Next Meeting - Thursday 7/8/10

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

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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).

Next Meeting - Monday 05/24/10

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%.

Next Meeting - Thursday 04/29/10

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.

Arguments against arguments against intellectual property

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.