Why The Powers That Be Are Pushing A Cashless Society – We Can’t Rein In the Banks If We Can’t Pull Our Money Out of Them
by WashingtonsBlog
We Can’t Rein In the Banks If We Can’t Pull Our Money Out of Them
Martin Armstrong summarizes the headway being made to ban cash, and argues that the goal of those pushing a cashless society is to prevent bank runs … and increase their control:
The central banks are … planning drastic restrictions on cash itself. They see moving to electronic money will first eliminate the underground economy, but secondly, they believe it will even prevent a banking crisis. This idea of eliminating cash was first floated as the normal trial balloon to see how the people take it. It was first launched by Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Willem Buiter, the chief economist at Citigroup. Their claims have been widely hailed and their papers are now the foundation for the new age of Economic Totalitarianism that confronts us. Rogoff and Buiter have laid the ground work for the end of much of our freedom and will one day will be considered the new Marx with hindsight. They sit in their lofty offices but do not have real world practical experience beyond theory. Considerations of their arguments have shown how governments can seize all economic power are destroy cash in the process eliminating all rights. Physical paper money provides the check against negative interest rates for if they become too great, people will simply withdraw their funds and hoard cash. Furthermore, paper currency allows for bank runs. Eliminate paper currency and what you end up with is the elimination of the ability to demand to withdraw funds from a bank.
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In many nations, specific measures have already been taken demonstrating that the Rogoff-Buiter world of Economic Totalitarianism is indeed upon us. This is the death of Capitalism. Of course the socialists hate Capitalism and see other people’s money should be theirs. What they cannot see is that Capitalism is freedom from government totalitarianism. The freedom to pursue the field you desire without filling the state needs that supersede your own.
There have been test runs of this Rogoff-Buiter Economic Totalitarianism to see if the idea works. I reported on June 21, 2014 that Britain was doing a test run. A shopping street in Manchester banned cash as part of an experiment to see if Brits would accept a cashless society. London buses ended accepting cash payments from July 2014. Meanwhile, Currency Exchange dealers began offering debt cards instead of cash that they market as being safer to travel with. The Chorlton, South Manchester experiment was touted to test customers and business reaction to the idea for physical currency will disappear inside 20 years.
France passed another Draconian new law that from the police parissummer of 2015 it will now impose cash requirements dramatically trying to eliminate cash by force. French citizens and tourists will then only be allowed a limited amount of physical money. They have financial police searching people on trains just passing through France to see if they are transporting cash, which they will now seize. Meanwhile, the new French Elite are moving in this very same direction. Piketty wants to just take everyone’s money who has more than he does. Nobody stands on the side of freedom or on restraining the corruption within government. The problem always turns against the people for we are the cause of the fiscal mismanagement of government that never has enough for themselves.
In Greece a drastic reduction in cash is also being discussed in light of the economic crisis. Now any bill over €70 should be payable only by check or credit card – it will be illegal to pay in cash. The German Baader Bank founded in Munich expects formally to abolish the cash to enforce negative interest rates on accounts that is really taxation on whatever money you still have left after taxes.
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Complete abolition of cash threatens our very freedom and rights of citizens in so many areas.
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Paper currency is indeed the check against negative interest rates. We need only look to Switzerland to prove that theory. Any attempt to impose say a 5% negative interest rates (tax) would lead to an unimaginably massive flight into cash. This was already demonstrated recently by the example of Swiss pension funds, which withdrew their money from the bank in a big way and now store it in vaults in cash in order to escape the financial repression. People will act in their own self-interest and negative interest rates are likely to reduce the sales of government bonds and set off a bank run as long as paper money exists.
Obviously, government and bankers are not stupid. The only way to prevent such a global bank run would be the total prohibition of paper money. This is unlikely, both in Switzerland and in the United States because the economies are dominated there by a certain “liberalism” to some extent but also because their currencies also circulate outside their domestic economies. The fact that but the question of the cash ban in the context of a global conference with the participation of the major central banks of the US and the ECB will be discussed, demonstrates by itself that the problem is not a regional problem.
Nevertheless, there is a growing assumption that the negative interest rate world (tax on cash) is likely to increase dramatically in Europe in particular since it is socialism that is collapsing. Government in Brussels is unlikely to yield power and their line of thinking cannot lead to any solution. The negative interest rate concept is making its way into the United States at J.P. Morgan where they will charge a fee on excess cash on deposit starting May 1st, 2015. Asset holdings of cash with a tax or a fee in the amount of the negative interest rate seems to be underway even in Switzerland.
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The movement toward electronic money is moving at high speed and this says a lot about the state of the financial system. The track record of the major financial institutions is nearly perfect – they are always caught on the wrong side when a crisis breaks, which requires their bailouts. The fact that we have already seen test runs with theory-balloons flying, the major financial institutions are in no shape to withstand another economic decline.
For depositors, this means they really need to grasp what is going on here for unless they are vigilant, there is a serious risk of losing everything. We must understand that these measures will be implemented overnight in the middle of a banking crisis after 2015.75. The balloons have taken off and the discussions are underway. The trend in taxation and reduction of cash seems to be unstoppable. Government is not prepared to reform for that would require a new way of thinking and a loss of power. That is not a consideration. They only see one direction and that is to take us into the new promised-land of economic totalitarianism.
People can’t pull cash out of their bank accounts – for political reasons, because they’ve lost confidence in the bank, or because “bail-ins” are enacted – if cash is banned.
The Financial Times argued last year that central banks would be the real winners from a cashless society:
Central bankers, after all, have had an explicit interest in introducing e-money from the moment the global financial crisis began…
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The introduction of a cashless society empowers central banks greatly. A cashless society, after all, not only makes things like negative interest rates possible, it transfers absolute control of the money supply to the central bank, mostly by turning it into a universal banker that competes directly with private banks for public deposits. All digital deposits become base money.
The Government Can Manipulate Digital Accounts More Easily than Cash
Moreover, an official White House panel on spying has implied that the government is manipulating the amount in people’s financial accounts.
If all money becomes digital, it would be much easier for the government to manipulate our accounts.
Indeed, numerous high-level NSA whistleblowers say that NSA spying is about crushing dissent andblackmailing opponents … notstopping terrorism.
This may sound over-the-top … but remember, the government sometimes labels its critics as “terrorists“. If the government claims the power to indefinitely detain – or even assassinate – American citizens at the whim of the executive, don’t you think that government people would be willing to shut down, or withdraw a stiff “penalty” from a dissenter’s bank account?
If society becomes cashless, dissenters can’t hide cash. All of their financial holdings would be vulnerable to an attack by the government.
This would be the ultimate form of control. Because – without access to money – people couldn’t resist, couldn’t hide and couldn’t escape.
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/why-the-powers-that-be-are-pushing-a-cashless-society-we-cant-rein-in-the-banks-if-we-cant-pull-our-money-out-of-them/#zusohUMbPxwzUibh.99
Monday, May 4, 2015
Should whites wear yellow stars as well???
Vanderbilt Prof Blames Baltimore Riots On ‘White Privilege,’ Calls For Massive Surveillance Of White People
Eric Owens
A black sociology professor at Vanderbilt University is arguing that “white privilege” is to blame for last week’s riots and looting in Baltimore, Md.
The professor, Tony N. Brown, took to the op-ed pages of The Tennessean late last week to make the claim.
White people act “routinely to harm, demean, and damage black and brown people,” Brown wrote in Nashville’s main newspaper. These actions “explain the lofty levels of frustration and despair among black and brown youth.”
The professor, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, cites other unrelated incidents as evidence of the riots after the April 19 death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. He recalls the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma who sang a shockingly racist song. He also alludes to the white South Carolina police officer charged with murder for shooting at a fleeing black man eight times.
Brown then blames the white parents of the fraternity members “and others like them” for the racism of their white children.
Using a host of names blatantly implying maximum whiteness — including “Sarah,” “Liam,” “Chase” and “Katey” — Brown offers a blanket condemnation of white parents for sending children to “racially homogenous” schools and churches, living in predominantly white neighborhoods and failing to read children’s books featuring minority characters.
Brown blames white parents for telling “racially insensitive” jokes in front of children and allowing grandparents to use racial slurs “at Thanksgiving.”
Also, white parents inform their children “that all poor people are black and it’s their own fault,” Brown suggests.
“The bottom line is that it’s everyday whites making everyday choices that lock in and protect white privilege,” the Vanderbilt professor admonishes.
Brown’s solution to the problem of white people using “white privilege” to “routinely to harm, demean, and damage black and brown people” is for “people of color” to create a massive, grassroots surveillance network to capture video evidence of racism.
Use cell phones and GoPro camcorders to “record the discourteous way co-workers or service industry workers or police officers treat you,” Brown writes in The Tennessean.
“Record your friends talking about the indignities and micro-aggressions you as a person of color, for example, face in all- or mostly-white spaces,” the professor instructs. “If you happen to identify as white, then record Uncle Roy talking at a private family gathering about the good old days when blacks knew their place. Record how pleasant your interactions are with police officers doing routine traffic stops.”
“Then let’s all post our videos,” Brown declares concerning the vague last step in his racism surveillance scheme.
The price for one year of undergraduate tuition, room and board and mandatory fees at Vanderbilt is about $54,600 (not including a $704 “first year experience fee”). (RELATED: Fancypants $54,600-A-Year Vanderbilt Professor Will Teach Cop-Hating Course)
The concept of white privilege was popularized in academic circles by a 1987 essay entitled “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” The author was Peggy McIntosh, an inconsequential white feminist. (RELATED: Tea Party Is ‘Bald-Faced Racists,’ White Privilege Conference Speaker Tells Sea Of White People)
Link:
http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/03/vanderbilt-prof-blames-baltimore-riots-on-white-privilege-calls-for-massive-surveillance-of-white-people/
Eric Owens
A black sociology professor at Vanderbilt University is arguing that “white privilege” is to blame for last week’s riots and looting in Baltimore, Md.
The professor, Tony N. Brown, took to the op-ed pages of The Tennessean late last week to make the claim.
White people act “routinely to harm, demean, and damage black and brown people,” Brown wrote in Nashville’s main newspaper. These actions “explain the lofty levels of frustration and despair among black and brown youth.”
The professor, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, cites other unrelated incidents as evidence of the riots after the April 19 death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. He recalls the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma who sang a shockingly racist song. He also alludes to the white South Carolina police officer charged with murder for shooting at a fleeing black man eight times.
Brown then blames the white parents of the fraternity members “and others like them” for the racism of their white children.
Using a host of names blatantly implying maximum whiteness — including “Sarah,” “Liam,” “Chase” and “Katey” — Brown offers a blanket condemnation of white parents for sending children to “racially homogenous” schools and churches, living in predominantly white neighborhoods and failing to read children’s books featuring minority characters.
Brown blames white parents for telling “racially insensitive” jokes in front of children and allowing grandparents to use racial slurs “at Thanksgiving.”
Also, white parents inform their children “that all poor people are black and it’s their own fault,” Brown suggests.
“The bottom line is that it’s everyday whites making everyday choices that lock in and protect white privilege,” the Vanderbilt professor admonishes.
Brown’s solution to the problem of white people using “white privilege” to “routinely to harm, demean, and damage black and brown people” is for “people of color” to create a massive, grassroots surveillance network to capture video evidence of racism.
Use cell phones and GoPro camcorders to “record the discourteous way co-workers or service industry workers or police officers treat you,” Brown writes in The Tennessean.
“Record your friends talking about the indignities and micro-aggressions you as a person of color, for example, face in all- or mostly-white spaces,” the professor instructs. “If you happen to identify as white, then record Uncle Roy talking at a private family gathering about the good old days when blacks knew their place. Record how pleasant your interactions are with police officers doing routine traffic stops.”
“Then let’s all post our videos,” Brown declares concerning the vague last step in his racism surveillance scheme.
The price for one year of undergraduate tuition, room and board and mandatory fees at Vanderbilt is about $54,600 (not including a $704 “first year experience fee”). (RELATED: Fancypants $54,600-A-Year Vanderbilt Professor Will Teach Cop-Hating Course)
The concept of white privilege was popularized in academic circles by a 1987 essay entitled “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” The author was Peggy McIntosh, an inconsequential white feminist. (RELATED: Tea Party Is ‘Bald-Faced Racists,’ White Privilege Conference Speaker Tells Sea Of White People)
Link:
http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/03/vanderbilt-prof-blames-baltimore-riots-on-white-privilege-calls-for-massive-surveillance-of-white-people/
Why It Is So Difficult to Operate a Business in Baltimore
Robert Wenzel
Jay Steinmetz is a former member of the Maryland Small Business Commission and is the CEO of Barcoding Inc. His firm is located in the heart of the area of Baltimore where most of the recent unrest took place.
He took to the pages of WSJ to tell us that " on any given day what takes place in this neighborhood is a slow-motion version of recent events. Graffiti, which anyone with experience in urban policing will affirm is the first sign of trouble, regularly appears on the exterior of our building. From there the range of crimes escalates to burglarizing cars in the parking lot, and breaking and entering our building."
Steinmetz goes on:
Baltimore fares even worse than other Maryland jurisdictions, having the highest individual income and property taxes at 3.2% and $2.25 for every $100 of assessed property value, respectively. New businesses organized as partnerships or limited-liability corporations are subject, unusually, to the local individual income tax, reducing startup activity.
The bottom line is that our modest 14,000-square-foot building is hit with $50,000 in annual property taxes. And when we refinanced our building loan in 2006, Maryland and Baltimore real-estate taxes drove up the cost of this routine financial transaction by $36,000.
State and city regulations overlap in a number of areas, most notably employment and hiring practices, where litigious employees can game the system and easily find an attorney to represent them in court. Building-permit requirements, sales-tax collection procedures for our multistate clients, workers’ compensation and unemployment trust-fund hearings add to the expensive distractions that impede hiring.
Harder to quantify is the difficulty people face who want to live here. Our employees reduce their tax burden and receive better public services in the suburbs. I live in the city, however, and it is a challenge to stay here. My two children attend a public elementary school where classrooms are filled beyond capacity with 30 or more students. Bathroom stall doors and toilet-seat lids are missing.
On top of this, as I have pointed out in an earlier post, the former Governor of Maryland Martin O'Malley, who appears ready to compete against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, before leaving office signed a bill that will cause the minimum wage to escalate for years to come. Thus, this further burdens business who dare attempt to operate in this land of urban primitivisim.
High taxes, a high minimum wage and suffocating regulations is not an environment that results in growth and creativity. It is government madness of the first order.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/05/why-it-is-so-difficult-to-operate.html
Robert Wenzel
Jay Steinmetz is a former member of the Maryland Small Business Commission and is the CEO of Barcoding Inc. His firm is located in the heart of the area of Baltimore where most of the recent unrest took place.
He took to the pages of WSJ to tell us that " on any given day what takes place in this neighborhood is a slow-motion version of recent events. Graffiti, which anyone with experience in urban policing will affirm is the first sign of trouble, regularly appears on the exterior of our building. From there the range of crimes escalates to burglarizing cars in the parking lot, and breaking and entering our building."
Steinmetz goes on:
Baltimore fares even worse than other Maryland jurisdictions, having the highest individual income and property taxes at 3.2% and $2.25 for every $100 of assessed property value, respectively. New businesses organized as partnerships or limited-liability corporations are subject, unusually, to the local individual income tax, reducing startup activity.
The bottom line is that our modest 14,000-square-foot building is hit with $50,000 in annual property taxes. And when we refinanced our building loan in 2006, Maryland and Baltimore real-estate taxes drove up the cost of this routine financial transaction by $36,000.
State and city regulations overlap in a number of areas, most notably employment and hiring practices, where litigious employees can game the system and easily find an attorney to represent them in court. Building-permit requirements, sales-tax collection procedures for our multistate clients, workers’ compensation and unemployment trust-fund hearings add to the expensive distractions that impede hiring.
Harder to quantify is the difficulty people face who want to live here. Our employees reduce their tax burden and receive better public services in the suburbs. I live in the city, however, and it is a challenge to stay here. My two children attend a public elementary school where classrooms are filled beyond capacity with 30 or more students. Bathroom stall doors and toilet-seat lids are missing.
On top of this, as I have pointed out in an earlier post, the former Governor of Maryland Martin O'Malley, who appears ready to compete against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, before leaving office signed a bill that will cause the minimum wage to escalate for years to come. Thus, this further burdens business who dare attempt to operate in this land of urban primitivisim.
High taxes, a high minimum wage and suffocating regulations is not an environment that results in growth and creativity. It is government madness of the first order.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/05/why-it-is-so-difficult-to-operate.html
Be an advocate of liberty...
Become a better advocate of liberty
Jeffrey Tucker
What does it mean to be an effective advocate of liberty? It means to love what you do and adopt sustainable patterns of thinking and living that contribute to making the world a freer place.
Sustainability is key. Most of today’s attacks on freedom lovers include a dismissal that libertarianism is an ideology for idealistic (or maybe deluded) kids, not one for adults. Sure, you can feel enraptured by the writings of Bastiat or Rand or Rothbard when you are in high school or college. But once you get into the real world, they say, you mature and give up the illusions of a freer world.
I don’t believe this. Within the domain of liberty, we find the path to prosperity, social peace, and human flourishing. Every limitation on the freedom of thought, action, and ownership robs the world of creativity, wealth, and progress.
And yet, freedom is not baked into a world where various forms of despotism are always threatening. It must be won anew in every generation. Indeed, it’s the ones who fancy themselves as grown-ups — able to make big decisions for the rest of humanity — who become the next generation of despots. It is the very foundation of intellectual and moral maturity to resist this level of hubris and to acknowledge the truth of our limitations.
Surely maturity shows us the limits of power. Surely the cause of liberty is worth our lifelong efforts.
But there is a superficial plausibility to the critics’ claims because there is a tendency for libertarians to give up hope. I’ve known many who lost their enthusiasm for liberty for a number of reasons, none of them strictly intellectual. People can begin to feel demoralized on discovering how little they can do to change the world. The gap between dreams and reality grows too large. Idealism fades when you sense you are hitting your head against a brick wall.
What can be done to sustain the passion for liberty throughout a lifetime? Here are my suggestions for seven habits to foster a lifelong attachment to liberty and to live a life that makes the best possible contribution to human well-being.
1. Oppose oppression but love liberty even more.
The dawning of the libertarian consciousness often takes place in two steps.
First, you realize that there is such a thing as a state that is distinct from society at large, a fact that massive swaths of the social sciences (not to mention mainstream media) try to cover up. Second, there is the new awareness that the state is distinct from every other institution in society because it uses aggressive force to achieve its aims. Further, the state actually does not achieve the aims it promises. Rather, it violates rights, undermines economic achievement, fosters dependency and serves a ruling class rather than the public at large.
At this point in your intellectual journey, you realize that the mainstream alternatives of left and right leave a lot to be desired; neither is a wholly consistent application of a principled opposition to power.
A new consciousness dawns. It can give rise to righteous anger. You see for the first time the difference between how the world is (which can often look dark and gloomy) and what could be. It can be tempting to focus on the negative: wars, police abuse, corruption, looting of the productive, graft in politics, and so on.
This anger is why so many liberty-minded news feeds consist of terrible news. But how much bad news can one person possibly handle? We have no means to directly right wrongs, to change the world for the better in one fell swoop. To see evil that we cannot change can only lead to despair: a trap that too many libertarians fall into.
It is crucial not only to think about the problem but also to see the solutions being lived out all around us. We need to learn to observe the marvelous businesses starting and succeeding every day, the beauty of spontaneous human interaction, the order and prosperity that emerge from the exercise of human choice. We should thrill in the many ways that people go about their lives in casual defiance of the central plan. We can glory in the creations all around us that were never mapped out or approved by politicians, or by the experts in their pay.
In other words, focusing on the solutions rather than solely on the problems can brighten your day and give rise to creativity in the service of the good. Liberty is not just the absence of oppression; it is the presence of well-lived lives and institutions that emerge despite every attempt to stop them. In this sense, freedom is blossoming all over the world. If we can focus on making that positive change, rather than dwelling on what’s wrong with the world, our task becomes more delightful and a dedication to liberty becomes more sustainable.
2. Read broadly and be confident in your ideas.
Political debates can be fun, but they can also be shrill and unproductive, with two sides battling it out and making no intellectual progress. They bring more heat than light. If you are going to change that pattern, you must have the confidence to listen carefully to other ideas and not be threatened by them. With intellectual confidence, you can respond in a way that is sure-footed rather than belligerent. You can be thoughtful rather than reactive.
Think of the difference between the way a street thug behaves and how a martial arts expert carries himself in combat. One is angry, threatening, and reckless. The other is calm, clever, and effective. In a hand-to-hand match between the two, the latter is going to win. Why? Because the martial arts expert has actual skill, whereas the bully only has attitude and emotion. Libertarians should be like skilled experts and exhibit the confidence that comes with that discipline. But becoming a black belt in liberty takes time and learning; it doesn’t happen overnight.
We should also know our opponents’ arguments better than they do and be prepared to respond to them fairly and without caricature, crafting our own arguments in ways that are actually persuasive rather than just forceful or loud. This requires that we spend some time reading and studying other traditions of thought. Our libraries ought to be broad and sample all disciplines and viewpoints.
We should never shy away from ideas that are different from our own. Sometimes our intellectual opponents — even when they are completely wrong — are our most valued benefactors. They help us think through issues, sharpen our skills and inspire us to research and read more. This is the way we improve. Then we can approach debates with no fear.
This approach will make us far more effective over the long term. Bombast and bromides can shut down opponents, but do they win hearts and minds? Not likely. As Ludwig von Mises emphasized in his great 1927 book “Liberalism”, it is reason, good arguments and thoughtfulness — combined with a genuine desire for a better world — that will carry the day.
We don’t want to shut down our opponents, causing them to retreat to their comfortable and familiar way of thinking. We want our opponents to keep asking questions of us, to keep challenging our ideas as we continue to engage them. We want them to keep talking with us and others. The ongoing discussion is a sign of curiosity and openness that we should welcome.
3. Look beyond politics.
For most libertarians, politics is the initial draw. There is nothing wrong with this. It is typical of American culture that it takes campaigns to get people interested in big questions like the role of human freedom, the place of the state, whether war is necessary, and so on.
But it only takes one or two campaigns before people realize that politics is a not a very effective way for changing the world for the better. Our votes matter very little, if at all. We are mostly only voting for people, not policies. And people in politics tend to betray principles. If we put too much stock in politicians — even the best of whom confront a system much larger than they can control — we will feel frustrated and powerless. Plus, there is no nastier business on the planet. Calumnies and deceptions define the political world.
Working in campaigns as a consumption good is fine, if that’s the sort of thing you like. Some people enjoy it. But let’s be realistic. As a production good — a means of producing good outcomes — it is mostly an illusion. Politics tends to be a lagging rather than leading indicator of social change. The first steps toward change are cultural and not political. Politics is reactive, not proactive. If we can make a contribution to changing minds and fostering a culture of liberty, the rest will take care of itself.
There are many other ways to make a difference outside of politics. Think of the way the economy of mobile apps is challenging the status quo in nearly every area of commerce. Municipal taxi monopolies are reeling from the competition from ride-sharing applications. Peer-to-peer housing solutions are making a mess of zoning laws. Cryptocurrency is challenging nationalized money and old-fashioned payment systems. Homeschooling and online education are busting up the state’s education system. These efforts have already accomplished more than any top-down reform.
Indeed, every start-up enterprise is a kind of revolutionary act against the status quo that the state’s regulations and plunderings have conspired to prevent. Their existence is proof that you can’t stop human creativity with any amount of control. At the end of day, we’ll look back to see that start-ups have made a mightier contribution to liberty than all the political campaigns combined. Libertarians have long understood that bottom-up solutions to social problems work better than top-down approaches. It’s the same with building a free society.
4. See everyone as an ideological friend.
Do you know anyone who actually opposes human freedom? I don’t. It’s just that we all have different ways of understanding that idea and different levels of tolerance for its inconsistent application. We should see everyone as a potential ally in the great cause, regardless of sex, race, religion, or station in life.
Modern democratic politics divides people by interest-group affiliation. According to the prevailing ethos, women should prefer one set of politics and men another. Blacks want things one way, whites another — and Hispanics want yet another. Young and old are each opposed to the other, just as are the rich and the poor. In this way, as Frédéric Bastiat never tired of pointing out, politics divides people, creating a war of all against all.
But the classical liberals always emphasized that freedom means a harmony of interests between all groups. Only true liberals favor the common good of all, because they want to remove the major source of division in society. They favor allowing all groups and individuals to cooperate, associate, exchange and produce to their mutual betterment. Society can manage itself better than any central planner can.
To see this today, in a time of cold war between groups, requires some high-minded thinking. Often, it requires acknowledging the justice of victim-group complaints and drawing attention to how the state has created the problem in the first place. This pertains to a huge range of problems in society, from unemployment to institutionalized racism to persistent poverty, exploitation and war. It is not the case that we all have different goals; it’s that we disagree on the means to achieve those goals.
Start all discussions with the presumption that the other person is a potential lover of liberty. When someone says something right and true, seize on it and draw it out. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t gain a convert immediately. As with all exchanges of ideas, the goal should be to plant seeds, not harvest a crop. It is through such subtle but persistent efforts that we win over hearts and minds to the cause of liberty.
5. Don’t have all the answers.
It is typical of nonlibertarians that they demand full and complete answers to all human problems that are currently tackled by statist means. Who will care for the poor? How will education work? How will people get health insurance? What is to be done about the problems of racism, misogyny and religious intolerance? Above all else, who will build the roads? (Never mind that roads are all built by private companies on contract with the state today.)
It is tempting to try to give complete answers. And history can provide some important hints and guides along the way to giving us a vision of what might be. There is a point to drawing attention to the way government intervention has displaced a whole range of private industries: schools, roads, mutual aid, title companies, courts and more. At the same time, we must resist the temptation to construct a different central plan for freedom. If we take the bait, we set ourselves up for failure.
We do not have all the answers. In freedom, we discover answers through an ongoing process of trial and error. An open society exists to leave the maximum amount of room for innovation and discovery.
F.A. Hayek was correct in his amazing essay “The Case for Freedom”:
Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom. If we knew how freedom would be used, the case for it would largely disappear.… Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad.… It is because we do not know how individuals will use their freedom that it is so important.
As Leonard Read used to say, the single most notable feature of freedom is its humility. It defers to the results of human action and does not attempt to design them in advance. Freedom does not mean rule by smart libertarians who know better than anyone else. It means the removal of institutionalized sources of power that rule with the arrogant presumption that there is only one way to manage society, and that society can and should be managed.
There is nothing wrong with responding to critics of freedom, “I don’t know the answers, but neither do politicians and bureaucrats, which is why they aren’t in a position to impose their ideas on the rest of us. We need freedom to work out social problems for ourselves. If you see a challenge to be met, it’s guaranteed that others see the same problem. Let’s work together to find the answers. Freedom is a necessary condition for finding the best solutions.”
6. Hack your life.
Once you realize that we are living under a central plan for your life and property, you can start to get creative about finding alternatives. You can use technologies to find a new approach to education. You can find better paths toward personal success. You can better manage your finances without the personal debt encouraged by the policies of the Federal Reserve. You can hack your appliances in ways that make them operate better than the regulations allow.
One way that statist lobbying groups have increased the power of government has been to find ways to apply their principles in public life. The greens have become masters of this approach. They have constructed a whole liturgy for our lives whereby we recycle, bike, ration garbage, take short showers and so on — never mind that these things do next to nothing for the environment. The point is to personalize the political (the opposite of the left’s principle of politicizing the personal).
We libertarians can personalize the political by finding ways around the central plan. These steps are hugely important because they make liberty real in our lives. It is not just an abstraction we hold in our minds, a vague hope of some world that may or may not dawn in the future. The opportunities to live out freedom are all around us. We only need eyes to see and the courage to act.
Before Ayn Rand wrote “Atlas Shrugged”, she knew that it was not enough to write a novel solely about a decaying social order under the iron hand of a corrupt government. She needed characters who felt empowered to do something about it. She ended up with an epic story about a whole generation of entrepreneurs who moved to Galt’s Gulch to build a better world. Their plan of action, as presented in this book, has influenced libertarians for half a century.
No, that doesn’t mean that we must all bail out and move to New Hampshire. It does mean that we must all look for ways to live and innovate without permission from the ruling class, embracing freedom whether our political masters like it or not.
7. Be joyful.
Factionalism is a major joy killer. There is a temptation to become overly embedded in a small circle of opinion, to look for differences (however minute), and to argue tempestuously. When debates are civil and fair, they can lead to intellectual growth. When they become personal and lead to claims that so-and-so is not a real libertarian, they can lead to broken friendships and general acrimony.
No one wins in such joyless struggles. They cause people to lose focus on the critical goal, which is the rise of liberty and the fall of everything that stands in its way. Social media is a wonderful thing, but sometimes technology can exacerbate squabbles rather than build real community. Remember that it takes two to fight, and you can always walk away. That takes discipline and humility, but it preserves relationships. For our own well-being, we need to focus on building a community of ideas, not on purges based on the false hope of purifying the movement.
There is something seriously wrong if the dawning of libertarian consciousness leads to a dour and dreary attitude toward the world and all its works. It should be easy to adopt a joyful view of the world, especially in our times.
We are seeing the failure of 20th-century statist measures in every area of life. All the statists’ fiscal, monetary, and regulatory plans have all failed. Their programs are unraveling. Governments and their leaders have never been more unpopular. Commerce is making an end-run around their schemes every day.
These should be causes of great joy. Libertarians are on the right side of history. We celebrate and seek to defend human rights against all who would take them away. This is a happy pursuit, one that gives our lives added meaning and significance.
Murray Rothbard used to say that fighting the state should be a joyful occupation. In the end, tyranny cannot work. There is just something wonderful about realizing that and seeing how it plays itself out in the real world. Having such joy was effortless for Rothbard because it was part of his personality. For the rest of us, it takes some practice. We should smile at the inevitable failures of the state, feel happy about the liberty all around us and take comfort in the hope for a future of liberty that is realizable, partly through our own efforts.
Onward!
Let us remember that when we are talking about human liberty, we are talking about the whole of what makes life itself beautiful. That is a gigantic subject. There are many pathways into the ideas of liberty and many ways of living the ideas, too. That is a beautiful truth, one worthy of lifelong attention and commitment. To make it effective, we should never forget that liberty is about real life, not merely an intellectual abstraction.
Imagine a small group of people going out into the world armed with these seven habits. Soon, that infectious optimism helps grow the group, as more and more people are drawn to its light. Those who doubt, criticize and clamber for power will come to be seen not as progressive and forward thinking, but rather as stuck in old ways that don’t work. And the group of networked changemakers will prove their value one experiment at a time. People will turn not to the politicians and the paid experts, but to the geeks, volunteers and entrepreneurs — to those with a vision of a beautiful future. That’s what freedom looks like. And that’s how you change the world with it.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/become-a-better-advocate-of-liberty/
Jeffrey Tucker
What does it mean to be an effective advocate of liberty? It means to love what you do and adopt sustainable patterns of thinking and living that contribute to making the world a freer place.
Sustainability is key. Most of today’s attacks on freedom lovers include a dismissal that libertarianism is an ideology for idealistic (or maybe deluded) kids, not one for adults. Sure, you can feel enraptured by the writings of Bastiat or Rand or Rothbard when you are in high school or college. But once you get into the real world, they say, you mature and give up the illusions of a freer world.
I don’t believe this. Within the domain of liberty, we find the path to prosperity, social peace, and human flourishing. Every limitation on the freedom of thought, action, and ownership robs the world of creativity, wealth, and progress.
And yet, freedom is not baked into a world where various forms of despotism are always threatening. It must be won anew in every generation. Indeed, it’s the ones who fancy themselves as grown-ups — able to make big decisions for the rest of humanity — who become the next generation of despots. It is the very foundation of intellectual and moral maturity to resist this level of hubris and to acknowledge the truth of our limitations.
Surely maturity shows us the limits of power. Surely the cause of liberty is worth our lifelong efforts.
But there is a superficial plausibility to the critics’ claims because there is a tendency for libertarians to give up hope. I’ve known many who lost their enthusiasm for liberty for a number of reasons, none of them strictly intellectual. People can begin to feel demoralized on discovering how little they can do to change the world. The gap between dreams and reality grows too large. Idealism fades when you sense you are hitting your head against a brick wall.
What can be done to sustain the passion for liberty throughout a lifetime? Here are my suggestions for seven habits to foster a lifelong attachment to liberty and to live a life that makes the best possible contribution to human well-being.
1. Oppose oppression but love liberty even more.
The dawning of the libertarian consciousness often takes place in two steps.
First, you realize that there is such a thing as a state that is distinct from society at large, a fact that massive swaths of the social sciences (not to mention mainstream media) try to cover up. Second, there is the new awareness that the state is distinct from every other institution in society because it uses aggressive force to achieve its aims. Further, the state actually does not achieve the aims it promises. Rather, it violates rights, undermines economic achievement, fosters dependency and serves a ruling class rather than the public at large.
At this point in your intellectual journey, you realize that the mainstream alternatives of left and right leave a lot to be desired; neither is a wholly consistent application of a principled opposition to power.
A new consciousness dawns. It can give rise to righteous anger. You see for the first time the difference between how the world is (which can often look dark and gloomy) and what could be. It can be tempting to focus on the negative: wars, police abuse, corruption, looting of the productive, graft in politics, and so on.
This anger is why so many liberty-minded news feeds consist of terrible news. But how much bad news can one person possibly handle? We have no means to directly right wrongs, to change the world for the better in one fell swoop. To see evil that we cannot change can only lead to despair: a trap that too many libertarians fall into.
It is crucial not only to think about the problem but also to see the solutions being lived out all around us. We need to learn to observe the marvelous businesses starting and succeeding every day, the beauty of spontaneous human interaction, the order and prosperity that emerge from the exercise of human choice. We should thrill in the many ways that people go about their lives in casual defiance of the central plan. We can glory in the creations all around us that were never mapped out or approved by politicians, or by the experts in their pay.
In other words, focusing on the solutions rather than solely on the problems can brighten your day and give rise to creativity in the service of the good. Liberty is not just the absence of oppression; it is the presence of well-lived lives and institutions that emerge despite every attempt to stop them. In this sense, freedom is blossoming all over the world. If we can focus on making that positive change, rather than dwelling on what’s wrong with the world, our task becomes more delightful and a dedication to liberty becomes more sustainable.
2. Read broadly and be confident in your ideas.
Political debates can be fun, but they can also be shrill and unproductive, with two sides battling it out and making no intellectual progress. They bring more heat than light. If you are going to change that pattern, you must have the confidence to listen carefully to other ideas and not be threatened by them. With intellectual confidence, you can respond in a way that is sure-footed rather than belligerent. You can be thoughtful rather than reactive.
Think of the difference between the way a street thug behaves and how a martial arts expert carries himself in combat. One is angry, threatening, and reckless. The other is calm, clever, and effective. In a hand-to-hand match between the two, the latter is going to win. Why? Because the martial arts expert has actual skill, whereas the bully only has attitude and emotion. Libertarians should be like skilled experts and exhibit the confidence that comes with that discipline. But becoming a black belt in liberty takes time and learning; it doesn’t happen overnight.
We should also know our opponents’ arguments better than they do and be prepared to respond to them fairly and without caricature, crafting our own arguments in ways that are actually persuasive rather than just forceful or loud. This requires that we spend some time reading and studying other traditions of thought. Our libraries ought to be broad and sample all disciplines and viewpoints.
We should never shy away from ideas that are different from our own. Sometimes our intellectual opponents — even when they are completely wrong — are our most valued benefactors. They help us think through issues, sharpen our skills and inspire us to research and read more. This is the way we improve. Then we can approach debates with no fear.
This approach will make us far more effective over the long term. Bombast and bromides can shut down opponents, but do they win hearts and minds? Not likely. As Ludwig von Mises emphasized in his great 1927 book “Liberalism”, it is reason, good arguments and thoughtfulness — combined with a genuine desire for a better world — that will carry the day.
We don’t want to shut down our opponents, causing them to retreat to their comfortable and familiar way of thinking. We want our opponents to keep asking questions of us, to keep challenging our ideas as we continue to engage them. We want them to keep talking with us and others. The ongoing discussion is a sign of curiosity and openness that we should welcome.
3. Look beyond politics.
For most libertarians, politics is the initial draw. There is nothing wrong with this. It is typical of American culture that it takes campaigns to get people interested in big questions like the role of human freedom, the place of the state, whether war is necessary, and so on.
But it only takes one or two campaigns before people realize that politics is a not a very effective way for changing the world for the better. Our votes matter very little, if at all. We are mostly only voting for people, not policies. And people in politics tend to betray principles. If we put too much stock in politicians — even the best of whom confront a system much larger than they can control — we will feel frustrated and powerless. Plus, there is no nastier business on the planet. Calumnies and deceptions define the political world.
Working in campaigns as a consumption good is fine, if that’s the sort of thing you like. Some people enjoy it. But let’s be realistic. As a production good — a means of producing good outcomes — it is mostly an illusion. Politics tends to be a lagging rather than leading indicator of social change. The first steps toward change are cultural and not political. Politics is reactive, not proactive. If we can make a contribution to changing minds and fostering a culture of liberty, the rest will take care of itself.
There are many other ways to make a difference outside of politics. Think of the way the economy of mobile apps is challenging the status quo in nearly every area of commerce. Municipal taxi monopolies are reeling from the competition from ride-sharing applications. Peer-to-peer housing solutions are making a mess of zoning laws. Cryptocurrency is challenging nationalized money and old-fashioned payment systems. Homeschooling and online education are busting up the state’s education system. These efforts have already accomplished more than any top-down reform.
Indeed, every start-up enterprise is a kind of revolutionary act against the status quo that the state’s regulations and plunderings have conspired to prevent. Their existence is proof that you can’t stop human creativity with any amount of control. At the end of day, we’ll look back to see that start-ups have made a mightier contribution to liberty than all the political campaigns combined. Libertarians have long understood that bottom-up solutions to social problems work better than top-down approaches. It’s the same with building a free society.
4. See everyone as an ideological friend.
Do you know anyone who actually opposes human freedom? I don’t. It’s just that we all have different ways of understanding that idea and different levels of tolerance for its inconsistent application. We should see everyone as a potential ally in the great cause, regardless of sex, race, religion, or station in life.
Modern democratic politics divides people by interest-group affiliation. According to the prevailing ethos, women should prefer one set of politics and men another. Blacks want things one way, whites another — and Hispanics want yet another. Young and old are each opposed to the other, just as are the rich and the poor. In this way, as Frédéric Bastiat never tired of pointing out, politics divides people, creating a war of all against all.
But the classical liberals always emphasized that freedom means a harmony of interests between all groups. Only true liberals favor the common good of all, because they want to remove the major source of division in society. They favor allowing all groups and individuals to cooperate, associate, exchange and produce to their mutual betterment. Society can manage itself better than any central planner can.
To see this today, in a time of cold war between groups, requires some high-minded thinking. Often, it requires acknowledging the justice of victim-group complaints and drawing attention to how the state has created the problem in the first place. This pertains to a huge range of problems in society, from unemployment to institutionalized racism to persistent poverty, exploitation and war. It is not the case that we all have different goals; it’s that we disagree on the means to achieve those goals.
Start all discussions with the presumption that the other person is a potential lover of liberty. When someone says something right and true, seize on it and draw it out. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t gain a convert immediately. As with all exchanges of ideas, the goal should be to plant seeds, not harvest a crop. It is through such subtle but persistent efforts that we win over hearts and minds to the cause of liberty.
5. Don’t have all the answers.
It is typical of nonlibertarians that they demand full and complete answers to all human problems that are currently tackled by statist means. Who will care for the poor? How will education work? How will people get health insurance? What is to be done about the problems of racism, misogyny and religious intolerance? Above all else, who will build the roads? (Never mind that roads are all built by private companies on contract with the state today.)
It is tempting to try to give complete answers. And history can provide some important hints and guides along the way to giving us a vision of what might be. There is a point to drawing attention to the way government intervention has displaced a whole range of private industries: schools, roads, mutual aid, title companies, courts and more. At the same time, we must resist the temptation to construct a different central plan for freedom. If we take the bait, we set ourselves up for failure.
We do not have all the answers. In freedom, we discover answers through an ongoing process of trial and error. An open society exists to leave the maximum amount of room for innovation and discovery.
F.A. Hayek was correct in his amazing essay “The Case for Freedom”:
Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom. If we knew how freedom would be used, the case for it would largely disappear.… Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad.… It is because we do not know how individuals will use their freedom that it is so important.
As Leonard Read used to say, the single most notable feature of freedom is its humility. It defers to the results of human action and does not attempt to design them in advance. Freedom does not mean rule by smart libertarians who know better than anyone else. It means the removal of institutionalized sources of power that rule with the arrogant presumption that there is only one way to manage society, and that society can and should be managed.
There is nothing wrong with responding to critics of freedom, “I don’t know the answers, but neither do politicians and bureaucrats, which is why they aren’t in a position to impose their ideas on the rest of us. We need freedom to work out social problems for ourselves. If you see a challenge to be met, it’s guaranteed that others see the same problem. Let’s work together to find the answers. Freedom is a necessary condition for finding the best solutions.”
6. Hack your life.
Once you realize that we are living under a central plan for your life and property, you can start to get creative about finding alternatives. You can use technologies to find a new approach to education. You can find better paths toward personal success. You can better manage your finances without the personal debt encouraged by the policies of the Federal Reserve. You can hack your appliances in ways that make them operate better than the regulations allow.
One way that statist lobbying groups have increased the power of government has been to find ways to apply their principles in public life. The greens have become masters of this approach. They have constructed a whole liturgy for our lives whereby we recycle, bike, ration garbage, take short showers and so on — never mind that these things do next to nothing for the environment. The point is to personalize the political (the opposite of the left’s principle of politicizing the personal).
We libertarians can personalize the political by finding ways around the central plan. These steps are hugely important because they make liberty real in our lives. It is not just an abstraction we hold in our minds, a vague hope of some world that may or may not dawn in the future. The opportunities to live out freedom are all around us. We only need eyes to see and the courage to act.
Before Ayn Rand wrote “Atlas Shrugged”, she knew that it was not enough to write a novel solely about a decaying social order under the iron hand of a corrupt government. She needed characters who felt empowered to do something about it. She ended up with an epic story about a whole generation of entrepreneurs who moved to Galt’s Gulch to build a better world. Their plan of action, as presented in this book, has influenced libertarians for half a century.
No, that doesn’t mean that we must all bail out and move to New Hampshire. It does mean that we must all look for ways to live and innovate without permission from the ruling class, embracing freedom whether our political masters like it or not.
7. Be joyful.
Factionalism is a major joy killer. There is a temptation to become overly embedded in a small circle of opinion, to look for differences (however minute), and to argue tempestuously. When debates are civil and fair, they can lead to intellectual growth. When they become personal and lead to claims that so-and-so is not a real libertarian, they can lead to broken friendships and general acrimony.
No one wins in such joyless struggles. They cause people to lose focus on the critical goal, which is the rise of liberty and the fall of everything that stands in its way. Social media is a wonderful thing, but sometimes technology can exacerbate squabbles rather than build real community. Remember that it takes two to fight, and you can always walk away. That takes discipline and humility, but it preserves relationships. For our own well-being, we need to focus on building a community of ideas, not on purges based on the false hope of purifying the movement.
There is something seriously wrong if the dawning of libertarian consciousness leads to a dour and dreary attitude toward the world and all its works. It should be easy to adopt a joyful view of the world, especially in our times.
We are seeing the failure of 20th-century statist measures in every area of life. All the statists’ fiscal, monetary, and regulatory plans have all failed. Their programs are unraveling. Governments and their leaders have never been more unpopular. Commerce is making an end-run around their schemes every day.
These should be causes of great joy. Libertarians are on the right side of history. We celebrate and seek to defend human rights against all who would take them away. This is a happy pursuit, one that gives our lives added meaning and significance.
Murray Rothbard used to say that fighting the state should be a joyful occupation. In the end, tyranny cannot work. There is just something wonderful about realizing that and seeing how it plays itself out in the real world. Having such joy was effortless for Rothbard because it was part of his personality. For the rest of us, it takes some practice. We should smile at the inevitable failures of the state, feel happy about the liberty all around us and take comfort in the hope for a future of liberty that is realizable, partly through our own efforts.
Onward!
Let us remember that when we are talking about human liberty, we are talking about the whole of what makes life itself beautiful. That is a gigantic subject. There are many pathways into the ideas of liberty and many ways of living the ideas, too. That is a beautiful truth, one worthy of lifelong attention and commitment. To make it effective, we should never forget that liberty is about real life, not merely an intellectual abstraction.
Imagine a small group of people going out into the world armed with these seven habits. Soon, that infectious optimism helps grow the group, as more and more people are drawn to its light. Those who doubt, criticize and clamber for power will come to be seen not as progressive and forward thinking, but rather as stuck in old ways that don’t work. And the group of networked changemakers will prove their value one experiment at a time. People will turn not to the politicians and the paid experts, but to the geeks, volunteers and entrepreneurs — to those with a vision of a beautiful future. That’s what freedom looks like. And that’s how you change the world with it.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/become-a-better-advocate-of-liberty/
Back to the "normal" killing in Baltimore...
“Normalcy” Returns to Baltimore
Thomas DiLorenzo
There were six homicides in recent nights in Baltimore in the predominantly black neighborhoods, and they are said to be “unrelated” to the protests and riots. The black gang bangers, who the city council stood shoulder to shoulder with last week promising to “work together” to “stop the violence,” are back on the streets murdering each other over drug sale turf. So far, no affluent white college students carrying “Black Lives Matter” signs have been spotted. For the forty-third straight year no one is even asking if all the violence, including daily killings of young black men, is related to the government’s “war on drugs.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/normalcy-returns-to-baltimore/
Thomas DiLorenzo
There were six homicides in recent nights in Baltimore in the predominantly black neighborhoods, and they are said to be “unrelated” to the protests and riots. The black gang bangers, who the city council stood shoulder to shoulder with last week promising to “work together” to “stop the violence,” are back on the streets murdering each other over drug sale turf. So far, no affluent white college students carrying “Black Lives Matter” signs have been spotted. For the forty-third straight year no one is even asking if all the violence, including daily killings of young black men, is related to the government’s “war on drugs.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/normalcy-returns-to-baltimore/
"Alas, we seem to have forgotten everything about Vietnam and learned nothing. We prop up squalid puppet regimes or brutal dictators because they do our bidding. The new bogeyman is Iran instead of China, but the song remains the same."
We Learned Nothing From Vietnam..and Forget Everything
By Eric Margolis
I was 24 years old, just out of graduate school in New York City. Cambridge University had accepted me to do a doctorate in history.
But no. In a burst of youthful patriotism, I concluded it was every citizen’s duty to join the armed forces in wartime. So I enlisted as an infantry officer candidate in the US Army and was packed off to basic training.
Life can only be understood in retrospect. With the wisdom of hindsight, most people consider the 20-year long Vietnam War a terrible mistake, even a crime. But at the time, US military involvement in Indochina appeared to make sense. It certainly did to me. I was proud to wear my nation’s uniform.
General Douglas MacArthur warned Americans ‘never fight a land war in Asia.” He had presided over the bloody stalemate in Korea a decade earlier and knew the fighting power and tenacity of Asian soldiers.
But that is exactly what the Kennedy administration foolishly did. At the time, US power was at its zenith. Washington was gripped by post-war arrogance and hubris. No nation, not even the Soviet Union, could withstand US military power – or so it was thought.
There was also a very compelling geopolitical reason. At the time – the later 1960’s – it appeared certain that the Soviets and Red China were working together to dominate all of Indochina. South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were under particular threat. Indonesia, with a powerful communist party, Malaysia and Thailand were also deemed vulnerable.
“If we don’t make a military stand in SE Asia,” was the consensus, “the Reds will take the entire region.” So it looked in 1967. So we hear again today. Just replace “Reds” by al-Qaida or ISIS.
But the basic western premise back then – as now – was dead wrong. In one of history’s biggest intelligence failures, we failed to see the seismic split between the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, one so profound that the two super-powers almost went to war over their contested Manchurian borders in 1968-1969. Just as our intelligence services also missed the impending collapse of the Soviet Union three decades later.
Had the US been aware of the violent tensions between Moscow and Beijing, it would likely have avoided expanding the Vietnam War, or just left it to its own devices.
Instead, the US and its allies waged a long struggle against the Vietcong local guerillas and the battle-hardened North Vietnamese Army that had defeated some of France’s finest soldiers a decade earlier. President Lyndon Johnson drove the US deeper into the war by staging the phony Gulf of Tonkin naval incident.
It did not take long for US troops in South Vietnam to realize the war was a pointless bloodbath. Without the 24/7 support of US airpower, the American army and marines in Vietnam would not have been able to hold out. Today, without US airpower, American forces would be driven from Afghanistan. The current US-installed governments in Kabul and Baghdad have no more popular support or authority than had the corrupt South Vietnamese regime in Saigon.
Amazingly, American generals, every bit as stupid as their French counterparts at Dien Bien Phu, managed to get themselves surrounded in the Khe San valley. They were only saved from a second Dien Bien Phu disaster only by waves of US B-52 heavy bombers.
By the January, 1968 Tet offensive, it was clear to many of us in uniform that the war was lost (I was stateside at the time). The US won almost every battle thanks to air power, but it lost both the military momentum in the war, the strategic direction and the political struggle. America’s South Vietnamese allies often fought bravely but their political leaders were hopeless. Young Americans turned against the war and, after sniffing the wind, so did media.
Over 550,000 US troops, backed by South Koreans, Australians and a similar number of South Vietnamese troops could not defeat the Communist irregulars and regulars. In the US Army in Vietnam, only 10% of the troops were in fighting rifle units. The rest were in logistical support. All tail and no teeth, as we used to say. Cooks, bakers, delivery-men and clerks do not win wars.
In the end, it was the regular North Vietnamese Army supported by T-34/54 tanks and the excellent Soviet 130mm guns that brought victory. The NVA’s tanks rolled into Saigon on 30 April, erasing the Republic of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were heedless of casualties and fought like tigers. Some military experts called them ‘the finest light infantry in the world.’
In one of America’s most humiliating events, US military and government personnel bugged out of Vietnam, abandoning their local allies and girlfriends to the Communists.
Much of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were ravaged by US bombing and toxic chemical defoliation. In the process, some 250,000 American soldiers were killed or wounded; 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. At least three million Communist soldiers and Vietnamese civilians were killed, mostly by US air power.
As I look back, it’s very painful to realize that the war was, to paraphrase the wicked Tallyrand, “worse than a crime, a mistake.”
The red hordes did not swamp Indochina nor did they march on Cleveland. Our side committed as many crimes as our enemies. The CIA-run Phoenix program, for example, “liquidated” up to 41,000 communist cadres. Our “counter-terrorism” campaign today in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia follows the same pattern.
After Vietnam, no more youthful patriotism for me. What really shocked me about Vietnam was that we came out of it looking no better than the Soviets. It was a pointless war, in the wrong place, against an unnecessary enemy, waged, in part, by reluctant soldiers stoned on pot and heroin.
Today, the US and united Vietnam have $36 billion in bilateral trade and warm commercial and diplomatic relations. Vietnam is becoming an important ally for the US against China. One wonders how the US can enjoy fruitful relations with Communist Vietnam while until recently shunning Communist Cuba.
Alas, we seem to have forgotten everything about Vietnam and learned nothing. We prop up squalid puppet regimes or brutal dictators because they do our bidding. The new bogeyman is Iran instead of China, but the song remains the same.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/eric-margolis/the-american-invaders-were-defeated/
By Eric Margolis
I was 24 years old, just out of graduate school in New York City. Cambridge University had accepted me to do a doctorate in history.
But no. In a burst of youthful patriotism, I concluded it was every citizen’s duty to join the armed forces in wartime. So I enlisted as an infantry officer candidate in the US Army and was packed off to basic training.
Life can only be understood in retrospect. With the wisdom of hindsight, most people consider the 20-year long Vietnam War a terrible mistake, even a crime. But at the time, US military involvement in Indochina appeared to make sense. It certainly did to me. I was proud to wear my nation’s uniform.
General Douglas MacArthur warned Americans ‘never fight a land war in Asia.” He had presided over the bloody stalemate in Korea a decade earlier and knew the fighting power and tenacity of Asian soldiers.
But that is exactly what the Kennedy administration foolishly did. At the time, US power was at its zenith. Washington was gripped by post-war arrogance and hubris. No nation, not even the Soviet Union, could withstand US military power – or so it was thought.
There was also a very compelling geopolitical reason. At the time – the later 1960’s – it appeared certain that the Soviets and Red China were working together to dominate all of Indochina. South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were under particular threat. Indonesia, with a powerful communist party, Malaysia and Thailand were also deemed vulnerable.
“If we don’t make a military stand in SE Asia,” was the consensus, “the Reds will take the entire region.” So it looked in 1967. So we hear again today. Just replace “Reds” by al-Qaida or ISIS.
But the basic western premise back then – as now – was dead wrong. In one of history’s biggest intelligence failures, we failed to see the seismic split between the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, one so profound that the two super-powers almost went to war over their contested Manchurian borders in 1968-1969. Just as our intelligence services also missed the impending collapse of the Soviet Union three decades later.
Had the US been aware of the violent tensions between Moscow and Beijing, it would likely have avoided expanding the Vietnam War, or just left it to its own devices.
Instead, the US and its allies waged a long struggle against the Vietcong local guerillas and the battle-hardened North Vietnamese Army that had defeated some of France’s finest soldiers a decade earlier. President Lyndon Johnson drove the US deeper into the war by staging the phony Gulf of Tonkin naval incident.
It did not take long for US troops in South Vietnam to realize the war was a pointless bloodbath. Without the 24/7 support of US airpower, the American army and marines in Vietnam would not have been able to hold out. Today, without US airpower, American forces would be driven from Afghanistan. The current US-installed governments in Kabul and Baghdad have no more popular support or authority than had the corrupt South Vietnamese regime in Saigon.
Amazingly, American generals, every bit as stupid as their French counterparts at Dien Bien Phu, managed to get themselves surrounded in the Khe San valley. They were only saved from a second Dien Bien Phu disaster only by waves of US B-52 heavy bombers.
By the January, 1968 Tet offensive, it was clear to many of us in uniform that the war was lost (I was stateside at the time). The US won almost every battle thanks to air power, but it lost both the military momentum in the war, the strategic direction and the political struggle. America’s South Vietnamese allies often fought bravely but their political leaders were hopeless. Young Americans turned against the war and, after sniffing the wind, so did media.
Over 550,000 US troops, backed by South Koreans, Australians and a similar number of South Vietnamese troops could not defeat the Communist irregulars and regulars. In the US Army in Vietnam, only 10% of the troops were in fighting rifle units. The rest were in logistical support. All tail and no teeth, as we used to say. Cooks, bakers, delivery-men and clerks do not win wars.
In the end, it was the regular North Vietnamese Army supported by T-34/54 tanks and the excellent Soviet 130mm guns that brought victory. The NVA’s tanks rolled into Saigon on 30 April, erasing the Republic of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were heedless of casualties and fought like tigers. Some military experts called them ‘the finest light infantry in the world.’
In one of America’s most humiliating events, US military and government personnel bugged out of Vietnam, abandoning their local allies and girlfriends to the Communists.
Much of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were ravaged by US bombing and toxic chemical defoliation. In the process, some 250,000 American soldiers were killed or wounded; 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. At least three million Communist soldiers and Vietnamese civilians were killed, mostly by US air power.
As I look back, it’s very painful to realize that the war was, to paraphrase the wicked Tallyrand, “worse than a crime, a mistake.”
The red hordes did not swamp Indochina nor did they march on Cleveland. Our side committed as many crimes as our enemies. The CIA-run Phoenix program, for example, “liquidated” up to 41,000 communist cadres. Our “counter-terrorism” campaign today in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia follows the same pattern.
After Vietnam, no more youthful patriotism for me. What really shocked me about Vietnam was that we came out of it looking no better than the Soviets. It was a pointless war, in the wrong place, against an unnecessary enemy, waged, in part, by reluctant soldiers stoned on pot and heroin.
Today, the US and united Vietnam have $36 billion in bilateral trade and warm commercial and diplomatic relations. Vietnam is becoming an important ally for the US against China. One wonders how the US can enjoy fruitful relations with Communist Vietnam while until recently shunning Communist Cuba.
Alas, we seem to have forgotten everything about Vietnam and learned nothing. We prop up squalid puppet regimes or brutal dictators because they do our bidding. The new bogeyman is Iran instead of China, but the song remains the same.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/eric-margolis/the-american-invaders-were-defeated/
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Feel freer???
U.S. Military: Put in Harm's Way for Global Empire
Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
“We shall extend the Persian territory as far as God's heaven reaches. The sun will then shine on no land beyond our borders.”
— Herodotus, Histories, Book 7
An article published on April 24 in the Wall Street Journal carried the following subtitle: "Over the past year, special-operations forces have landed in 81 countries, mostly to train local troops to fight so Americans don’t have to."
But if Americans don't have to be, then why are they in so many countries? Surely this is not necessary for defending the United States of America — the purpose of the U.S. military.
It has been observed that the rise of the American empire is inversely proportional to the decline of the American republic. And such has been the trajectory of the republics of the past. But unlike Rome, the various Greek confederacies, and other historic republics, the American republic cum empire has innumerable means at its disposal to distribute its military might throughout the entirety of the globe.
The Wall Street Journal piece highlights one of the (momentarily) most popular methods of keeping the U.S. armed forces involved in “81 countries:” the deployment of special operations/forces troops, A.K.A. “commandos.” Here’s the Journal’s nearly poetical encomium of the U.S. special operations activities around the world:
These days, the sun never sets on America’s special-operations forces. Over the past year, they have landed in 81 countries, most of them training local commandos to fight so American troops don’t have to. From Honduras to Mongolia, Estonia to Djibouti, U.S. special operators teach local soldiers diplomatic skills to shield their countries against extremist ideologies, as well as combat skills to fight militants who break through.
President Barack Obama, as part of his plan to shrink U.S. reliance on traditional warfare, has promised to piece together a web of such alliances from South Asia to the Sahel. Faced with mobile enemies working independently of foreign governments, the U.S. military has scattered small, nimble teams in many places, rather than just maintaining large forces in a few.
When combined with President Obama’s unwavering (despite recent admissions of “accidental” killing of innocent Westerners) commitment to the drone war (including the much maligned “signature strikes”), the American empire’s growth trajectory is long and without recognizable end.
Almost exactly three years ago, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) published and promoted a plan crafted by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Raymond T. Odierno that reads like a blueprint of the multinational military constructed under his and Barack Obama’s watch.
The general’s idea (one surely shared by the CFR that served as his bullhorn) was to transform the U.S. military into an international force, one capable of conducting numerous combat operations throughout the globe. In fact, in light of the Wall Street Journal’s recent report, it seems Odierno’s plan is being carried out with military precision.
A central plank of General Odierno’s platform is the need to use the Army to solve complex international conflicts. Again, these conflicts and the solutions to them are made more complex by the fact that there is not a single syllable in the Constitution that grants the president or Congress the authority to deploy American armed forces to work out the world’s difficult dilemmas.
On this point, regarding the rules to govern the creation and governing of a federal army, the Constitution says very little. In Article I, Section 8, Congress is authorized to “raise and support Armies” and to “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.” That’s it. That paucity of information has been magnified by the Council on Foreign Relations and their members in positions of power to include the use of the Army in ways and means that would seem unimaginable even to the most globally minded and hawkish of our Founding Fathers.
One of the unconstitutional missions advocated by Odierno and the CFR that is highlighted in Journal piece is the use of the U.S. Army as “a critical guarantor of stability in the Asia-Pacific region.”
This echoes the pronouncement made by his Commander-in-Chief in Australia in 2011:
This is the future we seek for the Asia-Pacific — security, prosperity and dignity for all. That’s what we stand for. That’s who we are. That’s the future we will pursue in partnership with allies and friends and with every element of American power.
That is to say, General Odierno and President Obama believe that deterring aggression against our allies in Asia and the Pacific trumps any constitutional stricture on the appropriate use of the Army. There is nothing it seems that will stand in the way of our Army being placed at the disposal of foreign princes and presidents, provided they appreciate their resulting status as satraps of the American Emperor whose empire extends from pole to pole.
There are other provinces of the emerging American pancontinental presence accounted for in the Odierno/CFR plan. “The posture of the U.S. military in the Middle East is critical to maintaining regional stability there,” writes Odierno, again without any noticeable sense of irony.
Is the general privy to some reports of stability in the Middle East kept secret from the rest of us? There is no end to the media’s reminders of the instability in the Middle East. In fact, it is this very unsettled foundation upon which the need for ongoing American military presence there is built, particularly, as the Wall Street Journal reminds us, in Yemen and the Arab peninsula.
In other words, the Middle East is stable because of the Army, the Middle East will remain stable only so long as the Army remains on permanent patrol, and if we were to completely abandon our posts, the region would devolve into outright — instability. Thus is the quality of the reasoning demonstrated by those with command and control of the armed forces of the United States.
One geographic area of U.S. military involvement highlighted by the Wall Street Journal not specifically mentioned by Odierno and the CFR is Africa. “The three-week military exercises in Chad, which ended last month, are a microcosm of the U.S. strategy. The annual event started small a decade ago, and has grown to include 1,300 troops, with special-operations contingents from 18 Western nations coaching commandos from 10 African countries,” the Journal reports.
And the combat commitment to Africa is expansive:
Scores of Nigerian Special Boat Service commandos, who have trained with U.S. Navy SEALs, were in Chad to receive tactical advice from British instructors: How to set up an ambush, how to drag a wounded comrade out of danger and how to move through the sparse Sahelian forests.
At many points over the past six years, the U.S., Chad, Niger and others have criticized Nigeria for using brutal tactics against civilians who might otherwise help them flush out militants.
The Nigerian response to Boko Haram didn’t work effectively and “actually in some places made it worse,” Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of Africa Command, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., in January. The U.S. and its allies hope the latest training will help the Nigerians turn the tide.
One U.S. special operations soldier is quoted in the Journal piece explaining the American military’s motivation this way, “A secure and stable Chad is one far less susceptible to Boko Haram and other insurgent influences.”
Lest there remain any doubt as to America’s resolve to make the world more “secure and stable,” General Odierno wants our nation’s enemies (foreign and domestic) to understand that we are not afraid to “compel capitulation.” Should those “potential adversaries” be American, moreover, Odierno promises that the Army will “be ready to decisively achieve American ends, whatever they may be.”
Odierno declares, echoing the special operations doctor, that the American armed forces will be deployed to demonstrate “our country’s commitment to global security.”
Sadly, Americans know this too well. There are rows and rows of white headstones, thousands of flag-draped coffins, and untold numbers of psychologically traumatized soldiers testifying to the seriousness of that commitment.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/20792-u-s-military-put-in-harm-s-way-for-global-empire
Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
“We shall extend the Persian territory as far as God's heaven reaches. The sun will then shine on no land beyond our borders.”
— Herodotus, Histories, Book 7
An article published on April 24 in the Wall Street Journal carried the following subtitle: "Over the past year, special-operations forces have landed in 81 countries, mostly to train local troops to fight so Americans don’t have to."
But if Americans don't have to be, then why are they in so many countries? Surely this is not necessary for defending the United States of America — the purpose of the U.S. military.
It has been observed that the rise of the American empire is inversely proportional to the decline of the American republic. And such has been the trajectory of the republics of the past. But unlike Rome, the various Greek confederacies, and other historic republics, the American republic cum empire has innumerable means at its disposal to distribute its military might throughout the entirety of the globe.
The Wall Street Journal piece highlights one of the (momentarily) most popular methods of keeping the U.S. armed forces involved in “81 countries:” the deployment of special operations/forces troops, A.K.A. “commandos.” Here’s the Journal’s nearly poetical encomium of the U.S. special operations activities around the world:
These days, the sun never sets on America’s special-operations forces. Over the past year, they have landed in 81 countries, most of them training local commandos to fight so American troops don’t have to. From Honduras to Mongolia, Estonia to Djibouti, U.S. special operators teach local soldiers diplomatic skills to shield their countries against extremist ideologies, as well as combat skills to fight militants who break through.
President Barack Obama, as part of his plan to shrink U.S. reliance on traditional warfare, has promised to piece together a web of such alliances from South Asia to the Sahel. Faced with mobile enemies working independently of foreign governments, the U.S. military has scattered small, nimble teams in many places, rather than just maintaining large forces in a few.
When combined with President Obama’s unwavering (despite recent admissions of “accidental” killing of innocent Westerners) commitment to the drone war (including the much maligned “signature strikes”), the American empire’s growth trajectory is long and without recognizable end.
Almost exactly three years ago, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) published and promoted a plan crafted by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Raymond T. Odierno that reads like a blueprint of the multinational military constructed under his and Barack Obama’s watch.
The general’s idea (one surely shared by the CFR that served as his bullhorn) was to transform the U.S. military into an international force, one capable of conducting numerous combat operations throughout the globe. In fact, in light of the Wall Street Journal’s recent report, it seems Odierno’s plan is being carried out with military precision.
A central plank of General Odierno’s platform is the need to use the Army to solve complex international conflicts. Again, these conflicts and the solutions to them are made more complex by the fact that there is not a single syllable in the Constitution that grants the president or Congress the authority to deploy American armed forces to work out the world’s difficult dilemmas.
On this point, regarding the rules to govern the creation and governing of a federal army, the Constitution says very little. In Article I, Section 8, Congress is authorized to “raise and support Armies” and to “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.” That’s it. That paucity of information has been magnified by the Council on Foreign Relations and their members in positions of power to include the use of the Army in ways and means that would seem unimaginable even to the most globally minded and hawkish of our Founding Fathers.
One of the unconstitutional missions advocated by Odierno and the CFR that is highlighted in Journal piece is the use of the U.S. Army as “a critical guarantor of stability in the Asia-Pacific region.”
This echoes the pronouncement made by his Commander-in-Chief in Australia in 2011:
This is the future we seek for the Asia-Pacific — security, prosperity and dignity for all. That’s what we stand for. That’s who we are. That’s the future we will pursue in partnership with allies and friends and with every element of American power.
That is to say, General Odierno and President Obama believe that deterring aggression against our allies in Asia and the Pacific trumps any constitutional stricture on the appropriate use of the Army. There is nothing it seems that will stand in the way of our Army being placed at the disposal of foreign princes and presidents, provided they appreciate their resulting status as satraps of the American Emperor whose empire extends from pole to pole.
There are other provinces of the emerging American pancontinental presence accounted for in the Odierno/CFR plan. “The posture of the U.S. military in the Middle East is critical to maintaining regional stability there,” writes Odierno, again without any noticeable sense of irony.
Is the general privy to some reports of stability in the Middle East kept secret from the rest of us? There is no end to the media’s reminders of the instability in the Middle East. In fact, it is this very unsettled foundation upon which the need for ongoing American military presence there is built, particularly, as the Wall Street Journal reminds us, in Yemen and the Arab peninsula.
In other words, the Middle East is stable because of the Army, the Middle East will remain stable only so long as the Army remains on permanent patrol, and if we were to completely abandon our posts, the region would devolve into outright — instability. Thus is the quality of the reasoning demonstrated by those with command and control of the armed forces of the United States.
One geographic area of U.S. military involvement highlighted by the Wall Street Journal not specifically mentioned by Odierno and the CFR is Africa. “The three-week military exercises in Chad, which ended last month, are a microcosm of the U.S. strategy. The annual event started small a decade ago, and has grown to include 1,300 troops, with special-operations contingents from 18 Western nations coaching commandos from 10 African countries,” the Journal reports.
And the combat commitment to Africa is expansive:
Scores of Nigerian Special Boat Service commandos, who have trained with U.S. Navy SEALs, were in Chad to receive tactical advice from British instructors: How to set up an ambush, how to drag a wounded comrade out of danger and how to move through the sparse Sahelian forests.
At many points over the past six years, the U.S., Chad, Niger and others have criticized Nigeria for using brutal tactics against civilians who might otherwise help them flush out militants.
The Nigerian response to Boko Haram didn’t work effectively and “actually in some places made it worse,” Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of Africa Command, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., in January. The U.S. and its allies hope the latest training will help the Nigerians turn the tide.
One U.S. special operations soldier is quoted in the Journal piece explaining the American military’s motivation this way, “A secure and stable Chad is one far less susceptible to Boko Haram and other insurgent influences.”
Lest there remain any doubt as to America’s resolve to make the world more “secure and stable,” General Odierno wants our nation’s enemies (foreign and domestic) to understand that we are not afraid to “compel capitulation.” Should those “potential adversaries” be American, moreover, Odierno promises that the Army will “be ready to decisively achieve American ends, whatever they may be.”
Odierno declares, echoing the special operations doctor, that the American armed forces will be deployed to demonstrate “our country’s commitment to global security.”
Sadly, Americans know this too well. There are rows and rows of white headstones, thousands of flag-draped coffins, and untold numbers of psychologically traumatized soldiers testifying to the seriousness of that commitment.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/20792-u-s-military-put-in-harm-s-way-for-global-empire
Saturday, May 2, 2015
See, things are getting better...
Middle Class U.S. Consumers Are Tapped Out, Major U.S. Retailers Are Closing More Than 6,000 Stores
By Michael Snyder
If the U.S. economy really is improving, then why are big U.S. retailers permanently shutting down thousands of stores? The “retail apocalypse” that I have written about so frequently appears to be accelerating. As you will see below, major U.S. retailers have announced that they are closing more than 6,000 locations, but economic conditions in this country are still fairly stable. So if this is happening already, what are things going to look like once the next recession strikes? For a long time, I have been pointing to 2015 as a major “turning point” for the U.S. economy, and I still feel that way. And since I started The Economic Collapse Blog at the end of 2009, I have never seen as many indications that we are headed into another major economic downturn as I do right now. If retailers are closing this many stores already, what are our malls and shopping centers going to look like a few years from now?
The list below comes from information compiled by About.com, but I have only included major retailers that have announced plans to close at least 10 stores. Most of these closures will take place this year, but in some instances the closures are scheduled to be phased in over a number of years. As you can see, the number of stores that are being permanently shut down is absolutely staggering…
180 Abercrombie & Fitch (by 2015)
75 Aeropostale (through January 2015)
150 American Eagle Outfitters (through 2017)
223 Barnes & Noble (through 2023)
265 Body Central / Body Shop
66 Bottom Dollar Food
25 Build-A-Bear (through 2015)
32 C. Wonder
21 Cache
120 Chico’s (through 2017)
200 Children’s Place (through 2017)
17 Christopher & Banks
70 Coach (fiscal 2015)
70 Coco’s /Carrows
300 Deb Shops
92 Delia’s
340 Dollar Tree/Family Dollar
39 Einstein Bros. Bagels
50 Express (through 2015)
31 Frederick’s of Hollywood
50 Fresh & Easy Grocey Stores
14 Friendly’s
65 Future Shop (Best Buy Canada)
54 Golf Galaxy (by 2016)
50 Guess (through 2015)
26 Gymboree
40 JCPenney
127 Jones New York Outlet
10 Just Baked
28 Kate Spade Saturday & Jack Spade
14 Macy’s
400 Office Depot/Office Max (by 2016)
63 Pep Boys (“in the coming years”)
100 Pier One (by 2017)
20 Pick ’n Save (by 2017)
1,784 Radio Shack
13 Ruby Tuesday
77 Sears
10 SpartanNash Grocery Stores
55 Staples (2015)
133 Target, Canada (bankruptcy)
31 Tiger Direct
200 Walgreens (by 2017)
10 West Marine
338 Wet Seal
80 Wolverine World Wide (2015 – Stride Rite & Keds)
So why is this happening?
Without a doubt, Internet retailing is taking a huge toll on brick and mortar stores, and this is a trend that is not going to end any time soon.
But as Thad Beversdorf has pointed out, we have also seen a stunning decline in true discretionary consumer spending over the past six months…
What we find is that over the past 6 months we had a tremendous drop in true discretionary consumer spending. Within the overall downtrend we do see a bit of a rally in February but quite ominously that rally failed and the bottom absolutely fell out. Again the importance is it confirms the fundamental theory that consumer spending is showing the initial signs of a severe pull back. A worrying signal to be certain as we would expect this pull back to begin impacting other areas of consumer spending. The reason is that American consumers typically do not voluntarily pull back like that on spending but do so because they have run out of credit. And if credit is running thin it will surely be felt in all spending.
The truth is that middle class U.S. consumers are tapped out. Most families are just scraping by financially from month to month. For most Americans, there simply is not a whole lot of extra money left over to go shopping with these days.
In fact, at this point approximately one out of every four Americans spend at least half of their incomes just on rent…
More than one in four Americans are spending at least half of their family income on rent – leaving little money left to purchase groceries, buy clothing or put gas in the car, new figures have revealed.
A staggering 11.25 million households consume 50 percent or more of their income on housing and utilities, according to an analysis of Census data by nonprofit firm, Enterprise Community Partners.
And 1.8 million of these households spend at least 70 percent of their paychecks on rent.
The surging cost of rental housing has affected a rising number of families since the Great Recession hit in 2007. Officials define housing costs in excess of 30 percent of income as burdensome.
For decades, the U.S. economy was powered by a free spending middle class that had plenty of discretionary income to throw around. But now that the middle class is beingsystematically destroyed, that paradigm is changing. Americans families simply do not have the same resources that they once did, and that spells big trouble for retailers.
As you read this article, the United States still has more retail space per person than any other nation on the planet. But as stores close by the thousands, “space available” signs are going to be popping up everywhere. This is especially going to be true in poor and lower middle class neighborhoods. Especially after what we just witnessed in Baltimore, many retailers are not going to hesitate to shut down underperforming locations in impoverished areas.
And remember, the next major economic crisis has not even arrived yet. Once it does, the business environment in this country is going to change dramatically, and a few years from now America is going to look far different than it does right now.
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/middle-class-u-s-consumers-are-tapped-out-major-u-s-retailers-are-closing-more-than-6000-stores/#bmByihwmEjqqyPX9.99
By Michael Snyder
If the U.S. economy really is improving, then why are big U.S. retailers permanently shutting down thousands of stores? The “retail apocalypse” that I have written about so frequently appears to be accelerating. As you will see below, major U.S. retailers have announced that they are closing more than 6,000 locations, but economic conditions in this country are still fairly stable. So if this is happening already, what are things going to look like once the next recession strikes? For a long time, I have been pointing to 2015 as a major “turning point” for the U.S. economy, and I still feel that way. And since I started The Economic Collapse Blog at the end of 2009, I have never seen as many indications that we are headed into another major economic downturn as I do right now. If retailers are closing this many stores already, what are our malls and shopping centers going to look like a few years from now?
The list below comes from information compiled by About.com, but I have only included major retailers that have announced plans to close at least 10 stores. Most of these closures will take place this year, but in some instances the closures are scheduled to be phased in over a number of years. As you can see, the number of stores that are being permanently shut down is absolutely staggering…
180 Abercrombie & Fitch (by 2015)
75 Aeropostale (through January 2015)
150 American Eagle Outfitters (through 2017)
223 Barnes & Noble (through 2023)
265 Body Central / Body Shop
66 Bottom Dollar Food
25 Build-A-Bear (through 2015)
32 C. Wonder
21 Cache
120 Chico’s (through 2017)
200 Children’s Place (through 2017)
17 Christopher & Banks
70 Coach (fiscal 2015)
70 Coco’s /Carrows
300 Deb Shops
92 Delia’s
340 Dollar Tree/Family Dollar
39 Einstein Bros. Bagels
50 Express (through 2015)
31 Frederick’s of Hollywood
50 Fresh & Easy Grocey Stores
14 Friendly’s
65 Future Shop (Best Buy Canada)
54 Golf Galaxy (by 2016)
50 Guess (through 2015)
26 Gymboree
40 JCPenney
127 Jones New York Outlet
10 Just Baked
28 Kate Spade Saturday & Jack Spade
14 Macy’s
400 Office Depot/Office Max (by 2016)
63 Pep Boys (“in the coming years”)
100 Pier One (by 2017)
20 Pick ’n Save (by 2017)
1,784 Radio Shack
13 Ruby Tuesday
77 Sears
10 SpartanNash Grocery Stores
55 Staples (2015)
133 Target, Canada (bankruptcy)
31 Tiger Direct
200 Walgreens (by 2017)
10 West Marine
338 Wet Seal
80 Wolverine World Wide (2015 – Stride Rite & Keds)
So why is this happening?
Without a doubt, Internet retailing is taking a huge toll on brick and mortar stores, and this is a trend that is not going to end any time soon.
But as Thad Beversdorf has pointed out, we have also seen a stunning decline in true discretionary consumer spending over the past six months…
What we find is that over the past 6 months we had a tremendous drop in true discretionary consumer spending. Within the overall downtrend we do see a bit of a rally in February but quite ominously that rally failed and the bottom absolutely fell out. Again the importance is it confirms the fundamental theory that consumer spending is showing the initial signs of a severe pull back. A worrying signal to be certain as we would expect this pull back to begin impacting other areas of consumer spending. The reason is that American consumers typically do not voluntarily pull back like that on spending but do so because they have run out of credit. And if credit is running thin it will surely be felt in all spending.
The truth is that middle class U.S. consumers are tapped out. Most families are just scraping by financially from month to month. For most Americans, there simply is not a whole lot of extra money left over to go shopping with these days.
In fact, at this point approximately one out of every four Americans spend at least half of their incomes just on rent…
More than one in four Americans are spending at least half of their family income on rent – leaving little money left to purchase groceries, buy clothing or put gas in the car, new figures have revealed.
A staggering 11.25 million households consume 50 percent or more of their income on housing and utilities, according to an analysis of Census data by nonprofit firm, Enterprise Community Partners.
And 1.8 million of these households spend at least 70 percent of their paychecks on rent.
The surging cost of rental housing has affected a rising number of families since the Great Recession hit in 2007. Officials define housing costs in excess of 30 percent of income as burdensome.
For decades, the U.S. economy was powered by a free spending middle class that had plenty of discretionary income to throw around. But now that the middle class is beingsystematically destroyed, that paradigm is changing. Americans families simply do not have the same resources that they once did, and that spells big trouble for retailers.
As you read this article, the United States still has more retail space per person than any other nation on the planet. But as stores close by the thousands, “space available” signs are going to be popping up everywhere. This is especially going to be true in poor and lower middle class neighborhoods. Especially after what we just witnessed in Baltimore, many retailers are not going to hesitate to shut down underperforming locations in impoverished areas.
And remember, the next major economic crisis has not even arrived yet. Once it does, the business environment in this country is going to change dramatically, and a few years from now America is going to look far different than it does right now.
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/middle-class-u-s-consumers-are-tapped-out-major-u-s-retailers-are-closing-more-than-6000-stores/#bmByihwmEjqqyPX9.99
OOPS!!!
Mug shots of accused Baltimore police officers. Racism is becoming more diversified I guess. I suppose the liberal media will have to rewrite their storyline on this one...
Our ranks are growing...
19% of Americans Self-Identify as Libertarians
Iron Sheik
Reuters has a fascinating new poll out about Americans’ conflicting attitudes toward government. Of particular interest, in the words of the news agency’s write-up:
One in five Americans consider themselves libertarian, with younger adults being the most likely to adopt the label. Among adults aged 18 to 29, 32 percent consider themselves libertarian. Just 12 percent of Americans age 60 or older consider themselves libertarian.
Note that this isn’t some classification deduced from a collection of polled attitudes; this is how 4,770 American adults between April 10 and April 24 responded to the question, “Do you consider yourself a libertarian?”
That answer also breaks down interestingly along political lines: 22 percent of Democrats said they were libertarians, more than the 18 percent of Republicans, and just a hair less than the 25 percent of independents.
The full poll has a range of interesting questions about government, some of which we’ll be talking about in more detail in this space, and many of which piggyback onto the insights gleaned in theReason-Rupe poll on Millennials, which we titled “The Unclaimed Generation.” As I tried to explain to Reuters,young people are more likely to consider themselves “free agents,” and because of that are more likely to gravitate toward libertarianism. “They don’t belong to churches, they don’t belong to things,” [Welch] said.
Millennials have also, needless to say, grown up in a fetid swamp of terrible politics, policies, wars, recessions, job markets, encroachments on their privacy, and more. Libertarianism is bound to look better and better when considering the lived-in alternatives.
Link:
http://govtslaves.info/19-of-americans-self-identify-as-libertarians/
Iron Sheik
Reuters has a fascinating new poll out about Americans’ conflicting attitudes toward government. Of particular interest, in the words of the news agency’s write-up:
One in five Americans consider themselves libertarian, with younger adults being the most likely to adopt the label. Among adults aged 18 to 29, 32 percent consider themselves libertarian. Just 12 percent of Americans age 60 or older consider themselves libertarian.
Note that this isn’t some classification deduced from a collection of polled attitudes; this is how 4,770 American adults between April 10 and April 24 responded to the question, “Do you consider yourself a libertarian?”
That answer also breaks down interestingly along political lines: 22 percent of Democrats said they were libertarians, more than the 18 percent of Republicans, and just a hair less than the 25 percent of independents.
The full poll has a range of interesting questions about government, some of which we’ll be talking about in more detail in this space, and many of which piggyback onto the insights gleaned in theReason-Rupe poll on Millennials, which we titled “The Unclaimed Generation.” As I tried to explain to Reuters,young people are more likely to consider themselves “free agents,” and because of that are more likely to gravitate toward libertarianism. “They don’t belong to churches, they don’t belong to things,” [Welch] said.
Millennials have also, needless to say, grown up in a fetid swamp of terrible politics, policies, wars, recessions, job markets, encroachments on their privacy, and more. Libertarianism is bound to look better and better when considering the lived-in alternatives.
Link:
http://govtslaves.info/19-of-americans-self-identify-as-libertarians/
Tracking your car's every move...
We Must Stop National ALPR Push Now!
National Motorists Association
We predicted it would happen. A year after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) scuttled plans to build its own nationwide database of vehicle license plate data, the agency is seeking bids from private contractors to provide the agency access to the same information.
DHS canceled last year’s plan in the wake of TSA domestic spying revelations and subsequent outrage over increasingly intrusive government surveillance. At the time, we predicted DHS would find another way to track every single car on the road, likely by relying on the services of private companies like Vigilant Solutions, one of the largest aggregators and purveyors of license-plate data.
Companies like Vigilant, as well as police agencies in all 50 states, use automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to capture an image of every license plate they encounter. Plate readers—essentially high-speed cameras mounted on patrol cars or at fixed locations—can scan up to 1,800 plates per minute.
The system marks the time and vehicle location and then checks the plate against a “hot list” of stolen vehicles, lapsed registrations, outstanding fines or warrants, etc. The system can also check for drivers with unpaid taxes or child support, lack of insurance or even to alert the repo man. Without legislative protections, private contractors will be free to sell license-plate data to the highest bidder.
With enough ALPRs, authorities can track the day-to-day movements of everyone who drives a car. By storing and mining that data, authorities can create a detailed profile of someone’s life: where they go and when, who they see, what they do. And this applies to everyone, whether they’re suspected of wrongdoing or not. This tracking of the public en masse raises serious privacy and constitutional concerns.
One way to fix this is to limit the amount of time authorities can retain license plate data. The shorter, the better. The NMA advocates that license plate information shouldn’t be stored at all and deleted immediately if it doesn’t result in a “hit.” Unfortunately, data retention polices vary widely by law enforcement agency, and some retain the information forever. DHS wants to access data going back five years (an outrageously long time), which raises the question of why keep data on a vehicle (and by extension a person) if they haven’t been implicated in wrongdoing? The answer should be obvious.
License plate readers should only be used for clearly defined purposes such as identifying vehicles of immediate interest or in missing persons cases. Using them for blanket, long-term surveillance violates a longstanding principle that government not monitor citizens unless it has individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.
The DHS scheme clearly goes too far and must not be implemented. We urge all NMA members to contact their U.S. senators and representatives to stop this flagrant intrusion on our privacy. Click here to get contact information for your legislators.
Tell your elected officials we need robust, standardized privacy protections for license plate data at the federal level. Legislation must balance the legitimate needs of law enforcement with the need to protect individual privacy. A good model comes from North Carolina where lawmakers considered an ALPR privacy bill to accomplish the following:
•Restrict the use of ALPRs to municipal, county or state law enforcement agencies
•Prevent sharing of plate data for any reason
•Require deletion of data after 10 days unless flagged
•Limit the types of crimes and violations that data can be used to investigate
•Restrict data matching to specific databases such the State Criminal Justice Information Network, National Crime Information Center and missing/kidnapped persons lists
ALPR technology is here to stay. The key to limiting its impact on privacy is to enact strict controls on how the data can be used, who has access to it, how long it can be retained and how widely it can be shared. This needs to happen at the federal level and state level.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/no_author/stop-the-police-states-latest-scheme/
National Motorists Association
We predicted it would happen. A year after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) scuttled plans to build its own nationwide database of vehicle license plate data, the agency is seeking bids from private contractors to provide the agency access to the same information.
DHS canceled last year’s plan in the wake of TSA domestic spying revelations and subsequent outrage over increasingly intrusive government surveillance. At the time, we predicted DHS would find another way to track every single car on the road, likely by relying on the services of private companies like Vigilant Solutions, one of the largest aggregators and purveyors of license-plate data.
Companies like Vigilant, as well as police agencies in all 50 states, use automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to capture an image of every license plate they encounter. Plate readers—essentially high-speed cameras mounted on patrol cars or at fixed locations—can scan up to 1,800 plates per minute.
The system marks the time and vehicle location and then checks the plate against a “hot list” of stolen vehicles, lapsed registrations, outstanding fines or warrants, etc. The system can also check for drivers with unpaid taxes or child support, lack of insurance or even to alert the repo man. Without legislative protections, private contractors will be free to sell license-plate data to the highest bidder.
With enough ALPRs, authorities can track the day-to-day movements of everyone who drives a car. By storing and mining that data, authorities can create a detailed profile of someone’s life: where they go and when, who they see, what they do. And this applies to everyone, whether they’re suspected of wrongdoing or not. This tracking of the public en masse raises serious privacy and constitutional concerns.
One way to fix this is to limit the amount of time authorities can retain license plate data. The shorter, the better. The NMA advocates that license plate information shouldn’t be stored at all and deleted immediately if it doesn’t result in a “hit.” Unfortunately, data retention polices vary widely by law enforcement agency, and some retain the information forever. DHS wants to access data going back five years (an outrageously long time), which raises the question of why keep data on a vehicle (and by extension a person) if they haven’t been implicated in wrongdoing? The answer should be obvious.
License plate readers should only be used for clearly defined purposes such as identifying vehicles of immediate interest or in missing persons cases. Using them for blanket, long-term surveillance violates a longstanding principle that government not monitor citizens unless it has individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.
The DHS scheme clearly goes too far and must not be implemented. We urge all NMA members to contact their U.S. senators and representatives to stop this flagrant intrusion on our privacy. Click here to get contact information for your legislators.
Tell your elected officials we need robust, standardized privacy protections for license plate data at the federal level. Legislation must balance the legitimate needs of law enforcement with the need to protect individual privacy. A good model comes from North Carolina where lawmakers considered an ALPR privacy bill to accomplish the following:
•Restrict the use of ALPRs to municipal, county or state law enforcement agencies
•Prevent sharing of plate data for any reason
•Require deletion of data after 10 days unless flagged
•Limit the types of crimes and violations that data can be used to investigate
•Restrict data matching to specific databases such the State Criminal Justice Information Network, National Crime Information Center and missing/kidnapped persons lists
ALPR technology is here to stay. The key to limiting its impact on privacy is to enact strict controls on how the data can be used, who has access to it, how long it can be retained and how widely it can be shared. This needs to happen at the federal level and state level.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/no_author/stop-the-police-states-latest-scheme/
"In the society in which free lives matter, no more Fergusons, no more Baltimores, and, one would hope, no more civil unrest. But most important, no more police state. Now that’s something to look forward to..."
Free Lives Matter
By Scott Lazarowitz
The recent situations involving racial tensions, police criminality and violence in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere have solutions just waiting to be implemented. And those solutions involve freedom, believe it or not.
For example, if free lives actually did matter, it is doubtful that a government’s monopoly over policing and security could be justified. The same could be said for restrictions on the right to self-defense.
When free lives matter, there would not be white police shooting and killing black victims, because anyone involved in community policing or security would be civilians, either as paid workers or volunteers. No one would have any artificial legal authority over anyone else, and each individual is accountable for one’s own actions. No one would be above the law as currently government police are.
Further, with no restrictions on the individual’s right to keep and bear arms, if white security officers were seen in the process of beating, assaulting or shooting non-resisting presumably innocent people, such security thugs would be gunned down by the neighbors. Currently, civilians would be arrested or probably killed if they might act to protect innocent victims of the brutality of government-monopolized police.
There would also be no such thing as “stop and frisk.” In New York City the NYPD have been forced by court orders to “reform” such a practice of stopping mainly black and Hispanic people without reasonable suspicion and frisking and searching them.
Can you imagine civilians just going around and ordering others to stop and then forcibly frisking and searching them? (But then, there would be fewer young people just hanging around that police currently want to search, as government bureaucrats wouldn’t be causing the elimination of entry-level or low-skill jobs available for the young people to have. But I digress.)
And in a situation such as the Baltimore protests which turned violent recently, there would be no order on security people to “stand down,” in which the Baltimore government police were ordered by the mayor to “retreat” and to let the rioters loot and burn down buildings. In contrast in which free lives matter, any resident or business owner has the freedom to use any means necessary to protect one’s family or business and livelihood from looters, arsonists and thugs, and to use deadly force if necessary. Any mayor who would disarm the people or otherwise make them defenseless would be impeached! And it would not matter what anyone’s skin color is.
So with any groups or individuals considering going well beyond just protesting recent government police killings of black civilians, the would-be looters or arsonists would know that store owners and employees probably have firearms and will use them.
In the society in which free lives matter, there would be no “knock-out game,” as the would-be knock-out goon would know that anyone nearby could possess a firearm, and so it wouldn’t be worth the coward’s risk to strike out and punch some anonymous victim.
Also, with no government monopoly over policing and security, that would also mean that without government “law enforcement officers,” all the laws on the books that have nothing to do with preventing aggression, theft and fraud would have to be completely repealed. All laws which pertain to victimless so-called “crimes” would be repealed. Yay, freedom!
And no more drug raids at the wrong house. (No more drug raids at the right house, either.)
No more drug raids, period. No more innocent people being shot and maimed or murdered by government police, no more innocent dogs being shot and maimed or murdered by government police. Can you believe that?
So besides self-defense freedom in which police socialism is ended and there is no government monopoly in community policing and security, there would be no such thing as victimless “crimes,” no drug war.
And in a society in which free lives matter, there would be no bureaucrats’ war on entrepreneurs and workers, no “minimum wage” forcibly imposed by parasites, no other business regulations which turn innocent producers and workers into “criminals” for not obeying bureaucrats’ despotic and tyrannical orders and red tape. Thus many more jobs would spring up all around, and any younger people of any race in the city or suburbs can start a business as well as find jobs of their choosing and opportunities abound. No more hanging around at the mall, no more involvement in drugs, and no more resentment toward society.
In the society in which free lives matter, no more Fergusons, no more Baltimores, and, one would hope, no more civil unrest. But most important, no more police state. Now that’s something to look forward to, in my view.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/scott-lazarowitz/free-lives-matter/
By Scott Lazarowitz
The recent situations involving racial tensions, police criminality and violence in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere have solutions just waiting to be implemented. And those solutions involve freedom, believe it or not.
For example, if free lives actually did matter, it is doubtful that a government’s monopoly over policing and security could be justified. The same could be said for restrictions on the right to self-defense.
When free lives matter, there would not be white police shooting and killing black victims, because anyone involved in community policing or security would be civilians, either as paid workers or volunteers. No one would have any artificial legal authority over anyone else, and each individual is accountable for one’s own actions. No one would be above the law as currently government police are.
Further, with no restrictions on the individual’s right to keep and bear arms, if white security officers were seen in the process of beating, assaulting or shooting non-resisting presumably innocent people, such security thugs would be gunned down by the neighbors. Currently, civilians would be arrested or probably killed if they might act to protect innocent victims of the brutality of government-monopolized police.
There would also be no such thing as “stop and frisk.” In New York City the NYPD have been forced by court orders to “reform” such a practice of stopping mainly black and Hispanic people without reasonable suspicion and frisking and searching them.
Can you imagine civilians just going around and ordering others to stop and then forcibly frisking and searching them? (But then, there would be fewer young people just hanging around that police currently want to search, as government bureaucrats wouldn’t be causing the elimination of entry-level or low-skill jobs available for the young people to have. But I digress.)
And in a situation such as the Baltimore protests which turned violent recently, there would be no order on security people to “stand down,” in which the Baltimore government police were ordered by the mayor to “retreat” and to let the rioters loot and burn down buildings. In contrast in which free lives matter, any resident or business owner has the freedom to use any means necessary to protect one’s family or business and livelihood from looters, arsonists and thugs, and to use deadly force if necessary. Any mayor who would disarm the people or otherwise make them defenseless would be impeached! And it would not matter what anyone’s skin color is.
So with any groups or individuals considering going well beyond just protesting recent government police killings of black civilians, the would-be looters or arsonists would know that store owners and employees probably have firearms and will use them.
In the society in which free lives matter, there would be no “knock-out game,” as the would-be knock-out goon would know that anyone nearby could possess a firearm, and so it wouldn’t be worth the coward’s risk to strike out and punch some anonymous victim.
Also, with no government monopoly over policing and security, that would also mean that without government “law enforcement officers,” all the laws on the books that have nothing to do with preventing aggression, theft and fraud would have to be completely repealed. All laws which pertain to victimless so-called “crimes” would be repealed. Yay, freedom!
And no more drug raids at the wrong house. (No more drug raids at the right house, either.)
No more drug raids, period. No more innocent people being shot and maimed or murdered by government police, no more innocent dogs being shot and maimed or murdered by government police. Can you believe that?
So besides self-defense freedom in which police socialism is ended and there is no government monopoly in community policing and security, there would be no such thing as victimless “crimes,” no drug war.
And in a society in which free lives matter, there would be no bureaucrats’ war on entrepreneurs and workers, no “minimum wage” forcibly imposed by parasites, no other business regulations which turn innocent producers and workers into “criminals” for not obeying bureaucrats’ despotic and tyrannical orders and red tape. Thus many more jobs would spring up all around, and any younger people of any race in the city or suburbs can start a business as well as find jobs of their choosing and opportunities abound. No more hanging around at the mall, no more involvement in drugs, and no more resentment toward society.
In the society in which free lives matter, no more Fergusons, no more Baltimores, and, one would hope, no more civil unrest. But most important, no more police state. Now that’s something to look forward to, in my view.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/scott-lazarowitz/free-lives-matter/
Friday, May 1, 2015
"Workers of the world, unite! For libertarianism!"
Workers of the World, Unite!
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Today, May 1, is International Workers’ Day. According to Wikipedia, it is “a celebration of laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement, anarchists, socialists, and communists and occurs every year on May Day, 1 May.”
If only workers all over the world were to come to the realization that socialism and communism are their worst enemies and that the greatest friend of the working class is libertarianism.
Imagine a society in which everyone is poor, verging on starvation. How is socialism going to help the working person in that society? Socialism is based on forcibly taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. But that obviously won’t work here because there are no rich people. Everyone is poor.
How about passing a minimum-wage law? That won’t work here either because there are no businesses. That’s because everyone is poor and almost starving to death. With no businesses, there are no employees. Thus, enacting a minimum wage would be meaningless.
So, the real question is: How do we create wealth in this impoverished society? How do we create a base of prosperity, one in which people are no longer on the verge of starvation and actually experiencing increases in their standard of living?
That’s where libertarianism comes in. You leave everyone in this society free to engage in any economic enterprise, with no government interference whatsoever. No permits, licenses, or other official permission to open a business, sell a produce, or offer a service. No governmental interference whatsoever with any economic trade or transaction. No price controls and no minimum-wage laws. People shall be free to accumulate everything they earn. No income taxes, capital-gain taxes, or inheritance taxes. No governmental control over money. A totally free-market monetary system.
At first, people will, of course, still be poor. That can’t be avoided. But now they have a real chance to survive. Each person figures out what type of product or service he can offer to others. Some people decide they want to start a business and hire others. At first there is barter. Gradually, people find a common medium of exchange, maybe gold or silver.
People begin accumulating wealth. They save it. They deposit it into banks, which some people are now opening. The bankers lend the money to businessmen who wish to purchase better equipment and tools, which make their workers more productive. Higher productivity leads to increased revenues, which enables employers to pay higher wages.
Do workers have to depend on the benevolence of employers for higher wages? Absolutely not! They need only depend on a number of businesses competing for labor services by offering higher wages. The more businesses, the better off the workers will be.
Thus, contrary to what socialists have maintained ever since Karl Marx, there is a harmony of interests between employers and employees. Employees have a vested interest in the success of the firm they are working for. And they also have a vested interest in the success of many other businesses. The more overall prosperity there is in society, the better off workers will be.
For that matter, the greater the amount of wealth in society, the more voluntary charity there will be.
As the overall standard of living rises, unfortunately the statists pop up, arguing that it’s not fair for some to have more and others to have less. They persuade workers that socialism and economic fascism are in their interests. So, the government begins taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It enacts price controls and minimum-wage laws. It requires licenses and permits to engage in selected economic endeavors. The result is that the wealth-producing process is reversed, with society moving into a downward economic spiral rather than an upward one.
If workers of the world want poverty, they should embrace socialism, fascism, or communism. If they want economic prosperity and rising standards of living, they should embrace libertarianism.
Workers of the world, unite! For libertarianism!
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/05/01/workers-world-unite/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Today, May 1, is International Workers’ Day. According to Wikipedia, it is “a celebration of laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement, anarchists, socialists, and communists and occurs every year on May Day, 1 May.”
If only workers all over the world were to come to the realization that socialism and communism are their worst enemies and that the greatest friend of the working class is libertarianism.
Imagine a society in which everyone is poor, verging on starvation. How is socialism going to help the working person in that society? Socialism is based on forcibly taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. But that obviously won’t work here because there are no rich people. Everyone is poor.
How about passing a minimum-wage law? That won’t work here either because there are no businesses. That’s because everyone is poor and almost starving to death. With no businesses, there are no employees. Thus, enacting a minimum wage would be meaningless.
So, the real question is: How do we create wealth in this impoverished society? How do we create a base of prosperity, one in which people are no longer on the verge of starvation and actually experiencing increases in their standard of living?
That’s where libertarianism comes in. You leave everyone in this society free to engage in any economic enterprise, with no government interference whatsoever. No permits, licenses, or other official permission to open a business, sell a produce, or offer a service. No governmental interference whatsoever with any economic trade or transaction. No price controls and no minimum-wage laws. People shall be free to accumulate everything they earn. No income taxes, capital-gain taxes, or inheritance taxes. No governmental control over money. A totally free-market monetary system.
At first, people will, of course, still be poor. That can’t be avoided. But now they have a real chance to survive. Each person figures out what type of product or service he can offer to others. Some people decide they want to start a business and hire others. At first there is barter. Gradually, people find a common medium of exchange, maybe gold or silver.
People begin accumulating wealth. They save it. They deposit it into banks, which some people are now opening. The bankers lend the money to businessmen who wish to purchase better equipment and tools, which make their workers more productive. Higher productivity leads to increased revenues, which enables employers to pay higher wages.
Do workers have to depend on the benevolence of employers for higher wages? Absolutely not! They need only depend on a number of businesses competing for labor services by offering higher wages. The more businesses, the better off the workers will be.
Thus, contrary to what socialists have maintained ever since Karl Marx, there is a harmony of interests between employers and employees. Employees have a vested interest in the success of the firm they are working for. And they also have a vested interest in the success of many other businesses. The more overall prosperity there is in society, the better off workers will be.
For that matter, the greater the amount of wealth in society, the more voluntary charity there will be.
As the overall standard of living rises, unfortunately the statists pop up, arguing that it’s not fair for some to have more and others to have less. They persuade workers that socialism and economic fascism are in their interests. So, the government begins taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It enacts price controls and minimum-wage laws. It requires licenses and permits to engage in selected economic endeavors. The result is that the wealth-producing process is reversed, with society moving into a downward economic spiral rather than an upward one.
If workers of the world want poverty, they should embrace socialism, fascism, or communism. If they want economic prosperity and rising standards of living, they should embrace libertarianism.
Workers of the world, unite! For libertarianism!
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/05/01/workers-world-unite/
Got psychotropic drugs???
Almost one-fifth of Americans now take psychotropic drugs to cope with everyday life
by: Jonathan Benson
The results of the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index are in, and the methods by which many Americans now cope with their daily lives in this brave new world are sobering. Roughly one in five individuals living in the U.S., based on a random survey of people living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, now take some type of mood-altering drug or medication daily just to make it through their miserable lives.
After conducting interviews with at least 450 residents of each U.S. state between January and December 2014, researchers found that about 20% of folks, on average, use pharmaceutical pills or other substances on a day-to-day basis to feel happy and stable. Each individual was asked, open-ended, whether or not he or she uses drugs that "affect your mood or help you relax," and about one in five answered yes.
The types of drugs people use to this end were not specified, and may include both "legal" medications like pharma pills, alcohol and nicotine, as well as various "illegal" substances. The worst state with the most drug use was West Virginia at 28.1%, followed closely behind by Rhode Island at 25.9%, Kentucky at 24.5% and Alabama at 24.2%.
Meanwhile, the states with the lowest rates of daily mood-altering drug use were found to be Alaska at 13.5%, Wyoming at 15.5% and California at 15.8%. Most of the states with the lowest rates of drug use are located in the western U.S., in fact, while the states with the highest rates of drug use are in the southern U.S.
"Nationally, 18.9% of Americans report using a mood-altering substance nearly every day, while the majority, 62.2% say they never use such drugs," reports Gallup. "About two in 10 Americans report using drugs or medication rarely or sometimes."
Southern states that oppose natural cannabis openly embrace synthetic painkiller pharmaceuticals
Interestingly, states where naturally mood-stabilizing and painkilling cannabis is legal either recreationally or medically, or both, have some of the lowest rates of daily drug use, according to the survey. These include California, where medical cannabis has been legal since 1996; Alaska, where recreational cannabis was recently legalized alongside medical cannabis; and Colorado, where both recreational and medical cannabis are now legal.
Meanwhile, conservative "Bible Belt" states in the Deep South, where cannabis is still almost uniformly prohibited, have some of the highest rates of drug use, both legal and illegal. These include West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi, all of which still treat liberty as it pertains to cannabis use and cultivation with ironic disdain.
"Southern states make up six of the top 10 highest drug use states, while Alaskans, Wyomingites and Californians are least likely to say they use such drugs almost every day," reports Gallup. "More than one in five residents of Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi and Missouri [headquarters of Monsanto] report using a drug or medicated substance to alter their mood or relax on a near-daily basis."
The evident hypocrisy of the control-obsessed South in prohibiting natural cannabis while embracing synthetic painkillers and psychotropic pharmaceuticals is astounding. But it just goes to show how urgently prohibition needs to be abolished for the betterment of society, as states that are further along in ending the failed "War on Drugs" clearly have lower rates of drug use almost across the board, while those that still believe they're doing "God's work" by criminalizing a plant have some of the highest rates of drug use in the country.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049556_psychotropic_drugs_opioid_painkillers_marijuana_prohibition.html#ixzz3YtXEHVtV
by: Jonathan Benson
The results of the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index are in, and the methods by which many Americans now cope with their daily lives in this brave new world are sobering. Roughly one in five individuals living in the U.S., based on a random survey of people living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, now take some type of mood-altering drug or medication daily just to make it through their miserable lives.
After conducting interviews with at least 450 residents of each U.S. state between January and December 2014, researchers found that about 20% of folks, on average, use pharmaceutical pills or other substances on a day-to-day basis to feel happy and stable. Each individual was asked, open-ended, whether or not he or she uses drugs that "affect your mood or help you relax," and about one in five answered yes.
The types of drugs people use to this end were not specified, and may include both "legal" medications like pharma pills, alcohol and nicotine, as well as various "illegal" substances. The worst state with the most drug use was West Virginia at 28.1%, followed closely behind by Rhode Island at 25.9%, Kentucky at 24.5% and Alabama at 24.2%.
Meanwhile, the states with the lowest rates of daily mood-altering drug use were found to be Alaska at 13.5%, Wyoming at 15.5% and California at 15.8%. Most of the states with the lowest rates of drug use are located in the western U.S., in fact, while the states with the highest rates of drug use are in the southern U.S.
"Nationally, 18.9% of Americans report using a mood-altering substance nearly every day, while the majority, 62.2% say they never use such drugs," reports Gallup. "About two in 10 Americans report using drugs or medication rarely or sometimes."
Southern states that oppose natural cannabis openly embrace synthetic painkiller pharmaceuticals
Interestingly, states where naturally mood-stabilizing and painkilling cannabis is legal either recreationally or medically, or both, have some of the lowest rates of daily drug use, according to the survey. These include California, where medical cannabis has been legal since 1996; Alaska, where recreational cannabis was recently legalized alongside medical cannabis; and Colorado, where both recreational and medical cannabis are now legal.
Meanwhile, conservative "Bible Belt" states in the Deep South, where cannabis is still almost uniformly prohibited, have some of the highest rates of drug use, both legal and illegal. These include West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi, all of which still treat liberty as it pertains to cannabis use and cultivation with ironic disdain.
"Southern states make up six of the top 10 highest drug use states, while Alaskans, Wyomingites and Californians are least likely to say they use such drugs almost every day," reports Gallup. "More than one in five residents of Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi and Missouri [headquarters of Monsanto] report using a drug or medicated substance to alter their mood or relax on a near-daily basis."
The evident hypocrisy of the control-obsessed South in prohibiting natural cannabis while embracing synthetic painkillers and psychotropic pharmaceuticals is astounding. But it just goes to show how urgently prohibition needs to be abolished for the betterment of society, as states that are further along in ending the failed "War on Drugs" clearly have lower rates of drug use almost across the board, while those that still believe they're doing "God's work" by criminalizing a plant have some of the highest rates of drug use in the country.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049556_psychotropic_drugs_opioid_painkillers_marijuana_prohibition.html#ixzz3YtXEHVtV
"The notion that the state can put its seal on favored science, enforce it and punish its competitors, is anathema to a free society."
A totalitarian society has totalitarian science
by Jon Rappoport
Totalitarian science lets you know you’re living in a totalitarian society.
The government, the press, the mega-corporations, the prestigious foundations, the academic institutions, the “humanitarian” organizations say:
“This is the disease. This is its name. This is what causes it. This is the drug that treats it. This is the vaccine that prevents it.”
“This is how accurate diagnosis is done. These are the tests. These are the possible results and what they mean.”
“Here are the genes. This is what they do. This is how they can be changed and substituted and manipulated. These are the outcomes.”
“These are the data and the statistics. They are correct. There can be no argument about them.”
“This is life. These are the components of life. All change and improvement result from our management of the components.”
“This is the path. It is governed by truth which science reveals. Walk the path. We will inform you when you stray. We will report new improvements.”
“This is the end. You can go no farther. You must give up the ghost. We will remember you.””
We are now witnessing the acceleration of Official Science. Of course, that term is an internal contradiction. But the state shrugs and moves forward.
The notion that the state can put its seal on favored science, enforce it and punish its competitors, is anathema to a free society.
For example:
•Declaring that psychiatrists can appear in court as expert witnesses, when none of the so-called mental disorders listed in the psychiatric literature are diagnosed by laboratory tests.
•Stating that vaccination is mandatory, in order to protect the vaccinated (who are supposed to be immune) from the unvaccinated. An absurdity on its face.
•Announcing that the science of climate change is “settled,” when there are, in fact, huge numbers of researchers who disagree. And then, drafting legislation and issuing executive orders based on the decidedly unsettled science.
•Officially approving the release and sale of medical drugs (“safe and effective”) which go on to kill, at a conservative estimate, 100,000 Americans every year. And then refusing to investigate or punish the purveyors of these drug approvals (the FDA).
•Permitting the widespread use of genetically modified food crops, based on no long-term studies of their impact on human health. And then, arbitrarily announcing that the herbicide, Roundup, for which many of these crops are specifically designed, is non-toxic.
•Declaring and promoting the existence of various epidemics, when the viruses purportedly causing them are not proven to exist and/or not proven to cause human illness (SARS, West Nile, Swine Flu, etc.)
A few of you reading this have been with me since 1988, when I published my first book, “AIDS INC., Scandal of the Century”. Among other conclusions, I pointed out that HIV had never been shown to cause human illness; the front-line drug given to AIDS patients, AZT, was overwhelmingly toxic; and what was being called AIDS was actually a diverse number immune-suppressing conditions.
Others of you have found my work more recently, since I started this site in 2001. I always return to the subject of false science, because it is the most powerful long-term instrument for repression, political control, and destruction of human life.
I thank you for your support and interest.
As I’ve stated on many occasions, medical science is ideal for mounting and launching covert ops aimed at populations– because it appears to be politically neutral, without any allegiance to state interests.
Unfortunately, medical science, on many fronts, has been hijacked and taken over. The profit motive is one objective, but beyond that, there is a more embracing goal: Totalitarian control.
It aims to replace your freedom, consciousness and intelligence with its own synthetic versions.
Resist.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/a-totalitarian-society-has-totalitarian-science/
by Jon Rappoport
Totalitarian science lets you know you’re living in a totalitarian society.
The government, the press, the mega-corporations, the prestigious foundations, the academic institutions, the “humanitarian” organizations say:
“This is the disease. This is its name. This is what causes it. This is the drug that treats it. This is the vaccine that prevents it.”
“This is how accurate diagnosis is done. These are the tests. These are the possible results and what they mean.”
“Here are the genes. This is what they do. This is how they can be changed and substituted and manipulated. These are the outcomes.”
“These are the data and the statistics. They are correct. There can be no argument about them.”
“This is life. These are the components of life. All change and improvement result from our management of the components.”
“This is the path. It is governed by truth which science reveals. Walk the path. We will inform you when you stray. We will report new improvements.”
“This is the end. You can go no farther. You must give up the ghost. We will remember you.””
We are now witnessing the acceleration of Official Science. Of course, that term is an internal contradiction. But the state shrugs and moves forward.
The notion that the state can put its seal on favored science, enforce it and punish its competitors, is anathema to a free society.
For example:
•Declaring that psychiatrists can appear in court as expert witnesses, when none of the so-called mental disorders listed in the psychiatric literature are diagnosed by laboratory tests.
•Stating that vaccination is mandatory, in order to protect the vaccinated (who are supposed to be immune) from the unvaccinated. An absurdity on its face.
•Announcing that the science of climate change is “settled,” when there are, in fact, huge numbers of researchers who disagree. And then, drafting legislation and issuing executive orders based on the decidedly unsettled science.
•Officially approving the release and sale of medical drugs (“safe and effective”) which go on to kill, at a conservative estimate, 100,000 Americans every year. And then refusing to investigate or punish the purveyors of these drug approvals (the FDA).
•Permitting the widespread use of genetically modified food crops, based on no long-term studies of their impact on human health. And then, arbitrarily announcing that the herbicide, Roundup, for which many of these crops are specifically designed, is non-toxic.
•Declaring and promoting the existence of various epidemics, when the viruses purportedly causing them are not proven to exist and/or not proven to cause human illness (SARS, West Nile, Swine Flu, etc.)
A few of you reading this have been with me since 1988, when I published my first book, “AIDS INC., Scandal of the Century”. Among other conclusions, I pointed out that HIV had never been shown to cause human illness; the front-line drug given to AIDS patients, AZT, was overwhelmingly toxic; and what was being called AIDS was actually a diverse number immune-suppressing conditions.
Others of you have found my work more recently, since I started this site in 2001. I always return to the subject of false science, because it is the most powerful long-term instrument for repression, political control, and destruction of human life.
I thank you for your support and interest.
As I’ve stated on many occasions, medical science is ideal for mounting and launching covert ops aimed at populations– because it appears to be politically neutral, without any allegiance to state interests.
Unfortunately, medical science, on many fronts, has been hijacked and taken over. The profit motive is one objective, but beyond that, there is a more embracing goal: Totalitarian control.
It aims to replace your freedom, consciousness and intelligence with its own synthetic versions.
Resist.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/a-totalitarian-society-has-totalitarian-science/
If it walks like a duck...
Call a thug ‘a thug’
by Ben Crystal
If you looted, stole, robbed, assaulted and/or set fire to something/someone in Baltimore, you’re a thug. Torching the neighborhood pharmacy doesn’t make you a revolutionary. Stealing Air Jordans from the local shoe store is not a cry of freedom. And throwing trash cans at passersby will not release you from the bonds of – whatever bonds you believe are holding you back.
A coordinated effort to resist the increasingly militarized storm troopers employed by the government to crush the life out of liberty is social activism. Throwing a brick at tourists who made a wrong turn on the way to Inner Harbor is not.
There’s no nobility in wanton destruction. And pretending otherwise diminishes the sacrifices made by those who were actually motivated by the greater good. Looters, thieves and violent savages not only deserve no respect, attempts to suggest otherwise elevate them beyond their station at the expense of those who manage to challenge the forces of tyranny without looting the Sports Mart. Acting as if Thuggy McThuggerston pinching Pringles from the Quik-E-Mart is “sticking it to the Man” makes a mockery of those who “stuck it to the Man” without knocking over a convenience store.
It’s time to stop parsing words in order to provide cover for the parasite class. “Thug” is not a racial slur. It doesn’t take a genius to notice there were white punks gleefully taking part in the Baltimore carnage; although I can’t attest to what percentage were there on the latest edition of the George Soros Loot-n-Burn scholarships.
In ascribing racial animus to “thug,” the left is actually asserting a moral and logical vertex between “thug” and “black.” The only people who seem to be fixated on a racial undertone are the liberals. I believe the textbooks call that “projection.” Hey Democrats: not all looters are black. And you’re the only ones who seem to think otherwise. Check with President Barack Obama and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. They have both quite comfortably described the rioters in Baltimore as “thugs.” And if they don’t convince you to climb off your racist donkeys, ask Baltimore City Councilman – and black man – Carl Stokes. He rocketed past “thug” on his way to “n*gger” during a recent appearance on CNN.
There are no Horatios at the bridge amongst the looters. And those who have stood up in the midst of the chaos to demand even slight return to human decency have become targets of ridicule, threats or worse.
Toya Graham, the “mom of the year” who publicly took her son to the woodshed after catching him joining the thug brigades, has been singled out for criticism; with some of the same liberals who cheered the rioters suggesting she face criminal charges for smacking Junior upside his head. Even longtime Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, who took a break from whining about the racism inherent in expecting the Obama Administration actually adhere to the rule of law, discovered firsthand how interested the rioters are in social justice when his pleas for calm were loudly rejected by his own constituents.
The real story of Baltimore is the same as the stories of Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, Oakland and pretty much every American city overrun with crime, poverty and despair. They’re all run by Democrats; and have all been run by Democrats for decades. Baltimore has elected precisely one non-Democrat to the city’s highest office in nearly 70 years, and that one was 50+ years ago.
There is no doubt that the government has grown into precisely the sort of menace the Founding Fathers warned us about. The litany of abuses by federal, state and local authorities, much of which has been dutifully recounted by the Personal Liberty Digest™, is longer than the “shady foreign donations” section of the Clinton Global Foundation’s bank statement.
The suffering inflicted on the people by the increasingly arrogant state has cost us more than the Qatari Royal Family blew on buying Al Gore’s failed TV channel. Acting like an overgrown 12-year-old not only does nothing to advance to the defense of liberty, it provides the state with precisely the justification it needs to exert even greater control.
If you want to make a statement against the arrogant tyranny of government, raise your voice when the government acts arrogantly tyrannical. IRS political targeting, job-and-business killing regulations and Obamacare are excellent examples; arresting thugs for setting their own neighborhoods on fire – again – is not.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/call-a-thug-a-thug/
by Ben Crystal
If you looted, stole, robbed, assaulted and/or set fire to something/someone in Baltimore, you’re a thug. Torching the neighborhood pharmacy doesn’t make you a revolutionary. Stealing Air Jordans from the local shoe store is not a cry of freedom. And throwing trash cans at passersby will not release you from the bonds of – whatever bonds you believe are holding you back.
A coordinated effort to resist the increasingly militarized storm troopers employed by the government to crush the life out of liberty is social activism. Throwing a brick at tourists who made a wrong turn on the way to Inner Harbor is not.
There’s no nobility in wanton destruction. And pretending otherwise diminishes the sacrifices made by those who were actually motivated by the greater good. Looters, thieves and violent savages not only deserve no respect, attempts to suggest otherwise elevate them beyond their station at the expense of those who manage to challenge the forces of tyranny without looting the Sports Mart. Acting as if Thuggy McThuggerston pinching Pringles from the Quik-E-Mart is “sticking it to the Man” makes a mockery of those who “stuck it to the Man” without knocking over a convenience store.
It’s time to stop parsing words in order to provide cover for the parasite class. “Thug” is not a racial slur. It doesn’t take a genius to notice there were white punks gleefully taking part in the Baltimore carnage; although I can’t attest to what percentage were there on the latest edition of the George Soros Loot-n-Burn scholarships.
In ascribing racial animus to “thug,” the left is actually asserting a moral and logical vertex between “thug” and “black.” The only people who seem to be fixated on a racial undertone are the liberals. I believe the textbooks call that “projection.” Hey Democrats: not all looters are black. And you’re the only ones who seem to think otherwise. Check with President Barack Obama and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. They have both quite comfortably described the rioters in Baltimore as “thugs.” And if they don’t convince you to climb off your racist donkeys, ask Baltimore City Councilman – and black man – Carl Stokes. He rocketed past “thug” on his way to “n*gger” during a recent appearance on CNN.
There are no Horatios at the bridge amongst the looters. And those who have stood up in the midst of the chaos to demand even slight return to human decency have become targets of ridicule, threats or worse.
Toya Graham, the “mom of the year” who publicly took her son to the woodshed after catching him joining the thug brigades, has been singled out for criticism; with some of the same liberals who cheered the rioters suggesting she face criminal charges for smacking Junior upside his head. Even longtime Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, who took a break from whining about the racism inherent in expecting the Obama Administration actually adhere to the rule of law, discovered firsthand how interested the rioters are in social justice when his pleas for calm were loudly rejected by his own constituents.
The real story of Baltimore is the same as the stories of Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, Oakland and pretty much every American city overrun with crime, poverty and despair. They’re all run by Democrats; and have all been run by Democrats for decades. Baltimore has elected precisely one non-Democrat to the city’s highest office in nearly 70 years, and that one was 50+ years ago.
There is no doubt that the government has grown into precisely the sort of menace the Founding Fathers warned us about. The litany of abuses by federal, state and local authorities, much of which has been dutifully recounted by the Personal Liberty Digest™, is longer than the “shady foreign donations” section of the Clinton Global Foundation’s bank statement.
The suffering inflicted on the people by the increasingly arrogant state has cost us more than the Qatari Royal Family blew on buying Al Gore’s failed TV channel. Acting like an overgrown 12-year-old not only does nothing to advance to the defense of liberty, it provides the state with precisely the justification it needs to exert even greater control.
If you want to make a statement against the arrogant tyranny of government, raise your voice when the government acts arrogantly tyrannical. IRS political targeting, job-and-business killing regulations and Obamacare are excellent examples; arresting thugs for setting their own neighborhoods on fire – again – is not.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/call-a-thug-a-thug/
Why is self-reliance feared???
Why the Government is so Afraid of the Self-Reliant
By Joshua Krause
I’m sure many of you remember when armed “nuisance abatement teams” from Los Angeles County, descended upon the independent minded folks who were living in the desert outskirts of the city. For the “crime” of living off the grid and growing their own food, they were harassed with fines, and forced to leave their homes at the barrel of a gun. It was probably the most dreadful moment for the prepper community in recent memory. Many of us would love to leave the city and live free of the system, but stories like that remind us that no matter where we go, the long arm of the government may be waiting to drag us back into the fold.
We have to ask ourselves, why does the government hate, nay fear, the self-reliant? On the surface it doesn’t make sense. It’s outrageous and has no practical value. Every person who is self-reliant is one less person the government has to provide for; and when disaster strikes, it takes some weight off of their disaster relief efforts.
But once you dig deeper, the reasons become abundantly clear. The short answer is that our government and many like it, is parasitic in nature. Some would argue that we don’t need half the services they provide, and even the ones we do need, are provided with gross inefficiency. Their system is designed to extract as much labor and capital from the population that it can so that they may spread the benefits to their cronies and dependents. It’s that simple. They don’t want you to be independent, because that’s one less person they can leach off of.
Again, that’s the short answer, and I’m sure every free thinking person already understands that concept. But if we want to get to the heart of the matter we have to ask ourselves, what does self-reliance even mean? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is understood as:
Reliance on one’s own efforts and abilities
Sounds self-explanatory, but in reality it doesn’t do the word any justice. It kind of reminds me of when President Obama said “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” He was correct to some degree, in that we all rely on other people for certain services. In that sense, none of us are self-reliant or ever will be. But if you want to find the true meaning of self-reliance, you need to define “reliance” by itself...
Read the rest here:
http://readynutrition.com/resources/why-the-government-is-so-afraid-of-the-self-reliant_30042015/
By Joshua Krause
I’m sure many of you remember when armed “nuisance abatement teams” from Los Angeles County, descended upon the independent minded folks who were living in the desert outskirts of the city. For the “crime” of living off the grid and growing their own food, they were harassed with fines, and forced to leave their homes at the barrel of a gun. It was probably the most dreadful moment for the prepper community in recent memory. Many of us would love to leave the city and live free of the system, but stories like that remind us that no matter where we go, the long arm of the government may be waiting to drag us back into the fold.
We have to ask ourselves, why does the government hate, nay fear, the self-reliant? On the surface it doesn’t make sense. It’s outrageous and has no practical value. Every person who is self-reliant is one less person the government has to provide for; and when disaster strikes, it takes some weight off of their disaster relief efforts.
But once you dig deeper, the reasons become abundantly clear. The short answer is that our government and many like it, is parasitic in nature. Some would argue that we don’t need half the services they provide, and even the ones we do need, are provided with gross inefficiency. Their system is designed to extract as much labor and capital from the population that it can so that they may spread the benefits to their cronies and dependents. It’s that simple. They don’t want you to be independent, because that’s one less person they can leach off of.
Again, that’s the short answer, and I’m sure every free thinking person already understands that concept. But if we want to get to the heart of the matter we have to ask ourselves, what does self-reliance even mean? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is understood as:
Reliance on one’s own efforts and abilities
Sounds self-explanatory, but in reality it doesn’t do the word any justice. It kind of reminds me of when President Obama said “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” He was correct to some degree, in that we all rely on other people for certain services. In that sense, none of us are self-reliant or ever will be. But if you want to find the true meaning of self-reliance, you need to define “reliance” by itself...
Read the rest here:
http://readynutrition.com/resources/why-the-government-is-so-afraid-of-the-self-reliant_30042015/
"Urban planning has controlled and regulated the cities. Zoning laws have ringed housing and land use with innumerable restrictions. Property taxes have crippled urban development and forced abandonment of houses. Building codes have restricted housing construction and made it more costly. Urban renewal has provided massive subsidies to real estate developers, forced the bulldozing of apartments and rental stores, lowered the supply of housing, and intensified racial discrimination. Extensive government loans have generated overbuilding in the suburbs. Rent controls have created apartment shortages and reduced the supply of residential housing."
Smelling Rats in Baltimore
By Christopher Westley
I visited Baltimore once, about 10 years ago, for an academic conference. While I remember its colonial-era architecture, the historic cathedral that once housed the great Cardinal Gibbons, and fun, chowder-laden conversations with local and visiting economists in brew pubs—the image that remains in my mind is that of the rats. These mangy pack animals seemed to populate every garbage dumpster that I passed at night heading to and from my hotel, and it made me think about the many millions of renovation monies that flowed into Baltimore in the post-Great Society years, much of it coerced, and how such spending is all for naught if the city weakens property rights institutions in the process.
People tend to take care of property when property rights are strong, and when they’re not, well, we see graffiti, litter, broken windows, and often, rats. If you disagree, then ask yourself: How many of these problems afflict your own house or business? I left Baltimore not terribly optimistic about its future and wondered how famous I might become if I was able to construct a “rat index” that gauged rat populations of inner cities that would serve as a proxy for property rights (or their lack).
Needless to say, this is not a project I pursued.
But now that Baltimore has become synonymous with police barricades, pepper spray, curfews, and looting—a sort of Ferguson East—I am reminded again of H.L. Mencken’s hometown. The course of events there have all been predictable and increasingly common. An outrageous and unnecessary death to a man in police custody followed by the descent of professional race-baiters, protests leading to riots and more confrontations with the police, looting of businesses that had nothing to do with the actual events spurring the protests, and calls for increased consciousness of problems in America dealing with race, as if this is a root of the problem.
Few people, mostly the economists, will note the role of deteriorating property rights institutions in Baltimore, even though the evidence is omnipresent. Consider this excerpt from Petula Dvorak’s article in the Washington Post:
If you want to understand the violence engulfing this city, you have to start here, on the street where Gray was taken into police custody. It is a blighted, joyless place of boarded-up buildings: Abandoned. Abandoned. Abandoned. Occupied. Abandoned. Occupied (I think). The sidewalks of Sandtown-Winchester are strewn with trash, and the signs on a tiny strip of scraggly grass deliver a dispiriting warning: “No Pets Allowed. No Ball Playing.”
“Blighted and joyless” pretty much explains the areas of any American city in which property rights violations have gone so far as to cause the productive to leave for less onerous tax and regulatory jurisdictions. In this respect, Baltimore’s Sandtown is no different from Washington Heights (Chicago), Joyland (Atlanta), Metcalfe Park (Milwaukee), or Islandview (Detroit). Would it be too much to ask for a Washington Post reporter to inquire whether decades of rent controls in Baltimore and elsewhere might have brought about outcomes such as these? Owners don’t abandon buildings because they want to, but they often do because price restrictions make them unprofitable to utilize in un-abandoned forms. Failure to bring up these basic economic points, which even socialists recognize, feeds into the false Hobbesian narrative that these outcomes simply reflect a state of nature and justify even further coercive interventions by government.
These interventions sow social division between those who are favored by it and those who are not. In this light, it’s worth asking about whether the many millions of dollars poured into Baltimore over the years in the name of urban renewal have had any positive effect on the city at all. Reporter Dvorak touches on this point too when she discusses the city’s Inner Harbor, which was “hailed in 1984 by the American Institute of Architects as ‘one of the supreme achievements of large-scale urban design in U.S. history.’” Baltimore is also home to the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center, as well as the famous Camden Yards, home to the Baltimore Orioles. Weren’t projects such as these supposed to bring Baltimore to a better place by now?
Not when they don’t counter property right destruction resulting from previous interventions in inner cities, often done in in pursuit of “urban renewal.” It feeds into a deadly cycle in which government interventions breed division and, in the extreme, violence, which then serve to justify more interventions. Chances are, if this process has not played itself out in your city, then it is likely property rights and the social harmony they engender are relatively more secure there, for the time being.
Not surprisingly, Murray Rothbard identified the crux of the problem in the 1970s:
Urban planning has controlled and regulated the cities. Zoning laws have ringed housing and land use with innumerable restrictions. Property taxes have crippled urban development and forced abandonment of houses. Building codes have restricted housing construction and made it more costly. Urban renewal has provided massive subsidies to real estate developers, forced the bulldozing of apartments and rental stores, lowered the supply of housing, and intensified racial discrimination. Extensive government loans have generated overbuilding in the suburbs. Rent controls have created apartment shortages and reduced the supply of residential housing.
In 2015, Baltimore is Exhibit A. Is there any wonder one still smells rats there?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/christopher-westley/smelling-rats/
By Christopher Westley
I visited Baltimore once, about 10 years ago, for an academic conference. While I remember its colonial-era architecture, the historic cathedral that once housed the great Cardinal Gibbons, and fun, chowder-laden conversations with local and visiting economists in brew pubs—the image that remains in my mind is that of the rats. These mangy pack animals seemed to populate every garbage dumpster that I passed at night heading to and from my hotel, and it made me think about the many millions of renovation monies that flowed into Baltimore in the post-Great Society years, much of it coerced, and how such spending is all for naught if the city weakens property rights institutions in the process.
People tend to take care of property when property rights are strong, and when they’re not, well, we see graffiti, litter, broken windows, and often, rats. If you disagree, then ask yourself: How many of these problems afflict your own house or business? I left Baltimore not terribly optimistic about its future and wondered how famous I might become if I was able to construct a “rat index” that gauged rat populations of inner cities that would serve as a proxy for property rights (or their lack).
Needless to say, this is not a project I pursued.
But now that Baltimore has become synonymous with police barricades, pepper spray, curfews, and looting—a sort of Ferguson East—I am reminded again of H.L. Mencken’s hometown. The course of events there have all been predictable and increasingly common. An outrageous and unnecessary death to a man in police custody followed by the descent of professional race-baiters, protests leading to riots and more confrontations with the police, looting of businesses that had nothing to do with the actual events spurring the protests, and calls for increased consciousness of problems in America dealing with race, as if this is a root of the problem.
Few people, mostly the economists, will note the role of deteriorating property rights institutions in Baltimore, even though the evidence is omnipresent. Consider this excerpt from Petula Dvorak’s article in the Washington Post:
If you want to understand the violence engulfing this city, you have to start here, on the street where Gray was taken into police custody. It is a blighted, joyless place of boarded-up buildings: Abandoned. Abandoned. Abandoned. Occupied. Abandoned. Occupied (I think). The sidewalks of Sandtown-Winchester are strewn with trash, and the signs on a tiny strip of scraggly grass deliver a dispiriting warning: “No Pets Allowed. No Ball Playing.”
“Blighted and joyless” pretty much explains the areas of any American city in which property rights violations have gone so far as to cause the productive to leave for less onerous tax and regulatory jurisdictions. In this respect, Baltimore’s Sandtown is no different from Washington Heights (Chicago), Joyland (Atlanta), Metcalfe Park (Milwaukee), or Islandview (Detroit). Would it be too much to ask for a Washington Post reporter to inquire whether decades of rent controls in Baltimore and elsewhere might have brought about outcomes such as these? Owners don’t abandon buildings because they want to, but they often do because price restrictions make them unprofitable to utilize in un-abandoned forms. Failure to bring up these basic economic points, which even socialists recognize, feeds into the false Hobbesian narrative that these outcomes simply reflect a state of nature and justify even further coercive interventions by government.
These interventions sow social division between those who are favored by it and those who are not. In this light, it’s worth asking about whether the many millions of dollars poured into Baltimore over the years in the name of urban renewal have had any positive effect on the city at all. Reporter Dvorak touches on this point too when she discusses the city’s Inner Harbor, which was “hailed in 1984 by the American Institute of Architects as ‘one of the supreme achievements of large-scale urban design in U.S. history.’” Baltimore is also home to the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center, as well as the famous Camden Yards, home to the Baltimore Orioles. Weren’t projects such as these supposed to bring Baltimore to a better place by now?
Not when they don’t counter property right destruction resulting from previous interventions in inner cities, often done in in pursuit of “urban renewal.” It feeds into a deadly cycle in which government interventions breed division and, in the extreme, violence, which then serve to justify more interventions. Chances are, if this process has not played itself out in your city, then it is likely property rights and the social harmony they engender are relatively more secure there, for the time being.
Not surprisingly, Murray Rothbard identified the crux of the problem in the 1970s:
Urban planning has controlled and regulated the cities. Zoning laws have ringed housing and land use with innumerable restrictions. Property taxes have crippled urban development and forced abandonment of houses. Building codes have restricted housing construction and made it more costly. Urban renewal has provided massive subsidies to real estate developers, forced the bulldozing of apartments and rental stores, lowered the supply of housing, and intensified racial discrimination. Extensive government loans have generated overbuilding in the suburbs. Rent controls have created apartment shortages and reduced the supply of residential housing.
In 2015, Baltimore is Exhibit A. Is there any wonder one still smells rats there?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/christopher-westley/smelling-rats/
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