The Detroit Area Anarchy Group

6 Part Series on Abolishing Govt

2012-01-06T01:45:00.001-05:00

LewRockwell.com use to have a six part series on the abolition of govt. Unfortunately it is no longer archived on the site. Through the years I have found five of the six articles. So as to have an easy place to reference the whole series, I have posted them below.

edit: I meant to post in reverse order so one could read them in order scrolling down the page, but somehow I managed to post the 2nd article above the 1st. In other words, the first article below is the second in the series and the second one posted is actually the first in the series.

Why Abolishing Government Would Not Bring Chaos

2012-01-06T01:44:00.006-05:00

I wrote recently that government should be abolished. Among the responses to the article were objections of the sort shared by most who encounter for the first time the prospect of living without forcible government. The most common objections are fundamentally similar to each other: Violence would rule the day; corporations would run over us little people; foreign governments would invade; big neighborhoods would pillage small neighborhoods; etc. The books I linked in the previous article answer these objections, but since most of us (myself included) might not buy a book online – and then be sure to read it – every single time we surf the net, I’ll address those objections briefly here, and provide links to online articles wherever possible.

The pervasiveness of these objections makes it worth addressing them, as does the fact that it seems counterintuitive to assert that abolishing government would bring more peace, security, and abundance – just as it seems counterintuitive that the way to reduce gun violence is to allow everybody to own guns.

Police

Without government, you still must deal with local criminals. Most people believe you need government police departments to do this, else the nation would become a violent jungle.

Mary Ruwart, in her book, documents examples of private police departments in the US. These agencies charge subscription fees and provide patrol services. In each case, the private police cost substantially less than the government police yet produce significant decreases in crime by, among other things, patrolling more often and actually checking the doors and windows of homes when there is no one there. In other words, the private policemen work all day instead of driving around intimidating innocent drivers or sitting in donut shops and speed traps. In some cases Ruwart recounts, local governments have forcibly shut down the private police and replaced them with government police. Crime and cost both increased dramatically thereafter.

There are private security forces providing neighborhood and town security around the nation, and they are effective and affordable. Why would someone start up a private police force? For the same reasons you’d open a dentist’s or marriage-counseling office: To provide a valued service while making a profit. Abolishing government police would produce entrepreneurs who would compete with each other to do the best job for the lowest cost while making a profit. We already have these entrepreneurs wherever government allows them, and they have arisen because government police are ineffective while residents are willing to pay for good service, just as we pay for cable television even though we get the major networks over the air. Most importantly, a private police force that destroyed property and harmed innocent people would go out of business in a hurry, with the responsible individuals sued and jailed. In other words, the agency would be contractually bound to perform. The market provides – enforces – incentives for businesses to do what’s good for customers (a.k.a. society), and this applies to every good or service – roads, medicine, plumbing, underwear. Such pressure cannot be applied to government police.

Military

What about foreign governments observing a prosperous anarcho-capitalist society, and deciding to invade? Don’t we need a military, funded by tax dollars, to defend us from aggressors? Hans-Hermann Hoppe has discussed this question at length: Already, large insurance companies have the financial resources, the incentive, and the general business skills to provide for regional defense. As customers, we would have the option to pay a little more in homeowner’s insurance, and be able to make a claim in the case of lost property or personal harm resulting from foreign invasion. It is good for private insurers to provide "military," or regional, defense: Insurers can be sued and/or driven out of business by customers if the insurers do a bad job by either failing to keep their promises, or by hurting innocent people in an attempt to keep their promises.

It gets better: Extensive historical experience shows that private militaries have incentive to kill as few of the enemy, and destroy as little of their property, as possible, while there is still incentive to defeat the enemy. This is covered in detail in the new book edited by Hoppe, The Myth of National Defense, which discusses the problems with government defense, of course, but doesn’t stop there; there are numerous historical examples of the superiority of private defense. Further, insurers would never have incentive to initiate war – the insurers would have to pay for it out of reserves, or raise customer’s prices (while customers can change insurers); and insurers would have to pay restitution and penalties to each victim of "collateral damage." Notably, though insurance companies already are capable of developing a powerful regional defensive deterrent, history has shown that they would have less need to worry about foreign invasion if more of us are armed, and we would be in the absence of government gun control laws. (Insurers probably would offer lower premiums to gun owners to encourage widespread gun ownership.)

A side note: As the loon Ross Perot suggested by personally outperforming the US Army in Iran, insurers wouldn’t even have to maintain their own defense forces. A market of private defense forces of varying sizes and specialties would develop. And as is the case with private security agencies today (as in 99.1% of the occasions a law-abiding individual draws a gun to stop a crime), private defense forces would rarely need to fire a shot.

Corporations

As to the haves running roughshod over the have-nots, history is again our guide. As Mary Ruwart discusses in detail, one famous example is Standard Oil, believed by many today to have been a stronger monopoly than Microsoft. Standard Oil became a near-monopoly by bringing down the price – from 58 cents to 8 cents (!) per gallon – at which it could sell kerosene to the consumer. Very soon, oil companies around the world matched Standard’s efficiency. Rockefeller then resorted to underhanded tactics to sustain monopoly power in the US (which he never really had; even at its peak, Standard had competitors who were constantly reducing their own costs and prices, though they were usually a step behind). The only efforts that had any effect were his activism in getting enacted laws that would hamstring the competition. By the way, Microsoft’s share of the operating-system market has been decreasing steadily to Apple, Linux, and others, and was decreasing even before the big government antitrust attack.

As to public safety against greedy corporations, Ruwart reminds us that before the FDA and its approval requirements, women’s magazines routinely ran articles detailing the side effects of drugs on the market. Many private consumer-interest agencies exist today, even though government is supposedly doing the job for us. You can subscribe to Consumer Reports yourself for information on product safety and reliability. Entrepreneurs always arise to take care of social needs, and they always do it faster, more effectively, and at a lower cost than government. Entrepreneurs don’t enjoy the sovereign immunity government enjoys, so they are always required by their customers to live up to their promises, and the only people ever charged for their services are the ones who come to them freely, offering money.

Without government licensing, trade restrictions, centrally-imposed regulations, and other barriers to entrepreneurs, there would be more companies able to offer services, not fewer; and any innovator who approached monopoly power would enjoy profits that attract intense competition. Thus, any firm that approaches monopoly power and profits in a free market produces the seeds of its own downsizing. No firm can approach monopoly power unless everybody wants that firm’s product at the price the firm offers. And no powerful corporation will ever be free from the continuous, nagging oversight of customers and consumer-interest agencies.

Justice

There would still be crime in the absence of forcible government, but it would be far less frequent without gun laws, as John Lott has shown using data from every county in the US for the last 100 years or so. Since there are always some evil people, we would need a court system. Bruce Benson (read a few of the papers at his web page, and scroll down on this link for a start on his books) has written extensively on the topic of private justice, showing examples of actual practice to demonstrate that not only are such systems less expensive, more effective, and more available to us than government justice, but that incentives to commit crimes decrease with private courts and police. Additionally, recidivism and violence among inmates decrease under private penal systems. Private penal systems produce profits, produce restitution for victims, and can produce earnings, sometimes substantial ones, for convicts – no taxation required. Such systems are in use in the US right now. Benson also addresses the greater fairness of private courts, again using historical examples. None of this should be surprising: Anyone whose income depends on satisfying customers has a strong incentive to do good by them; government employees lack this incentive. Private courts must, over time, impress all their customers – winners and losers – with their fairness.

And since everything about an anarcho-capitalist society is voluntary, a convicted criminal would be able to choose from among various private prisons (choosing the one with the best living conditions, or the one that would produce the greatest income given his skills, thereby shortening his incarceration), or simply ignore the court’s verdict. What about a convicted criminal who refuses to go to prison or make restitution to his victims? As Benson shows, historically in societies that allow criminals to ignore their convictions, such persons have been considered "outside the law." The victim’s insurer might then forcibly confiscate some or all of a convict’s property to pay court costs and make restitution to the victim.

Insurers wouldn’t do this lightly, as private appeals courts would be available to the convict, and insurance companies forcibly confiscating property (as when forcibly defending it) would be held responsible for any errors. Watchdog consumer agencies, such as we already have, would publicize insurers’ mistakes. In the US today, many people who have property confiscated by the government and are later found innocent wait years to have their property returned, often damaged; and sometimes the government charges the acquitted party for storage. An insurer, by contrast, would have to make full restitution for an error, and would pay compensatory and punitive penalties as well.

And whenever such a company might face customer pressure to use coercion, you can be sure that that pressure would be matched by market pressure not to use coercion. Insurers representing opposing parties would tend to work between themselves first, out of court. In a free society, businesses simply don’t have incentives to resort to violence.

The assumption that people are basically good

Remaining are the "human nature" objections to freedom from forcible government. A common protest is that a completely free market requires that "people are basically good." This is not correct; to the contrary, what makes a market work is that people are self-interested. In every field of endeavor outside government, producers must attract and keep customers. They can do this only by pleasing customers, inducing them to purchase from them when the customers are free to purchase from someone else. Humans already are self-interested, and want to be pleased. Hence, the market is a 24/7 watchdog with 280 million pairs of eyes and ears. Each one of those 280 million customers earns less money than he wants to, and therefore makes purchases in a discriminating fashion. This applies to customers of private police forces and insurance agencies who provide coverage against natural disasters, foreign invasions, etc., just as it applies to customers who buy shoes. Everybody watches everybody else by demanding good products and services at reasonable prices – you already do this every day – and everybody has greater and more affordable recourse against frauds and unethical manufacturers when private justice is available.

Establishing all these private systems is easy: Entrepreneurs do all the difficult and risky business-development work for you, while you just keep on living, making decisions in your own best interest the way you always have. That’s how you already do the critical, governing work of deciding which solutions, entrepreneurs, and firms survive and which ones fail.

Utopia

So, is anarcho-capitalism (that’s really just another name for liberty) utopian? Of course not; much of what is attractive about the absence of forcible government is how the market handles the conflicts that any adult knows are inevitable. Anarcho-capitalism is in this sense the same as any other political system. Political systems are attempts to handle conflicts. Under a truly free market, you have 280 million American minds working to handle the conflicts, voting voluntarily with their dollars for the best solutions for each of them under their own circumstances; under forcible government, you have a tiny percentage of those minds trying to handle things for everyone else, and forcing everyone else at gunpoint to accept government’s ideas of solutions.

Many regular readers of LewRockwell.com know more than I’ve written here already; I’m hoping readers new to libertarian theory, and readers of other websites who might pick up this article, will pursue the links above and find that there is a mountain of proof, covering all of recorded history up to the present day, that we can do anything government can do, and better. People acting freely in their own interest continue to prove this, and they do so not because of government benevolence, but in spite of it.

December 15, 2003

Why Government Must Be Abolished

2012-01-06T01:44:00.002-05:00

Readers frequently fail to recognize my fundamental position, and are shocked when I say such things as "the US Constitution is an irrelevant, ineffective mistake" and "no, we shouldn’t be bombing villages in Iraq and Afghanistan." Readers sometimes accuse me of being a communist of one sort or another when I say something contrary to their Republican Party or neo-conservative assumptions.

First, one thing needs to be made clear: Republican representative democracy is not the opposite of communism. Under our system of government in the US, everyone is encouraged to vote for what he wants. Then, government aims its guns at the minority who didn’t agree with the majority, and forces the minority to pay money (or do more) to support the outcome they didn’t want. This is a perversion of justice. It is fundamentally wrong. Even in our early days, when senators to the US Congress were not popularly elected, but were appointed by state legislatures (therefore, ostensibly, appointed by the best and brightest), our form of government was just a dressed-up version of mob rule.

The real opposite of communism is anarcho-capitalism, under which there is no forcible government, and no adult is ever forced to do anything he doesn’t agree to. This extends even to criminal justice. The empirical data supporting my claim that this sort of civilization would be more peaceful and prosperous than anything we could forcibly impose spans every year of recorded history, and is found in every civilization we can name. For empirical evidence, I refer the reader to anything he can find on LewRockwell.com, Mises.org, and Amazon.com, searching for authors Lew Rockwell, Mary Ruwart, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Bruce Benson. If you follow my advice here, and read everything you can find by those authors, in six months you’ll have a new library, a mountain of empirical evidence to refer to, and a conviction that forcible government must be abolished.

In the meantime, the terse reasoning why government must be abolished needs only two supporting statements: Forcible government is a moral wrong, and forcible government is always a practical failure.

Forcible Government is Morally Wrong

For traditional, forcible government to accomplish anything, it first must tax. This requires stealing, at gunpoint, money (property) from everyone under its rule – even the people who don’t want done what the government is going to do. This is theft. There is no more fitting term for it. Government gets away with this, first because it has more guns than any individual it’s taxing; and second because the population has usually been convinced, lately through years of government schooling, that such stealing is necessary for civilization.

Hand-wringing philosophers are invited to write me to disagree, but I hold that it’s self-evident that there is no good act that can be performed that requires first the commission of an evil act. As an example, "killing the few to save the many" has never in human history found a practical application outside war, which always involves governments imposing their wishes on each other. There is no natural emergency or shortage of resources that requires first committing evil in order to bring about a good. Bringing about a good never allows beginning with an evil.

Government Never Works

There has been found no domain of activity in which government action is as effective or efficient as solutions provided by entrepreneurs in the market. This extends obviously to schooling and medical care; even the general public knows this. It is less obvious (except to students of history) that this applies also to roads, justice, and military defense. For empirical evidence of these claims, search for the names I listed earlier.

There are two reasons government never works in practice: First, 100% of government employees operate under distorted incentives. No government employees face only the incentive to serve their customers, while 100% of entrepreneurs do.

Elected government employees have incentive only to serve the most, and this must come at the expense of the few. The way this works is for the government to steal as much as possible from the few to provide free goodies for the most.

Appointed and career bureaucrats have as their incentive expanding their territory and pleasing their bosses. If their bosses are elected – see the preceding paragraph. If their bosses are career bureaucrats, the incentive of subordinate bureaucrats is to spend all of the money in their budgets, so they can claim they need more next year. Thus, their goal is inefficiency – the opposite of what serves the customer best.

Finally, rank-and-file government employees are union members. Unions always work to serve employees, and always at the expense of customers. The only thing that is in the best interest of customers is for each employee to be judged and rewarded individually, based on how well the customer is served. Unions work to the opposite goal, always striving for greater rewards for lesser work. This is what the union members pay their dues to accomplish.

The second reason government never works is its creation of laws that are applied by force to an entire population. First, government laws can – almost always do – have unintended consequences: Minimum wage laws always result in higher unemployment and crime; "equal employment opportunity" laws always result in people being hired based on the color of their skin more than the content of their character; the Americans with Disabilities Act has resulted in workplace mass murders, usually at US Post Offices; and so on.

Second, government laws are always used to advantage by those who have an incentive to do wrong. As one example, polluters are allowed to pollute to certain levels by the EPA. Thus, polluters have no legal responsibility to landowners whose wildlife they’ve killed, as long as the polluters can prove they’re within legal guidelines. If people had true property rights, people could seek restitution based on damage done, not based on whether laws were obeyed. Under present circumstances, lawsuits are won and lost only on whether laws were obeyed; damage done is irrelevant. As another example, Enron used accounting and reporting laws to legally hide losses on the balance sheets of other companies in which they had part ownership. Enron also used campaign contributions to buy the favor, and silence, of US legislators. It was the stock market that first broke the news that Enron had problems.

Third, government laws invariably create losers by creating win/lose scenarios when the unfettered market creates win/win scenarios. All government laws select winners and losers, except criminal laws, which make everyone a loser. Under forcible government, criminals usually come out of the system worse off than when they entered, and victims are forced at gunpoint to pay for the criminals’ upkeep in the meantime; at the same time, victims have little claim to restitution. I mentioned environmental laws, which make partial winners of polluters and complete losers of everyone else. Name the law of your choosing, and you can identify the loser immediately.

So that’s my stance. Do not confuse a lack of respect for the US Constitution, for the Pledge of Allegiance, or for American pre-emptive wars, with communism. Both the American system of government and old-fashioned Soviet communism have at their root the same mechanism: Lethal force applied to an entire population to provide the government what it wants without the government being required to live up to any promises of recompense.

That forcible government is a moral wrong in itself is enough reason to abolish it, even if market solutions were not an improvement. That market solutions are always better – more efficient, more peaceful, more just, more productive of wealth – should be all it takes to convince even die-hard statists that all governments should be abolished. It’s too bad statists are blinded by their personal incentives.

December 8, 2003

How to Abolish Government

2012-01-06T01:43:00.010-05:00

Libertarian commentators often discuss the reasons government doesn’t function as advertised. There are so many things wrong with government, and so many examples to point to, that documenting peccadilloes is easy. We take some heat, then, for failing to suggest solutions. Much of that heat is a little misguided, as we mention the final solution frequently: Privatize everything, from education to roads. Additionally, we writers often make the mistake of assuming readers know what we’re thinking; it is often the case that identifying a problem identifies the solution, but not everyone is on the same page – most folks (us writers included) don’t always realize how many solutions are already available. For that reason, in recent articles I’ve linked some resources that have good bibliographies, and that refer to concrete, current instances of private successes.

Going another step, I gather that the real problem is how to get from here to there: How to implement the solutions we suggest in the face of government opposition; how to reach the eventual (peaceful!) abolition of government.

First, the good news: I’m convinced government will be abolished (the reasons why will be for another article), but that it will take time. For now, here are some things we can do to hasten it along.

The most effective, enduring thing you can do is home school your children. That’s easy to say; actually doing it is a big deal. You have to make arrangements to live on one income, which assumes you have two parents in the house, which of course you should. Many believe the parent (hopefully the mother) who stays home and educates her children is making a great sacrifice. Fortunately, this isn’t really true; sophisticated New York cultural magazines are finally carrying articles showing that career mothers increasingly wish they’d stayed home, and more of them seem to be making the decision to do so. Further, homeschooling is engaging and rewarding for both parents. It’s simply more fun than the doodads and vehicles you can buy with the second income (while paying someone with inferior talents, skills, and motivation to take your neighbor’s tax money to control what kind of adults your children become).

When you home school, you produce well-educated, freedom-loving, self-reliant, well-adjusted children who will make you proud; who are consummately able and willing to take care of you in your old age; and who can take over the world (by being best able to ensure that nobody else actually takes over the world, as the UN wants to do today). You produce adults who are articulate, quick-witted, and equipped to persuade others of the benefits of living without forcible government.

Homeschooling will take a generation or three to have profound societal effect. Fortunately, since homeschooling has been gaining popularity since the 1970s, the first generation has been prepared for us. The middle of that generation is now winning all the national geography, math, and spelling bees.

Another important thing you can do, second in commitment only to homeschooling, is to compete with government in the provision of security. Organize your neighborhood, perhaps, and contract as a group with a private security service. If you’re an entrepreneur, start your own security firm. It’s a big enough business that some states regulate it closely; this means there’s already a market, and some folks already know how to get the business started.* According to left-wing opponents of private security, there are more private than government police in the US already, and the private security business is growing fast. Now may be a great time to get started. Security isn’t the only arena where you can compete with government, it’s just the most obvious. Roads, firefighting, a libertarian private school, you name it – you’re the entrepreneur. Competing with government at something it claims only it can do is for the daring and resourceful, of whom there are many active already.

If committing the next several years or decades of your life seems daunting, you can commit only a few minutes at a time: Pressure whoever’s in office now. For whatever reason, office holders at all levels are more impressed by snail mail than by anything else. Send letters to everyone who rules you whenever they are to make a decision. Tell them which choice to make, and give them a few short, level-headed sentences explaining why. Of course, you always want to tell them to vote in the way that reduces government. This may require telling them to vote in ways you don’t like, such as in favor of erasing gambling, prostitution, or drug laws. Every vote our rulers cast against government action will be a vote that increases or preserves liberty, economic prosperity, and (believe it or not) public morality. If the issue they are faced with does not present a smaller-government option, then tell them to grab the bull by neither horn – invent your own government-reducing command. For example, if your senator in Washington is deciding whether to write into law mandatory 10-year vs. mandatory 20-year sentences for drug pushers, tell him he needs to write instead a bill returning drug-legislative power to the states. Then tell your state legislators to give such power to counties.

Even if you dislike the idea of participating with your forcible government, it remains the case that telling your governor not to put a new tax up for vote is a step in the right direction. He doesn’t need to know you’re moving him in the direction of abolishing his office, that you didn’t vote for him, or that you don’t vote for people at all. He needs to believe only that you might vote for him next time. Forty years from now, it will be easier to abolish a government that taxes 10% of your income and offers no social programs than to abolish a government of the sort we have today.

Buy guns. Be sure you can use them effectively and safely. Just FYI, some of the best gun safety training is in the owner’s manual of your new gun. The more guns we own, the safer we are from ordinary criminals, from foreign invasion, and from our government. In case you’re wondering, the government’s own information shows that private guns and their owners are safer to children and to the general public than are wading pools and government policemen.

Join organizations, or start your own. Search the web, and find the libertarian organizations nearest you. You’ll make contacts and find new and useful information. Additionally, when you pool resources with like-minded people, public education and involvement become more practical. When energetic, liberty-minded people join forces voluntarily, they can lift a heavier rock than any person can lift alone. And yes, there may be some extremely well-informed anarcho-capitalists at Libertarian Party outings.

Finally, work hard to inform yourself. This makes you more effective in persuading opponents. Use the bibliographies at LewRockwell.com. These bibliographies include commentary to help you select the books that most interest you, and Amazon.com posts reader reviews – worth scanning, because you might not finish a book that speaks below your level or that goes over your head. You’ll be able to separate the smart reviewers from the dumb ones.

Other things you can do depend only on your energy and imagination. Start your own anti-state website. Email LewRockwell.com articles to everyone you know. Buy vegetables from roadside stands (or anywhere you can avoid paying sales tax), or grow your own vegetables. Buy children’s books at garage sales. There’s even a market for used homeschooling curricula.

Notice that none of these solutions suggests that we can abolish forcible government overnight. The American Revolution (both of them) took years to complete. The revolution I want doesn’t even involve bloodshed; it requires bringing hearts and minds away from the dark side, one at a time. Any one person can require years to undo the pro-government indoctrination he has received.

When people are convinced, educated, and capable, they’ll come up with more solutions; the work will be under way. Worldwide anarcho-capitalist (a.k.a. voluntary) society is not only possible, I believe it is inevitable; many are already doing everything I’ve mentioned above, planting the seed of self-governance in the minds of people everywhere. Work at it one day at a time, and stay tuned.

* That there are others doing it means one or many of them will help you get going. They’ll know that increasing the visibility of their business means more business, even given the chance you’ll grow to be a competitor. In a strip mall some time ago, there were two discount shoe stores. One burned down. The other owner helped rebuild the burnt store, because the presence of two stores increased the shoe-related visibility of the strip mall. The presence of a competitor increased sales for the unburnt store. Near my home, three fast-food joints opened within 100 feet of each other within the last six months. You’ll have help starting your business.

December 15, 2003

Government Will Be Abolished

2012-01-06T01:43:00.007-05:00

Government Will Be Abolished

"There's something in the American character that always looks for a better way and is unimpressed when others say it cannot be done."

~ George W. Bush

And that is why government will be abolished.

Always looking for a better way isn’t even an American invention. Human beings do it by virtue of being human. We act in our own self-interest. Right now, 279.something out of 280 million Americans believe it is in their best interest to allow government to exist – to follow its orders, pay whatever taxes it demands, and cheer it on when it kills foreigners or when it kills those of our countrymen it decides to kill. Americans will change their minds about all that. History, ancient and current, establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that anything government can do, markets can do better – except mass murder, which markets are only better able to prevent – and history is better disseminated with each day that passes.

People are responsible for their governments, and ultimately determine whether governments persist. The Republican Party platform of 1932 insisted that prohibition was the law of the land, and was to be enforced of necessity to rid the land of the evil of alcohol no matter how onerous the enforcement. The people disagreed, however, and the law was repealed. We’re all better off for it. Other unjust federal and state laws have been abolished because the people decided it should be done.

That having forcible government is not in our best interest is demonstrated every day. A basic illustration shows the implausibility of any hope that government, even at its most benign, can improve our lives: Say you have three people, one of whom is poor. Under a free market, the poor one builds a fence for a non-poor one, and is paid. Now, three people are working, each producing and earning wealth. Under forcible government, the poor one appeals to the government one. The government one points a gun at the non-poor fellow, takes some of his money, and gives it to the poor one. The government one keeps some of this money for himself. He does this all day long. It’s his job. Under the government scenario, we have one of the three people working to create wealth while the other two commit an injustice and forever operate under distorted incentives. All three now regard each other with distrust and resentment, with two of the three (the non-government folks) wishing there were a better way. This scenario applies equally to law enforcement, justice, roads, and geographic defense.

The 279 million of us who believe forcible government is necessary haven’t yet seen enough history or enough entrepreneurs (government schools ensure this), even though the occasional government official utters something vaguely supportive of free enterprise. As historians have documented from the dawn of civilization, government works only for its own purposes. Any good work a government chances to accomplish for any person or people can come only at someone else’s expense. Government never creates wealth, and it never improves, but can only degrade, the standard of living of those under its rule. Forcible government has no moral standing, no right, to exist.

People and firms acting within the market, however, are governed by the market, and customers buy from them only voluntarily, only if they believe they will be better off for doing so. Any use of force is in defense – the market treats any initiation of force as a crime, and an unfettered market vastly reduces the incentive to commit crimes. People and firms in the market must earn their right to exist, and they keep this right only one day at a time. They earn this right by pleasing those they deal with.

This message is getting out. Hitler was wrong: A big enough lie, told often enough, will work only for a limited time. Every government on the planet is outnumbered by the people it governs, and ultimately is allowed to govern only by their acquiescence. That acquiescence will be withdrawn as more of us become informed. And no government can stop us from informing each other (even if Rumsfeld would have listening devices in all our homes).

Eventually we will all be contracting through local merchants for police services, through insurers for defense from foreign governments (not that foreign governments would have any incentive to invade – a free territory would be a porcupine from their perspective), and private courts for reliable and sane justice delivered speedily and affordably. Juries will refuse to convict anyone accused of breaking an unjust law (as they did in government courts until the 20^th century), or indeed anyone who didn’t violate someone else’s rights through force or fraud. Eventually, government courts and police departments will be abandoned by everyone not employed there, as citizens take their business to private service providers. Government eventually will have no supporters and will be unable to find anyone competent to hire. Finally, there will be no one to enforce regulations, seize property, collect taxes, fight wars, or keep the lights on in the White House.

That such a scenario is plausible, and supported by many already, is demonstrated by the Free State Project. Over 5,000 people already have committed to relocating to New Hampshire, and once there, voting as a block to move the government in a libertarian direction. Their inevitable economic success will serve as an example other states will follow. By the time we put together a (peaceful, unarmed) five-million-man march on Washington to request that all politicians there step down, those politicians will already have their bags packed, as they’ll already know the inevitable. Five million is an easy number: In the first American Revolution, we had 15% of the population involved, which would equate to 43 million men today.

Many scenarios suggest themselves, ranging from violent revolution to tax revolt, but the best and most likely strategies are the peaceful and gradual ones such as the Free State Project is already undertaking.

It is inevitable that forcible government will be abolished, replaced with the spontaneous, voluntary governance of the market, in which every participant is responsible to every other and is governed by the self-interest of 280 million pairs of eyes and 280 million personal wallets. It is the morally just thing; the number of people aware of this is growing exponentially, especially as entrepreneurs outperform government in more cities and in more lines of business; the technology for informing everyone has been in our hands for only a few years and is growing exponentially; and people are inherently self-interested. Peace and free exchange serve man’s prosperity and security best, and government is the lone institution that perpetually threatens peace and free exchange. It is inevitable that people will come to know this. Eventually they will request that government disband whether I write articles or not. They will do this in spite of, and with contempt for, the impotent bleating of those who continue to believe that forcible government is necessary.

It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization – is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct. – Herbert Spencer

December 30, 2003

Abolishing Government Improves the Roads

2012-01-06T01:43:00.005-05:00

Look on the back of your ATM or debit card. Check your credit card, too. Whoever your bank is, on the back of the card you’ll see the logos of other outfits – Cirrus, Plus, Star, maybe others. Cirrus is an ATM network management system owned by MasterCard; Plus is owned by Visa; and so on. There is cooperation between companies, and the network managers are somewhat independent. For example, Visa debit cards often have a Cirrus logo on the back.

This means you can use your debit card, the one from your little three-branch local bank, to get instant cash from an ATM clear across the country. Yes, each bank charges you a dollar or two. They should. A single ATM costs $100,000, costs money to maintain and manage (people have to put money in it, and take money out, daily), and it costs participating banks to hire Cirrus to move the money around.

More important is what we learn about the market’s capabilities. One of the objections to privatizing roads is that we’d have to stop at a toll booth at every intersection. A 5-minute commute to the grocery store would require, for me, three toll booths, 75 cents, and become an 8-minute commute, according to this objection. But it’s not so, and here’s why:

Our time is worth a few pennies to us. Cirrus and Pulse would charge us, wild guess, $3–4 a month to provide magnetically encoded stickers for your car. Machines scattered about the roads, or sensors under the pavement, would record your comings and goings. That information would go to Cirrus and Pulse, and from them to your road providers. You might get three or four monthly bills, or just one, depending on the wherewithal of your road owners. Some road owners, out in the woods, would still have toll booths, which would work perfectly well – less traffic and slower pace of life make it no big deal. I use a toll booth occasionally in Atlanta, and the delay is only a few seconds.

Lest you think your money would be going up in exhaust fumes, remember that market firms, who must please customers to stay in business, provide everything better and less expensively than government, without that nasty moral hangover of forcing people to pay for things they may not use or want. Your gasoline price probably includes 50 cents per gallon of taxes for road building and maintenance. This means I’m paying $25–33 per month for road use now. With privatization of roads, that cost would most likely go down, most likely considerably. It happens every time anything is moved from government hands into private hands.

There are other benefits that would follow road privatization. The private roads that exist now have fewer accidents than public roads, probably in part because they’re better maintained: If private road builders let potholes remain, get reputations for high accident rates, or do repairs during rush hour, they have to deal with complaints and with people choosing other roads.

Pollution and pollution controls on automobiles would be handled by road privatization. If auto pollution gets high, people living near the offending roads would sue the biggest, most obvious target: The road owner. Road owners would therefore charge higher fees for cars without up-to-date inspection stickers. Auto manufacturers would build pollution-control equipment into cars, and advertise how clean they run, as Honda and Toyota already do. They all do this already, but with government mandating pollution levels and what kind of pollution controls manufacturers use. Without government interference, engineers would be free to compete to provide different technologies to reduce costs and improve horsepower while providing cleaner burning engines. With the inspection stickers being coded to your automobile’s age, manufacturer, and model, there might be a separate pollution rider on your monthly statement. Drivers of new Hondas might see a discount, while drivers of old belchers would pay fees that might be bigger than the road tolls themselves.

Ain’t the market grand? I’m just one person describing likely market solutions; imagine how efficient it’ll be with 280 million minds working on the issue.

Reality continues to provide apparent (but not real) obstacles in the mind of the statist: What about new roads, and eminent domain? Again, the market comes to the rescue. First, since roads are already there, getting started would involve nothing other than entrepreneurs bidding to take over. (Who would they pay when they buy the roads? US government creditors. Once the government sells all its land, the government’s vote-buying debt might be paid off.) Even so, new roads are being built all the time, by developers who buy land and convert it to new uses. They build new roads on their own property.

Land alongside interstates is cheap in some places, and expensive in others. Widening rural interstates wouldn’t be a problem. (There would be some correlation between road tolls and road quality/congestion.) Prices would be higher where road owners face little competition (Alaska), lower where people have alternatives. If prices for rural stretches of interstate get too high, people will use planes, trains, and buses, and road owners will be forced to lower prices. (If you think you’re getting the interstate for free, think again; those gas taxes mean you’re paying 1–2 cents per mile now.)

Anyone who wanted to build a new interstate would face the huge task of buying up land crossing perhaps hundreds of miles. Widening existing highways would be more likely. In Los Angeles and other large cities where traffic is consistently choked, road owners would have the incentive, and plenty of funds, to buy property along highways so they could widen them. Owners would also have incentive to improve interchanges, such as Spaghetti Junction in Atlanta. Roads would improve, overall, period. (I interviewed a road engineer years ago, and he told me they design circular entrance ramps deliberately with varying radii – experienced as odd changes in the curve, forcing you to constantly readjust the steering wheel – to "keep drivers awake." How many of us have trouble keeping focused for 15 seconds on a curving entrance ramp?)

Without having had forcible government the last 200 years, would the interstate system have come about? We don’t know; we don’t care. Without an interstate system, you can bet we’d still have plenty of commerce; probably plenty more (when railroads were built – partly through government subsidies – much land between the coasts was unclaimed, and thus open to use. Much would still be unclaimed today without government.) We have what we have. Abolishing government is the way to improve what we have.

Last question: What about Cirrus et al. knowing your whereabouts? (The road owner would want to know only mileage.) Service providers would still make privacy pledges, as they do today. They’re already looking out for you: In gas stations, where you use your credit card at the pump, years ago your entire account number was printed on the receipt. At most places, it’s not printed out any longer, because the card issuers put pressure on merchants to modify their machines. Yes, card issuers might give your whereabouts to a private police force or insurer if presented with credible evidence you’d committed a crime against someone; the market would determine whether card issuers end up doing that. They do that today. The difference would be that you could much more easily sue the card issuer, your accuser, and the investigative agency without government than you can now. As always, abolishing government is the best way to improve circumstances for yourself.

December 20, 2003

The More Things Change . . .

2011-11-30T13:55:00.000-05:00

The comic strip Boondocks has been in reruns for the last few years. This is today's strip, originally form 2004.

Funny that it will probably be true no matter who's president. Though I think it will be hard to top the absurdity of awarding the million dollar Nobel Peace Prize to a neo-con warmonger.

North

2011-11-26T14:59:00.001-05:00

Some of you may recall my exchange with Dr. Walter Block regarding fractional reserve banking being fraudulent. Block equivocated his way through all sorts of verbal gymnastics, basically stating I was correct, but refusing to back away from his original statement.

Seems Dr. Gary North has the same inability to see his most simple of errors.

Today's email "Tip of the Week" was to be careful when canceling an Amazon.com order. He doesn't yet have the tip posted on his website:

Gary North's Tip of the Week - November 26, 2011 Amazon's Refunds
==============================

I ordered an Amazon Kindle last week. Then I canceled the order five minutes later. I then ordered a more expensive unit.
Yesterday, I received two units. I was charged for both. I will return the one I did not order.
The units came with no packing slips.
I will have to pay for UPS shipping to send it back.
But wait! There's more! Read all about it!
http://www.garynorth.com/public/8778.cfm
Warning: If you order something from Amazon and then cancel, maybe you did not really cancel . . . according to Amazon's software. You only think you did. As they say, things are easier to get into than out of.

Gary "Burnt by a Kindle" North

In the article linked, he complains about having to pay shipping to send the item back. The article includes a screen shot of the Amazon return process. He had nine options to pick why he was returning the item. He choose one that admitted he was 100% at fault even though out of the nine options there are at least six where Amazon at least partially admits fault and two of the nine fit his description much better than the one he choose.

Ignoring the fact that he probably didn't click and receive confirmation that the order was canceled, I sent North the following message:

Dr. North,

Just in case someone hasn't already pointed it out, "Arrived in addition to what was ordered" fits your description of events. Your canceled an order, you ordered something else, you received the item you ordered, you also received "in addition to" your order something you didn't order. Not only does that fit your description of what occurred, it also admits fault on Amazon's part.

I believe you're letting your irritation with the situation block you ability to be objective. Your screen shot shows nine reasons to choose from for the reason for the return. Out of those nine, in addition to the "in addition to" option, the following five show some acceptance of responsibility on Amazon's part for the error:
- Missed estimated delivery date
- Missing parts or accessories
- Different from what was ordered
- Defective/Does not work properly
- Different from website description

Not trying to be overly harsh, but your statement, "In short, 'we don't make no stinking mistakes'" is just wrong. 66.6% of the options available have Amazon accepting at least partial responsibility for the error.

Now if you had chosen the correct option, "Arrived in addition to what was ordered", Amazon may have argued that you didn't cancel your order. At that point you would have been able to write a weekly tip about good or bad customer service (depending upon Amazon's handling of the situation) and bad website design (lack of clear indication that the order was not yet canceled).

Instead of admitting he picked a poor choice, he sent me this reply:

Really?

Then I guess I am also imagining this: http://www.garynorth.com/public/8785.cfm

It's all my fault.

Instead of addressing the issue at hand, he changes topics. So I replied:

Yes, really. "Arrived in addition to what was ordered" exactly fits your description of events. If your description isn't accurate causing that option to not fit, then that's a different issue. Amazon gave nine options to choose for why the item was being returned. Six of those accept responsibility on Amazon's part - contrary to your claim that they state, "We Don't Make No Stinking Mistakes!".

Nowhere did I state the problem was your fault, much less "all your fault". Nowhere did I claim Amazon doesn't need more testing of their site. Nowhere did I state you were imagining things. Unlike Amazon, you seem to be the one claiming "I Don't Make No Stinking Mistakes!". Instead of getting defensive, maybe you should learn from a simple mistake and examine the choices and pick a better one next time.

Shockingly, since I wasn't even expecting the first reply much less a second, he emailed:

I see.
I canceled the order. I explained why I canceled the order when I did so. The software placed the order.
My fault?
I warned people that their orders might not be canceled. I got a letter from a subscriber who said she had experienced the same thing.
They have software problems. They should fix the software problems.

Well, no shit. They should fix the bugs in their software. Just like he shouldn't have admitted he was at fault if he wants them to accept responsibility. For one who complains about individuals repeating themselves instead of actually coming up with a rational argument, I have three words - Pot Kettle Black.

Lets Make a Deal.

2011-11-16T20:34:00.001-05:00

Next Meeting - Thursday November 10, 2011

2011-11-08T15:36:00.000-05:00

Thursday, November 10, 2011
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Our podcast discussion will be Scott Horton's interview of Charles Goyette. We will also be continuing with Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty discussing chapters 24, 25 & 26. There are three free versions of the book online: html, pdf, and audio.

Next Meeting - Thursday October 27, 2011

2011-10-18T14:19:00.000-04:00

While the sidebar has been kept up to date regarding upcoming meetings, I haven't posted meeting info to the blog in a while. The next meeting will be:

Thursday, October 13, 2011
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Our podcast discussion will be Jeffrey Rogers Hummel's speech at Fee.org's Young Scholars Colloquim titled The Constitution as Counter-Revolution. For those who prefer, there is a article version of the speech.

We are continuing are discussion of Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty. We are reviewing chapters 20 & 21, discussed briefly at the last meeting and chapters 22 & 23.

20. Lifeboat Situations
21. The "Rights" of Animals 22. The Nature of the State
23. The Inner Contradictions of the State

There is both a html and pdf version of the book free online.

If you prefer, there's also an audio version of the book.

Found this great article on Strike-the-Root ;-)

2011-05-11T08:04:00.002-04:00

Big Fat Lies: How Government Fear Campaigns Harm Children's Health

Government caters to those who want to micro-manage your life

2011-03-23T13:11:00.002-04:00

A woman in Florida uses the government to exert her will on school-children:

"Peanut Allergy Stirs Controversy at Florida School."

Pentagon claims "financial terrorism" responsible for 2008 crash

2011-03-03T09:30:00.003-05:00

"Suspects include financial enemies in Middle Eastern states, Islamic terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military , or government and organized crime groups in Russia , Venezuela or Iran ."

Of course, if we can keep the general public fearful of terrorists, we don't have to worry about them discovering the real root of the crisis.

Another installment of "we R doomed"

2011-03-01T18:32:00.002-05:00

It's just another day in paradise (I mean, Detroit). Here is a news story about-- you guessed it-- a drug-addicted, single mother, "living" with two toddlers, two cats, a dog, drug needles, a TV (gotta have one of those), and a space heater... in a SHED in the middle of winter.

It fills me with great sadness that a mother puts drugs ahead of her kids, and that the kids are born with little hope of a viable future.

Detroit Public Schools (DPS)

2011-02-15T00:49:00.000-05:00

It's amazing how slow government organizations work.

January 1st I posted about assisting a financial analyst from the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) on a report on how to solve the bankrupt Detroit Public Schools (DPS) financial problems.

The financial analyst was excited about the ideas we came up with. He presented the report to the union president who embraced many of the ideas. On January 7th the DFT presented the report to Robert Bobb, the state trustee placed in charge of the DPS. While he liked many of the ideas, Mr. Bobb was determined to stick with his original plan of having the state pay off the DPS debt. This man is paid six figures a year and his big plan is to have the state pay off the debt; an idea that has been rejected more than once. Unfortunately this type of waste is typical of the DPS. The financial analyst informed me:

At one point, several years ago, the District was using at least eight different law firms as well as maintaining their own legal department. It has been a District tradition to spend millions of dollars yearly on outside consultants and attorneys.

During the last three rounds of contract talks, the District utilized numerous attorneys and consultants. The last round of talks that ended in 2009 had more consultants than ever. They put together fancy presentations and were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars even though, in the end, nearly all of the $60 to $70 million in savings to the District came from ideas generated by the DFT at no cost to the District. This past summer, the District paid several million dollars to two consulting companies that made a complete shambles of the hiring and assigning of new teachers and the revamping of the special education program.

January 18, the plan was presented to the president of AFT-MI (the state teachers union). The plan was well received, but the AFT thought they should continue to try to get Mr. Bobb on board.

The plan was to be presented to the DFT membership at their monthly meeting on January 20. However,

The meeting never officially started. The newly elected officers were sworn in to the sound of shouts and boos. Then chaos ruled for the next two hours as Steve Conn and his followers denounced the results of the recount and demanded that either all of the ballots be recounted again by hand, or that there be a new election. The situation could have gotten even more ugly than it did, but there were three police officers in the back of the auditorium. Still, it was quite disheartening to realize how thug-like some of our Detroit teachers could act. Some of those folks are really scary.

The plan was finally presented to the DFT membership February 11. The financial analyst told me that in spite of the first hour of the meeting consisting of people insulting and shouting at each other, there was complete silence when he got up to address the financial problems. He stated our plan was well received and actually received a round of applause.

Next week (almost two months later), the DFT finally plans on presenting our plan to the governor.

2011 Predictions

2011-02-05T23:05:00.002-05:00

	Carrie	Dave	Dan	Ken	Eric	Rich

Gold	1,420	1,710	1,470	1,700	1,500	1,500
Silver	32	42	38	25	32
DJIA	12,000	12,400	12,650	9,000	11,500	9,500
S&P		1,420	1,330	950		1,150
Nasdaq		2,900	2,900	1,500	2,650
Oil - Brent Crude		130	122	110	80
Bank Failures	187	98	142	140		200
CPI inflation		7	6	9
Unemployment	7	9	9	7

	Alltime High	12/31/10

Gold	1,442.60	1,420.85
Silver	49.45	30.91
DJIA	14,279.96	11,577.51
S&P	1,576.09	1,257.64
Nasdaq	5,132.52	2,652.87
Oil - Brent Crude	147.27	93.31

CARRIE

"This year I will beat everyone, and even DW will have to admit that he was beaten by a girl... and not only that, but a Justin Bieber fan!"

Dow - low 10000 // high 14500 // end 12,000
Gold - falls in first quarter to 1265 // summer 1475 // end 1420
Silver - 32
Bank failures - 187
Unemployment (government-reported value) - 7%
Housing - falls to new lows
Detroit schools - they fail to take DW's suggestions and they suffer the consequences
DAAG solves the problem of property rights and becomes world-famous. Carrie abhors being a celebrity and uses her new-found riches to buy a secluded forest in mid-Michigan.


DAN

Gold     1470
Silver          38
Dow          12650
S&P        1330
Nasdaq        2900
Oil             122
Bank Failures  142
Inflation (CPI)   6%
Unemployment 9.2%
DAAG Becomes a temporary political party. Wins every election; then disbands the government... The result? Everyone is SUPER happy and wants to live in the former USA. They end up calling it Real Utopia of America.

DAVE

Dow: high 13,500 low 10000s
S&P: high 1450   low in 1000s
Gold will correct to around $1200 during the year
Japanese stocks will do well this decade
Natural gas will do well in 2011
Interest rates will increase. US Treasurys will drop.
Detroit will declare bankruptcy
Housing will offer good buys
Euro tanks

ERIC

Gold $1500, Silver $32, Oil $80 Euro at 1.10
Dow 11500 and Nasdaq 2650
I expect a general asset correction in next month or two in gold but especially industrial commodities. China slow down keeps oil low.
US equity markets fall in 2011 but still out perform on a relative basis most other countries with possible exception of Japan.

KEN

Bank closings: 140
Gold: $1700/toz
Silver: $25/toz
Oil: $110, but will reach $135 during the year.
U-3 unemployment: 7%
U-6: 17%

IF: CPI-U (includes all items) stays < 5%
DOW: 13,000
SP500: 1400
NASDAQ: 3000

CPI-U will reach 9% this year. The Fed will stop pumping.

DOW: 9,000
SP500: 950
NASDAQ: 1500

RICHARD

Dow     9500
Russel   650
S&P     1150
Gold     1500
Bank Failures   200
Stagflation

1/3/11 Jim Cramer "I predict Alcoa will be the best performer in the S&P 500 in 2011."
I'd like to add to my predictions that Alcoa's stock (N:AA) will not have a good year.

2011 Predictions

2011-01-29T21:52:00.003-05:00

DOW
Dave - high 13500, low 10000, end 12400
Carrie - high 14500, low 10000, end 12000
Richard - 9500
Eric - 11500
Dan - 12650
Ken - 9000

S&P
Dave - high 1450, low 1000, end 1420
Richard - 1150
Dan - 1330
Ken - 950

NASDAQ
Dave - 2900
Eric - 2650
Dan - 2900
Ken - 1500

RUSSEL
Richard - 650

GOLD
Dave - corrects to 1200, end 1710
Carrie - falls in first quarter to 1265, summer 1475, end 1420
Richard - 1500
Eric - 1500
Dan - 1470
Ken - 1700

SILVER
Dave - 42
Carrie - 32
Eric - 32
Dan - 38
Ken - 25

OIL
Dave - 130
Eric - 80
Dan - 122

Ken - will reach 135 during 2011, but will end at 110

EURO
Eric - 1.10

BANK FAILURES
Dave - 98
Carrie - 187
Richard - 200
Dan - 142
Ken - 140

INFLATION (CPI)
Dave - 7%
Dan - 6%
Ken - CPI-U 9%

UNEMPLOYMENT
Dave - 9%
Carrie - 7%
Dan - 9.2%

Ken - U3 7%

Ken - U6 17%

DAAG
Carrie - DAAG solves the problem of property rights and becomes world-famous.
Dan - DAAG becomes a temporary political party, wins every election, and disbands the government.

OTHER
Dave - Japanese stocks and natural gas will do well this decade. Interest rates will increase. US Treasurys will drop. Detroit will declare bankruptcy. Housing will start to offer good buys. Euro tanks.
Carrie - housing falls to new lows
Richard - stagflation
Eric - general asset correction in next month or two in gold but especially industrial commodities. China slow down keeps oil low. US equity markets fall in 2011 but still out perform on a relative basis most other countries with possible exception of Japan.

Ken - My predictions are based on the assumption that the Fed will stop pumping based on inflation concerns. If inflation stays low, I think we will see QE III, and the markets will end higher (Dow 13,000, S&P500 1400, NASDAQ 3000). But that is not what I am predicting for years end 2011.

Note: If inflation becomes a concern for the Fed, I see no reason why the Federal Reserve will allow debt to be inflated away. They serve the big banks, not us, or the treasury. The long T-bond will continue it's decline (disclosure - Ken has a large position in TBT).

---

Because we are a warm and tolerant bunch, we will accept late predictions up until the next meeting. Those who fail to make predictions by that time agree that they fail at life.

"Is there anything good about red tape?"

2011-01-25T12:18:00.002-05:00

Fox 2 local news has a segment called "Job Shop with Murray Feldman" that features companies (or government agencies) that have job openings. Today, the lead-in to this segment was:
"Is there anything good about red tape? YES! It creates jobs." The story went on to say that some branch of government was hiring 300 call center agents to "help enforce compliance" with Obamacare. Unfortunately I couldn't find the clip on channel 2's website.
Should we tell them about the broken window fallacy?

2010 Predictions

2011-01-15T00:49:00.026-05:00

Predictions from a year ago:

	NewEd	Craig	Dave	Xorp	Eric

DJIA	14000	13000	9-10k	11200	9500
S&P	1200		1000	1300	950
Nasdaq			2000
Gold	1200	1300	1400	1125	1100
Oil	125	100	100	79	70
Unemployment	10%	9-9.5%		7

The year end actual:

	12/31/10	Winner
DJIA	11577.51	Xorp
S&P	1257.64	Xorp
Nasdaq	2652.87	Dave
Gold	1420.85	Dave
Oil	93.31	Craig & Dave
Unemployment	9.4	Craig

Taking three categories, the winner - Dave.

Tied for 2nd - Craig & Xorp.

Followed by NewEdit and coming in last (of those brave enough to make predictions) Eric.

One may argue that my 2000 prediction on the Nasdaq was way off. However my full prediction was that the Nasdaq would rise to 2500 then fall to 2000. The Nasdaq closed above 2500 on 4/14/10, hit 2530 on 4/23/10, then proceeded to drop to 2091 on 7/2/10. After nailing my prediction, the Nasdaq went on a 500 point rampage the last four months of the year. The Dow & S&P acted similarly, coming very close to hitting my predictions of 12000 & 1300 for highs and 9000s & 1000 for lows.

Though they weren't included in our predictions, there were 157 bank failures in 2010 compared to 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008.

Best & Brightest continued

2011-01-09T23:07:00.002-05:00

The genius psych major deleted her FB posts. For a good laugh I cut & pasted them below.

She reminds me of Laurence Vance's axiom, "If [govt proponents] could spell correctly, use punctuation, and write worth a darn then maybe we would take them a little more seriously." Honestly, I feel sorry for her.

Forwarded conversation
Subject: Helga B. commented on Daniel W. Livingston's status.
------------------------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 7:43 PM

Helga wrote: "David-you are the prototype of someone who is headed for danger. The anxiety/depression sufferer who juggles numbers all day; stuck in a monotonous life so he fills it with grandiose imaginings. nothin incoherent about my post, even if it was filled with errors, the message is quite clear to you I'm sure. you need a good therapist. STAT. I have a degree in Psychology and 10+ yrs working with ppl of all abilities and limitations. your kind, the most dangerous because their is an imflated ego that is tough to get past. I hope you do. Peace be with you."

----------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 7:47 PM

Helga wrote: "I agree...one killing at a time would not be as big a news, but if it were to this scale with non-politicians...YES IT WOULD BE...the college capmus shooting did not involve politicans and they were covered just as much. when large numbers of ppl are involved in things,they make the news ....even the miners being resuced did...and it wasn't even in the US. I watched every one of them lifted up. Anyhow David...you need help. your thinking way way out; don't hold yourself in higher esteem because of it. you know darn well gov is needed...bet you'd call the cops (gov funded and run) if you needed them...you know your fantasy anarchy world can not exist. get yourself straightened out."

----------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 7:54 PM

Helga wrote: "so funny...a guy who makes his living processing papers to be turned into the gov (taxes)...with anti-gov rhetoric. how ironic."

----------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 8:02 PM

Helga wrote: ""govt is legalized violence" yes, police may shoot back if threatened...everything else about gov is aimed at stopping violence. Domestic violence laws; elder abuse laws; Adult Protective Services. I am anti-war because I beleive in this day and age there are other ways to deal (stop trading with enemies; stop buying their products) with enemies that sending our young to die...aside from war....I do not see how gov is legalized violence. you are way out there David and it is that kind of BS that makes someone who is probably intelligent a waste...A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE. Put your efforts to good use if you claim to be a Christian. There are laws upheld throughout the bible. Why be another loose cannon in society?"

----------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 8:03 PM

Helga wrote: "what a crock of sht"

----------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 8:10 PM

Helga wrote: "read Walden Two David...or perhaps you have already...and then close the book and be doen with the fantasy, because such a place will never exist. it did not in biblical times, it will never. Gov regulates everything; if a doctor ever saves you life or that of a loved one, thabk your gov because it set standards for that doctor to get his license...stop with the mindless anarchy crap. put effort into good governing rather than the idea of no governing. or are you going to just handle the entire country for everyone (good grief)"

---------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 9:02 PM

Helga wrote: "The media covered the college campus shootings and no gov employees were harmed there. The media covers things when they are on such a grand scale. The anti-gov stance is BS. Gov is not legalized violence; it sets domestic violence laws; elder abuse laws; police may only use force as a last resort; it serves and protects. Don't be a nutbag; a mind is a terrible thing to waste. What a waste of effort...read Walden Two (a governmentless utopia) I studied it extensively when I studied Social Psychology (my BA is in Psych), infact I kept the book bcs I enjoyed it and still have the A paper I wrote on it....but then close the book David; close the book on the fantasy because such a place has never existed and never will."

----------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 9:44 PM

Helga wrote: "I'm not a psychologist; I work with adults with disabilites and have for over ten yrs. I deleted those post, but am glad you read them. Why delete them? bcs it saddens me that ppl like you exist and I have realized it is near impossible to get through to your type. Your issues are clear and I certainly hope you get help for them...such an incredbile waste of a mind. The number cruncher type like you often see thing in balck and white and can't see shades of grey. The best thing for you would probably to volunteer in some sort of social service organization funded by the gov so you can see the other side of the coin. I have no need to defend myself to you and ...if you know psychologists, I wish you would have opened yourself to their services....very inflated ego for you to suggest psychs are "messed up"...in what capacity have you encountered them? Or are you just trying to insult me...I dedicate my life to the wellbeing of ppl with disabilites David. I'm tough...no muber cruncher can penetrate that on some fb posts. Get help. It is obvious you suffer w anxiety and depression issues, but your success wil be didcated by your willingness to be trreated; highly unlikely from what I can tell."

----------
From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 9:47 PM

Helga wrote: ""muber cruncher"....hahaha yeah, I type very fast so typos abound.. I'm sure it's legible though. Ppl anti-authority are the most dangerous type in any and all societies."

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From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 10:03 PM

Helga wrote: ""Proving once again that govt work attracts the best and brightest of society is this Facebook post. Internet forums, especially one like Facebook, aren't the best media for in-depth rational discourse, but still." SO THIS IS WHAT YOU DO HUH DAVID...YOU TAKE PPLS comments out of context on fb and post them to your anarchy blog page? I'm not a gov employee you a**..I work for a nonprofit that helps ppl who are living with severe limitations. You think you have me pegged somehow huh? You are a disgrace to America."

----------

From: Facebook
Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 10:09 PM

Helga wrote: "You certainly are a " Slippery Pencil" alright David. If you want to post something post a link to this entire dialogue..so ppl can read YOUR part...like how you posted "The shooting of a few govt employees is far from a national tragedy, it's blowback.""

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Hey genius, I did post a link to the entire dialog. However, since you deleted your 11 idiotic posts, it's not really the entire dialog you desire.

Govt Employees - The Best & Brightest of Society

2011-01-09T19:17:00.001-05:00

Proving once again that govt work attracts the best and brightest of society is this Facebook post. Internet forums, especially one like Facebook, aren't the best media for in-depth rational discourse, but still.

Helga B.: wtf??? The is no utopia like in Walden Two...I SURE AM GLAD I LIVE IN A LAND WITH GOV AND LAWS. ppl need boudaries. "force and coercion" whatever the F you want to call it. visit a prison and learn what kind of heinous crimes go on even wit...h boundaries. consider places with less of them..nations in Africa, for ex, where women are mutilated because their are no laws protecting them..who wants to think of their mother, sister, daughter's parts sewn shut by some crazy villagers...anarchy. that is some wicked twisted thinking. noting more immoral than someone who knows nothing about the human psyche preaching F'in anarchy. sick sick sick. FIND WHERE ON EARTH THAT TWISTED SHIT WORKS AND MOVE THERE PLEASE. I've been in social work for 10+ yrs and known parents to beat their mentally ill childen thinking they can BEAT mental illness out of their child...until DYFS stepped in....gov law boundaries...Social Workers like me ALL A VITAL NECESSITY.....see a therapist please..before you go wacko on us. (http://www.facebook.com/BacchusA2/posts/188990977794597)

These people are scary.

QEII Explained

2011-01-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

Detroit Public Schools (DPS)

2011-01-01T14:00:00.004-05:00

Three weeks ago, Mish predicted that the city of Detroit and the DPS system would both file bankruptcy in 2011 (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/12/detroit-mayor-plans-to-halt-garbage.html).

In the three weeks since Mish's article, The Detroit Federation of Teachers (the local teachers union) has prepared a report to present to the DPS titled "The Detroit Federation of Teachers Proposals for Paying Off the Detroit Public Schools Legacy Deficit coauthored by P. F., Financial Analyst and David Weigel, CPA." Yes, in what could possibly be the most shocking event in my life, a teachers union requested my input on averting a financial crisis.

While it may be too late no matter what they do, my most beneficial suggestions - abolish the whole system, make the parents responsible for the children, let the free market provide solutions, declare bankruptcy - are not included in the report. Suggestions of mine were: competition/school choice, charter schools, cutting bureaucracy, pay cuts, teacher accountability, embracing Teach for America, and revamping health insurance benefits.

Sadly, due to bureaucracy and union politics, I doubt any of the suggestions will see light of day. We'll have to wait and see.

Lessons from a snow storm

2010-12-14T09:02:00.002-05:00

Highway 402 in Ontario between Sarnia and London is shut down due to snow. This is of some interest to me because I used to travel along that road several times a month during college.

According to news reports on CBC and other Canadian outlets, between 300 - 400 drivers are stranded and waiting to be rescued by the military. However, police, military, and other government institutions are having trouble rescuing anyone because they claim their plows are getting stuck, their helicopters can't land in blowing snow, etc.

This made me think two things:
1) Be as prepared as you can so you don't have to rely on someone else for rescue! Have blankets, food, flashlight, shovel, portable radio, etc. in your car.
2) Note that local farmers are taking out their tractors and snowmobiles, rescuing people, and letting them stay at their houses. Note how much you pay in taxes to fund the snow plows, helicopters, and "emergency shelters" that no-one is using anyway.

Storm strands drivers near Sarnia
Storm strands hundreds
Military called in to handle motorists

2010-12-04T01:25:00.000-05:00

From WOOD TV, Grand Rapids, MI:
http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/michigan/Pop-goes-the-tax-payers-Bridge-Card-

A govt educated leech uses her food stamps to purchase 42 bottles of soda pop. She walks from the checkout to the automated bottle return area and proceeds to insert 42 unopened bottles of pop into the machine collecting $4.20 in bottle deposits. As pathetically idiotic as this is, the story gets better.

Cans and bottles are crushed when inserted into these machines. Being unopened and full of carbonated beverages, these 42 bottles explode upon being crushed. Consequently, pop spews all over the bottle return area and gums up the machine. Now, one would think the average person would notice this on bottle number 1. But not this welfare queen genius, she continues inserting the remaining 41 bottles.

The article records the reaction of one customer, who obviously is also govt educated. "'I just can't believe somebody would do that,' said Hardings customer Brenda Wilkerson."

Michigan Cities Set to Default on Bonds

2010-11-30T16:34:00.003-05:00

From Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-30/property-tax-collection-plunge-may-make-michigan-towns-borrow-or-default.html?cmpid=msnmoney

Cities and towns across Michigan have had property-tax collections plunge as much as 20 percent in the past year, the steepest drop since a 1994 state tax rewrite, forcing scores of communities to choose by March whether to borrow to pay bills or risk default on bonds.

The municipalities rely on property taxes for as much as 60 percent of their revenue, according to the Michigan Municipal League. State support typically makes up an additional 20 to 35 percent of city budgets has been slashed by almost a third in the past year.

The end of a three-year federal stimulus that sent $3.1 billion to Michigan -- a sum roughly equal to two annual budgets for Detroit -- will force “fundamental decisions,” according to a memorandum from the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency.

“This gets real bad in about 90 to 150 days,” said Robert Daddow, deputy executive of Oakland County, which has a per-capita income 147 percent of the state average. “The question becomes whether they can secure enough cash from banks and whether banks are willing to lend in a credit-crunch situation.”

The value of taxable housing in Oakland County, which is home to the headquarters of Chrysler Group LLC, fell about 12 percent this year, Moody’s said in a Nov. 23 report. It will drop 10 percent further in 2011 and 5 percent more in 2012, Moody’s said.

Challenged Region
“Declining housing values and a growing unemployment rate within the county demonstrates the county’s exposure to the challenges in this region,” Moody’s said.

The state in October trailed only California and Florida in its number of foreclosure filings, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based data firm. A total of 19,288 properties in the state, one in 235 households, got a default or auction filing or were seized by banks last month, the company said. The rate was up 17 percent from a year earlier.

“It’ll take us a decade or more for cities to be collecting what they were a decade earlier,” Summer Minnick, director of state affairs for the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Municipal League. Some have seen property-tax revenue drop by a fifth, she said. “Right now, we have several communities on the brink of severe problems.”

At the Edge
The recession has pushed many U.S. communities to the edge of Chapter 9 bankruptcy, or, in the case of Vallejo, California, into it. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, averted a bond default only because the state accelerated an aid payment.

Under state law, Michigan has the final say on whether a municipality can enter bankruptcy. None ever has, according to the state Treasury Department. Detroit said in March it was considering moving toward a filing. Hamtramck, where General Motors Co. manufactures the Chevrolet Volt, has also pressed state officials for a bankruptcy, saying that Detroit, which largely surrounds it, owes it money.

Bond Request
Southfield, an Oakland County city with what Moody’s in 2008 called a “satisfactory financial position,” estimates $19.9 million from its general operating-tax levy this fiscal year, a 16.7 percent drop from three years ago, when it budgeted for $23.9 million. Its administrator and treasurer asked the state Legislature in September for permission to sell $50 million in bonds to cover operational costs.

A Southfield general-obligation bond maturing on July 1, 2023, was valued on Nov. 29 at 100.736 cents on the dollar to yield 4.195 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The security was insured by Financial Guaranty Insurance Corp., whose parent, FGIC Corp., sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August after suffering losses from the drop in the U.S. housing market. The bond-insurance unit wasn’t part of the filing.

Brad Reynolds, chief investment strategist for LJPR LLC in Troy, Michigan, is “keeping an eye” on the cash crunch, he said today.

“I see a lot of red flags, but hear very few fire alarms,” said Reynolds, whose firm holds about $100 million in municipal bonds, 90 percent of them from Michigan issuers.

Under a 1990 law, a Michigan governor can declare a financial emergency for a city and install a manager to run its business. Of the seven such declarations, four have occurred since December 2008.

Facing Collapse
“Hundreds of jurisdictions” in the state may face financial collapse in the next three to five years, Rick Snyder, Michigan’s newly elected Republican governor, said Nov. 19.

Nationwide, the value of defaulted municipal securities fell to $2.48 billion through October, compared with $7.28 billion in 2009 and a record $8.15 billion in 2008, according to Richard Lehmann, publisher of Distressed Debt Securities Newsletter.

Lehmann told Bloomberg News last week there may be a “new wave” of defaults in 2011 as federal economic-stimulus aid declines and budget pressures mount.

The number of local governments on Michigan’s three-year-old financial watch list, which measures stresses by debt, tax collections, cash flow and population changes, totaled 68 in 2008, the most recent accounting.

Rich and Poor
Cities on the state Treasury Department’s list include the industrial centers of Detroit, River Rouge, Jackson and Benton Harbor. Suburbs are also in danger, Minnick said.

“These are upscale suburban bedroom communities that had new homes and tremendous price spikes,” Minnick said. “Some are communities you would not have expected.”

The Michigan Legislature has cut revenue-sharing payments to localities by almost one-third in the past year and by $4 billion in the past 10 years, the Municipal League said.

The financial strain on cities is compounded by voter-approved constitutional limits on the growth of property taxes, which restrain annual increases to 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.

Falling property-tax collections will create gaps starting next year in the “hundreds of millions of dollars” for cities and townships, said Eric Scorsone, senior economist for the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency.

Michigan counties reimburse local governments for unpaid property taxes and charge fees and interest as the county attempts to collect delinquent amounts for three years, Scorsone said. If the county cannot collect, the city or township can be billed for the uncollectable tax value.

Blindsided
Scorsone said the financial liability is “certainly going to be a big number and it’s going to hit a lot of places that aren’t aware of the problem.”

“A lot of governments are going to get squeezed pretty hard,” Scorsone said.

The fall in property-tax collections comes even as Michigan is beginning to emerge from a long economic slump. The University of Michigan on Nov. 19 forecast a net increase in jobs in 2011, the first gain in more than a decade. The state’s economic activity in September reached its highest level since June 2008, driven by resurgent manufacturing, according to a Comerica Bank report.

Dangerous Mix
Meanwhile, the combination of foreclosures, falling tax revenue and unfunded municipal pension liabilities is becoming unmanageable, said Charles Moore, senior managing director at Conway MacKenzie Inc., which works with municipalities on financial restructuring.

“I think there’s a very high likelihood we’ll see defaults in 2011 and I expect it will only increase in 2012 and 2013,” said Moore, based in Birmingham, Michigan.

Communities are trying to persuade the Legislature to refinance their bond debt that was initially sold on the assumption that property values -- and property taxes -- would continue to increase at pre-2008 levels, Minnick said.

“I hope we can do the refinancing so we can prevent defaults. I don’t know if, at the end of the day, that will be enough,” she said.

But they give us insurance for that now.

2010-11-26T14:58:00.002-05:00

In July, I spent 3 days in the hospital. A bill hasn't arrived, but a few days ago I received an "Explanation of Benefits" from my insurance company. The charges from the hospital were $24,103 (this doesn't include charges from the emergency room's physician and anesthesiologist, physical therapy, follow up doctor visits, etc.). The insurance provider discount for being in the network was $9,265 for a net balance paid to the hospital from my insurance of $14,838. The first item on the insurance summary is "Accommodations - Room & Board" of $3,900. $2400 after the provider discount.

I've read numerous stories of people born in the 1940s, 50s, & 60s finding the hospital bill from when they were born. After a week long stay in the hospital with no insurance, their parents paid cash in the $50 to $60 range. Adjusted for inflation that is less than $1000 to as low as $370 ($60 in 1940 to $50 in 1960).

I mentioned the above info to a friend to help illustrate how everything the govt does ends up leaving us worse off. She stated, "yeah, but they give us insurance for that now so we are better off".

Some days it is hard to be thankful. Happy Thanksgiving anyway!

Linux And Anarchy - Daily Anarchist

2010-11-25T09:27:00.000-05:00

Linux And Anarchy - Daily Anarchist

How can you feel violated by airport security?

2010-11-25T01:07:00.000-05:00

A friend's facebook status update and comments (I also know those who wrote the first three responses, the fifth response is mine):

I haven't flown recently, but I don't understand why people are so upset about the pat downs and body scanners at the airport. It's for safety! If you've ever had a gynecological or prostate exam, how can you feel violated by airport security? Is there anybody out there who's been through it that can explain?

I don't get what the big deal is either. I was scanned twice in the last week and it took about 5 seconds. I didn't feel violated.
agreed...
~ I get scanned AND the pat down EVERY time I fly becauseI have metal in my body...I just wish that I had my choice of people to pat me down - like maybe a cute marine...
I agree with you, Jen. Actually, I feel worse for the people DOING the pat-downs than the ones GETTING them!! Yuck!!

Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of security knows that anything the TSA does is not for security, it is for control.
Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of common decency or God given human rights would be concerned over either procedure.

This country is a lost cause.

Disagree with LRC about TSA porno scanners

2010-11-11T09:44:00.002-05:00

I've been reading with interest the LRC columns and blog entries regarding the porno scanners. While I, too, refuse to subject myself to such grossly humiliating invasion, it seems that several of the LRC writers hold mixed and/or contradictory premises.

Either the airlines are private companies who are themselves victims of TSA rulings, or the airlines are quasi-private agencies subsidized by and complicit with the governmental rulings.

In the first case, it does not make sense to punish private companies who, in order to continue to provide any air service at all, are forced to obey the privacy-invasion laws. Yet Kathryn Muratore is doing just that (see here, here, and her new blog here for more background). In short, she purchased tickets to visit relatives across the country before she was aware that the TSA scanners would be introduced at the airport from which she was departing. When she found out about the scanners, she expected US Airways to either refund her ticket or to pay for a rental car so she could drive to a non-scanner airport and take a connecting flight. If airlines are private entities that are forced to obey the TSA rulings, then a ticket refund is a double-assault against the company.

She takes it a step further by expecting Orbitz, the third party agency from whom she ordered the tickets, to provide the refund. Orbitz has nothing to do with the TSA rulings; Orbitz is the "wrong tree" upon whom to express the grievances.

Then Muratore writes,

"Because of [my husband's] work schedule, he cannot commit to any of the alternative travel arrangements that I am considering. That is why, if I don't get a refund, I want to be on the same flight... with him."

Not only does she demanding an alternative flight, but she expects the alternative flight to be the same one that her husband is taking. Yet her original flight was separate from his, so why does it matter if her alternative flight is separate from his? Travel companies are in the business of selling tickets for airline flights, not in the business of coordinating family schedules.

Arthur M.M. Krolman further extends this punishment of a private company unrelated to the airline. As most families get to Disney World by flying, he writes to Disney,

“Now that you are aware that children must submit to nude photography or inspection of private parts in order to enjoy the Disney experience (and on the way home), your silence on this issue may be seen by many as passive agreement with this new pathway to your business…”

Does Dunkin Donuts passively agree with brute force because they serve food to policemen? Does Toys ‘R Us passively agree with public education because they sell toys to public school kids? Does Amazon passively agree to Marxism because they sell books on the philosophy? If Mr. Krolman is consistent, he will have to answer “yes” to these questions, in which case he will be unable to participate in society. Because our economy is mixed rather than free, I can think of no business that is entirely morally clear. Is Krolman willing to make the decision to leave society and live in a cave? To the extent that he is not, then, by his own admission, he is guilty of supporting government intrusion.

Disney responded to his letter, indicating that, "We don't regulate what the airport rules are regarding transportation security administration."

Krolman writes a second letter,

“My children, like thousands of others, are regularly enticed by Walt Disney Company advertising to request a trip to Walt Disney World. Other companies, like McDonald's for example, advertise to children too. Ronald McDonald, Playland and Happy Meals are enticing devices to get kids to plead with their parents to pay a visit to McDonald's. But unlike the Walt Disney Company, McDonald's Corporation does not solicit children to go to their business in full knowledge that they will be surprised with a dose of ionizing radiation and inspection of their private parts on the way. … Bad for business or not, and regardless of your power to regulate the United States government, please accept this letter as my request that you cease advertising to my children about visiting Disney World with no warning of the ionizing radiation and gross indecency they must expect on the way to your business at the airport.”

To be consistent, he will also have to assert that McDonald’s needs to warn kids about trans fats, video game packages need to warn kids about seizures, and cigarette packages need to carry a lung cancer warning. LRC ought to be ashamed for posting this drivel.

Both Muratore and Krolman hold that some aspect of the first premise is true. By appealing to the companies’ profit margins, they indicate their belief that the airlines are private industries that are concerned with staying in business.

Now, suppose that premise is not true. Rather, airlines and the travel industry are government-supported entities that benefit from privacy intrusions. Paradoxically, Muratore and Krolman also seem to believe this premise, as indicated by other parts of their letters. In her second letter to US Airways, Muratore writes,

“Don’t tell me that this is not your fault: you are, by definition, complicit in the TSA actions. The airline industry has not stood up for your customers in decades by allowing warrantless bag searches, the frisking of passengers with medical devices, as well as the more recent humiliations and inconveniences of airline travel in the last decade.”

I find it confusing that she acknowledges these repeated invasions, yet admits to subjecting herself to them by flying in recent years. If she were truly against fascist industry, as libertarians and/or anarchists allegedly are, it is unusual to become alarmed only now, only once the body scans are in place. All ye who bemoan the porno scanners, yet have continued to fly for the last 10 years—despite having to take off your shoes, despite having to throw away your water and lotion and scissors, despite being subjected to massive delays and exorbitant taxes and fees—it is through your continued financial contributions to the airlines, and therefore through your most grievous fault, that the privacy invasions and terrible service have escalated to the level of porno scanners. The time to boycott was years ago.

Another puzzling statement from Muratore’s second letter to US Airways is this: “… I was in tears earlier today as I contemplated the corner that the airline industry has backed me into.” If one admits that airlines are part and parcel with the government and that this is a bad thing, how can one in good conscience simultaneously act like a government collectivist by believing one is entitled to fly? In reality, the airline industry has not “backed” anyone into any corners. Flying is not a right, and we are not owed a flight just because an airline exists. I do not believe it is rational to mourn the loss of the ability to fly, when flying is not an entitlement in the first place.

So my appeal to LRC and Mises writers and readers is this:

Do you believe that the airlines are private companies, and are hapless victims of TSA policies? If so, it is morally appropriate for you to not fly in order to avoid the scanners. However, be aware that you are harming an innocent company by doing so.

Do you believe that the airlines are fascist companies, who are willing participants in the TSA scanner policy? If so, why have you continued flying for the last 10+ years, why do you eat agribusiness food, why do you have your money in banks that received bailouts, why do you buy cars from Chrysler and GM who received bailouts? It seems rather unprincipled to support these companies for so long despite the knowledge that they are part of the fascist system, and only to begin to complain once you are directly inconvenienced.

I'm Allowed to Rob YOU!

2010-11-05T20:41:00.001-04:00

Urban Gardening in Detroit

2010-10-02T09:26:00.000-04:00

He Looks So Normal

2010-08-31T12:02:00.001-04:00

Today's Pearls Before Swine strip.

If Bernake said this...

2010-08-22T22:54:00.001-04:00

it would have really been funny.

There are certain uncertainties. These are things we are certain that are uncertain. There are unusual uncertainties. That is to say, there are things that are unusually uncertain. But there are also uncertain certainties. There are things we are certainly uncertain of.

Iraq, the Modern Day Crusades?

2010-07-18T13:45:00.004-04:00

I had a discussion this weekend regarding the war in Iraq. The individual tried to justify the war based on their belief that Islam is a religion of war and violence, and that the war was going to protect Christians from Islamic persecution. They compared the war today with the Crusades of centuries ago.

I then asked a simple question:

If this war is supposed to protect Christians from Islam, then why is our military defending Sharia law in Iraq?

Article 2 of the Iraq constitution states:

First, Islam is the official religion of the State, and is a foundation source of all legislation.

A. No law may be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of Islam.

I also reminded this individual which presidents state department helped draft that constitution...

The debate ended in utter silence.

My favorite Stefan Molyneux two minute spiel

2010-07-18T13:43:00.001-04:00

The state is a agency of coercion, the government takes money through force, through taxation, the government steals form the future through national debts, the government uses force to impose its will on everyone. As long as we view the government as some semi-paternal benevolent agency that’s there to help and protect us, we are going to keep running into its proposed solutions. Until and unless we can see that the government as an agency of violence, that the government points guns at people to get things done, until we can see the government as the gun in the room. We will not be able to put down the gun in the room and begin to explore voluntary and peaceful ways of helping those who are in need, the poor , the sick, the old.

Until and unless we can see the violence inherit in the system that we live under. We will not be able to put down that gun and begin negotiating like civilized human beings about how we are going to solve social problems, and stop attempting to pass laws and regulations which throw people in jail, which steal money from people. Violence will never solve problems, violence will only and forever profit the few at the expense of the many. Seem to solve things in the present while creating more problems down the road. So until we can see the gun in the room and put it down things are going to get worse and worse and worse. Until we let go of our addiction to violence in solving problems, which will never ever solve problems at all.

Next Meeting - Thursday 7/8/10

2010-07-02T14:33:00.001-04:00

The next meeting will be:

Thursday July 08, 2010
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing Stephan Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property (concentrating on pp 45 - 61) and Eric Garris' interview of Alan Grayson (posted below).

http://antiwar.com/radio/2010/06/29/alan-grayson-2/

Scott Horton Interviews Alan Grayson June 29, 2010
Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum
This interview was conducted by Antiwar.com director Eric Garris.

Florida Congressman Alan Grayson discusses building Congressional support for his “War is Making You Poor” bill, bipartisan cooperation with Ron Paul on the “Audit the Fed” bill, why it’s harder than ever to justify the continuing war in Afghanistan, Obama’s broken campaign promises and disappointing leadership and why Grayson has become the top target of Republicans for the 2010 House elections.

MP3 here. (19:01)

Congressman Alan Grayson was born and grew up in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City. He graduated with high honors from Harvard College, worked as an economist, then returned to Harvard. In four years, Alan earned a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Government, and finished all of the course work and passed the general exams for a Ph.D. in Government. His master’s thesis focuses on gerontology. He went on to be a founding member of the Alliance for Aging Research.

In the early 1990s Alan took leave from the practice of law and started a business. He was the first President of IDT Corp., a telecom/internet company, which is now a Fortune 1000 company, traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Congressman Grayson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, serving Florida’s 8th district.

Totally unrelated to the next meeting, but it's been a month since I've bragged. I am kicking ass in this year's market predictions. The Dow and the S&P 500 didn't rise quite as high as I predicted, they may end up lower than I predicted, and gold may end up higher than I predicted, but compared to the rest of the predictions, I'm spot on. Especially my prediction that the Shanghai Index bubble will pop. Down 26% so far this year. Richard is once again being beat by a girl (which is really sad considering the girl predicted Dow 14,000).

US Social Forum

2010-06-24T02:16:00.000-04:00

Due to the fact that I never watch the news, I was completely unaware that the US Social Forum was being held in Detroit and Tuesday afternoon 10,000 people marched through the streets of Detroit to kick off the festivities.

This excerpt from a Democracy Now report grabbed my attention for two reasons. One, the atrocious grammar and how stupid the person sounded (though that ends up being a factor of transcribing a live on the street interview and she sounds much closer to average intelligence in the video) and two, the comparison to New Orleans.

I’m here in Detroit with the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New Orleans, Louisiana. When I came to Detroit, I was kind of surprised, because Detroit looks a lot like New Orleans, in such a state of disrepair, with so many abandoned buildings. And I was shocked by that. You know, I didn’t realize it. I know that there were some financial difficulties, but it’s such a similarity. And it’s sad that across our country we still have the same sort of disproportionate disparities, you know, and it’s a little frightening. (http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/23/over_10_000_march_in_detroit)

Detroit looks like New Orleans, a city wiped out by a freakin hurricane. Unfortunately the attendees of this idiotic forum will never understand that it is a result of all the government programs they're pushing that has caused this.

Government thugs

2010-06-21T11:03:00.002-04:00

Currently I am at my BF's house while he is at work. Moments ago the doorbell rang. I ignored it. It rang again. I thought it might be important so I opened the door hesitantly.

There was an intimidating-looking man who flashed a government badge at me. I supposed he was from the census, as the BF has not participated in even the head count and has been visited by the census once already. Instead, he grunted, "US Customs and Immigration Enforcement."

"Oh! Woah!," I babbled, or some such nonsense, because I was immediately intimidated by his intimidating-ness. Apparently I looked as frightened as I felt because he said, in a much more friendly fashion and with a slight laugh, "Don't worry, it's okay." (This made me realize that I need to work on remaining calm and collected when in engaging in any 'friendly chat' with a government agent. I know that you should never talk to the police, etc., but it is hard to respond calmly in a real situation, for the government workers do hold the power.)

He asked if I knew the neighbor Phil. I said "No, I don't live here." He left. Then he walked across the street to another house where a man was outside working on his truck. The agent talked to him for less than a minute and seemed to get no information.

Government thugs are on the prowl...

Buying politicians who can grant you a legal monopoly

2010-06-13T09:09:00.005-04:00

If the facts of this Detroit Free Press article are true, Matty Moroun is far from the kind of entrepreneur I admire. Rather, he is like James Taggart from "Atlas Shrugged": a leech who uses government power in his favor, and a bully who buys lobbyists to continue working in his favor.

Evil = a state using public money to build a bridge
Evil = a private individual buying off politicians to vote against a bridge, when that new bridge would remove his monopoly over US-Canada border traffic

Garden

2010-06-08T01:20:00.000-04:00

Probably should have done so a month ago, but I expanded the garden today. Now I have lettuce and peppers in addition to my one non-producing raspberry plant. For the time involved, I don't really see this as saving a lot of money but we shall see. If you're doing this Alpha Strategy stuff on the level of Jack Spirko it's probably worthwhile, but I'm not sure on a small scale.

The Senseless - an update

2010-05-19T17:25:00.003-04:00

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, it was a bright and sunny afternoon and I was sitting here eating dinner. Suddenly there was a knock on my door. Since I have no friends and I hate being interrupted during dinner, I ignored it. The person knocked again. Since I hadn't heard a car drive up I figured it was the neighbor boy coming for his payment for mowing my lawn. I made the mistake of answering the door. It was... a big ugly old census man! He breathed loudly, had a beard, and looked like he couldn't walk 1/4 mile to save his life. In other words, he was your ideal government employee.

He told me he was from The Census Bureau and had "a few questions that shouldn't take you no more'n' 5 minutes."

First he asked me to verify my address. Rather, he did not know what my address was. He had a stack of forms-- because apparently lots of people on my street didn't mail back a response-- and asked me which of the addresses was mine. "Is this [house #1] or [house #2]," he asked. I did answer that question.

Then he gave me a paper that included instructions for how to answer his questions. He asked me how many people lived here as of April 1st and if any of them lived elsewhere or had another address. I was polite in answering these so he seemed surprised when I would not tell him my name. He said, "Ya know, yer' required by law to answer these questions." I said, "No, I'm required to participate in the head count and that is all." Then I smiled sweetly. He said, looking puzzled, "Ya know, another lady just told me that!" He wrote, in big letters, REFUSED on the bottom of the page.

I proceeded with his questions politely, but would not answer much else. He asked for my birthdate and I said I would tell him the year but not the exact date. Then he said, "Yer gonna hafta do the math for me on that" in regards to figuring out my age. Then he said, "You know, you include more information than this on the IRS form." There are so many things I could have said in response, but I remained silent. He wrote REFUSED on the bottom of that page.

He told me that his supervisors were going to send him back to my house in a few weeks since I was not participating fully. I said that I understood that he was just doing his job and fulfilling his job expectations, but that I would not provide any additional information a second time around so it would be futile to come back. He said, "They'll send me back anyway."

Next he asked my race. I said "only Caucasian." He asked if I was Hispanic. I said no. He said, "Yeah, they're asking this so they can get more money for the Hispanics for going to school." Thrilling.

Then he had to check a series of boxes asking if I lived elsewhere during the year due to college, military, nursing home, etc. I said "just check no for all of those." He said he was required to read them to me individually.

Then he said, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to provide your phone number." This guy was perceptive.

He then told me that he would have to ask my neighbors to be proxies and have them answer the questions about me. Luckily, my neighbors know nothing about me except my first name and that I am that mean lady who always yells at their barking dogs to shut-up.

Finally the guy thanked me for my time and drove away to my neighbor's house all of 50 feet away.

Two thoughts:
1. I should have come up with wacky answers but in the spur of the moment I never think of witty responses.
2. For safety reasons, I should have told him at least 2 people lived here. :-( If he comes back that's what I'll say. It could be funny to give different answers than last time and say "Yes, I forgot that another person was living here on April 1st." More likely, I just won't answer the door again.

Government site accepts donations to pay down debt

2010-05-17T12:54:00.001-04:00

This is hilarious.
https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?nc=1271991815942&agencyFormId=23779454
"Welcome to the United States Treasury's site for making donations to help reduce the public debt. If you would like to make a donation, please fill in the required fields
and click the Submit Data button when completed."
"Thank you for your contribution which will be deposited to the account "Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt." Your contribution is accepted under the provisions of 31 U.S.C. 3113 which authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to accept conditional gifts to the United States for the purpose of reducing the public debt."

Census Update

2010-05-15T15:32:00.001-04:00

A census worker stopped by a few weeks ago. He started his spiel and I told him one person lives here. We went back and forth for about a minute:

"I'm just doing as instructed" he'd say.

To which I'd reply, "Yes I know that, but all you need to know is one person lives here. You have the census info you need, take it to your employers."

"Just a few questions that will take 10 to 15 minutes."

"I'm sorry but I don't have 10 minutes (which was true since I was rushing to get ready and leave the house for a meeting), one person lives here."

A week or two later there was a "sorry we missed you" census slip in my door with a phone number to call to answer the questions. I threw it away.

I was reminded of this today while reading a tax preparer bulletin board I frequent.
http://www.thetaxbook.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15152

To my surprise and amazement, many posters were stating they were basically telling the census employees to take a hike. Tax preparers as a group tend to claim they hold small govt views but are really large govt hacks. Seeing a large number of them rebel against the census was pleasantly shocking.

A couple of interesting comments made in the thread regarding safety. I don't think I need to make further commentary on the quotes:

1. How do we know who these people are - except they are to have "badges" I am not passing out "personal info"
2. they are anyone who applies for the job. No background check or criminal history check to my knowledge.

Of course a few people posted the "OMG take off the tinfoil hats this is just the census" type comments but those seem to be in the minority. Maybe we're not doomed.

But then again maybe we are. The following excerpts are a bit troubling:

"I asked her what I was legally obligated to answer other than 'two people and we're both American'. No answer to that and her reply was that if I did not supply her with the answers, the Census Bureau would ask three of my neighbors and get the answers from them. This questioning session ended badly at this point!"

"I asked the gal that showed up a simple question, which was what I was legally obligated to answer and she got in my face with the crack about getting the info from the neighbors. The crack about the neighbors threw me over. One of my 'three neighbors' was visited by her later that night."

"This year for an educational experience, I took the Census test and was offered a temp job as an enumerator. I have been going around my little town trying to complete questionnaires. I have yet to meet anyone that flat out refused to answer the questions. It is true that if you refuse to answer any of the questions, we are obligated to get the answers from a proxy such as a neighbor."

Next Meeting - Monday 05/24/10

2010-05-14T02:08:00.000-04:00

The next meeting will be:

Monday May 24, 2010
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

We will discuss Stefen Molyneux's 4 part series on IP listed below and Chapter 12 of Keynes' General Theory: The State of Long-term Expectation.

If you click on the numbered links, you will go to the search results for that podcast. To hear the podcast, click on "Open Link" under the picture of chain link. Or if the cut and paste works, you should be able to open the mp3 by clicking on "Open Link" below.

164. Intellectual Property Rights Part 1: Challenges - Why do we even have a problem? Hmmm, could that be the acrid stench of state power I smell?   Open Link

165. Intellectual Property Rights Part 2: Justice - How the media created its own problems with regards to property rights Open Link

166. Intellectual Property Rights Part 3: Solutions - How an anarchistic society deals with intellectual property   Open Link

178. Emails of the Week Apr 5 06 - Corporations and Intellectual Property - My responses to brilliant listener criticisms!   Open Link

Our original plan for General Theory was to read chapters 1, 12, 22, 24. Chapter one was chosen because it states the General Theory. Chapters 12 & 24 were chosen based on the Wikipedia entry for General Theory http://sn.im/w84wz. Chapter 22 was chosen because NewEdit thought it looked interesting.

Instead of reading the whole book we decided to read these selected chapters because the book looked tediously dull and boring as well as totally worthless. Certain individuals, who will remain unnamed so as to not embarrass Richard, are having difficulty understanding this concept and believe it is impossible to understand chapter 12 without reading chapters 1 to 11. This theory is hogwash.

So far we have read the preface to the German edition, chapter 1, half of chapter 2, and part of chapter 12. Having read these selections, our greatest fears have been realized. This book is totally worthless. Keynes is a fucking idiot. Most of us also agree that Gary North's http://KeynesProject.com is a waste of time that will have absolutely no impact on the world & society. We wish Richard well in his endeavor to read this worthless trash but will not be joining him.

In regards to my April 19th prediction of a market correction, contradicting Richard & Xorps predictions of continued stock market rises, I would like to point out the accuracy of my prediction by mentioning that from my prediction on 4/19 to 5/6 the market did in fact correct by dropping 11%.

Yay! I'm being sued.

2010-05-01T17:35:00.002-04:00

Well, not really. At least not yet.

GoodAccountants.com doesn't like my flippant use of the term "crooks" while referring to them on an internet bulletin board. Kind of long, but full details at http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Discussion:GoodAccountans.com_-_anyone_have_insights%3F

Next Meeting - Thursday 04/29/10

2010-04-19T21:30:00.000-04:00

Thur April 29, 2010
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

After the rousing success of General Theory chapters 1 & 2, at the next meeting we will be discussing Chapter 12: The State of Long-term Expectation. We will also discuss Stefan Molyneux's interview of Stephan Kinsella on Intellectual Property.

Though not relevant to the next meeting, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict contrary to Rich & Xorp's contentions that the stock market will continue to rise, we are near the end of the current bear market bull run. Stocks will soon correct.

Flash mobs and riots

2010-04-19T15:01:00.001-04:00

The media blackout on this is almost as bad as the lack of coverage over the Ron Paul campaign.

In several big cities, including Philadelphia and Kansas City, flash mobs and riots instigated by "youths" have been taking place.

In Kansas City this weekend, and to a lesser degree the previous weekend:
- 900+ black kids aged 11-16 stormed an outdoor mall, fought with each other, beat up all the shoppers, and robbed the stores. The newscasters in this clip are irrelevant but there is some remarkable cell phone footage of the fights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_2W_EbIN9o Since most of the "youths" are too young to drive (but since when has the law prevented miscreants from hijacking cars?), many of them came in by bus. Cops eventually called in helicopters.
A city council member said, "There's really no place in town that African-American kids can go and feel welcome." No matter what the race, do we think 900 thugs ought to be welcomed anywhere?

In Philadelphia this has been happening on a regular basis for nearly a year:
- Big group of teens rob convenience store http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDxoTpdxBWE
- 100s of teens fight with each other, knock down pedestrians, and rob Macy's http://cbs3.com/topstories/Center.City.Macys.2.1499306.html
- 100s of teens fight and ransack South Street http://cbs3.com/local/Police.Respond.Thousands.2.1579054.html
- South Street riots with 1000+ people, causing stores and restaurants to close early. Incredible video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4WOYMWp29g&feature=fvw
- Curfew implemented http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_region/20100323_Officials_consider_earlier_curfews_to_stop__flash_mobs_.html curfew
- Cell phone footage that makes "Boyz N The Hood" look tame. They beat up on a car with a driver in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMWT41Pu3tM If I was the driver I would have seriously run those m*therf*ckers over at 70 MPH in self-defense. The thug who posted this video subtitled it "GETTIN SOUTH ST POPPIN," and another one he subtitled "WE AT SOUTH STREET GETTIN IT POPPIN." Apparently riots are just such "popping" fun! Under an alternative screen name (you'll know it when you see it... think Randianism) I have posted a viciously hateful comment to that scumbag. He also has a bunch of other equally atrocious and terrifying videos glorifying the mobs. It is hard to imagine this is real. Another comment is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64INNh-FRuo

Next Meeting - Thursday April 15

2010-04-11T13:25:00.001-04:00

Under the theory that it is easy to read people you agree with, we decided to study a book of John Maynard Keynes. The choices being Treatise on Money and General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, we decided on General Theory. Wikipedia states (http://sn.im/pyw8z):

Although The General Theory was written in the aftermath of the Great Depression and was taken by many to justify the assumption by government of the responsibility for the achievement and maintenance of full employment, it is for the most part a highly abstract work of theory and by no means a tract on policy. Its full meaning and significance continues to be debated even today. As a book, it is a difficult read for a modern student of economics, although it is enlivened by some brilliant rhetorical passages, including the description of the stock market in Chapter 12 and the concluding chapter 24 on the (rather tentative) policy implications Keynes derived from his theory.

Since the book looks tediously dull and worthless, we will read chapters 1, 12, 22, 24 and the preface to the German edition. The book can be found at:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/keynes/john_maynard/k44g/

The ebooks.adelaide.edu version includes the preface to the German edition.

For the meeting on the 15th, we will discuss the preface, chapter 1, and Gary North's address on Keynes' influence at the ASC 2010 conference.

An audio only version of North's address can be heard at http://media.mises.org/mp3/ASC2010/07_ASC2010_North.mp3

My response to an Article in The Atlantic

2010-03-20T22:57:00.004-04:00

Hello all,
Please read my response to an article in The Atlanic, "How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America."
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/how-a-new-jobless-era-will-transform-america/7919/

Please comment and let me know how I did.

Dear Don,
I thoroughly enjoyed your article in The Atlantic, “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America,” My wife and I discussed it during a car ride home from a writing conference. We often discuss the economy and the direction of the country as a whole. Your article pretty much confirmed what we thought, that the country will not just bounce back from this recession/depression.

I must disagree with your suggestions for the resolving the crisis. I think that your suggestion to be biased more towards doing too much rather than too little in the face of the deficit is rather short sighted. Throughout history, civilizations have collapsed because of financial crises. From the biblical Joseph, “the money went bad,” to the Weimar Republic, we have clear examples of what happens when governments try to inflate their way out of trouble.

Perhaps our opinions differ because of our understandings of economics. I am a student of the Austrian school. In general, the school teaches that recessions and even depressions are necessary to clear the mistakes made during the credit induced boom. This is very similar to the Redwood trees in California, whose seeds only germinate after a fire. In our ignorance we try to stop the fires to save the forest, while we are killing the forest in the long run. The same is true with an economic downturn- by trying to stop it, we ensure that it will linger.

Sadly there is no easy way or quick fix to get us out of this morass. In my opinion, our only salvation will be to tighten our belts, work harder, and try to pay back the debts that we have incurred- collectively and individually. My fear is that the common misconception from the depression- that WWII ended the downturn-will encourage our leaders to instigate another “great” war to tackle the economic problems. I hope my fears are unfounded.
Regards,

Mark Christian

P.S. If you would like to learn about the Austrian School of Economics please visit www.mises.org

Census

2010-03-12T16:42:00.002-05:00

Today in the mail I received a letter from the Census Bureau.

It says: "Dear Resident: About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail."

Leave it to the the government to send a letter telling us it is going to send another letter. Why do things efficiently when being inefficient "creates more jobs" and "spreads the work?"

Think of the:
- loggers who must cut down a bunch of trees to make all these papers
- paper manufacturers
- printers
- mailmen (I mean postal professionals, of course)
- garbage collectors or recyclers who must get rid of this junk mail
- computer programmers who make data-collection software
- census workers who type in the data
- census workers who come knock on your door when you don't fill out the form.

I hereby declare that the census is quite a brilliant idea.

City of Troy shutting down (partly)

2010-03-06T20:50:00.002-05:00

The $1.9 million millage was voted down last week, meaning that the library, museum, nature center, community center (fitness, aquatic, community programs), and community affairs department (local TV station) will be closed down this year.

Next Meeting - Friday 03/05/10

2010-02-25T19:38:00.000-05:00

Friday March 5, 2010
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 22-24 of Henry Hazlitt's Economic in One Lesson, the questions on the corresponding study guide, and Jack Spirko's Survival Podcast #374 (click the play button to listen).

Episode-374- Time to Plan [69:49m]
We have looked at some dark subjects lately, we will look at more soon but let’s put a positive subject in today that focuses more on what we can do rather than why we need to do it.

2010 Predictions

2010-02-12T13:33:00.001-05:00

An update to our 2010 Predictions

	NewEd	Craig	Dave	Xorp	Eric

Gold	1200	1300	1400	1125	1100
Oil	125	100	100	79	70
DJIA	14k	13k	9-10k	11.2k	9500
S&P	1200		1000	1300	950
Nasdaq			2000
Inflation
Unemployment	< 10%	9-9.5%		7	12ish

	12/31/09	Alltime High

Gold	1096.20	1226.00
Oil	79.36	147.27
DJIA	10428.05	14279.96
S&P	1115.10	1576.09
Nasdaq	2269.15	5132.52
Inflation	2.7
Unemployment	10

New Edit
DOW will end the year at 14,000. The masses will believe that Obama has saved us all. He will use every opportunity to tell us so.
However, unemployment will remain as it is in real values. There will be no real job growth. The government unemployment data will appear lower (I'll guess 7%) due to the people who have been on unemployment assistance for too long getting kicked off.
S&P will end at 1200.
Gold will drop near 1000, rise to 1200 during the summer, and stay around 1100 at the end of the year.
Nasdaq - I don't follow enough to know.
Oil will rise to 125 during summer.

Craig
DJIA-13k due to inflation.
S/P-don't follow.
Nasdaq-don't follow to close either.
Gold-1300 (inflation wise)
Oil-100
Unemployement: Nation 9.0-9.5%
Unemployement Michigan: 14.5-15%

Dave
Stocks and the dollar will continue to rally in the beginning of the year.
S&P will rise to 1300, then drop to 1000.
Dow will rise to 12k, drop to 9-10k.
Nasdaq rise to 2500, drop to 2000.
Oil will continue to rise and will definitely exceed 100 during the year (obviously it will skyrocket if the US or Israeli govt bombs Iran).
Gold not drop below $1000. Hits $1400.
Japanese stocks will start an uptrend in 2010 being one of the best investments of the decade.
Natural gas will do well in 2010
Interest rates will increase. US Treasurys will drop.
Shanghei index could be a bubble to pop in 2010

Xorp
dow30 - 11,200
s&p500 - 1,300
Oil - $79
Gold - $1,125

Eric
Gold: $1100
Oil: $70
DJIA: 9500
S&P: 950
Nasdaq: no guess
Inflation: no guess
Unemployment: both Gov't numbers and real numbers will rise by a couple percent

The dollar index will strengthen slightly this year while stocks, oil, real estate, Government bonds, and gold will correct downward. My feeling is that in 2010 an investor should feel lucky to preserve capital and forget about making capital gains. I expect this to be a year in which every investment category drops. Here's why, some more of the dodgy debts of the boom will default. Central banks for be inclined to print money as it is one of the only solutions they have left. But the nominal value of most asset classes will decline because the money supply will shrink due to imploding debts faster than the central banks run the printing press. Of course this will eventually change and the central banks will produce hyperinflation and then the government will start another war to channel the anger of populace outward. The best investment in the years ahead will be the time spent in taking better care of your health and strengthening your relationships with friends and family.

Richard
Due to atrocious accuracy in his 2009 predictions and embarrassment being beat by a girl, he stated he will make predictions in December.

Scott
Being Canadian, has not made any predictions.

Favorite mainstream news headline of the week

2010-02-10T13:24:00.001-05:00

Snow shuts down federal government, life goes on

"If snow keeps 230,000 government employees home for the better part of a week, will anyone notice?"

We Are Doomed - Feb 5th edition

2010-02-06T15:27:00.000-05:00

My nephew, a freshman at U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, recently joined the facebook event 3.3.10 Spread The Word To End The Word. Spread the Word is a campaign by the Special Olympics to end the "hate speech" of people using the word "retarded". I left the following comment including the wikipedia link showing the futility of this campaign:

If you spent your time and energy on something less politically correct you'd end up having a bigger impact on the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Words_describing_disability.2Fhandicap

He responded:

um...end the rword has a huge impact on the world you have no idea waht your talking about and i no about idiot and moron and stuff thats not the point the point is "retarded" dosent mean mentally disabled it means slow what we are trying to do it remind people that the things we say can be extremely hurtful to others...and y wud anyone WANT to hurt someone? and why y anyone WANT to down on someone trying to prevent others from getting hurt?

Ill spend my time as i please thx

I refrained from replying, "You write like a retard" even though that reply made me laugh. The kid isn't a great student, but he's not an idiot (in spite of what the writing sample above indicates). I believe this country is doomed.

2010 Predictions

2010-02-05T14:05:00.003-05:00

A bit late in posting, but here are our predictions for 2010. Not sure how to easily post a table to blogger, so hopefully this is readable.

	NewEd	Craig	Dave	Xorp	12/31/09	Alltime High

Gold	1200	1300	1400	1125	1096.20	1226.00
Oil	125	100	100	79	79.36	147.27
DJIA	14k	13k	9-10k	11.2k	10428.1	14279.96
S&P	1200		1000	1300	1115.1	1576.09
Nasdaq			2000		2269.15	5132.52
Inflation
Unemp.	< 10%	9-9.5%		7

Even Associated Press admits road stimulus didn't help unemployment

2010-01-11T08:14:00.002-05:00

Interesting to see this coming from mainstream news:
Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Xmas in Detroit!

2009-12-26T15:20:00.009-05:00

A great video representation of Detroit's socialist nightmare.

While wild bears have been spotted in SE Michigan, I believe Crowder is mistaken about bears being spotted within the city limits of Detroit. Otherwise this video rocks.

edit:
Not sure the embedded player is working. The original url is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw

Anyone surprised?

2009-12-23T16:19:00.005-05:00

U-M researchers say politics guided bank bailout allocations

What the article does not point out is that these researchers are also government employees.

Pod-cast on intellectual property.

2009-12-22T12:31:00.002-05:00

I would like to suggest the following link regarding intellectual property for our next Pod-cast.

Detroit unemployment

2009-12-16T14:20:00.001-05:00

According to this article in the Detroit News, the unemployment rate is actually almost 50% once you factor in part-time workers, those who've given up looking, and those who have gone back to school because they can't find jobs.

Next Meeting - Thursday 12/17/09

2009-12-09T19:30:00.006-05:00

Thursday December 17, 2009
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 8 & 9 of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, the questions on the corresponding study guide, Modern Day Protectionism by Vedad Krehic, and Jack Spirko's Survival Podcast #327

Once again I picked the podcast unheard, but I have since given it a cursory listening. I have never listened to one of his "listener questions" show and am pleasantly surprised by this one. Spirko does a good job of making himself look reasonable and not a conspiracy theorist nutjob. None of the topics are discussed in great depth. That doesn't seem to be a drawback other than the 401k question which leaves some things unanswered in my mind. The podcast and topics discussed are below. Spirko's "housekeeping" runs long this episode, so you can skip the first 7 minutes before getting into the actual questions & answers.

Episode-327- Listener Questions for 12-01-09 [52:06m]:

What is better a well and private septic or city water and sewer or both
What do I think of Bob Chapman’s latest predictions
Will the government ever try to go after 401K earnings by changing the rules
Is buying land today buying “stolen land”
Thoughts on using paint cans for food storage
What to plant on remote land
Are the prices at coinflation the “spot price”
Setting a gun argument between a husband and wife, is there a cut and dry answer

Another side effect of government intervention

2009-12-06T17:16:00.002-05:00

One function of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act was to limit interest rates that the lenders could charge. This apparently cut in to credit card company profits.
In response, they are increasing and introducing other fees, including an account inactivity fee.

Everyone who voted for the Act failed at learning Economics in One Lesson: "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy..."

I wonder how long it will be before someone proposes a new bill to prevent credit card companies from charging these fees.

Mainstream media admits that health care bill is robbery

2009-12-01T09:53:00.003-05:00

We've been saying this all along, but this is the first time I've seen mainstream media so blatantly admit that the health care bill is robbery:

"Affordable insurance key for young adults" - Medill News Service via Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON -- The young invincibles. That's what the insurance industry calls the 13.7 million Americans younger than 30 who don't have health insurance because, they firmly believe, they just don't need it.

In the debate over health care, lawmakers and the health care industry agree that persuading this demographic to jump into the insurance pool is important because they're healthy and don't need costly medical care. Their premiums would help subsidize older, less healthy people, thereby bringing down average costs. That's one of the reasons why the health care bills circulating in Congress would require most Americans to get health insurance.

But for young adults to make the leap, experts said, Congress needs to focus more on affordability.

Young adults are more likely than people in other age groups to work low-wage, entry-level jobs that don't offer health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. As a result, Americans 19 to 29 have the highest uninsured rate in the United States.

This contradiction is sickening.
Paragraph 1: Healthy people generally don't need health insurance.
Paragraph 2: Therefore, they should pay for the unhealthy people.
Paragraph 3: But don't rob the healthy people TOO much-- just steal an "affordable" amount.

Next Meeting - Thursday 12/03/09

2009-11-24T00:17:00.003-05:00

Our next meeting is scheduled for:

Thursday December 03, 2009
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 6, 7, & 8 of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, the questions on the corresponding study guide, and a Scott Horton's interview TBD. If time permits, maybe we'll discuss Vedad Krehic's "Modern Day Protectionism" and NewEdit's response.

Adjusted Monetary Base

2009-11-20T23:21:00.006-05:00

Yesterday RM noted that the monetary base is on a skyward trajectory once again, as the chart above shows (http://sn.im/tcd4t). The official reason being to boost the economy. RM's question was if all they have to do is print money to boost the economy, why was TARP needed a year ago. We agreed that it is all smoke & mirrors. This does not look good for the economy.

Another Prediction

2009-11-20T16:19:00.001-05:00

At yesterday's meeting, Xorp predicted that Gold will drop in price during January. Somewhat of a broad prediction, but I'm still immortalizing his words here. Other than mentioning price manipulation by the IMF, he didn't divulge much of the reasoning behind the prediction.

Next Meeting: Thursday November 19, 2009

2009-11-12T20:55:00.005-05:00

Our next meeting is scheduled for:

Thursday November 19, 2009
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapters 4 & 5 of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and the questions on the corresponding study guide as well as Scott Horton's interview of Tim Wise.

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/10/23/tim-wise/
Scott Horton Interviews Tim Wise
October 23, 2009

Tim Wise, director of the movie Soldiers of Peace, discusses the worldwide outbreak of peace (really!), reconciliation of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, ending the vicious cycle of tribal retribution, ranking the benevolence of nations with a Global Peace Index and how free trade and open communication decrease the likelihood of war.

MP3 here. (30:05)

Tim Wise is the director of the documentary movie Soldiers of Peace. Tim has freelanced for all the major news networks around the world focusing on ‘Hard Access’ news stories. From his base in London, where he lived for 10 years, Tim worked on a wide range of assignments for such networks as BBC TV, CH4 News, SABC South Africa, EOTV Holland, NHK Hong Kong, ABC Australia ‘Foreign Correspondent’ & ‘Four Corners”, WTN London, DRTV Denmark, Focus Germany, RTL and ZDF Germany.

During this time, Tim traveled to some of the most dangerous countries in the world including Iraq, Bosnia, Northern Sri-Lanka, East Timor, Liberia, Colombia, Southern Sudan, Burma and East India. He also did a series of filming stints working undercover from China, Kurdistan, Burma and Sri-Lanka.

In 2003 Tim was involved in the making of the international award-winning documentary ‘Child Soldiers’ for ABC TV Australia where he spent 2 weeks living with one of the child soldier units of the SPLA rebels of Southern Sudan. In Assam in East India Tim gained unprecedented access to the ULFA rebels, the first western journalist to ever do so in the 18 years that ULFA had been in existence. Tim was smuggled into their secret bases inside Bhutan and went out on operations with the rebels as they fought with the Indian Army. He was also smuggled inside Burma with the ABSDF student rebels while making an ABC Four Corners report.

Tim has also freelanced for the Award winning SBS TV show ‘Dateline’ where he reported from Northern Uganda covering the LRA rebels – The Lord’s Resistance Army of Joseph Kony, that has abducted over 30,000 children and forced boys as young as 10 into becoming child soldiers and girls to become porters, cooks and sex slaves for the top LRA commanders.

Tim is now the CEO of the documentary production company One Tree Films, which was established in 2006 with founder Steve Killelea. The core aims is to produce world-class documentaries focusing on social issues. Soldiers of Peace is their first film together.

Arguments against arguments against intellectual property

2009-11-10T08:39:00.005-05:00

The recent article "Modern Day Protectionism" by Vedad Krehic speaks against patents and copyrights. As a group we previously talked about IP and seemed to agree that patents are unjustified. I still strongly favor copyrights*, though, and would like to present some brief responses to the arguments against IP. These aren't fully developed, but perhaps we could address this issue again at a future meeting if others are interested in the subject.

*By copyright I do not mean that a government agency would enforce copyrights. I mean that the artist has a natural right and rule over his IP.
Also, I am not interested in the utilitarian/"practical" argument that copyrights limit creative output, since that assertion is secondary to the moral argument.

1. The author indicates that taking a jacket without paying for it would be theft. However, he says that copying a CD of music is not theft, because the original CD still exists and still belongs to its owner. But this does not make sense to me, because a new copy of the property has been introduced:
Each jacket can only be worn and enjoyed by one person at one time. A jacket owner may sell his copy of the jacket, but then he can no longer wear that copy. Similarly, an individual could rightfully sell his copy of the CD, but then he would no longer be able to enjoy that CD. Now, if two people want the jacket, then the second person has to buy a copy of the jacket and pay its creator. The creator has now been paid to make two copies of the jacket. So if a second person wants to enjoy the CD, then the creator of the CD should get paid for two copies of that CD.
The author says, "If I walk into a store and leave with a jacket for which I have not paid then I have deprived the store's owner of his or her justly acquired, tangible property. They have one less jacket. They are directly harmed by my action."
Likewise, if you copy a CD, the creator has been deprived of one less copy to sell. Someone is getting value from the creator's work without paying the creator. The creator is directly harmed.

1a. Copying art seems to me to be like inflation of the money supply. Only one copy really exists for which the creator has been paid (only one ounce of gold really exists), but we proceed as though all the copies of that value have been accounted for (as though each federal reserve note actually represents something).
The author says, "The original CD is still my friend's property. I return it to him, and while he is no better or worse off than he was before, I am now better off." This sounds exactly like fractional reserve banking: you still have your original dollar, but now I have an extra dollar, too! Well, no, you don't. You've created false "value" out of nothing and proceeded as though no-one is harmed.

2. Those against copyrights often focus on tangible property. They seem to suggest that the value of the CD is in tangible property of the CD itself. But the value is in the sounds of the music. Note that no-one pays a premium for blank CDs or for books that say "alsjksl;jdfasklfjsak." Rather, what they are paying for is the music or the particular arrangement of words and ideas in the book. Many libertarians seem to not acknowledge that property other than physical property is a valid concept.

3. Many libertarians say that it is admissible to make private contracts about not copying art, but that that contract can't extend to a third party. For example, the author says, "It is possible that I could, for example, have made an agreement or contract with [my friend] when I borrowed the disc stating that I cannot copy it. If I were to do it anyway, I'd be in violation of a private agreement."
I see a discrepancy here. Either non-tangible things (music, text) can be property or they cannot. If they can be property, property rights apply. If they cannot be property-- as libertarians often seem to suggest when they focus on the physical plastic CD rather than on the music-- then this concession about private contracts doesn't hold because there would be no real property about which to make a contract. It would be an invalid contract because there would be no real property. So which is it? Either IP is property and is subjected to property rights (as I assert), or IP is not property and therefore you can't make private contracts about something that doesn't exist.

2009-11-07T00:19:00.004-05:00

The next meeting is scheduled for:

Thursday November 12, 2009
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapters 1-3 of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and the questions on the corresponding study guide.

For the current podcast, we'll be discussing Jack Spirko's Survival Podcast #305 - You Can't Lose as a Modern Survivalist and Survival Blog's related article, Preparing for Uncertain Times--A Simple Guide to Getting Ready.

A big reason for picking podcast 305 is that I don't agree with a lot of Spirko's points and I totally disagree with Preparing for Uncertain Times. Maybe someone will be able to change my mind. While I find disagreement with much in podcast 305 and I agree with some of the assessments that Spirko's podcasts aren't very indepth, I think they are worthwhile. He's not a doomsayer claiming the end of the world is at hand and he seems to be implementing a decent version of the Alpha Strategy. Points in the podcast I disagree with include:

You can't be free if you have any debt
Credit cards are evil
Storing food always pays for itself
Survivalism creates a better life even if you never need to implement any of it
The bank owns your home if you have a mortgage (and related to this is the etymology of mortgage as "death grip"; the actual etymology is dead pledge)

Episode-305- You Can’t Lose as a Modern Survivalist

Episode-305- You Can't Loose by as a Modern Survivalist: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

The number one question I get from non preparedness minded individuals when I tell them about The Survival Podcast is simply, why?

Why takes many forms such as…

Why do you worry about so many things you can’t control?
Why do I need to do anything different then I am doing now, I got this far OK, right?
Why should I spend money on things I may never need or even use?
Why should I sacrifice just to be “debt free” because “you’re no one unless you own money in the nation anyway”?
Why should I store food?
Why do I need a gun, we have a nice town and a great police force?
Why do you feel the need to be an alarmist?

Oh and that list of why’s goes on and on, I assure you. Yet I always answer every single why with the same answer, “because the way I do things my life is better even if nothing bad ever happens”.

Tune in today as we discuss this concept and thoughts on how…

Living debt free is the only way to have the freedom we all desire
Why most people tolerate things in their life they should never allow
Why tax is theft and why understanding it creates freedom
Why no matter what people say you do need to prepare for bad times
How the media and the government create plastic lifestyles that we choose to live within
Why storing food will always pay itself back even if you never have to rely on it directly
Why a garden is liberating and a financial gain
Why so many people that start to prep fail and fall out and how to change that

Detroit's socialist nightmare is America's future

2009-10-29T11:06:00.003-04:00

In yesterday's S&A Digest, Porter Stansberry had a great article describing the decline of Detroit. He goes on to describe how Detroit's history is now the country's future. Detroit use to be the 4th most populous city in America and on par culturally and economically with London, Paris, and New York. It's a short and easy read; I'd encourage you to take a look at it:

http://www.thedailycrux.com/content/3247/Porter_Stansberry

Political Anarchy is the solution for Detroit as well as the nation. Bill Bonner described a good starting point in A Depression – With a Capital ‘D’

Want to save Detroit? Here’s how:

Abolish all welfare of all sorts…no unemployment insurance…no child tax credits…no welfare…no foodstamps…no nothing, except privately-sponsored charities. Close the public schools. Kick out all the bureaucrats and all federal and state employees. Abolish all rules concerning employment – no minimum wages, no overtime, discriminate all you want. Require all residents to say please and thank you…dress properly…and sneer at people who don’t seem to be gainfully employed or polite. Declare the city an Open City and Free Trade Zone. In exchange for cutting all federal aid programs, eliminate federal and state taxes for people living in the city. Allow unlimited immigration into the city…giving all immigrants a U.S. passport after 5 years of residency. Levy a flat 10% tax to pay for basic services. Eliminate elections…have the city controlled by a town council composed of 10 citizens chosen at random.

Within five years, Detroit would be the most dynamic city in the nation.

Next Meeting - Thursday 10/20/09

2009-10-21T11:41:00.002-04:00

Meetings have currently been switched to every other Thursday. So the next meeting is scheduled for:

Thursday October 29, 2009
5:30ish to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 12 of America's Great Depression and Jack Spirko's Survival Podcast #293 - Economic Forecast.

http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/episode-293-economic-forecast-10-08-09

Episode-293- Economic Forecast 10-08-09

Episode-293- Economic Forecast 10-08-09 [51:04m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

So today we are going to discuss my view of what we can expect from the economy in the next few years and what we can do to prepare for it. I will tell you why I think 2010 is actually going to look pretty decent and on the other side why you shouldn’t take that much comfor in it. Then next week we will take a day to compare my view to the view of many of the experts such as Jim Rodgers and Gerald Celente.

Tune in today to hear…

Why I think we are about to see a fake recovery followed by a bigger crash
The stimulus doesn’t kick in until 2010, how it will succeed and how it will fail
Unemployment is “bottoming” the truth and the lies about that statement
This coming bubble and collapse is planned, I will explain why there is no other option then this one
Credit cards can’t fix a debt problem and how that relates to our national deficit
How the impact of Health Care won’t be seen until late 2011 perhaps longer and the disaster it will create
The coming 1.5 Trillion Dollar tax increase from the administration that promised not to do it
How high taxes reduce the amount of tax government collects and what it does to the economy
Why inflation looks like recovery at the beginning
Why you need to own at least some silver and or gold
Land is cheap, go make a low ball offer while you can
Store food, build your own grocery store at home
Spend smart don’t horde money, balance your assets
Place priority of spending on assets with long term value
Keep some cash, don’t believe the lies about putting all cash into gold right now
Debt is evil, always in good times and bad
Never be 100% invested in any item or investment type
Do not liquidate IRAs and 401ks modify their portfolios but leave the money in the vehicles
Above all never “freak out”, make smart and strategic spending and saving decision you do have time to act, don’t panic and react to swiftly to concerns

Next Meeting

2009-10-07T02:30:00.002-04:00

The next meeting is scheduled for:

Tuesday October 13, 2009
5:30ish to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 11 of America's Great Depression and Scott Horton's interview of Rebecca Vilkomerson

Chapter 11: The Hoover New Deal of 1932

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/09/18/rebecca-vilkomerson/
Scott Horton Interviews Rebecca Vilkomerson
September 18, 2009

Rebecca Vilkomerson, National Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, discusses the activist campaign to stop Caterpillar from selling bulldozers to Israel, what interested people can do to help promote peace, how the peace party can learn from the organizational and media saturation successes of the war party and the importance of criticizing anti-Semitism as well as those who misuse the charge (see MuzzleWatch).

MP3 here. (23:24)

Rebecca Vilkomerson is the National Director of Jewish Voice for Peace. She has over fifteen years of experience in community organizing, advocacy, program development and fundraising in the United States and Israel. In the U.S., she focused on economic justice issues, especially regarding women. She has been an active member of JVP since 2002, and lived in Israel with her family from 2006-2009.

Most recently, Rebecca worked for a Palestinian Israel public policy center and a Bedouin-Jewish environmental and social justice organization, as well as continuing her work as an activist for a just peace in Palestine and Israel. Her study, Public Policy in Divided Societies: The Case for a Civil Rights Institution was published in July, 2008 by Dirasat, the Arab Center for Law and Policy. She is also currently an editor of Jewish Peace News. Rebecca is a graduate of Connecticut College and has a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University.

Two Shocking Visuals

2009-10-07T01:29:00.008-04:00

Information is Beautiful posted a couple of interesting graphics recently.

The Billion Dollar Gram is a shocking visual of govt waste. The picture seems self explanatory, so I won't comment further.

The second graphic that caught my eye was the third of the Four Infographic Morsels. A small version is below. A larger version can be seen by clicking the image, clicking the blog link above and scroll down, or click http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2595/3941254968_7f70fbd209_b.jpg.

Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires, outnumbered 9 to 1 (16 to 1 if include all private security contractors) is kicking the USG's ass. Unfortunately Obama is too stupid to learn from history.

Next Meeting

2009-09-18T00:19:00.005-04:00

The next meeting is scheduled for:

Tuesday September 22, 2009
5:30ish to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 10 of America's Great Depression and Scott Horton's interview of Daniel Lakemacher and if there's interest, a related interview with Adam Szyper Seibert.

Chapter 10: 1931-"The Tragic Year"

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/09/16/daniel-lakemacher
Scott Horton Interviews Daniel Lakemacher
September 16, 2009

Daniel Lakemacher, founder of the website WarIsImmoral.com, discusses his conscientious objector (CO) discharge from the U.S. Navy, how the experience of working at Guantanamo and (independently) learning about the libertarian “non-aggression principle” changed his mind about war and justice, the process of becoming a CO and how the military defines morality in terms of obedience/disobedience.

MP3 here. (25:03)

Daniel Lakemacher was discharged as a conscientious objector from the U.S. Navy on 09/11/09. He is the founder of the website WarIsImmoral.com

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/09/12/adam-szyper-seibert/
Scott Horton Interviews Adam Szyper-Seibert
September 12, 2009

Adam Szyper-Seibert, counselor and office manager at Courage to Resist, discusses Lt. Ehren Watada’s successful resistance to an Iraq deployment, the year-long waiting list for treatment at the VA, the fraternal bonds that keep reenlistment rates high, increased military success (since WWII) in training soldiers to be hate-driven killers and the “Ft. Bragg 50″ who are held without charges in degrading conditions.

MP3 here. (38:01)

Adam Szyper-Seibert is a counselor and office manager at Courage to Resist, an organization that provides support to military resisters.

"Solidarity forever"

2009-09-09T21:35:00.005-04:00

You may have heard that Oakland University's professors have been on strike since last Thursday, when classes were supposed to start. Among their demands is an 11% pay raise over the next 3 years.

Here is fantastic video of one of the rallies, complete with song and dance. Check out the "stop administration dictatorship" sign.

Stock Charts: 1929 & 2009

2009-09-08T12:37:00.010-04:00

Rothbard starts chapter nine of America's Great Depression stating, "By early 1930, people were generally convinced that there was little to worry about." The news today is filled with positive stories about unemployment, housing, and economic recovery as if there is little to worry about. So I went to find some stock charts comparing the past few years with the 1930s. Though I'm sure I've seen some overlayed charts in the past, I couldn't find any. If you know of any, please post a link. Here are some charts I found to which I compared current charts from bigcharts.com.

The first one, from http://www.online-stock-trading-guide.com/1930-stock-chart.html, shows 4 1/2 years of the DJIA from Oct 1928 to March 1933. That is one year prior to the 29 crash until the bottom of the market in 33. In comparison is a chart of the last 3 years from BigCharts. This is a little more than one year prior to the start of the current depression. This makes the relative starting points of the two charts a little off but fairly close. We haven't transgressed 3 years into the recession, so the current chart is of shorter duration.

The second set of charts compares 1930 (once again from http://www.online-stock-trading-guide.com/1930-stock-chart.html) to 2008. The stock market crash occurred in October 1929, a couple months after the Great Depression began. The current recession supposedly began in December 2007. Thus, 1930 is the first full year of the Great Depression and 2008 is the first full year of the current depression.

The last set of charts compares the period of 1924 to 1933 to the past decade of 1999 to 2009. The 1924 to 1933 chart is duplicated in numerous places on the web, but I pulled it from http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/seymour062001.html. The circles refer to quotes listed in the article at gold-eagle.com. If you haven't seen the article before, click through for a good read.

If we overlaid the second chart starting in 2003 onto the first chart starting at 1925, it looks like there would be strong similarity.

While trying to find charts, I came across one other interesting comparison. From Numbers From the Wasteland, here is current unemployment to unemployment in the 20s & 30s.
If you have any other good comparisons or better charts, please post.

Unemployment continued.

2009-09-04T14:51:00.006-04:00

Vice President Biden opened his mouth yesterday to state that the stimulus was improving "the trajectory of our economy" (VOA).

He also stated, "The Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected" (AP).

July's unemployment numbers are showing how well the stimulus plan is "working".

The percentage of unemployed workers is going up, yet again. July's percentage is 9.7% of the work force is not employed. An overall increase of .3% unemployment between June and July.

Interview

2009-09-03T20:25:00.003-04:00

I haven't listened to this yet but it looks like it discusses whether the left retains its anti-war energy when there is a Democrat president: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/34788.html

Retirement Accounts

2009-08-31T14:08:00.004-04:00

Lately I've been wary of retirement accounts because:

- they may be taken over by the government by the time I retire
- due to inflation the money could be worth very little by the time I retire

For these reasons I closed out my account (tax penalty and all) when I quit my last job and did other things with that money.

I planned to not start a 403(b) ever again.

However, one of the places I am working is offering a double match. If I contribute 5% of my salary, they contribute an additional 10%. That is a lot of money and it is tempting. However, I resent the fear-mongering ("you need over 2 million dollars to retire") and bad financial advice ("markets always go up") given by the shady sales people that work for these companies.

Right now I am leaning toward opting out, but the 10% is pulling me back in. To be eligible for a double match from the school, I'd have to enroll by the end of September.

With the assurance that I in no way hold you responsible for what I decide, does anyone have any thoughts or advice on this?

Choices offered (I don't fully understand what these mean):

From TIAA-CREF
- Multi-asset - mutual fund
- Equities - variable annuity and mutual fund
- Real estate - variable annuity
- Fixed income - variable annuity and mutual fund
- Money market - variable annuity and mutual fund
- Guaranteed - guaranteed annuity
- NO LOANS

From Fidelity
- "Freedom fund" - mutual fund, seems to have no employee freedom, Fidelity chooses allocations
- "Money market trust"
- Not sure what else; didn't give much information
- NO "SELECT" PORTFOLIOS including gold, energy, etc.

Update: the "select" sector funds ARE being added to Fidelity's options starting in January

Unemployment Rate.

2009-08-27T21:04:00.012-04:00

The Feds are claiming the current unemployment rate is 9.4%. Several articles have popped up in the last few months contesting the claim of 9.4% unemployment. These articles are stating the real percentage is closer to 16% and could be as high as 20% nationally. Finally, Detroit is once again number one for something; and an unemployment rate of 28.9% is NOT something to be proud of.

Below you will find three articles, the first two relate to the national number, while the latter article is just the city limits of Detroit.

John Miller wrote in the Dollar and Sense article that the true adjusted rate is 16.4%.

Anthony Mirhaydari's article on MSN money states the unemployment rate to be closer to 20%.

The Detroit Free Press has a strong and viable number for the City of Detroit's percentage to be at 28.9%

One last note, I was surprised the Detroit unemployment number is not closer to a 1/3 of the population.

Next Meeting

2009-08-27T15:41:00.006-04:00

The next meeting is scheduled for:

Tuesday September 8, 2009
5:30ish to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapter 9 of America's Great Depression and Scott Horton's interview of Cindy Sheehan. We may include a brief discussion of chapter 8 due to some confusion regarding assigned chapters at the last meeting.

Chapter 8 - The Depression Begins: President Hoover Takes Command
Chapter 9 - 1930

Today Scott Horton interviewed Cindy Sheehan. I haven't heard anything from Cindy in a couple years and had no idea that Camp Casey had been set up in Martha's Vineyard during Obama's vacation. The description seems to indicate that Sheehan, a leftist, is criticizing other leftists for their complete lack of integrity. Sounded interesting, so I have chosen it for the AWR interview for the next meeting.

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/08/27/cindy-sheehan
Scott Horton Interviews Cindy Sheehan

Scott Horton, August 27, 2009

Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan discusses how to keep the antiwar movement alive during a Democratic presidency, the activist groups willing to trade integrity for Washington access, the universal right to life and liberty and Camp Casey’s move to Martha’s Vineyard during Obama’s vacation there.

MP3 here. (17:31)

Cindy Sheehan became a leader of the antiwar movement after her son, Casey, was killed in Iraq. Her efforts to get answers from President Bush, including a vigil in Crawford,Texas, have received national media attention. She has a website, is the author of Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey through Heartache to Activism and wrote the introduction to 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military.

Anitwar Radio Interview for 8/25/09 Discussion

2009-08-20T16:21:00.003-04:00

Scott Horton recently interviewed Tom Woods. Being one of the most intelligent & articulate individuals alive, I picked it as the AWR interview for next meeting's discussion.

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/08/18/thomas-e-woods-2/

Scott Horton Interviews Thomas E. Woods
August 18, 2009

Thomas E. Woods, author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, discusses the debt some progressive causes owe to states’ rights, vintage 1812 war propaganda that sounds alarmingly like the run-up to the war in Iraq, state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws and the undue respect given to the Supremacy Clause.

MP3 here. (36:05)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books. A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Woods holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

S&P Index vs. the M1 Money Supply

2009-08-15T21:30:00.004-04:00

Here is the graph of the S&P index vs. the M1 money supply that I mentioned during our last meeting.

Next Meeting

2009-08-15T01:57:00.003-04:00

The next meeting is scheduled for:

Tuesday August 25, 2009
5:30ish to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

Discussing chapters 7 & 8 of America's Great Depression and an AWR interview TBD.
Chapter 7 - Prelude to Depression: Mr. Hoover and Laissez-Faire
Chapter 8 - The Depression Begins: President Hoover Takes Command

Speaking of Predictions

2009-08-15T01:07:00.011-04:00

At the beginning of the year, some of us made predictions regarding stocks & commodities for 2009. To easily track those predictions, I'm posting them here. Hopefully the chart format posts correctly.

	NewEd	Dave	EH	Xorp	MC	RM
Gold	750	> 1000	1350	1125	850	700
Oil	60	> 60		60		60
DJIA	8100	<7000		> 9800		4000
S&P	800	<700	744	> 1060	1300	400
Nasdaq	-	<1200
Inflation	4	9
Unempl	11	10		10		10

	12/31/08	Alltime High
Gold	856.40	1023.50
GLD eft	86.52	100.44
SLV eft	11.20	20.621
Oil	44.60	147.27
DJIA	8776.39	14279.96
S&P	930.25	1576.09
Nasdaq	1577.03	5132.52
Inflation	3.8
Unempl	7.2

New Edit
Gold - year end of $750, after having reached a high of $1100 in the summer
Oil - will fluctuate around $60
DJIA - year end 8100
S&P - year end 800
Nasdaq - don't follow enough to even attempt to guess
Inflation - will be reported at 4%, but this will be based on a new formula for calculating it
Unemployment - 11% (may also be subject to new counting methods)
The economy will continue to get worse but Obama will still be heralded as a great guy. He will say that "we are all in this together" and that part of the Hope And Change involves sacrificing for the good of the country.

Dave
My predictions are what the items will hit during the year, not necessarily the year end price. I think I may be too conservative. Gold may go over $1100 or $1200 but I don't think it will get much higher. DJIA may drop below 6000 but I don't think it will drop below 5000 and the S&P may drop below 600 but not 500. The Nasdaq is more volitile, so it could drop the most, but not under 800.

I'm not sure if Obama will get reelected. The republicans will put up a loser to run against him which will give him a good chance. But unlike Mark & Ken, I don't think he'll have high approval ratings. I believe all the "hope" of the Obama supporters will be dashed against the rocks. High unemployment & high inflation will cause a situation like Carter's and people will not be happy with him. If the republicans can somehow come up with a dynamic candidate, Obama will lose.

E.H.
For 2009 I'll predict $1350 for gold and a 20% decline in the S&P.

Xorp
I'll make a similar call as in the mid 90's and early 00's, though different asset class. Only the names and the asset class changes :-)
1) Clinton reelected coincident with economic inflationary boom (dot-com)
2) Bush II re-elected during period of inflationary boom (housing boom)

Since this new phase of monetary expansion (see the M1) coincides with a first term administration in DC, all other things being equal, I think the Obama administration will be hailed as economic geniuses towards the end of 2012, and will remain in power. Starting your first term coincident with the beginning of a new Central Bank inflationary/boom is like being dealt a royal flush. See Clinton/Bush calls above.

In 2000 it was the dot-com bubble, in 2006 it was the housing bubble, in 2012'ish I think it will be the alternative energy bubble. The derivatives market that will un-wind will be the "carbon credit" market. No matter what bubble popped, or pops next, all are technically credit induced by the central bank, only the underlying asset class changes with each new bubble (dot-com, housing, alt-energy).

The next bubble starts now, in alternative energy. Dot-com and housing are dead, never to be heard from again. How crazy is that?

Mark
Very interesting Ken,
I think you are on to something. My predictions tend to be more on the moneyed elites manipulating the price of gold much to the char grin of the Austrians. The fix is in. The powers that be won't make the Austrian case easy. We will be right in the end, but Rome fell for over 500 years. The new Rome has several rallies left.
gold- 850
S&P - 1300

On the geo-political side
Obama is definitely re-elected. We will get our first major spill over of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the US (someone will bring the fight across the ocean). Several years down the road...massive amounts of malinvestment will leave us with sparkling roads but no one can afford a car or gas.

I've been having a tough time predicting what will happen next. It's like playing monopoly and then a random guy (Federal Reserve) comes out of no where and knocks the game board off the table. Even better, it's like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football and Lucy pulls it away at the last minute. Charlie thinks (Federal Reserve encourages him in this direction) he figures out the problem so he buys new cleats. Sadly Charlie still doesn't kick the ball and now he has new shoes with no value....

Alt energy is definitely the bubble. I will attempt to ride it up and down.

S&P 999

2009-08-15T00:53:00.003-04:00

At last Tuesday's meeting, Xorp predicted the S&P would close between 999 & 1000 on option expiration Friday 8/21/09. Immortalizing his words here. We shall see.

The Big Picture by Bob Murphy

2009-07-16T13:40:00.003-04:00

Please read the following article by Bob Murphy. In it he explains what he would do if he were the king of the world and had no morals. I think he is spot on with his thoughts. I would enjoy reading your comments and engaging in a discussion.
-Mark

http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy160.html

Schiff for Senate

2009-07-14T22:35:00.007-04:00

Hello everyone,
I'm writing to ask you to support Peter Schiff's senate race (he was Ron Paul's economic adviser in the 08 presidential campaign). Today he announced that he will run if he can raise enough money to win (approx $20 million). Every little bit helps, my first donation was today for $25.

Please check out his video on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlnkuskRwYI
4:48 seconds into the video he talks about his possible run.

P.S. Peter has promised to refund the money if he decides there is not enough interest and doesn't run.

http://www.schiffforsenate.com/

P.S. I apologize for "spamming up" an anarchy = no leader = no senate blog with this post but I sincerely believe that a Peter Schiff run can enlighten the open mind and help the remnant find more people, much like the Ron Paul campaign did for me.

Below is the email that was sent to me earlier today.

A Message from Peter Schiff

Dear Mark,

I just wanted to let you know that I am now able to take online donations on my website http://schiffforsenate.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45b009ba848bc9d8a6cd9bda5&id=e2eb643946&e=2c440ac975.

My decision to run is largely dependent on the level of early support and contributions I receive from people like you. I have commissioned polling that shows this to be a winnable race and I am ready to make the personal and financial sacrifice to run, but now it's up to the people to show their support because no candidate can win this race alone. Over the next several weeks we will be taking contributions at my website http://schiffforsenate.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45b009ba848bc9d8a6cd9bda5&id=eb96892918&e=2c440ac975, and weighing the public support for my candidacy. If the support is there, I will answer the call. However, if the public sentiment for my run is not there, I will return the contributions.

Free-market conservatives have an opportunity in 2010. With your help and support, I believe this will be our generation's chance to make a difference for ourselves and our children. Join me. Show your support for free market principles by making a contribution on my website http://schiffforsenate.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=45b009ba848bc9d8a6cd9bda5&id=20f8d13f9a&e=2c440ac975.

It's time we made ourselves heard.

Best regards,

Peter

"Fifty things to do NOW if you fear an economic breakdown"

2009-07-07T12:08:00.003-04:00

This is one of the better things I've seen on the internet lately. I don't agree with all of it but overall I think it's a very good list. I'd like to discuss some of this at the meeting if others are interested.

http://fau.anarplex.net/?p=26
Linked to from LRC

AGD Chapter 3 questions

2009-06-26T20:04:00.002-04:00

There is no obligation to answer these but if you have the time/interest I would appreciate insights on the following:

- GENERAL OVERPRODUCTION, paragraph 2, "If [businessmen] wish to sell their 'surplus' stock, they need only cut their prices low enough to sell all of their product."
Does this mean that people will buy things they don't really want if the price is low enough? If so, is that really true?

- DEARTH OF "INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES," paragraph 3, "If total consumption increases due to population growth (and there is no particular reason why it should)..."
How could it not? Does each person not have a baseline requirement for consumption, so each additional person would mean an increase in total consumption by at least that baseline?

- DEARTH OF "INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES," paragraph 4, "Austrian theory teaches us that investment is always less than the maximum amount that could possibly exploit existing technology."
Don't understand what this means. Example?

- DEARTH OF "INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES," paragraph 6, "In a free market, prices determine costs and not vice versa, so that reduced final prices will also lower the prices of productive factors-- thereby lowering the costs of production."
This is counter to what I've understood up until now. Example?

Regarding the next meeting - I think I'm free all Tuesdays in July.

Bank of America and credit cards

2009-06-17T11:41:00.001-04:00

This blog has been pretty quiet lately so I thought I would write something to
a) complain about Bank of America
b) ask about alternative credit cards.

I am no fan of Bank of America and never have been (even before the bailouts). Last fall BoA took over LaSalle Bank, where my accounts were held at the time, so I closed my accounts and transferred them to a small county bank. ¾ of a year later BoA still sends me statements showing $0 balance, even though I’ve called numerous times to verify that the accounts are closed, not just inactive. Their disorganization and inefficiency is absurd.

BoA also acquired whatever company was previously in charge of my credit card. I rarely use a credit card and immediately pay any balance I do have, so at least BoA is not making money off me (except perhaps by selling my name). Unfortunately, my most recent statement contained two foreign transactions—one for $100.00 Mexican pesos and one for $500.00 Mexican pesos. This comes to less than $50 USD but it is still incorrect. Trying to sort this out is quite a frustrating process. First, the BoA credit card phone tree is worse than most phone trees. Having worked one summer in customer disservice I consider myself decent at manipulating the computers into letting me speak directly with a person. With BoA, I was directed through multiple layers of the phone tree, with the final branch asking the exact question as the first branch. Then I was on hold for 30 minutes, which was bad enough without a southern-accented female voice intoning how much BoA appreciated my business. The “account executive” (minimum wage cubicle worker) who finally answered was most unhelpful at explaining why there were so many long pauses after I answered his questions. Good CSR people are supposed to be quick, and if they are not, they are supposed to describe what they are doing. For example: “Now I am slowly typing your first name. Now I am taking a break to watch YouTube. Now I am slowly typing your last name and misspelling it, even though it already appears on my screen because you input all of your data in the phone tree.”

Anyway, during the course of filing the dispute, the CSR asked me several times if I was sure I hadn’t stayed at a hotel in Mexico. I realize that many people try to pull scams and that the company must therefore exercise caution in accepting fraud reports, but there is also an inconsistency: I personally know a person who plead guilty to a felony involving stealing a BoA credit card, committing identity theft, and making > $20,000 worth of fraudulent charges on the card. BoA is not pursuing the matter because it’s not worth their expenses to try to obtain payment from her. On the other hand, BoA treats a person who truly did not make < $50 of fraudulent charges like a scam artist. And anyway, the CSR said five minutes later, “Oh, it looks like a telecommunications company” (not a hotel).

The CSR also had flawed logic… or should I say the script from which he was reading was flawed. He indicated I should not be worried about identity theft because the charges only occurred on one day, and because a subsequent charge (something I had in fact purchased) was accurate. ?

Anyway, once this is resolved I’d like to cancel the card entirely. As part of homesteading and self-sufficiency it is becoming even more important to me to deal as locally as possible, and to avoid contributing to and participating in a monstrous “system” that is inefficient and unworkable. In the future I suspect there will be a point when I stop participating in this mess at all. For now, I would like to have a small, as-basic-as-possible credit card for the following purposes:
- I sell sheet music; the majority of people want to pay through PayPal; PayPal requires a credit card
- Credit cards serve as a source of identification and things like car rental companies require credit card reservations, even if your final method of payment is different
- They are a type of insurance in case one is traveling and needs to pay for car repairs or emergencies and is not carrying cash.

Therefore I am seeking a card that has a small limit ($500 would be fine), and is NOT OWNED BY A MAJOR BANK. “Perks” such as airline miles, points, and anything even as mildly complicated as cash advances and balance transfers are undesirable. Supposedly independent cards turn out to have payment centers operated by BoA, Chase, etc. If any of you know of or ideally have experience with small, independent credit card companies, please let me know. Thank you.

How to talk to “normal” people?

2009-06-01T23:11:00.004-04:00

Lately I’ve been having more trouble than usual talking to average, everyday people, because nearly every topic is contaminated by invalid terms and ideas associated with government. I can only stare blankly at people in genuine confusion because the more I realize the inherent nature of government the less I can comprehend any standards it sets. This inability to communicate is probably not a good thing, especially if we hope to expose others to better ideas. Do any of you know what I mean? If yes, how do you work around this?

Here is an example.

Today at work I read the Food Institute Report, a weekly industry newsletter to which the company I work for subscribes. It reported that New York state started a “War on Obesity.” The governor, David Paterson, introduced a bill to require restaurants, stores, and vendors to display calorie values on menus and menu boards including drive-through windows. “The initiative seeks to help consumers make informed choices when purchasing food away from home.”

I do not understand that seemingly simple sentence because I don’t understand what a “consumer” is and why they need special protection. I don’t understand how this bill increases “informed choice” because nutrition data is already available on websites, brochures, etc. Subway even puts calorie values on its napkins. The FIR newsletter says that 95% of restaurant patrons do not look at this voluntarily provided data. There is no basis to believe anyone would look at the data once it is emblazoned on neon billboards. So I can’t even coherently respond to people who support such a bill because its basic premises don't make any sense.

Then Paterson said, “When people know the amount of calories in their choices, they make better choices.”

How can we begin to show the inaccuracy of this statement, since doing so would require accepting the governor’s (State’s?) implication that a “better” choice is a lower calorie choice, which is hardly the case? But assuming we accepted that false notion and wanted to factually disprove his statement, perhaps we could reference data showing that, since the introduction of food labeling on product packages, obesity rates have continued to rise. For example, in 1994, when The National Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) required product nutrition labeling, the CDC reported that 10-14% of adults were obese in 23 states, and 15-19% of adults were obese in the remaining 27 states. By 2007 only one state had obesity rates below 20%, 19 states had obesity rates ranging from 20-24%, 27 states had obesity at 25-29%, and three states had obesity rates greater than 30%.

This argument would disprove Paterson's faithful assertion. But notice the hidden premises that using the argument would require us to accept:

- We’d have to concede that “consumers” looked at the product labels.

- We’d have to use data from the CDC, a government agency.

- We’d have to accept that eating high calorie foods is itself enough to cause obesity.

- We’d have to accept the government cut-off values for obesity.

- We’d have to accept the government measure of obesity, which is the Body Mass Index, a totally inaccurate assessment of health developed by a Belgian mathematician-astronomer in 1832.! (Ironically, the CDC’s own website admits that BMI is flawed—and admits its own incompetence. After listing some superior methods of measuring body fat it says, “However, these methods are not always readily available, and they are either expensive or need highly trained personnel.” Nice acknowledgement that highly skilled people tend not to work for the government ;-)

Using the CDC data to argue against Paterson’s claim that when people know “better,” they do better, requires accepting all of those hidden premises. I do not accept any of them and therefore can’t even begin to address his statement. The government and its terminology and standards have permeated everything and created an awful mess of our general language and logic.

Richard Daines, the State Health Commissioner, “applauded the Governor’s efforts.” He said, “This legislation … demonstrates Governor Paterson’s dedication to addressing the obesity epidemic and will improve the health and lives of all New Yorkers.”

What does it mean to be “dedicated to addressing” something? How will shoving data in people’s faces and contributing to information overload improve their health and lives?

Senator Thomas Duane said, “New Yorkers can save millions of dollars in health care costs through this simple program and I will fight for its enactment.” Whose money is he talking about? Private insurance? Taxpayer-funded programs like Medicare? What is this “health care cost?” Would health care cost matter to him if private insurance companies were paying for it, rather than fascist state-affiliated programs whose lobbyists were pressuring him? Where is the connection between mandated menu data and improved health? Why does he think that a person who is overfat doesn’t know, in 2009, that French fries contain more calories than an equivalent mass of carrots? Why does he think that a person going to a fast-food drive-through would actually choose a different item when told that a given item has 2,000 calories? Why does he think anyone cares about this?

As you can see, I am genuinely confused and my thoughts are all in a jumble due to government making a complexity out of something that is really quite simple: customers are going to eat what they like and food services should have the freedom to offer those choices.

So when a newspaper article or a co-worker or a random person on the street says something like, “I think that bill is a good idea because it will help people be healthy,” I have no appropriate response.

When presented with similar comments, do you attempt to address them by conceding government standards in your argument? Do you attempt a lengthy explanation? Do you not bother? …

Hey, I'm famous!

2009-05-20T08:00:00.001-04:00

New article published on Strike-the-Root.

Let the market be your guide

2009-05-16T11:06:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone,
I'm writing this entry from the bed. The wife and I are sitting in our wonderful market creation, a tempurpedic adjustable bed, goes from bed to "couch" at the press of a button.

My wife is reading a book "Better: A surgeon's notes on performance." In it there is a passage about the number of soldiers in Iraq that were being blinded. So the govt. in all its infinite wisdom gave out a contract for special safety sunglasses (probably a no bid contract). Guess what happened??? Eye injuries did not go down. The soldiers thought the glasses were ugly and didn't wear them. "They look like something a Florida senior citizen would wear." The author continues, " So the military bowed to fashion and switched to cooler-looking Wiley-brand ballistic eyewear. The rate of eye injuries decreased markedly."

How many ex-soldiers are now blind because the market was not allowed to work. If there was a normal bidding process that involved the soldiers, the "cool" glasses would have won out. Soldier after soldier would have said, "I ain't wearing them ugly things." and hopefully the powers that be would have made the correct decision.

Another example of the state not being in touch with reality or the market....
There have been many stories of planes, trucks, and other motor vehicles crashing due to operator fatigue. The following are excerpts from an article on cnn.com http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/05/15/pilot.fatigue.buffalo.crash/index.html

"Her body basically said, 'I can't handle it,' " speculated Greg Feith, former NTSB air safety inspector. "I mean, we've all been there before and pulled an all-nighter. We know how that feels."

Shaw did not "reserve adequate time to travel from her home to her base in order to ensure she was properly rested and fit for duty."

With fatigue being a possible factor in the crash, the testimony at this week's NTSB hearings is reigniting industry concerns over pilot fatigue. Airline accidents caused by fatigue are listed on the "Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements" on the NTSB Web site.

The article then goes on to say that "While there is no way to tell if the pilot is rested when one steps onto a plane, there are Federal Aviation Administration guidelines on how many hours a pilot can work and how many hours he or she must rest."

That is simply not true. Are they even looking for a solution? Wouldn't it be in their best interest to actively search for and even fund start up companies that are working to solve this problem?

I am currently invested in a company that is working on and is close to a solution. http://www.ecnholding.com/product.php (have your audio on)

Disclaimer: It's a sub penny stock at the moment and I'm down 80%. Yes, it's the same sub penny stock that the folks in the RPIC told me to sell about a year ago... Sane people sometimes make insane investment choices...

Here is a company that is very close to solving a major problem, but govt. officials are still saying that there is no way to tell if the pilot is rested.

The sad thing is that I will probably have a fatigue detection device in my car before the FAA even knows it exists.

I guess the only thing a passenger on a airplane can do is talk to the pilot when they get on the plane and make their own decision regarding his/her vigilance.

$8798 per Taxpayer to Payoff Deficit

2009-05-15T14:43:00.006-04:00

Last month the nonpartisan Tax Foundation published their annual survey about taxes and the budget deficit. The amount of deficit per taxpayer is currently $8798, a 400% increase in two years. From pages 7 & 8 of their report (emphasis added):

Americans were asked again this year if they would be willing to pay their share of the budget deficit in order to balance the budget. While in 2007 this figure was only $1,789 per individual tax return, this year that number has ballooned to $8,798 because of the bailouts and the Troubled Asset Relief Program under the Bush Administration, as well as the stimulus and fiscal year 2009 omnibus spending bills under the Obama administration. Only 6 percent are willing to pay the additional $8,798 in federal taxes to eliminate the deficit; 81 percent are unwilling.

To those who said they were willing to pay higher taxes to cut the federal deficit, we asked a follow-up question: “If you paid that extra $8,798 in additional taxes, how do you believe today’s Congress would use it?”

Just under half of respondents (48 percent) believe that the government would use the money to increase spending and not pay off the deficit, while only 17 percent believe the government would use it to pay off the entire deficit. Just under one-third of respondents (32 percent) believe the government would pay off part of the deficit and increase spending with the rest.

Half the people willing to pay the additional amount don't even believe the government will use it to reduce the deficit. Then why the hell bother?

$8798 of debt per tax payer. According to Wikipedia, the average household income in the US is just over $50,000. A married couple with two kids and income of $50,000 pays about $3,200 in payroll and income taxes, a little more or less depending upon the state (in Michigan it would be $3,170). A married couple with no children pays around $6,600 and a single person pays $9,000. $8,798 represents a 100% to 300% increase in the tax rate to pay off the deficit.

I'm repeatedly told this is the best country in the world and this is the best government possible. But look at the results! This is the best? $8798 of debt per taxpayer. Every time I state the government should be abolished, I get idiotic questions such as, "Who'd educate the children?", "Who'd pave the roads?", "Who'd stop crime?", "Who'd feed the poor?". WHO THE HELL CARES!! It's time for those advocating for this "great" system to start actually providing rational justification for it. Not only would those things be provided in anarchy, it wouldn't cost an average of $9,000 in tax and $8,800 of debt.

The state owns your children

2009-05-15T08:12:00.003-04:00

"A Minnesota judge is expected to decide whether a family can refuse chemotherapy for a 13-year-boy's cancer and treat him with natural medicine, even though doctors say it's effectively a death sentence."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090515/ap_on_he_me/us_med_forced_chemo

I'm a Libertarian but . . .

2009-05-12T16:58:00.006-04:00

Once again we have someone claiming to be in favor of free markets as long as they're regulated. Aelfscine states:

I'm generally in favor of a free market, except that I don't believe that's that's what we've been having. I think we've been having a rigged free market, and that's when I think government intervention is needed.

If a market is rigged, by definition it isn't free.

So how is our market rigged and who's doing the rigging? Aelfscine uses healthcare and financing as two examples. Yet these are two of the most regulated and un-free markets in this country. The govt intervenes in almost every aspect of these industries. Licensure laws, advertising laws, patent laws, etc make these industries the exact opposite of a free market. Harry Browne has shown numerous times (e.g. here, here, here, and here) how govt intervention has destroyed the best health care system in the world into the useless mess we have today. The govt has rigged those markets. More intervention is the last thing we need.

His examples with credit cards are just as bad.

however, your credit isn't good enough to get multiple cards - maybe you're young and starting out. If your credit card company just randomly decides to triple your interest rate, you are screwed, and the 'free market' can't help you.

Randomly decides? Every credit card account I have or had (and I've had dozens) has an agreement. That agreement states what the interest rate will be as well as when and why it will change. There's nothing random about the rate changes.

Claiming some can't get multiple cards is absurd. I know individuals with $100,000 of credit card debt, no business profits and little other income, yet they keep opening new credit card accounts. I know children with credit cards. One kid kept getting pre-approved offers when she was 7 years old. If someone can't get a second credit card, it isn't because the market is free. It is because of govt intervention and heavy regulation.

He ends with an extremely absurd statement:

we are currently undergoing a free market 'correction' and shady mortgage companies are going down in flames . . . . . . . . If someone had stepped in and broken up the problem before it got this bad, the free market could have had a correction without getting it all over everyone' faces.

With FNMA, FHLMC, FHA, FHEO, FHAP, FDIC, ECOA, SIPC, SOX, HUD, FCRA, PATRIOT, FRB, PTI, CRA, HMDA, etc. just how much more regulation is required. Just one of those laws or organizations creates an unfree market and I've listed close to 20.

The last thing we are currently undergoing is "a free market 'correction'". Those who can't figure that out may be beyond hope. For those who are figuring that out, you may want to read Tom Woods new book Meltdown.