We have a false dilemma, a bit of theatre that reminds me of a Japanese Samurai movie theme: of the two rival factions, the same man is in charge of both. People need something to believe in.
People tend to pick sides as though there are only two options, and with no where to go, people feel stuck.
With the welfare state, there is a safety net. But you cannot have a welfare state and open borders. Assuming there is a respect for property rights, then the best safety net is open borders. We become a country of producers in that case, no need for a safety net.
You cannot have freedom and a standing military. The founders understood this and abjured a standing military, and you can thank a soldier for our lack of freedom. A standing military looks for purpose, and is an incredible cost for little return. The system makes for massive distortion in the marketplace, unrest, and therefore inevitable fascism.
The original sin of these United States is slavery and war. The Continental Army was constantly at a disadvantage because the British offered American slaves freedom, and the American slaves worked for freedom against the colonies. Had we forsworn slavery the British would not have attempted war. Most colonials were against the American war, including many of the founders, but in a democracy it takes very few people to get a war going. No Revolutionary War was necessary, for example Canada gained its independence without war. And the unfreedom for Afro-americans has never been resolved. Indeed, after the war between the states, the winners made slavery permitted in the constitution, in the 13th amendment.
If we respected property rights in law and culture, the best defense we would have is the armed citizenry. But both the welfare and the warfare peoples minds race to Somalia at the sound of that.
It should race to Switzerland instead. And Hong Kong.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Welfare vs Warfare
Friday, November 25, 2011
Government by Campaign
In Communist China, Mao ruled by Campaign.
The Counterrevolutionaries Campaign (1950)
The Three Antis and Five Antis campaign (1951-1952)
Campaign against hidden revolutionaries (1955)
The Anti-rightist campaign
The Great Leap Forward (1958).
Mao came up with "more, better cheaper faster" as a part of one of these campaigns. I had arrived at it independently observing how free markets work, and was astonished to see Mao had asked for it in Communism. Just think, if the free marketers had gotten to Mao before the communists, how the history of China may have been different!
The greatest of the campaigns, or worst was the GPCR.
The USA has become a government by campaign. It started with the depression, and government "doing something." They did it. Then there was WWII, then the campaign against communism, then the war on poverty, then the war on drugs and so on.
We have small campaigns too, which are the object of great abuse, such as Sanofor's war on cholestorol.
Crowds and campaign sweep people up to do things they normally would not do. Herd mentality takes over. Great good can be achieved without these campaigns, but we need to understand that good comes slowly but surely.
As the song says "Battle lines are being drawn..." Don't join. Seldom affirm. Never deny. Always differentiate. Think it through. Campaigns are fun, but the damage is done dring the fun part. The housing bust is the unfun part of the fun campaign for "home ownership for everyone."
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Dennis Checks in With Budget Decorating Tips
I think Dennis has a future as the Redneck Martha Stewart Franchise, with his home decorating for the holidays tip:
Happy Alternative Thanksgiving
One part of the genius of the USA system is the pressure valves, the alternatives, the ways out. In so many areas where the state conflicts with individual conscience, the state yields, such as in war and politics and religion. As long as we have alternatives, we are free. Watch that, then. Happy Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Insurance and Freedom
People once had a feeling of participation and respect for government. Sadly with democracy, there is no break on selfishness and greed. Only a free market can offer enough good to keep a check on the progress of evil.
Today unregulated street vendors have respect and patronage, in violation of the law. At the same time, restaurants in fixed locations may bribe an inspector to look the other way, and do.
In any event, there is no way inspectors can meaningfully monitor health safety in all restaurants. They come in after the disaster.
Insurance companies can and would protect us if allowed to, if we had a free market in insurance.
If there was a free market in insurance, it would look as radically different as telecommunications looks today from pre-deregulation telecommunications in 1980.
Street vendors would buy a badge from insurance companies who covered their risk to the street vendors customers. You’d prefer to buy from Jose, and pay 2 cents more per tamale, because he is insured by State Farm. State Farm sets standards as condition of insurance for Jose to follow. The standards State Farm develps lowers risk faster than premiums go down, thus State Farm makes money by making the world ever safer. You eat assured your food is healthy or State Farm pays. We need no government inspectors, Jose can self-police knowing his good work will gain him reputation and longevity.
It is good government is accelerating in its self-destruction, what with wars, covering Wall Street lawlessness, TSA and EBT cards. We need not resist government, it is bringing itself down.
We just need to make sure that we are prepared for the United States government to fall, and the state and local governemnts as well, so we can pick up and bring spontaneous order of anarchy out of the chaos. I hope we can have a bloodless revolution, like they do in comminist countries, such a China and Russia. We’ll see.
Ron Paul Vs Newt
Ed Meese threw a softball to Newt in the "debates" in which Newt declared the patriot act a good thing in need of no changes. Newt said we need a clear line between criminal acts and terrorist acts. For criminal acts the government needs to be on the defensive, but for terror acts they need tools to prevent a nuclear attack.
Ron Paul responded by saying we can defend the country without totalitarian means.
A real debate would yield better results. Paul and Newt are on opposite sides of this, and time and opportunity to argue would tach us more, the point of a debate.
Newt appealed to false authority to make his point, and then set up a straw man. "Experts say Patriot Act is good... we don't want nuclear attack."
The problem is we have as many responsible law enforcement people who say the patriot act is pointless as those who adore it. So its efficacy is doubtful.
So what the argument really gets down to is differences in vision as to what is America. Newt sees us in perpetual war. Paul sees us engaged with the world in peaceful trade. We provoke hatred by invading other lands. Bring the troops home, nd fix USA, get rid of vestiges of the police state.
Let China sweat the middle east. We've got better things to do.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Quantum Levitation and Distribution
Because we do NOT have a free market in the USA, we will not be the first, if ever, to have magnetic levitation transportation. Instead of freedom, in the form of deregulating roads in USA, we get lockdown on money transfers and "anti-terror" searches of Greyhound bus riders.
Even our SuperCongress fails, not that anyone should hope.
The set-up is our people have been conditioned: "only the government can provide roads. If you are against government control of roads, then you are against roads."
Never mind that some 60% of roads in USA are privately provided.
But just like no one could see the internet coming when phones were deregulated, we have no idea what we would see, if roads were deregulated. Although the video above suggests clean, cheap universal transportation. But we cannot have it because most Americans believe we cannot have peace unless we attack other countries, we cannot have prosperity unless we have welfare payments.
Get self-employed so you have options.
Blame China, Then Get Facts
Now if it turns out that it is not the Doggie Treats killing the doggies, then it will be too late, because I will hear in seminars and everywhere else how Chinese products kill and destroy what is good in America. Now the wicked Chinese are coming after out pets!
What if it is not true? Well, damage done. Why does the government-owned media wait until they get the facts?
And even if it were true, it is not the fault of the Chinese, it is the fault of the USA importers who design or otherwise specify faulty products. As an importer, let me tell you...blame the importer. They did not do their work if Fido is killed by the importers product.
One more thing, and this is.. ahem... delicate. A large percent of USA pet food is eaten by our elderly. I am not talking about the frazzled oldster accidently sharing some of the pets treats, I am talking about elders buying pet food because it is meat and it is cheap. So, if so many dogs were getting sick, so would humans, and the emphasis would be more pronounced. Sounds like coincidence, not another Communist Plot.
Monday, November 21, 2011
SEO Is a Sham, Test Online Advertising First
SEO is a fraud or a sham, and sometimes both, and you are the target. SEO and online advertising does not work, it cannot work. There are several academics by the name of John Spiers around the world, but I come up #1 on google search. It cost me nothing, but it does not get me any more business either. If you believe SEO matters, or online advertising is effective, then you are working from false premises. Happily you can test your hypothesis, quickly and inexpensively.
The game is to equate SEO with advertising impact. Long before there was an internet, David Ogilvy wrote a book with a simple point: people looking at an ad does not mean they will buy the product or service. But you can know if your ad works. He explains in his book, and it applies to the internet today. Some things are true no matter what changes.
Here is the problem: the cost of getting customers from the internet is far more than the possibility of profit. So if you sell a $100 thing that costs you $50. The problem is it costs you far more than the $50 profit to get a customer. So you sell a $100 thing that costs you $50 to buy and $100 to get a customer with online advertising.. So you lose on every sale. If it is a $5000 item, it costs more than your profit to get a customer. The lower the cost of the item, the less chance of making a profit. And that assumes you are getting full retail for your item online. Because the internet makes it so easy to compare prices, no one gets full retail online, so your chances are worse than even I say.
Those who offer SEO and online advertising generally are just resellers of googleAds. They will take your money and charge you a premium for what you can do yourself. If the people you hire are not using googleAds, you will just waste more money faster.
They will claim they have expertise that makes all the difference, and you will make beginner’s mistakes. Really? Then they will have plenty of references that tell you what wonderful work they do. They don’t.
But do not take my word for it, you can find out for yourself, quickly and inexpensively. GoogleAds will give you a free service coupon for $75-$100 to try them out. So come up with a test budget, of say $150. $150 + $100 coupon is $250.00. Use a googleads account, with their literally billions of dollars with of advertising technology and expertise, and see how far $250.00 gets you. And if you like, hire the experts at the same time. They too can get you a $100 coupon. So, double up... now you get your $250 campaign, and their $250 campign, a total of $500 in advertising online for $300.00. And I tell you, there is so much amazing power and know how inside of google ads that the $300 is well spent if you look at it as just an online seminar. You’ll need to look at it this way, because you will get nothing for your $300. You’d get nothing for $3000. You need to spend much more than that to get anything going, but in any event, you’ll see that you cannot make money advertising online, that SEO means noting to your bottom line. But that is just fair warning. And it is a great seminar. Then you will know.
So test out for $150 or $300 and see what happens. Advertise what you think you would sell online and make money. Don’t worry about having to deliver if you get orders, you will not get any orders. But if you are so worried, then find a local source downtown for your product. Say it is a fancy chocolate bar you are selling for $10.00, and you can buy it retail for $10.00 downtown. Then adverise it, and if you get any order, take the $10 payment and buy the chocolate and ship it to the customer. Then you have no risk of stocking something that will not sell. And of course like very many online retail models, you may make no money on the item you sell, but you can try to make money on shipping and handling.
I have tried all of the above, and I know you cannot beat the old fashioned kinds of advertising. For the last decade I have offered one and all a bounty of $47.50 for anyone who can sell a class of mine for $95.00. No one can do it, in ten years of trying. GoogleAds could not do it. But at the same time the cost of getting a student to pay $95.00 for an online class costs $7.00 when advertised in that paper catalog of courses schools mailed out to homes in their area. We know online advertising cannot get a student for $47.50. What would it cost online, $100? $500? Who knows?
I do know there are 1300 schools, all with wonderrful talent, trying to figure out if students can be recruited cheaper online than through a catalog. If an when it is possible, they will find out and we will all know. So far, we are not even close.
But Google is making billions off online advertising, and a heavy advertiser is schools! Yes, of the 300 million people who have ried to sell things online, maybe a couple of dozen make money. For example, University of Phoenix sells a bachelors degree, which may cost them $1000 to recruit a student, but the school then sells the student a $100,000 loan the student will never pay back, the taxpayer bails out the loss. (the co-president of the school was paid $12 million last year). Ally bank is a huge advertiser, and Ally is the new name for the busted GMAC finance, which was bailed out. The auto companies are big advertisers, which you pay for with bailout funds. The military advertises big time. Shell Oil advertises that they are a ‘green” company online. See a pattern? People who do not have to make a profit “succeed” advertising online. And not to put too fine a point on it, Google pays practically no taxes, which is a great way to have a profitable business, it makes for a competitive edge against smaller biz that pay taxes. But that is another point.
The internet is a terrible place to build a business. It is an inexpensive place to communicate with customers you gained elsewhere. Put your advertising dollars where they will work, and you can know they are working.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Best 20 Minutes of Radio In the Last 50 Years
I've never heard of this American before, but the BBC has, and interviewed him. Brilliant fellow, and well worth the time to listen. GEt pen and paper, because you'll want to make notes.
Kyle Bass - Founder, Hayman Capital Hedge Fund
- MORE:
- programme information
Is the behaviour of speculators partly to blame for the mess the markets are in?
Religious Tolerance and Freedom
We have a social contract, in which we all pull together, under the leadership of people we elect, for the common good.
Without this, we’d be in chaos, in another Somalia.
What if I do not believe that?
What If I did not personally agree to this, and I want no part of it? What if I don’t want to pay taxes, fight in wars, pay into social security? What if I want no part of the courts, and don’t want my kids in your schools?
You’d say I am generally nuts, that I can just leave, and the cops and the soldiers who protect our freedom, the hard men on watch in the cold of the night, are there for good reason and what about the roads and food safety and the social safety net and all the other things good government provides?
I would point out that to this day in USA no one has to be drafted (even when there is a draft), pay social security taxes, federal taxes or join any particular religion. The religion thing we’ll get to in a minute, but my point is when this country was founded, there ws no expectation that anyone would be obliged on any other points that today most people take as mandatory. Roads were in privates hand originally, and to this day 70% of firefighters in USA are volunteer.
And our government still allows me, an individual, to hunt down criminals on my own,
to make arrests, become an attorney general on my own initiative and mount a law case, defend myself in court.
Of course I can home school, that was never in debate until the last few decades.
What happened was a counter-revolution, one that constrained freedom, in the name of that most basic human urge, and that is to get someone else to do one’s fighting.
We will agree to the most aggressive compassing if we can avoid having to face aggressors. In 1 Samuel 8 we see the first recorded story of this, and the specific goal of the urge is to get others to fight for us. To find someone else to be the hard men on watch in the cold of the night.
There are places where the the hard men on watch in the cold of the night is the farmer with the gun, what American once was. USA changed, and became a super power. Then it went after a country where, like USA once was, where the the hard men on watch in the cold of the night were mere farmers. That country was Vietnam, and it defeated us, the world’s superpower. The farmer in Afghanistan are doing it as well. I was that someday USA is as strong as Vietnam or Afghanistan.
The religion thing is not significant today, but was the most important issue of loyalty in the history of mankind. Once religion demanded loyalty, and we see that is not necessary. Nonetheless, in USA the demands of intolerance of other religions is very strong. Our law enforcement acts on it, with the FBI actively fomenting entrapment among the Muslim population, building false cases against people who defend Muslims.
It is not I who is against the system, it is those who have changed it who are against it. There are so many vestiges of the once great, peaceful, prosperous republic we once were. Now we are a democracy, so that we can have the hard men on watch in the cold of the night. Instead of ourselves. But those who changed it find their changes are not working out. So they are busy stealing anything not nailed down. The best self-defense is self-employment.
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