Researching usury, I was googling Benedict the XIV who wrote Vix Pervenit in 1745 when Vix Sportswear came up. Here it is again, competing on design, Brazil style.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Why I Did Not Get Jammed Up in Real Estate
Because I already knew all of this... and be sure to read the subsequent pages.
My response to a comment by the estimable Edward Lambert requires bringing it up front and center... it is too big for the comment box...
Edward:
We had the right people and a better policy after WWII until the 70´s... even though the policy was still in the forming stage... The welfare programs have come to be much better since then, namely the Earned Income Credit on taxes... We now know this system works much better than the welfare rolls of the 60´s...
But back then, republicans and democrats worked together to find solutions...
Now every policy gets super watered down ... There is no more compromise, no more reasonable debate...
Yet back in the 50´s and 60´s, there was compromise and constructive debate in the government... even so, the policies back then were not as sophisticated... we have learned much since then, and on the other hand, become less effective...
The overwhelming of social interests by special interests is new... special interests have infiltrated government a lot more since the 60´s...
I think one of the big reasons is people who think like you, that government is wasteful, weak and an interference...
Now the culmination of that thinking is coming in a wave of austerity measures that will hold down regular people for a long time by holding down inflation...
This will protect the banks that get more powerful everyday...
People who think like you are feeding into the banks alterior motives to create some sort of new feudalism...
The banks over lent all over the world... they would have crashed... but they were bailed out.. they have regrouped and gained back more power than before... while the regular people suffer...
The banks want to control inflation in order to control assets and capital goods... Inflation would benefit the people who are in debt instead of the banks...
The irony of your economic philosophy is that it is meant for the regular people... but is being used to make the big and powerful more big and powerful... by gutting government...
Me:
Edward,
Your conclusion is ungenerous. You cast me in with pro-bailout people, when in fact I have a minority argument that the banks should not have been bailed out; yes, "AN" economic system would have failed, but not "THE" economic system. What is good would have survived.
It is a stretch to say I am responsible for special interests infiltrating govt when I believe there should be no government to infiltrate. there is an internal contradiction.
Yes the banks have behaved wickedly all over the world. And it is condign punishment that what the republicans wrought on Chile and Egypt the democrats have wrought on Larry Lunchbucket with his home loan and Suzy Co-ed with her student loan.
Jeffersonians (about 2 in any given congress) voted against student loans, “affordable” home loans, vietnam war, etc, and got called unpatriotic, neanderthal, racist etc. Jeffersonians are not against peace prosperity and security, they merely have an alternative approach to the goal.
Let me lay out the conflict between you and I. We agree on the facts. (Banks are installing a new sort of feudalism.) We desire the same results. (Just distribution of goods and services.) the only conflict we have is about means. You believe govt is the proper tool for approximating optimal results. I believe freedom will outperform govt overtime.
You state we had better policy after WWII until the 70’s. Cold war, Korea, Vietnam, assassinations, riots, bitter division? Well, it was pretty exciting times, to be sure. But what I recall is it was not much different than now, just freer. You cite the earned income tax credit as policy done right. My response is why throw people policy leftovers when in freedom they would have all the money the need to buy with their own money what they want? Why make people grateful to govt for a pittance when they can be proud of their own industry instead?
Of course no system gives anyone everything they want. Any system has to deal with people the way they are, or it is utopianism. Free markets assume in USA there are 350 million people looking out for themselves, and constrained by the other 349,999,999 people from getting out of hand. Belief in govt supposes that about 535 people in DC will meet and hammer out what is best, then turn the details over to several hundred angelic bureaucrats who will always do the right thing. We know from experience in human affairs the former works every time, the latter never works out.
The coming austerity measures will hold down no one who does not wish to be held down. The coming austerity measures were spotted at least decades ago, when the problems were instituted as policy. The hamiltonians who dominate USA govt no longer believe in USA, the austerity measures are designed to keep them in power. It is we Jeffersonians who still believe in USA, but the more the hamiltonians fail, the more people will clamor for oppression. See 1 Samuel 8-10.
Government failed you, and you blame me and people who think like me. Free markets have never failed me, so I am never disillusioned. The people who made government fail are the people who work in government. Of course. The people in big biz who control government are the ones who are your enemy, not we who call for removing the advantages of the powers that be.
My economic policy admits no big biz or big govt, because big biz AND big govt always become one, to the detriment of the economic actors.
We already have panarchy in USA. WAs not always so, at one time no disputes could be settled outside of courts. We dumped that. No one in USA has to pay taxes, fight wars, submit to govt, because we can always appeal to an alternative. People who love govt are free to live under it. People who do not, are free to opt out. Free market small business is what we call people who have opted out. I argue we’ll all be happier when move from panarchy to anarchy, but I am not holding my breath. What scares me is the tea party movement, people far more dangerous than Daschle and Clinton and DeLay and Graham. Even Ron Paul is nervous about that group. Because, as you know, the question is not if some leader is any different than Adolf Hitler, but if the american people are any different than the German people.
Corvee Labor
There is an artifact of exploitation called corvee labor. In short, peons owe their overlords a certain amount of labor each year, gratis, for things like tidying up walls, repairing roads, digging trenches, whatever. In USA today, it is almost impossible to get out of a private high school without having done substantial corvee labor. When these people become "leaders of tomorrow" they will think nothing of requiring "public service" of their inferiors. Since they answered phones at a women's shelter in high school, they will see no problem demanding a father of three kids spend a week away from home digging ditches in the years to come. And with so much debt USA accumulated under Bush and Obama, one part of the payback will be massive unpaid work by Americans.
Minimum wage laws force the vulnerable to work for free as well. Major corporations, law firms, big business, and small companies like restaurants and other small businesses take on "interns" who work for free. Restaurants would pay $5 an hour for their help, but $7.25 minimum wage, plus massive exposure to liability for having an employee, makes restaurants and other small businesses do without a paid employee, and take on unpaid "interns." I am regularly importuned by students in my classes who wish to come and work for free for me.
It is a crime that cries out to the heavens for vengeance to withhold wages from workers. According to the Bible God himself deals with wage withholders, while life goes on. None of this waiting for the last judgment. But, but you say, both sides agree that one side will work for free. No, a third party made rules that allow a second party, the employer, to abuse the first party, the unemployed. In natural law, we cannot agree to anything that violates of inalienable rights to like and property. It is bad enough employees lend money to their employers for up to a month (employees get paid after they do the work, so in essence employees lend employers money), in no circumstances can we make an agreement to work for free. And extreme example would be we can neither agree to become slaves, no can anyone agree to enslave us.
Washington State department of labor makes sure no one is abused, or not. They have a set of guidelines to determine if someone is an illegally unpaid employee or a legal unpaid intern or trainee. Let's listen in:
1. The training is similar to what a trainee would get at a vocational school.
2. The training benefits the trainee.
3. Trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their supervision.
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the trainee; indeed, the employers operations may be disrupted by the program.
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the end of the training.
6. Employer and trainee both understand trainee is not entitled to a job at the end of the training.
(Thanks to karen Sutherland writing for the Bar Bulletin, Seattle).
You will note, like all government regulations, they crush small business while allowing big business to dance lightly over the life of citizens. One of the six rules is pointless, the other five are carefully crafted to benefit only big business/ big government.
Let's critique:
1. The training is similar to what a trainee would get at a vocational school.
A small business necessarily competes on differentiation, so a training program would necessarily offer what cannot be learned at a voc tech. Voc tech schools are designed to feed big biz/big govt, so their skillsets training are normally what they would teach and intern at a big biz.
2. The training benefits the trainee.
This sounds good, but it is vague, and probably related to #4 below. In a small business, the trainee, no matter what, will benefit the trainers, overwhelmingly, just as a matter of gravity. A trainee is a factor in a small business, not a factor in a big business.
3. Trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their supervision.
In a small business, a trainee will be doing work a paid person otherwise would be doing. The small business would be relying on what the trainee brought to the gig in terms of intelligence, problem solving, etc. The less supervision, the more likely the trainee would be successful.
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the trainee; indeed, the employers operations may be disrupted by the program.
Of course a small businessperson's first question in every employment meeting is how will this person make me money? Big business and big govt, since its losses are bailed out by taxpayers anyway can afford to have limitless people laying about doing nothing, and occasionally "supervising" the occasional buxom intern.
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the end of the training.
Since this statement can be true and false at once, it is pointless rule.
6. Employer and trainee both understand trainee is not entitled to a job at the end of the training.
This is not much better, but anyone volunteering at a small biz wants a job at the end. Someone at big biz/big govt may indeed not get a job at the dept of interesting whatever, but certainly expects to get hired over at the dept of surfing the web all day.
One tiny aspect of life in USA, with a pattern that replays over and over in all of USA. It is why we are fast becoming third world in law and culture. The solution is freedom, free markets and freedom to contract.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
There is No Draft, But
There is humanity left in youth. These Israeli soldiers got in trouble for following up a dance routine performed by active US soldiers in a war zone. Of course the Soviet Red Army cossack division introduced the break dance competition to the world, as this WWII contest set to Run DMC shows...
Of course this is made up, but it is inevitable... real men dance to settle differences. there is no draft, but maybe we will see an anti-war movement come from dance.
Why USA Management Costs Too Much
There are several reasons why importers find sourcing products overseas superior than to home, but the reason is never "lower labor cost." In essence the reason is always lower management cost. I've argued this in my classes and on the blog (and in my next book) but here is a good example. I changed several hundred canadian dollars into us dollars a few months ago, and the teller grilled me, in a friendly manner, why I had so many (?!) loonies in my possession, was I in Canada, etc. Homeland security issues you see. Now, what and how I make money in Canada is between me and the tax collectors. Nonetheless, in the name of national security, I have to burn up my time discussing my business with someone who has no business knowing my business. At best the clerk gets a brownie point for ratting out a customer. My time is wasted.
At the same time, the same bank is busy laundering money for the drug trade. And it is too big to prosecute. The drug dealers have no problem at all laundering money, and those who do get caught are probably just competition being crushed.
We have to fill out too many forms, pay too many taxes (which then add up to too much for our customers to pay, because business does not pay tax), get too many permits, wait too long in line, experience too many surprises, experience too much trouble if we take on employees, and we never know where we stand in law and property. Chinese management, ads much of the world, does not have to endure this (except in poor countries). We are becoming poor because of government interference. Our management is just as good as anywhere else, it just costs too much.
The solution of course is freedom, freedom from anti-drug laws, freedom from govt interference in banking, freedom to contract with anyone I wish to associate.
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