Libyan Business

Whatever Gaddafy was, he was none of our business.  If Libyans did not like their leader, then it is there job to deal with him.  When the people of Iran did not care for USA puppet Shah of Iran, they threw him out, even against USA wishes.  The Iraqis could have done it for themselves, the Egyptians did it earlier this year, there is zero reason for USA to be involved.

The result now is our friends in Libyan are murderers.  How is that going to work out?

When conspirators plotted to overthrow their Queen Mary Queen of Scots, they fled to Mary's cousin and rival Elizabeth R for protection. After explaining all they had done to overthrow their Queen, so Elizabeth could take over Scotland, she had these pro-Elizabeth Scottish rebels executed after inquiring as to what right these rebel had to overthrow their queen, Mary?  "Well because she is wicked..."

"And if you judged me, Elizabeth, wicked you could overthrown me also?"

Hmmm... she had them executed.

After Roman senators and Army leaders murdered the wicked Caligula, with a view to re-establishing freedom in the Roman Republic, they in turn were executed by Claudius, the beneficiary of Caligula's death, executions that met with popular acclaim.

This overthrowing leaders is a tricky business.  The people who murdered Gaddafy now have the problem of pleasing their paymasters in Washington, or they will be replaced by someone who will.  In the same measure, they must betray the Libyan people, which means the new leaders will be far more oppressive than Gaddafy ever was.

USA is a socialist country, so it cannot quite account for what things cost.  And thus USA charges too much to do too much.  Communist China is more free market (I swoon!) so they know what things cost, and are able at once to stalemate our imperial efforts worldwide at far less money than we spend, and charge their satraps less for hegemonic services rendered.  (And, not to put too fine a point on it, China knows exactly what we are spending, because they lend it to us.)

Occupy Wall Street is owned by Geo Soros, so he has them barking up the wrong tree.  The Tea party is owned by the Koch brothers, so he has them rabidly pro-war.  The protests will yield more of the same warfare/welfare state.

Nothing will really change.  The Libyan oil will still flow to China, just with French and Italian mercenaries adding a couple of percent for doing the Gaddafy hit.  The Chinese will pay this when they still buy the oil, but the Chinese will deduct it from other income streams coming to French and Italians.  Whereas the money before would flow to rather left wing elements in those countries, it will now, compliments of USA, flow to rather right wing elements.  It is just big business.

When Reagan was elected, Detroit was on the ropes.  Japanese built better cars cheaper than Detroit, which is not saying much.  Everyone blamed labor, ignoring the fact that labor costs are not a factor in int'l trade, it is management and its costs that make the difference.  (Hence all "comparative advantage" in practice is politics).  The goal was to artificially inflate the cost of Japanese cars so Detroit could raise their prices and still be somewhat competitive.

The democrats did not get their huge tariff increase on Japanese auto imports that they wanted, because the republicans, now in charge, were for "free markets."  Instead, the Republicans worked out a regime of Voluntary Restraints, where the Japanese would not export as many Honda Accords as they could sell in USA.  What happens when there are not as many Hondas in USA as demand requires?  Why the price increases.  As the price of Hondas went higher and higher, Pontiac and Chevrolet could drive prices higher and higher, to cover ever more waste and fraud.  (Voluntary restraints are hardly a feature of a free market.)

Now, instead of the government collecting more duties and getting more money for democrats to spend, the Japanese made more money selling less cars to USA, and the money was spread among Republicans.

And please note, either way, the USA consumer gets screwed.  But back to the ballot box they go, picking one over another, hoping not to get screwed, but only picking which way they get screwed.

But of course there is more.  Up to 1980 japan had been working to low end of the USA auto market,  Since the restraints were on cars as units, the japanese began making more and more luxurious cars for the USA market, to sell more car with each car sold.  So comes Lexus from Toyota and the Acura from Honda and Datsun changed its name to Nissan and upscaled with the infiniti.  These cars crushed the USA luxury market.  Unintended consequences.

I recall in the late 1980s an auto dealer stating plainly business is better under republicans.  No doubt.  There were things going on with declared values and pricing and so on that people in that business are still not willing to mention, even after retirement.  It would make a good book.

O, and President Reagan walked out of the White House at the end of his term, got onto an airplane, flew to Japan, made a speech, and pocketed $2 million.  Chump change.  Clinton has made over $65 million on speeches.  It's how pay for services rendered is now made.  After Obama is relieve in 2012, his speeches in Brazil, regarding oil, will have him rolling in millions.

In the meantime, it becomes harder and harder to start a business in USA. We are not even in the top ten of start-up friendly countries.

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Lesson To Iran

As Lew Rockwell points out, this is what USA is teaching Iran and North Korea, who have nuclear programs and WMD:

This man had no WMD or nuclear arms:

Credits: Bush Family Album - via google images

This man gave them up to please USA:

Credits - Nobel Peace Prize Committee, via google images

So lesson to world leaders: to protect yourself from USA citizens killing you, get WMD!

From Hillary's 1969 Commencement address, as school leader...

"We're searching for more immediate, ecstatic and penetrating mode of living. And so our questions, our questions about our institutions, about our colleges, about our churches, about our government continue. The questions about those institutions are familiar to all of us. We have seen heralded across the newspapers. Senator Brooke has suggested some of them this morning. But along with using these words -- integrity, trust, and respect -- in regard to institutions and leaders we're perhaps harshest with them in regard to ourselves."

Livin' Large on Veni Vidi Vici (a quote from Julius Caesar, the dictator), she on Gaddafi's murder.

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It's Official...

Tag, you're it. The standard of living is dropping, so you can pay for the failed government policy of capitalism.  The solution is free markets, but no one will do anything.

As the article says, you are eating out less.

What is does not say, is you'll soon be eating less well at home.

The you'll be cutting back on the Alpo, to dried food for the dog.

Then you'll be eating the Alpo.

Then the dried dog food.

Then the dog.

At some point before then, can we agree on free markets?

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USA Schools China

After days, not weeks, of USA fomenting chaos in Libya, USA has schooled China on how the oil business is played.

China was under the impression that international trade was about peaceful coexistence and the rule of law.  China had signed oil contracts with Libya, and USA cannot allow that.  So Wall Street suggested to malcontents in Libya on a leveraged buyout of the Gaddafi regime: take Libyan assets (oil) and pledge them to USA for USA murder of Gaddafi and overthrow of his regime.  After 50 years of peace and prosperity, Libya will be under rulers who are willing to play the game of work for USA by crushing domestic dissent.  Watch closely how the game is played, because what goes around comes around.

Now China has a problem.  As they entered the world economy after 500 years of isolation, they told their people that the world was a place of the rule of law.  Now they have to tell their people they were wrong.  The Chinese people must trim their hopes and dreams to the confines of what is permissible to Wall Street and their ganymedes in Washington.

At some point, the Chinese people will ask "how come?"

And then there will be a fight, and what goes around comes around.  Let's peek at our future:

Photo Credit : Goldman Sachs (via google images)

As Louis Farrakhan says, "There is a murderer in the White House."

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Free markets, Social Justice, the Environment

Free marketers are accused of not caring for the environment and having a “devil take the hindmost” attitude toward the halt and lame.

What if that is not true?  What if we do care, and have a better way to accomplish the goal of just distribution of goods and services, and a better way to assure pristine environment?

What if we are exasperated with the obtuse regime of the progressive movement to these problems?

Occupy Wall Street proposes to have the government reign in big business.  That is like asking Bonnie Parker to keep a lid on Clyde Barrow.  Three Nobel Economics laureates won demonstrating the regulated always capture the regulators, when the government does the regulating.

I am told the govt cleaned up Lake Washington...  100 years before the govt was busy overturning 800 years of law that defended the environment.  It was called property rights.  If your actions on your land diminished my enjoyment of my land, then I could by law stop you.

But come the progressive movement and collectivization and utilitarianism, huge centralized meat packers could foul the rivers because we needed the mass slaughter houses for cheap food and war.  It was the government that changed the rules to benefit big business.

Govts paved the way for it to get dirty

Huge steel plants belched noxious air and gave us acid rain.  But but but, without these things we would not have steel for skyscrapers, and war.  Not true.  Trapping pollution before it leaves the factory may be more expensive, but not too expensive.  But by giving industry a pass, the government made pollution damned profitable.  See The Transformation of American Law, 1789-1860.

We are told govt ended Jim Crow laws...but, govt STARTED the Jim Crow laws, wrote them, it was business that ended them.  See “The Walls Came Tumbling Down,” by Dr. Abernathy.

Progressive want wealth distribution, money transfers... but the market offers wealth creation and more better cheaper faster...  division of labor brings optimal employment and more goods and services at a lower price...  subsidies to Walmart and bank of America keeps SOME things cheap, but those very wealth transfer schemes starve the wealth creation action.  progressive need to end the focus on how much money some one has and turn to what is the array of goods and services, is it getting wider, are prices falling?  That is true wealth.

The charge the progressives must answer is their “do-goodism” appears to be a halo on oppression, an exercise of libido dominandi.  We are for the same goals, but the unwillingness to even consider anything except failed means suggests a lack of good will and perhaps even more sinister motivations.

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Amish & Violence

On Oct 16, 2011, at 12:16 PM, mgranich wrote:

http://news.yahoo.com/hair-attacks-force-ohio-amish-seek-outside-help-170921965.html

So, you'd need some sort of law enforcement with an anarchical society.  

The Amish do have a law enforcement system, it is entirely voluntary, with no sanction higher than shunning, up to and including, excommunication.

But you mean the Amish do not have a system for effectively dealing with malcontents in their group who shave another’s beard.  This is a strange case, so let’s add a more common and more difficult case, and Amish man murdering his wife, which occurred a decade ago.

The Amish are expressly nonviolent, and nonviolence is a necessary condition for a free market (but not sufficient).  

Violence is a non-market event, like falling in love or an act of charity.  The market is exchange of goods and services, and economy is the management of the household.  There may be economic ramifications to falling in love or being charitable, and there may be economic ramificaitons of violence, but they are not market events.  There is no more a market solution to violence than violence being a solution to a short apple crop.

(Now vast swathes of austrians theorists, led by Rothbard, do see market solutions to violence, but their antagonists have the better argument.)

When Amish shun, they are imposing an economic sanction, commensurate with the acuity of the shunning, the acuity being pitched perfectly by the opinions of the unversal group as to the damage of the offense.

An Amish totally shunned will find himself in Columbus Ohio knocking on a neighbors door notifying the neighbor that “in den morgan you vill help me build das haus, habst die frauen prepare and serve meals for die herren...”  That boy will shivver and starve.

In the case of the beard shaving crime spree, the amish are faced with meeting violence, and calling the cops is controversial.  Most Amish say no, but it only takes one caller to bring the cops.  So this brings up the idea of a nonviolent people calling on the violence of the state to meet the violence of the beard shavers.  

Now this is precisely the problem God was arguing against in 1 Samuel 8, where the israelites expressly wanted to shift responsibilty for self-defense to others.  God rejected it, was importuned, made full disclosure, and then condemned Israel to its history of oppression.

The temptation to call the cops is always there. there is the hman temptation to call the cops, which is a facility the Israelites wanted for themselves, and hen there is the feed-th-bears problem of once it is there, people organize around its existence.

But what of the murder of the wife by the Amish man?  Hard cases make bad law.  Apparently one instance in Amish 250 year history in America.  OK, but what about a homcidal maniac who has just killed his wife?  Shun him?

If the Amish way were unversal, the maniac would starve to death, for lack of human association.  But would he not lurk on the outskirts and rid homes and commit mayhem, pillage, more murder?

Let’s say he did.  The Amish are not monolithic, and among the Amish, with their varying degrees of commitment and understand, there would be at least one who would find this intolerable and take a hatchet into the woods and sort the miscreant out, rules or no rules.

If an when the murderer was found murdered, that would likely be the end of it.  And even if a bloody hatchet at the next barn raising gave away who did the deed, in a regime of shunning the fellow who sorted out the problem is unlikely to be sanctioned, and if I know some of those Amish gals, rewarded!

We see in anarchic societies there would not be universal nonviolence.  Between the people angered to violence, and the invincibly ignorant, there is enough violence to keep perpetrators in check.  Like the Amish, violence would be checked by shunning, when the entire community refused service to someone who took violence too far, or some measure thereof.

And think of it, no prisons, no courts, no cops, no tickets, just the occasional hatchet work in the woods and shallow graves.

Check out all of the peaceable people playing dodgebal at Cal Anderson Park a couple of nights a week.  Watch with such force the throw the ball at each other, even occasionally knocking someone on the other side down.  What athleticism is brought to the contest!

Let a player step 20 feet off the court and nail a pedestrian walking home with groceries from QFC.  What was a game 20 feet away is in this instance now a crime.

Context matters.  We mistakenly apply blunt force trauma to all non game situations, when there are so many other options.  We call the police.  if no police, there are enough of us who see force being abused, and step in.  Many people fear the bully, but enough see the bully initiate force and think "game on."  Such people are no more worried about the bully on Broadway then the sportsman opposite on the court in cal anderson park.  In a free market, with no govt police, these sportsmen would be necessary, and sufficient.

AS they sorted the bully out, the immediate judgment of observers would bring justice to bear.

But this is mob rule, and street justice.  Yes, but it is superior to what we have.

Plus you have to put it in the context of a superior economic system.  There is a horrific video out there, for which I will not provide a link, of a driver running over a 2 year old girl in communist china, and then backing up to finish her off.  A dead child is a fine, and injured child is incalculable medical bills.  Some 18 people walk by the injured child.  Such is communism, we do similarly horrible things in capitalism.

it would never happen in Hong Kong, where there is a different, more free market system. And in Hong Kong, there is far more fear of being shunned and far more direct addressing of non market problems, like violence, without government intervention.

As it stands, we must all tolerate the bully, until the police come to deal with it, or you might be arrested for objective grounds, not contextual or subjective grounds. So we wait for the police. Tick tock.

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Conspiracy Facts

We are conditioned to hear the word conspiracy and associate it with "theory" and "nutjob."   But conspiracy itself is a necessary and sufficient term to describe when people get together and advance some secret plan.  In law it has a specific meaning when it relates to criminal activity, indeed the word means to "breathe together." So there are conspiracy theories, and conspiracy facts.  When bankers and drug dealers and pizza shops get together to launder money in violation of banking laws, it is in fact a conspiracy.  We even have heavier penalties for conspiracies (more than one person cooperating) than solo crimes.  The famous RICO laws were designed expressly to break up conspiracies.  Conspiracies are a fact of life.

The word conspiracy is taking a beating right now because it is associated with 9-11 and the idea the government had something to do with it.  One plausible theory, with much to support it, is intelligence ops were watching a crew of terrorists who scooted ahead with 9-11 before the dimwit intel ops people could intercede.  Oooops.  We would all hate to think that is true.  Who knows...

We do know that an American Border Patrol agent was killed when, as  a matter of fact, ATF officers conspired to allow guns to be bought in USA in violation of our laws and sent to drug criminals in Mexico, and one of those guns was used in a firefight that killed the Border Patrol agent.   Oooops.  This much is undisputed.  It is quite sickening to read the attitudes of those who came up with this idea, and operated it.

It is also instructive to see how Pres. Obama and his Atty General Holder are squirming under the spotlight for their particular participation in this conspiracy fact.  They claim to have been unaware, but the facts prove otherwise.  The lesson I take from this is sure they knew, but no they did not comprehend.  People who routinely act for bailouts, murder, torture, domestic spying, etc are not going to see anything wrong with sending guns to murderous criminals.  The simply do not have the moral fiber to spot the problem.  Neither did Bush and Cheney, et al., but at least their handlers kept them out of direct involvement.

In this sense, Obama and Holder are, yet again, being set up.  That their advisors would allow these emails to get in front of them was pure betrayal.  This is substance being larded on the effort to "blame the black guy."

Also in the article various ATF agents are shocked, shocked that such a conspiracy would be in place.  It is a bit tendentious for an ATF agent pulling down $100,000 a year plus full bennies for casual, part time flexible work, in Mexico, to claim this is a betrayal or some such.  As if they do not know.  The chief of the conspiracy, Voth, quite explicitly threatens these agents sinecure and suggests the can switch to prison guard work at $30,000 full time if they complain.  Voth quite expressly sums up federal law enforcement with that one line.

These federal agents understand their work ultimately is about protecting the profits of drug companies, tobacco or whatever, and they are not about to risk their lives for that. I don't blame them, I wouldn't either.   It is about the pay, bennies, pension and gig.  Sure some get killed, but often it is mystery.

The way to avoid these problems is not a change in presidents, but stop subsidizing and protecting USA drug interests, and gun interests, etc.  Let the free market in these goods sort itself out.  No body murders anyone over food, and we all need food.  Deregulate something, anything.

And on the domestic front....

Working with a cop to help him write his story he credibly related how cops often frame citizens and lie in court.  Here is a NYC Policeman stating the same.

So there is no way of knowing if a convict did the deed.

Nonetheless, a Florida politician makes a call to bring back firing squads, along with advice on how to wear pants. I am not making this up.

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Social Conditioning

A charming 8 minute video...

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Deregulation as Culprit

I was listening on the car radio a fellow rant on about how deregulation got us into this economic mess.  It's too bad people say somethings, too bad they are unable or unwilling to make important distinctions.

There was no deregulation of anything at any time.  There was a change of regulations, that changed who would be the winners and who would be the losers.

Our present regulations are arranged so the winners are the bankers and the warmongers.  If you are a saver (and a pension is savings), own property or take a paycheck, you are sunk.  Changing regulations to reverse that would work, but it would not make anything better.

Even I speak of "deregulation" of the airlines, beer, telecom and trucking of the 1980s.  There too it was not really deregulation, as in all regulations off, it was a deregulation lite.  There were still plenty of regulations.  As long as there are governments, there will be people making regulations.

But in the cases of the deregulations, pushed by Jimmy Carter (who also gutted the CIA, contributing to a decade of peace and prosperity), of the cited industries, there was not a shift in emphasis but a true reduction.  With just deregulation lite, and just telecom, we had such a boom in the economy as creative force, like Jobs at Apple, explored all the possibilities of lowering cost and widening access to information and communications.  No one saw the internet coming when they executed deregulation lite of telephones.

The regulations now favor the warfare state.  To re-regulate would then favor the welfare state.  The Tea Party has been co-opted to be pro-war, and the Occupy Wall Street is co-opted to be pro-welfare.  A pox on both houses!

Deregulate something, anything, and even just deregulate lite, but do so in order that an economy may begin to reanimate.

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A Tribute To Steve Jobs

Outside of the Apple Store in Seattle's University Village.

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Gibson Pushes Back

Emerson noted a flaw in democracy was it took so few people to get country into war.  And when we concentrate power in the hands of a few, it can take so few people to raise a private jihad.  Someone in the government has decided Gibson Guitar must go down.  But Gibson pushes back.

I hear tell top musicians no longer risk taking their old, wonderful, excellent musical instruments with them on tour, to the detriment of their audience, because the control trade lows apply any any instance, even antique examples.  If there is a bit of Ivory inlay in your 120 year old classic guitar, it is seized.  A superb, but now controlled, wood used in the $20,000 violin, it is seized.

Eagles made it on the protected species list.  Big fines if not jail if you get caught even with feathers (best for fletchings).  Chickens never made it on the endangered species list. We eat chickens, we do not eat eagles.  that is why one is endangered and the other not.  If mans consumes you, you have no risk of going extinct.

Whatever Gibson guitar is using, Gibson is also assuring it would never go extinct.

Extinction happens when the government steps in and makes policies that distort the market.  When the US government repudiated property rights, lakes and rivers were widely polluted.  Pesticides flowed in a killed the fish.  Eagles are scavengers and eat the dead fish floating on top first.   That killed off the eagles in Seattle.

The state cleaned up the lakes through regulations, and kept going too far.  all we really needed to do was return to respecting property rights, which forbids you letting pesticides flow off of your property, regardless if the property around you is homesteaded or not.

It like the discrimination practices in the South.  I was the government that passed the Jim Crow laws, LAWS, that forbid blacks from eating at a lunch counter.  MLKing could fight the laws all he wanted, he got no change.  It was not until they boycotted businesses, that the businesses (who wanted blacks money anyway) pressured government to change the rules.

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No It Doesn't - TSA

Here is an article claiming there is a new law that outlaws making fun of the TSA.    No, it is pretty clear the law outlaws pretending to be a real TSA officer if you are not.  Fairly standard stuff.  Yes, we need to get rid of the TSA, but no, not for fake reasons.  People should stick with reality when making criticism.

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