasing the coins of the realm. This took the form of replacing the gold and silver in coins with copper and other cheaper metals. Over the period 218 to 268 A.D. the silver content of Roman coins dropped to one five thousandth of its original level. Sometimes the size and weight of coins were reduced. It also meant vastly increasing the amount of coins in circulation. There was a corresponding increase in prices. The emperors usually blamed the price increases on the greed of merchants. ... In 301 AD Diocletian issued an edict declaring fixed prices; i.e., price controls. His edict provided for the death penalty for anyone selling above the control prices. There was also penalties (less severe) for anyone paying more than the control price. Irate consumers sometimes destroyed the businesses of those who sold higher than the control prices. In the short-run these draconian measures may have curbed inflation but in the long-run the results were disaster. Merchants stopped selling goods but this led to penalties against hoarding. People went out of business but Diocletian countered with laws saying that every man had to pursue the occupation of their father. The penalty for not doing so was death. This was justified on the basis that leaving the occupation of ones father was like a soldier deserting in time of war. The effect of this was to turn free men into serfs. EPISODES OF HYPERINFLATION, Thayer Watkins, ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT, SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY

Who is that Masked Man?

2010-01-20T09:08:00.000Z

There is a persistent rumor that one big buyer is supporting the U.S. Treasury market. --CNBC, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 7:51 AM

Who/what can afford to take up the slack as U.S. Treasury issuance sky-rockets and Japan, China, India, etc. slack-off their Treasury buying habit?

Every once in awhile the CNBC commentators sort of drop a similar hint, look at each other out of the corners of their eyes like this means something -- but they better not think too deeply about it or say it out loud.

Approaching ULTIMATE Moral Hazard?

2009-12-20T11:58:00.000Z

There was a SciFi short story that stuck with me for decades: The plot was that on one day every year, people were forced out of their bodies and had to play "musical chairs" with everyone else to get another one. The offshoot was that no one took care of themselves. Why not burn the candle at both ends since you won't be in that body for the consequences?

"There are a lot of stock renters and not many owners." --lengendary stock gambler Jack Bogle, CNBC, December 16, 2009, 08:43:49

"We have lots of investors who are in the markets for the long run. They sometimes hold stocks for hours, even days." --Carl Quintanilla, CNBC, December 16, 2009, 08:44:10

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium . . . You've GOT to be Kidding!

2008-07-13T13:55:00.000Z

Mr. [Wolfgang] Munchau ...is ...explaining about "New Keynesianism" which is, "in fact, probably the most influential macroeconomic theory of our time. At the heart of the doctrine stands the so-called dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, nowadays the main analytical tool of central banks all over the world."... "In this model, money and credit play no direct role. Nor does the financial market. The model's technical features ensure that financial markets have no economic consequences in the long run."... Almost as an understatement, he says, "This model has significant policy implications."... "One of them," he goes on, "is that central banks can safely ignore monetary aggregates and credit. They should also ignore asset prices and deal only with the economic consequences of an asset price bust."... Then he hits me between the eyes with the sledgehammer of, "They should also ignore headline inflation"... he cautiously suggests, ever the gentleman, that "we might want to question whether the recipes that got us into this mess are also most suited to get us out again."... He sums up by saying... "a recession is not the worst possible outcome. The worst is for this crisis to go on and on, for Minsky's moment to become an eternity."... Government Sanctioned Ponzi Schemes, The Mogambo Guru

So, let's see, according to "the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, ...the main analytical tool of central banks all over the world," the organizations (central banks), who are supposed to regulate money and credit "can safely ignore monetary aggregates and credit."

And these same central banks, expected to stabilize the markets and keep inflation under control, operate on the premise that "money and credit play no direct role. Nor does the financial market." And so, in pursuing their "mandate," they "also ignore headline inflation."

The economics profession has neglected to take human psychology into consideration. I've written a book, "Animal Spirits," to try to remedy that situation. --Yale economist and co-inventor of the Case-Shiller housing index Robert Shiller, CNBC, January 12, 2010, 09:53:39

Where on earth? - - - - Somalia

2007-12-26T11:45:00.001Z

Highlights of the Xeer

There is time in this short talk to give you only some of the highlights of the Xeer. First, law and, consequently, crime are defined in terms of property rights. The law is compensatory rather than punitive. Because property right requires compensation, rather than punishment, there is no imprisonment, and fines are rare. Such fines as might be imposed seldom exceed the amount of compensation and are not payable to any court or government, but directly to the victim. A fine might be in order when, for example, the killing of a camel was deliberate and premeditated, in which case the victim receives not one but two camels.

Fines are used in another interesting way. It is expected that a prominent public figure such as a religious or political dignitary or a policeman or a judge should lead an exemplary life. If he violates the law, he pays double what would be required of an ordinary person. Also, it should be noted, since the law and crime are defined in terms of property rights, the Xeer is unequivocal in its opposition to any form of taxation....

You can find the whole article here: The Rule of Law without the State

Where on earth - - - -

2007-12-17T00:21:00.001Z

Guess where - - -

Highlights of the Xeer

There is time in this short talk to give you only some of the highlights of the Xeer. First, law and, consequently, crime are defined in terms of property rights. The law is compensatory rather than punitive. Because property right requires compensation, rather than punishment, there is no imprisonment, and fines are rare. Such fines as might be imposed seldom exceed the amount of compensation and are not payable to any court or government, but directly to the victim. A fine might be in order when, for example, the killing of a camel was deliberate and premeditated, in which case the victim receives not one but two camels.

Fines are used in another interesting way. It is expected that a prominent public figure such as a religious or political dignitary or a policeman or a judge should lead an exemplary life. If he violates the law, he pays double what would be required of an ordinary person. Also, it should be noted, since the law and crime are defined in terms of property rights, the Xeer is unequivocal in its opposition to any form of taxation....

So, where on earth - - -

Tune in next week.

Or figure it out and leave a comment.

The GOEBBELS GAMBIT: Embeds -- how modern military censorship works

2007-09-28T09:36:00.001Z

"Don't tell them ... then it will not exist ..." --Chief Nazi "Information Officer" Joseph Paul Goebbels (in Goebbels, From Economics to Publicity, ed. 1955, Alles die Zeitungen collection, Dr. Herzbold Neher)

Last May, David Edwards and David Cromwell of MediaLens.org posted a revealing correspondence with Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news. They had asked her why the BBC had remained silent on known atrocities committed by the Americans in Fallujah. She replied, "Our correspondent in Fallujah at the time [of the U.S. attack], Paul Wood, did not report any of these things because he did not see any of these things." It is a statement to savor. Wood was "embedded" with the Americans. He interviewed none of the victims of American atrocities nor unembedded journalists. He not only missed the Americans' use of white phosphorus, which they now admit, he reported nothing of the use of another banned weapon, napalm. Thus, BBC viewers were unaware of the fine words of Col. James Alles, commander of the U.S. Marine Air Group II. "We napalmed both those bridge approaches," he said. "Unfortunately, there were people there … you could see them in the cockpit video. … It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect." --John Pilger, A News Revolution Has Begun, antiwar.com, November 25, 2005

MOCKINGBIRD: Pilger & Rather

2007-09-22T01:45:00.001Z

The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge." The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and information and to the World Wide Web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power. The great scandal of Iraq has accelerated this. In the UnitedStates, several senior broadcasters have confessed that had they challenged and exposed the lies told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, instead of amplifying and justifying them, the invasion might not have happened. --John Pilger, A News Revolution Has Begun, November 25, 2005

NEW YORK (AP) - Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.

"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live. --SAMANTHA GROSS, Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms, Sep 21, 12:39 AM (ET)

Perverted (state) capitalism -- A disgusting example

2007-08-28T13:04:00.001Z

What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits arehanded out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureaucracy. This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profiteering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole. --The Great Iraq Swindle, How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury, Rollingstone.com, From Issue 1034, Posted Aug 23, 2007 8:51 AM

THE Future

2007-05-01T08:34:00.001Z

Economist Gary Shilling has calculated that 52.6 percent of Amercans "now receive significant income from government programs."... He's expecting that number to hit 60 percent by 2040. 1 in 5 Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending. A similar number receive Social Security or a government pension. About 19 million others get food stamps, 2 million get subsidized housing, and 5 million get education grants. We're All New Dealers Now

Kamin's 4th Law: Governments will grow until destroyed by war or revolution.

Mangrum's Corollary: If not destroyed by war or revolution, governments will continue to grow until they crush the population which supports them. The BIG Picture
THAT is THE future - - - if we don't change it.

Will we use nukes?

2007-01-09T12:03:00.000Z

According to The Sunday Times, Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran. The article suggests that "the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack."

Will America be cajoled?

It seems "we" already have been:

Former UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector SCOTT RITTER: Look, we're already overflying Iran with unmanned aerial vehicles, pilotless drones. On the ground, the CIA is recruiting Mojahedin-e-Khalq, recruiting Kurds, recruiting Azeris, who are operating inside Iran on behalf of the United States of America. And there is reason to believe that we've actually put uniformed members of the United States Armed Forces and American citizens operating as CIA paramilitaries inside Iranian territory to gather intelligence.

Now, when you violate the borders and the airspace of a sovereign nation with paramilitary and military forces, that's an act of war. That's an act of war. So, when Americans say, "Ah, there's not going to be a war in Iran," there's already a war in Iran. We're at war with Iran. We're just not in the declared conventional stage of the war. The Bush administration has a policy of regime change. They're going to use the military, and the military is being used. --Democracy Now! interview, Oct. 16, 2006

SCOTT RITTER: The bottom line is, within two days of our decision to initiate an attack on Iran, every single one of you is going to be feeling the consequences of that in your pocketbook. And it's only going to get worse. This is not something that only I recognize. Ask Dick Lugar what information he's getting from big business, who are saying, "We can't afford to go to war with Iran."

SEYMOUR HERSH: Final question: given all this, are we going to do it?

SCOTT RITTER: Yes, we're going to do it. --at the ethical culture society oct 2006

P.S. The inaccuracy of headlines: According to MSNBC, Israel denies it’s planning Iran nuclear attack, however, nowhere in that article does an official Israeli spokesperson specifically deny the Times story. This is fairly obviously another well orchastrated Israelie government "psyops," probably designed to "put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action and/or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

Is this any way to treat a politician? #00001

2006-10-11T11:08:00.000Z

Gentle reader, did you know that in April President Bush went to Stanford University to speak to the Hoover Institution fellows at the invitation of former Secretary of State George Shultz but was not allowed on campus? The Stanford students got wind of it and blocked Bush's access to the campus. ... I did not hear or read a word about it.

Did you? I learned of it from faculty friends in June when I attended Stanford's graduation to witness a relative receive her degree. The June 16 edition of The Stanford Daily reprints its April 24 report of the episode. -A Republic or an Empire?, By Paul Craig Roberts, Information Clearing House, 07/09/06

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in town [Pittsburgh, Pa] for a fund-raiser for Sen. Rick Santorum, had a close encounter with a large group of anti-Republican protesters as he was making his way to the Duquesne Club, Downtown. ...

"Jeb, go home," they shouted. ...

"It was a very tense situation. They were very close to the governor and shouting on top of him." [said Port Authority spokesman Bob Grove]

As a precaution, the governor was ushered into a T-station supply closet and stayed there until the crowd left. -Jeb Bush gets rude welcome, Police disperse angry protesters in Downtown T-station, Saturday, October 07, 2006, By Ervin Dyer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Mortal Enemy

2006-09-29T11:13:00.000Z

According to [veteran reporter Bob] Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. ..."That's more than 100 a day," says Woodward.
+
..."The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,'" he tells Wallace. "Now there’s public, and then there’s private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know," says Woodward. Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On Iraq, CBS NEWS, NEW YORK, Sept. 28, 2006

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State." -Chief Nazi 'Information Officer' Dr. Joseph P. Goebbels

Why Goliath is the Underdog #001

2006-08-04T18:16:00.000Z

"The central secret to Hezbollah's success is that it trained its (global) guerrillas to make decisions autonomously (classic 4GW), at the small group level. In every area -- from firing rockets to defending prepared positions to media routing around jamming/disruption -- we have examples of Hezbollah teams deciding, adapting, innovating, and collaborating without reference to any central authority. The result of this decentralization is that Hezbollah's aggregate decision cycles are faster and qualitatively better than those of their Israeli counterparts." Global Guerrillas, Sunday, July 30, 2006 THE SECRETS OF HEZBOLLAH'S SUCCESS, Organizational Improvements

Rumsfeld vs. 4th Generation Warfare: He loses!

"Several years ago, a Marine friend went down to Bolivia as part of the U.S. counter-drug effort. He observed that the drug traffickers went through the Boyd cycle, or OODA Loop [decision cycle], six times in the time it took us to go through it once . When I relayed that to Colonel Boyd, he said, 'Then we're not even in the game.'" William S. Lind, More on Gangs and Guerrillas vs. the State, April 29, 2005

Micro-power (termites of power) is spreading to all areas of human endeavour. Rather than the bi-polar world of the 20th century, we are entering a hyper-polar world -- a world with hundreds, thousands of smaller centers of power. Central Banks used to call all the shots, but now there are hundreds of independent hedge-funds that limit central banks, for one example. I don't know what the ultimate outcome will be and I don't think anyone does. -Moises Naim, Venezuelan Minister of Industry, Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria, July 25, 2006, 12:21:36

Who loves ya, babe?

2006-07-29T13:30:00.000Z
The Las Vegas City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that bans providing food or meals to the indigent for free or a nominal fee in parks. Feeding homeless outlawed, By DAVID MCGRATH SCHWARTZ REVIEW-JOURNAL, Jul. 20, 2006
City officials have banned charitable groups from feeding homeless people in parks downtown, arguing that transients who gather for weekly meals create safety and sanitary problems for businesses. Orlando Bans Feeding Homeless Downtown, Jul 25 1:55 PM US/Eastern

Who were those masked folks?

2006-07-28T05:29:00.002Z

...when Europe was stagnating in the so-called Dark Ages, the world was actually bright with a civilization more closely akin to what we have in America [in 1953 A.D.] than anything that had gone before. Thirty generations of human beings who believed in personal freedom created that civilization and kept it going for 800 years. ...these people ...included Buddhists, Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus, Mongolians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Armenians, Persians, Medes, Arabs, Greeks, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hittites, Africans, and hundreds of others...
...no authority suppressed scientists, and no policeman harried them - nor did any government take care of them. They opened schools; ...students flocked to them. Some of these schools grew into great universities, and for hundreds of years they continued to grow.

Learning versus Teaching

The Xxxxxxx universities had no formal organization --Xxxxxxxx [religious founder] contended that too much organization leads to corruption. The rules were few. There were no standardized programs, no regular curriculums, no examinations. To guard against the fallacious idea that education ends with graduation, the Xxxxxxxx' schools granted no diplomas, no degrees. They were institutions, not of teaching, but of learning. Students went there to acquire knowledge, just as Americans go to grocery stores to buy [1] food.

Classes were held on an open-house basis. Anyone in quest of knowledge was free to wander about and listen. If he decided to remain, he picked a teacher and privately discussed with him what he wanted to learn and what he should study, and they agreed upon a fee. If, after joining the class, he didn't get the knowledge he wanted, he stopped paying the teacher and went to another teacher or another university. When he had learned what he thought he ought to know, he quit school and put his new knowledge to practical test.

For 800 years, the Xxxxxxxx' schools and universities proceeded on the principle of freedom -- on the basis of voluntary agreement between teacher and student. They offered all the learning of the past, with special emphasis on scientific knowledge. -H.G. Weaver, The Mainspring of Human Progress, (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Foundation for Economic Education, 1953) pg. 104

Notes:

[1] This chapter is based mainly on information gathered by Rose Wilder Lane, whose researches include personal contacts among remnants of former Xxxxxxxic tribes. Almost everything in it should be in quotes, except that I have taken liberties in condensing Mrs. Lane's original text. return

Who were those masked folks? Find out here.

Honest mistakes -- or Freudian slips?

2006-07-26T23:01:00.000Z

Bush: You're free! It'll take time to restore chaos.

"The United States is at war with America. And we have been for 60 years." -President George W. Bush, June 29, 2006

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -President George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Is this appropriate for a free people? #00001

2006-07-26T18:09:00.000Z
Way back in 2003, the Wisconsin Legislature enacted the Wisconsin Premises Registration Act, which became effective in November 2005. Sally, and everyone else in Wisconsin who owned even one chicken, horse, cow or any other livestock animal, was required to register her premises with the state by Jan. 1, 2006.

Sally didn't register her premises – and became an outlaw by doing nothing. Grandma is an outlaw