The Big Picture by Bob Murphy

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

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"

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

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

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?

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!

New article published on Strike-the-Root.

Let the market be your guide

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

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

"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 . . .

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.

New Credit Card Bill: Friend or Foe to the Unsecured Debt Seeker?

Here's some stuff in the new credit card bill. Sounds good on the surface, but I am certain that this will reduce the amount and increase the price of credit long term, making all borrowers worse off than they were before…. Cigarettes say “SMOKING WILL KILL YOU” and people still light up…. The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

_Require anyone under 21 to prove that he or she can repay the money before being given a card, or have a parent or guardian promise to pay off the debt if he or she defaults. Youth will be locked out of paying for an investment in themselves… training, classes, travel that could help them increase their earning potential.
_Require lenders to give customers 45 days notice before increasing rates and mail their bills 21 days before the balance is due. This one isn’t so bad, but in 45 days I could skip town. In this market 45 days is a long time. The Bretton Woods agreement broke down over a weekend.
_Ban fees if customers want to pay their bills by phone or online. Who is going to pay for the customer service rep to answer the phone and the extra people in the mail room? We are!!!
_Prohibit over-the-limit fees unless a cardholder elects to be allowed to go over their limit. I agree with this one, but I don’t think it will help too much. Like the “are you sure you want to delete?” message on a computer. You get so used to it that you don’t even think when clicking… until it’s too late. Doh!
_Require lenders to say how much time it would take and how much money in interest would be paid if only the minimum monthly payments are made. I don’t see anything too wrong with this the extra ink is negligible.
_Require that gift cards remain valid for five years. What? Why? If it’s my card and I make it, it should be under the terms that I want (as long as the terms are explained in simple language all over the card) Gota be difficult for retailers to plan inventories for cards that last that long.

What do you guys think? (mind you I'm against the govt. having any authority to do any of this... Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware))

On a side note... when are we going to respect private property? I hate how the Chrysler bond holders are being vilified in the media... You can't just get out of contracts with govt. pressure. The debt is the bondholders' property and they can do what they please with their own property. I'm not a religious man by any means but to borrow from a wristband, WWTSD? What Would Tony Soprano Do? He would break their knee caps and then refinance as usurious rates of interest. Bust a deal and there will be/should be some pain.

I could not make this stuff up if I tried

"It's a system that does not work in theory-- at all-- but in practice we make it work because we have to make it work." - John Dugan, Comptroller of the Currency

The quote is after 6:25 in this interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103908284

-----

Judge Richard Posner, former University of Chicago law professor and so-called "free market champion" mentions several industries where deregulation and privatization are good things: telecommunications, surface transportation, oil pipelines, highways... "It's just banking is special."

Hear the comment starting at 6:25. http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/05/richard-posner-on-a-failure-of-capitalism

Some other great Posner quotes from the interview:

"Conservatives believe that the depression is the result of unwise government policies. I believe it is a market failure. Without any government regulation of the financial industry, the economy would still in all likelihood be in a depression. We are learning from it that we need a more active and intelligent government to keep our model of a capitalist economy from running off the rails. The movement to deregulate the financial industry went too far by exaggerating the self-healing powers of laissez-faire capitalism."

"The depression has hit economic libertarians in the solar plexus because it is largely a consequence not of the government's over regulating the economy and by doing so fettering free enterprise, but rather of innate limitations of the free market."

I quit listening after 10 minutes.

New Policy Threatens Food Quality and Safety

I wrote this article for my online journal in early April. Today’s alfalfa sprout recall makes the issue all the more relevant.
---

[Late in March] the FDA issued a statement warning consumers to avoid all pistachios and “pistachio products.” Setton Farms, the country’s second-largest pistachio facility, is contaminated with four strains of salmonella. Rather than warn the public about foods produced by this particular company, “… authorities said consumers should avoid all pistachio products until more information was available.” (emphasis mine)

Reactionary responses are typical in times of fear, resulting in pleas for new regulations. The pistachio contamination affords totalitarians a new opportunity to erode food quality and safety.

According to an Associated Press article, nonspecific, all-encompassing recalls may become the norm:

"It could take weeks before health officials know exactly which pistachio products may be tainted with salmonella, but they've already issued a sweeping warning to avoid eating the nuts or foods containing them.

The move appears to indicate a shift in how the government handles food safety issues — from waiting until contaminated foods surface one-by-one and risking that more people fall ill to jumping on the problem right away, even if the message is vague."

Indeed, the FDA’s response to today’s alfalfa contamination is sweeping and reactionary. The FDA declared all alfalfa suspect until proven otherwise. “FDA will work with the alfalfa sprout industry to help identify which seeds and alfalfa sprouts are not connected with this contamination…” (emphasis mine)

This obtuse reaction is less about protecting public safety than it is about protecting the government-corporate regime. If regulators shut down an entire segment of the food industry rather than address only the affected parties, then consumers—
a) might not find out that contamination issues are most frequent among corporations that have secured government favors, and
b) might not realize that the existence of government regulatory agencies is a primary cause of large-scale outbreaks.

For example, Peanut Corporation of America’s disastrous peanut contamination resulted from poor standards that can only arise from collusion between state and industry. PCA’s owner, Stewart Parnell, was influential in drafting food safety standards as a member of the USDA Peanut Standards Board. His company was awarded contracts with government run free school lunch programs in California, Minnesota, and Idaho. PCA knowingly shipped contaminated peanut butter to its customers 12 times since 2007. (In fitting irony, the company also sold salmonella-tainted peanut butter to FEMA for disaster relief kits in Kentucky and Arkansas.) PCA needed not concern itself with maintaining clean facilities; as a government contractor, it was guaranteed a source of income regardless of its performance.

In a free market, companies with such lax quality control and sanitation would not survive for long. They would have to produce high quality food or risk being out-competed by companies offering superior goods. Contrast this with the increasingly fascist regime, in which a peanut company owner writes federal standards for his own industry, uses his influence to curry political favor, and, when his product sickens hundreds of people, declares that he is free from culpability since his facilities meet federal guidelines. Existence of government agencies necessarily undermines food quality.

Despite their best public relations efforts, PCA finally declared bankruptcy in February 2009. Perhaps to prevent any more of their favorite gangsters from going out of business, regulators will now recall entire crops across-the-board when a single company’s products are contaminated. Note that it is the food conglomerates—those frequently involved in product recalls—that are lobbying for greater government oversight. For example,

"Kellogg Company CEO David Mackay wants food safety placed under a new leader in the Health and Human Services department. He also called for new requirements that all food companies have written safety plans, annual federal inspections of facilities that make high-risk foods, and other reforms."

One blogger wrote, “Kellogg’s is a multi-billion dollar company asking for a government handout to do what Kellogg’s should be doing – selling a safe product.” Indeed.

But taxpayer funded, corporate controlled federal regulatory agencies are exactly what fascists want. Agribusinesses lobby for legislation to shut down the entire sector when their particular products are contaminated—effectively keeping themselves in business while forcing their competitors to suffer for their negligence. It is easier to force out the few remaining quality producers than to upgrade their own operating procedures. The government gets more money, gets to “create jobs” by hiring more regulators, and gets to look like heroes protecting the public good. This perfect pairing is a win-win scenario for both the corporations and the state. Who loses? Smaller producers who are prohibited from showcasing their superior products. People who pay taxes. People who eat food.

State agencies such as the FDA and USDA are threatening access to quality food. As regulations increase, expect a cycle of more recalls, more regulations, more recalls, and potential food shortages. Do what you can to prepare.

Introduction

Welcome to the Detroit Area Anarchy Group blog. We are a group of professionals (accountants, computer programmers, engineers, teachers, writers, etc.) who meet regularly to discuss the theory and practice of anarchy. We reject the notion that anarchy entails nihilism, chaos, or violence, and we serve as a positive example of voluntary non-coerced cooperation resulting in mutual benefit.

Most of us became acquainted during the 2007-2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign and continued meeting thereafter as the Ron Paul Investment Club. Over time our discussions broadened from investment topics to the ethics of fractional reserve banking, business cycle theory, intellectual property rights, and several philosophical issues. ‘Anarchy’ thus more accurately describes our common goal and subsumes the various topics we like to discuss.

We each arrived at anarchism from different backgrounds. As such, we do not automatically agree on all issues nor pretend to know all the answers. We encourage open discussion. Through debating, we become better able to articulate and refine our positions in the pursuit of truth.

Our hope is that this blog will:

- Extend our in-person discussions by providing a venue to more deeply explore anarchist theory. During meetings we often realize we need to further research particular concepts. We can post our findings and updates on the blog. We may also summarize articles supporting our positions, or develop well-reasoned critiques of opposing arguments.

- Facilitate awareness of current events—both those that threaten freedom and those that advance the cause of liberty. Antiwar Radio, LRC (Lew Rockwell), The Ludwig von Mises Institute, Strike-the-Root, and other online resources provide good opportunities for staying informed. This blog may link to relevant articles, interviews, and lectures from such sites.

- Encourage personal growth by holding each other accountable (in a friendly way) for achieving personal goals: learning new skills, developing investment strategies, starting independent businesses, etc. We may use the blog to report progress toward these goals or to seek advice and encouragement when needed.

- Develop a trusted network of friends. Keep in contact with those who move away or travel the world, and invite new members interested in individuals rights (the term ‘individual rights’ being a redundancy, of course).

- Demonstrate that voluntary interaction achieves far more than government ever could. Anarchy works.

Anyone is welcome to comment and participate in this blog. To learn more about our group or to attend a meeting please contact one of us.