Augustine2004's opinions on Lew Rockwell, Plato, and assorted other subjects

[Augustine2004]

Wowsers. The beginning of the end of fiat money? Perhaps not total, but maybe the gold standard will regain most of its former shine by the end of next year: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/...4788&sn=Detail

* This comic strip (May 16 Wizard of Id) seems to me to show quite well a reason we lost in Vietnam. http://comics.com/wizard_of_id/ (Hurry if you don’t want to register to see the archive–but why not register?)

[Augustine2004]

Gary North discusses what he calls a voter insurrection http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north843.html
So far it’s merely an insurrection, not a true revolution, i.e., the total dissolution of the USFG, including the empire. What, besides reeducating the people, can Rothbardians do? Generally, nothing much. Refuse to vote in elections, but that’s pretty much meaningless in the general scheme of things. Live a life of semi-poverty to minimize taxes used to grow the empire. If necessary, refuse to obey injurious orders including laws and regulations. What else?

Part of reeducating the public is to teach how to obtain, analyze, and validate information, and act on what you learn. Our schools are not simply incompetent in performing that task; they are positively teaching us to depend on our leaders to tell us what we are supposed to know. Hence I would like to discuss this op-ed http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer216.html I’ve not finished pondering the points it makes yet.

[Faramir]

Gary North discusses what he calls a voter insurrection http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north843.html
So far it’s merely an insurrection, not a true revolution, i.e., the total dissolution of the USFG, including the empire. What, besides reeducating the people, can Rothbardians do? Generally, nothing much. Refuse to vote in elections, but that’s pretty much meaningless in the general scheme of things. Live a life of semi-poverty to minimize taxes used to grow the empire. If necessary, refuse to obey injurious orders including laws and regulations. What else?

I read this article by Gary North at the Campaign for Liberty site and thought what an excellent easy to understand explanation of the mess we are in or will be in soon. http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=853

I'm surprised you hadn't mentioned it yet.

[Augustine2004]

Let me know with a post here or by PM if you already know about news like these reports:

Tylenol recall for children’s pills
http://www.fiercepharmamanufacturing...ity/2010-05-12

http://www.merinews.com/article/tyle...15806211.shtml

An editorial that I saw this morning decried the FDA’s lack of alarm, saying that we can’t even rely on it to take decisive action. We could expect the FDA to allow unsafe drugs, but when drugs that we trusted are now unsafely manufactured . . . (If you want to know the source of the editorial, you’ll have to PM me for the reference.)

[Augustine2004]

I read this article by Gary North at the Campaign for Liberty site and thought what an excellent easy to understand explanation of the mess we are in or will be in soon. http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=853

I'm surprised you hadn't mentioned it yet.

North’s article does make things clear.

It is beginning to dawn on a minority of voters that the political game is rigged in favor of big banks. It has taken a century for this to begin to register. This is a threat to Establishments everywhere. This was the #1 secret that the Establishments have attempted to conceal.

I did say that we need to reeducate the public. This is welcome news, though, if true.

Should I have mentioned the article? As I now recall, I rushed through it. I’m not certain, though, whether I would have mentioned it otherwise. North repeated points he’d made before, such as the politicians’ propensity to kick the can down the road further on.

Leaders of the Parasite Class want only what they can rip off in the immediate future. The distant future–especially the future after their deaths--can go hang; they don’t care.

[Augustine2004]

In this speech
http://www.wben.com/READ-FULL-TEXT-o...n-Buff/7040933
Obama claims credit for putting the nation on the road to full recovery. That would mean the government fixed what was wrong with the economy. Bah!

If Obama really believes the following passage

We know that government must play a role in meeting this goal – but we also know that its role is limited. That’s because government is not the true engine of job creation and economic growth in this country. Businesses are. Especially small businesses like this one.

America’s small business owners – people like Dave Sullivan – have always been the backbone of America’s economy. These entrepreneurial pioneers embody the spirit of possibility, the tireless work ethic, and the simple hope for something better that lies at the heart of the American ideal. These are the men and women willing to take a chance on their dream. They’ve got good ideas and the drive to follow through. They’ve started the mom-and-pop stores and garage tinkering that have led to some of America’s biggest, most successful businesses. And they create most of the jobs that keep our workers employed. In fact, over the past decade and a half, America’s small businesses have created 65% of all new jobs in this country.

The problem is, our small businesses have also been some of the hardest hit by this recession. From the middle of 2007 through the end of 2008, small businesses lost 2.4 million jobs. And because banks shrunk from lending in the midst of the financial crisis, it has been difficult for entrepreneurs to take out the loans they need to start a business. For those who do own a small business, it’s been difficult to finance inventories, make payrolls, or expand if things are going well.

Government can’t create jobs, but it can create the conditions for small businesses to grow and thrive and hire more workers. Government can’t guarantee a company’s success, but it can knock down the barriers that prevent small business owners from getting loans or investing in the future. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

then he’s either an idiot–someone who doesn’t understand what’s going on–or truly a member of the Parasite Class. You ought to know how difficult our governments make it for small businesses. You ought to know about the partnerships between certain big businesses and the government. Goldman Sachs is merely the most glaring example out of many examples.

We don’t really have any of this ‘goverment out of the way’ business, do we!? The nationalization of the banking industry, the automobile industry, mortgage, etc. More regs, more laws, more . . .

To be sure, Obama did soon afterwards in his speech mention measures that the USFG had taken recently to create a better environment for small businesses. But we need complete getting out of the way.

eta: Is that not a virtual public admission (mentioning all those measures to make things easier for small businesses to start up and to create jobs) that the USFG is bad for the economy?


* Did you see this video? Obama’s Administration has now lasted 16 months yet we still have Iraq under our thumb http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewr...ves/58081.html

[joel]

Just saw the new Robin Hood movie (with Russell Crowe). Pretty good libertarian movie. The opening text said something about how when the laws become oppressive, then men must become outlaws. When people begin to assert their rights the King mockingly asks if each man is to be provided his own castle (i.e., government welfare), and the reply is no, that all we ask for is liberty, no handouts. And every man's home is is castle.

[Augustine2004]

Another Big Pharma scam the FDA is aiding and abetting: ‘High cholesterol.’ As long as your HDL is high enough, high total-cholesterol numbers has no clinical significance according to the Framingham Study and many scientists.

Castiglioni A, Neuman WR. “HDL Cholesterol: What Is Its True Clinical Significance?” Emergency Medicine, January 2003:pp 30-42.
2 Castelli WP. “Cholesterol and lipids in the risk of coronary artery disease – the Framingham Heart Study.” Canadian Journal of Cardiology. 1998 July; 4 Suppl A:5A-10A.

[Faramir]

Just saw the new Robin Hood movie (with Russell Crowe). Pretty good libertarian movie. The opening text said something about how when the laws become oppressive, then men must become outlaws. When people begin to assert their rights the King mockingly asks if each man is to be provided his own castle (i.e., government welfare), and the reply is no, that all we ask for is liberty, no handouts. And every man's home is is castle.

I think this is why the tale of Robin Hood is so endearing.

The statists can claim him as one of their own because he redistributes wealth from the rich to the poor.

The libertarian can claim him as one of their own because he returns the unfair taxes taken by a corrupt usurper and returns them to the working people who earned the wealth.

Of course, I tend to favor the latter understanding.

[Augustine2004]

I would very much like to discuss this article
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer217.html
Did you see that neither the author (Butler Shaffer) nor Karen de Coster seems to recognize the problem of making the violator make his victim whole? I certainly agree that people should first use peaceful means to resolve their differences, if they are not too big to ignore (‘don’t sweat the small stuff’). But suppose a community agrees that Brad has Sally’s TV and that he should return it plus some recompense for depriving her use of the TV. Yet he refuses to return the TV. He won’t explain why. Sally says that she does not know what she could have done that would justify his recalcitrance or taking the TV. The community agrees that Brad’s keeping the TV is not justified. What then can the community do? If it chooses on its own to recompense Sally, that leaves standing the problem of Brad’s making restitution. For one thing, people inclined to doing evil may thus be tempted by such communal inaction: ‘I’m gonna rob a bank; nobody’s going to make me give the money back.’

* The stock market (Dow Industrials) priced in gold. http://pragcap.com/the-dow-in-gold

[Augustine2004]

An argument for health care is that the poor are better off as wealth is transferred from the haves to finance health care for the poor. In other words, it’s another form of wealth redistribution. I decided I would review arguments against it. One could be outlined as follows: Virtually inevitably the government is in reality government of the people, by the Parasite Class, for the Parasite Class. If the people support socialized health care, the upper echelons of the Parasite Class would enjoy excellent health care, but the lower part of the people will on the whole enjoy worse health care (sort of or so to speak) than they would under laissez faire. Observations of the performance of actual socialized health care systems confirm that prediction: the poor did appear to have worse care than in evil-capitalistic economies (Yuri Maltsev’s testimony, for example). It’s just not obvious that socialist systems have ever delivered better care for the poor.

Another argument is that incentives and disincentives engendered by socialism diminishes production. It’s been observed time after time that if some of one’s production is taken away from him, he will tend to be less productive than otherwise in the future. On the other hand, the more one can obtain to satisfy his wants without doing any extra production, the less inclined he becomes to produce. I’ve already pointed out that sustainable consumption necessarily requires relevant production as a precondition. Hence, other things being equal, health care must decline in quantity or quality or both after it is socialized because of less or mistaken production. That statement of course does not apply to the upper echelons of the Fat Cat Class–sorry, the Parasite Class.

Another argument will be gradually presented in several sentences. Mises said that calculation in the economy is impossible without money. He said that cardinal numbers are integral (pun, sorry) to calculation, and money is countable. Decisions can be partially based on quantitative considerations, but they are really essentially qualitative. However, if people can earn money and then spend it, then economic calculation becomes possible. Mises is correct, but it should be added that accurate and relevant numbers are rather unlikely to be available or generated unless people are free to act--to make choices freely, in particular. Hence, the market must be free from government interference and manipulation, because economic calculation does make a huge difference. The health sector is no exception at all. The point that a consequence of redistribution is that production is so greatly diminished that the poor may actually be worse off than otherwise–also applies here.

Any other argument that I’ve missed?


* Gold $1700 in Greece! That report if correct is a good sign, showing less faith in the State.

* I read this report ‘cuz I wanted to be able to anticipate what would happen when the US economy swoons further
http://www.moneynews.com/InvestingAn...5/26/id/360179
Alas, the report is too brief. I am yet a gibbering quaking milquetoast.

[Augustine2004]

I read this article with a mixture of amazement, disgust and sorrow. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/means1.1.1.html
How can a member of a formerly enslaved race permit as President such an outrage against an equally oppressed race? Absolute power . . .

[Augustine2004]

One of my doctors wrote:

In fact, if you take a look at the ingredients in most soaps, lotions, and hair products on the market today, you’ll find they’re loaded with unhealthy chemicals.

Parabens… PABA… PEG… propylene glycol… mineral oils…

These chemicals pose real dangers to your health, including cancer. And, sadly they are FDA-approved and labeled as healthy.

The references that the doctor cited are available on request.

[Augustine2004]

I’m not sure I understand Frank Shostak’s article http://www.lewrockwell.com/shostak/shostak12.1.html
I’m restating key paragraphs in my own words, and I hope one of you (better yet, everybody!) will check them:

Various measures of money involve double-counting, for example M3. Adding credit transactions to true measures of money to generate M3 data is an instance of double-counting. To avoid that problem and others, use the AMS (Austrian School of Economics Money Supply).

While M3 shows a sharp drop into negative-growth territory, the AMS shows a bounce back from negative to positive-growth of about 4.7% in May.

This sentence is not clear to me: ‘Contrary to monetarists more pumping by the Fed can make things much worse.’ I think it means, ‘Contra monetarists, further credit expansion by the Fed banks can make our current situation much worse.’ Real wealth growth can fall or turn into retrogression because abundant easy credit suckers businesses into starting unsustainable projects or expansions, thereby wasting time and other resources. The pool of real savings may in fact shrink after a while, as unwise projects and expansions turn out to be foolish. Such shrinkage would hurt bank capital ratios, thus checking (oh! pun!) their lending. At least it should, if banks would be prudent enough. However, the USFG does have means of forcing increased lending despite the decline of savings. This, credit creation out of ‘thin air,’ would jack up M3, but that would not lead to real economic growth.

I’m not sure what Shostak means by this: ‘On the contrary such type of lending, which is not backed up by real savings, will only further dilute the pool of real savings.’ I think he should have written ‘shrink’ instead of ‘dilute.’ If he did mean the latter and not the former word, then I do not understand him.

Can you do better than I can?

[Augustine2004]

Hey, Faramir, how about that! Nullification book by Tom Woods http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewr...ves/59039.html

* Warren Buffett admits he ‘blew it,’ his failure to see the housing bubble.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...s-inquiry-live
Why the hell should we ever think any government can make the economy work better than if left alone?