Saturday, December 3, 2011

Financial Regulation

"Deregulation" is blamed for the current economic mess, which is rather absurd, since our economy is heavily regulated.  For example, we have



Regulation is driven by the regulated. When we change regulations, the changes merely serve to create a new set of winners and losers, not assure fair or orderly markets. Note that in spite of all that above, regulators managed to jail Martha Stewart but not stop Jon Corzine or Bernie Madoff. We need not a single one of those agencies nor any of their employees.  We can save hundreds of millions eliminating all of them today, and it would make no difference in the markets, but help reduce our budget deficit.

In a free market there is no need for any government financial regulation of any sort.  The market itself produces counter-parties to mischief makers.  Any financial instrument goes up or down in value, depending on countless variables and human perception.  Investors can go long or short.  In going long, they buy and hold.  In going short, they borrow and sell. Short-sellers believe a stock will drop in price, so they borrow it and immediately sell it at $10, expect it to drop to $2, at which point they will buy it and return it from whom they borrowed it.   Thus the short-seller has earned $8.00.

It was short-sellers, not regulators, who spotted Madoff, Enron, WorldCom, InfoSpace and countless other dubious propositions.  What happens is as short-interest grows, people look closer and it becomes apparent to more and more people what the problem is with a particular company.   If short-sellers are right, they do very well.  If they are wrong, they get burned exponentially (and their target is rewarded by the short-sellers error).

It is the short-sellers who risk their own money when they perceive fraud or foolishness.  In either case, short-sellers believe the price of an asset will drop, and they act on that belief.    Short-sellers perfectly match the activities of the foolish and fraudulent expanding and contracting with the waxing and waning of the players.  You cannot design better regulation of markets than the natural provision of regulation inherent in short-selling.

The fact that we have overwhelming regulations and regulators gives investors a false confidence that their investments are safe.  Our personal faculties of reason and skepticism atrophy, making we investors all the more susceptible to loss.

Regulators are so captured and their views so distorted that during the boom years, when the damage occurred, Beal Bank and Presto were both prosecuted for not participating in the criminal activities.  If either were engaged in mischief, short-sellers would have sniffed them out.  They were, it turns out, being very smart.

Short-selling is necessary and sufficient regulation in market. What we get instead are such "leaders" as the peripatetic Christopher Cox whose tenure as SEC Chairman is greatly admired by those who greatly benefitted from the changes he introduced.  No word from the vast masses of people who were on the losing side of his regulatory changes.

In 2008, for example, those who had shorted financial stocks in response to extremely foolish and criminal acts of the big banks, found that Christopher Cox, in his role as head of the SEC, banned short-selling in order that the banks would be immune to the market that made them rich.  Cox later claimed to regret his actions, but this is silly since at the time he knew what he was doing and no doubt has been rewarded astronomically since then.  If he cared he would disgorge his profits from his "service."

If someone with integrity strives in public service, she (in this rare case) will be frozen out, and find no efforts rewarded.  There is simply no efficacious alternative to free market regulation.


Friday, December 2, 2011

American Jews & Foreign Aid

One thing I did learn at a University of Washington colloquy last night on American Jews and foreign aid was the USA has agreed to get nonmilitary foreign aid up to .07 % of our budget, and ten years after this treaty we are at less than .02%  The speaker gave examples of what we already know, that is foreign aid is usually harmful, if not counterproductive.  Nonetheless, we were criticized for not being at the full funding.  Ahem, if we do poorly at less than .02%, we are going to do better with 3.5 times the money?

To be fair, the speakers advised a better way of getting the money where it can do good.  They compared 50 years ago with today, and found things worse.  Yes, we know that.  Every decade or so we are treated to an admission of failure, and then an explanation of how it can be done right.  In a decade we'll be hearing criticism of the present efforts, which will fail too.  Sometimes results reveal intentions.

Not that they do not have their facts straight.  The people of these benighted lands are not stupid.  The problem is they are so beset with debt, compliments of leaders who agree to whimsical projects which cannot pay off and cannot be paid off, that the governments are essentially kleptocracies, tributary satrapies.  And should you make any money in a kleptocracy, the government is designed to steal it.  Why make anything nice if it will only be stolen.  Vast swathes of USA citizens will spend the next 30 year at least, possibly 200, pondering precisely this question.  (Regarding your money in MFGlobal, we'll get back to you in six months. It's complicated.)

The speakers noted we flood a country with "free food" which ruins the local farmers.  The farmers are reduced to native handicrafts and textiles to live.  We forbid the importation of their native handicrafts and textiles to the USA.  We are not nice.

One speaker noted just how tricky it is to get charity right, a theme I have been arguing for a while.  Where matters are balanced, and benefit to one necessarily disadvantages the other, relatively speaking.  Only free trade offers equal opportunity, and growth without distortion and imbalance.

You can easily observe what USA does overseas by watching what our government does here.  Look at all the people trapped for life in student loans or home loans.  Look at small farmers run out of business as big farmers get subsidies.  Look at "free" medicines loaded with lifetime disabilities.

One conversant shared that her people in Haiti reported that Haitians don't want shelter or food or public transport, they want jobs.  Sigh, any third rate merchant can tell you that.  Why are there not jobs?  Because there is no freedom.  If you make anything nice in Haiti, it will be stolen by the kleptocrats.  If you try to make change, you will be crushed by the USA-backed powers that be. Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Signs of hope are reported: USAID is now funneling more money through organizations, such as the speakers on the stage.  Here again, the NGOs admit the failure, and say, more government, and just better oversight and just get the right people....  Nonsense.  No matter what configuration we see, he who pays the piper calls the tune.  The new arrangements will fail as badly as the old.

In communism you are so directed that you'll never produce anything good.  In capitalism you are free to initiate but you are so regulated that whatever you make is forfeit to the state. (Regarding your money in MFGlobal, we'll get back to you in six months. It's complicated.) Those who benefit from this system emphasize the 'free" in that last sentence, and ignore the rest.  Those who benefit from the system think you should be killed if you disagree.  The president has a list of people he can kill without any warning or warrant.

Now that seems rash to say, but pause and reflect on the harshness of a regime that has a list of citizens, for whatever reason, it can kill without warning or warrant, extrajudicially.  Note the killings have started, and our system has not, perhaps it cannot, protect USA citizens before the murders start. If congress and the courts cannot or will not respond to the executive murdering citizens at will, then the system has irretrievably failed.  That Obama has not been impeached for this crime, and then tried for murder is a victory for those who manage the comic-book narrative USA citizens consume. Seven of eight Republican candidates want more of the same, and more.  If the democrats claim they will end it, remember Obama's promises to do so, which got him elected.  Waiting...!

Like the Reformation, the bloody conflicts around the world are over turf, and revenue, not religion.  Semites, Jew and Arab alike, have long contended over their lands.  USA exploits that.  We foment and exploit the map we were handed in victory after WWII.  Now vast swathes of humanity want a better way.  The British beat the French, Spanish and Germans (who wants what Russia has....?) in the empire game because they, relatively speaking, shared power and wealth with those they colonized.  With USA as the exception, usually this meant negotiated independence eventually.

China has on offer to the world a better deal than the USA.  The Chinese seem to have learned from their erstwhile overlords it's better to share than to take it all.  Growing economies are more stable than deteriorating economies. Where China shows up there is a new railroad and jobs, with China sharing the risk on investments and the locals sharing the wealth.  Whereas the USA's top three puppets in the last decade have been hanged, gunned down and raped and beaten to death in that order.  Lemme see, railroad or atrocity, railroad or atrocity....  hmmm... inquiring minds world wide ponder the options.

The Arabs may have more than one wife, and they have married both USA and China.  Israel is married to the USA, something at which the world wonders.  People believe it is a matter of Jewish influence on USA politics.  Step back, way back.  Look... on balance does it not seem far more likely it is USA politics directing Israel?

Over a thousand years ago the Jews thrived under Moslems while China was resplendent in its Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty.  Then the barbarians showed up, looking for real estate and loot in the name of Christianity.

The innovation of the United States was an attempt to get it right.  We were doing quite well, but sadly we got off track.  It is no longer working.  Perhaps we can arrive at a restoration of USA freedom.  Our first task is to withdraw our forces, both arms and aid, from the world.  People worry what evils will fill the vacuum of American withdrawal.  Well, it truly cannot get worse.  In any event, it is the problem of people newly free to sort out their freedom.  We did it. And they are all as smart as we are.

After we return home, what experience the people of the world have with USA be in the form of small businesses who come to trade, on mutually beneficial terms, not looking down the barrel of a gun.  Not isolationism, but free trade.  And there is no bar to individuals still offering aid, not that people who trade freely need aid.  Free markets never need bailing out.

I was likely the only Christian in a room of some 200 Jews. The event was uninteresting.  No new ideas.  No challenging thoughts or propositions. That was a first for me, as I have always had at least three opinions on a topic even if there are only two Jewish discussants. Last night was total agreement on status quo. Judaism cannot survive sterility.  It seems to me it is time for Israel to divorce the USA and marry China.  Its security depends on it, better to be allied with a power that constrains Iran in friendship than one which provokes Iran in enmity.

In the USA, Israel's best friends are politicians and Christians whose support is directly linked to a belief in a heresy that claims death is avoided and heaven awaits for those who endure an event in which 2/3rds of the Jews are destroyed.  Nice friends, they. These are not the brightest segments of our society, and they get mean if disappointed. Anti-Jewish sentiment is hard to gauge, which makes it all the more dangerous.

China has no such emotional engagement with Israel or Jews, for the Chinese can match the Jews in length and breadth and depth of experience and culture, and for that matter cosmology.  Israel does not capture the Chinese imagination as it does the Christian's, which is a much safer relationship.  And the Chinese aid on offer comports more closely with the Bible than USA aid on offer.  The Chinese sense of social justice is something the Jews would exercise far more amenably under Chinese hegemony than USA hegemony.

This is not to say the Chinese cannot be every bit as wicked as the USA, it is just to say look at the results.  USA need not be wicked at all, and we are better suited to lead by example rather than leash and whip.  Our democracy permits too few people to arrogate power unto themselves. (Regarding your money in MFGlobal, we'll get back to you in six months. It's complicated.)

The USA needs to work out some internal contradictions.  The world can go on nicely without our tutelage.  Time for USA to come home.


Thursday, December 1, 2011

Jury Nullification

The American colonists were trying to escape the constant "religious" wars (actually turf wars) when they escaped to the anarchy of the Americas.  Knowing spontaneous order comes out of chaos when people arrive, and there is no king (an+archy) the colonists set up shop.  A few critical points: freedom of religion, selective legal recourse, attorneys general, no double jeopardy, bounty hunting, conscientious objection, homesteading, riparian law and property rights, self-representation, no standing military, trial by jury and jury nullification.

In USA, the jury can listen to the government's case, and even though the jury believes the defendant is guilty of the crime on the books, the jury can decide they do not like the law and to declare the defendant not guilty, and let the defendant go free.  AS important as the legislature and the judiciary, a jury is the final word on the law in a given case.  The juries job is to represent the community and decide in this one instance of applying the law, is the to be applied?  Jury nullification does not change the law, for other juries in other cases may apply it, it is just this case.  It is another example of how the people are supreme in USA, and government workers, no matter their political rank, are to obey the citizens.

A free society has at least that.


Tunisian Resistance

With Libya the object lesson, people are forgetting Tunisia.  Like Iran 30 years ago, and Egypt shortly thereafter, the evil regimes propped up by foreign imperialists are in fact overthrown by completely domestic efforts.  We need never engage in regime change since the people who would benefit, the oppressed citizens clearly from history can effect it themselves.  Cut out military spending 99.76% and we can be perfectly safe.

Our country was organized on the idea we would not have a standing army.  A well armed citizenry, yes, that does not pass its responsibility for self defense onto a "king."  This is the controversy over the 2nd amendment:  if you expect to be free, you better be armed.  Such sentiment is unthinkable to the modern mind, so the plain meaning is a real head-scratcher to those socially conditioned to believe they should dial 9-11 whenever they fear something, instead of putting a couple of rounds in a scattergun.  Problem is, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

Our military interventionism is imposing an isolationism on USA.  As we kill more and more people we make more antipathy towards the USA and the American people.  Also, since we do not follow natural law, we are missing out on activities of people trading worldwide that are just avoiding any USA participation.  This is how our military might isolates us.  To survive as a nation we must cut our military at least 98% and get back to peace and prosperity and world trade.  When we had practically no military, the first country to recognize us, literally, as good was the Moslem country of Morocco. To this day these Moslems get an automatic 10 year visa if they want to come to USA.

We got off track letting big govt and big business become one.  To survive, the left has to give up the welfare state and the right has to give up the warfare state.  What are the chances of that?

In the meantime, having lost Libya oil, the Chinese are hardening their agreements with Iran and Pakistan.  According to this report, China will defend iran even if it means WWIII.


FBI Pensions

There is an article covering FBI agent outrage over J Edgar Hoover being portrayed as gay in a movie, and this paragraph quoting an agent struck me as odd:

A closed email list for retired agents has been swamped with complaints about the movie, but agents younger than 70 or so don't seem to understand the reverence for Hoover, the president of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI tells theWashington Post. “Devotion is probably a good word for my generation and up,” he says. “The more recent people can’t understand why all the energy is being devoted to this when our benefits are at stake."

As I have been saying here, law enforcement is going to get nailed on their benefits.  How come this agent brought it up in that context, who knows.  But there you have it.  At the Meiji Restoration, one day the samurai were all-powerful, the next day they were made impotent.  What will happen at the American Restoration?


Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Now Newt Uses It

Here is that remarkable rhetorical device, "my weaknesses are my strengths" that I blogged on earlier, this time Newt is using it, regarding cheating on his wives:

"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate," Mr. Gingrich said.

Hmmm... can he admit he hurt his wife and kids?  Doesn't matter, according to the article, this is all that is needed to appease the evangelical set, wherein if you really really care about America, then, well, there is no sin in sin.  Evangelical women everywhere should reflect on how their husbands really really care about America, and the pass that Richard Land and Rick Warren will give their husbands.

How about "If his wife can't trust him, why should we?"  Pass.

Do they evangelicals know that in addition to cheating on his wives Newt also converted to Catholicism?


Credible Anarchy

Over at the Cobden Centre a correspondent notes world banking can be compared to one quart of sewage mixed with 3 quarts of milk to yield 4 quarts of sewage.  Apt, that.  To which I reply:


Four Quarts of Sewage

Well, who put in the sewage?

When a bank robber has done his job, the banker and many depositors are chagrined.  Who is happy?  Why, the bank robber!  But he must be very, very quiet, or he will be beset with outraged depositors and apoplectic bankers.

To mix the metaphors, the problem with the quart of sewage in the gallon milk pail is there is a paper trail as to who deposited the sewage into the pail.  Anglophone bankers in general and American in particular are the culprits. Sure German and Greek bankers alike fed at the trough, but they were educated in “banking” by the anglophone bankers, mostly at Goldman Sachs, if not the LSE.  Bank robbers are a charismatic lot, and if they dominate banking, serious men find other work and the field is left to adoring clerks.

The transaction tax, a threat to ruin the London exchange, is blackmail, which is usually the first threat a bank robber encounters as people figure out whodunnit.   At some point the world will get around to Wall Street. Bank robbing bankers and their ganymede politicians  (Barney Frank is slipping out of town) are subject to blackmail.  Right now they can get us to pay.

Along with the yeoman work of defining terms should come the herculean task of specific recommendations on how to manage the unwinding of the crisis.  Since the economy involves everyone, recommendations for reform are desultory without a plan to sort out the present mess.

The masses look to politics for relief, and we vote in “change” but only of dramatis personae, not policy.  Presently the policy is “taxpayers will pay.”  The false dilemma is taxpayers pay or the economic system crashes. The true alternatives are claw back and disgorgement instead of taxes and inflation.  Yes, with claw back and disgorgement AN economic system will fail, the obnoxious present system, but not THE economic system, the 3 quarts of milk.

Banker George Soros is profiting wildly at present on home loan financial shenanigans as he finances the homeless Occupy Wall Street crowd.   He is betting that people believe they have no alternative, so on he goes.  But there is an alternative.  We can withdraw our consent to be governed.  Mention that, and Cameron, Obama & Co warn that way lies Somalia!  No, that way lies Hong Kong, where a trio of private companies issue the currency, as once was in these climes.

Part of the project of reform must be a credible option to dismantle government.  Once banking is defined and clarified, then also demonstrate how government need not be involved.  If not, then nothing will change.  If so, the political class will through a George Soros under the bus and ply free marketers with what we may want.



Tuesday, November 29, 2011

- سورة البقرة Commentary on Sura 2:275

It is written:

2:275
Sahih International
Those who consume interest cannot stand [on the Day of Resurrection] except as one stands who is being beaten by Satan into insanity. That is because they say, "Trade is [just] like interest." But Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest. So whoever has received an admonition from his Lord and desists may have what is past, and his affair rests with Allah . But whoever returns to [dealing in interest or usury] - those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein.

The Prophet (PBUH) tells us Allah forbids usury (commonly referred to as "interest") and clearly distinguishes profit and usury as distinct events.  This tracks old testament prophets and the Christian church as well.

Usury is not a sin because Allah says so, but because usury does damage.  What makes a sin is harm or damage.  Usury, commonly referred to as interest causes harm and damage, but the problem is it is not clear as to how this is so.  It is so obscure, that our Creator required prophets to clearly condemn it, and the People of the Book and Mohammed to remind us again and again, usury is forbidden because it does harm.

Just what harm does it cause, and how?  This is what goes unexplained.  Modern economics explains present value theory, opportunity cost and other rational bases for permitting interest.  Against this the best argument contra-usury is Aquinas:

Of the Sin of Usury, Which is Committed in Loans:
To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice....
Now money, according to the Philosopher (Ethics v, Polit. i) was invented chiefly for the purpose of exchange: and consequently the proper and principal use of money is its consumption or alienation
whereby it is sunk in exchange. Hence it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for the use of money lent, which payment is known as usury: and just as man is bound to restore ill-gotten goods, so is he bound to restore the money which he has taken in usury....
A lender may without sin enter an agreement with the borrower for compensation for the loss he incurs of something he ought to have, for this is not to sell the use of money but to avoid a loss. It may also happen that the borrower avoids a greater loss than the lender incurs, wherefore the borrower may repay the lender with what he has gained. But the lender cannot enter an agreement for compensation, through the fact that he makes no profit out of his money: because he must not sell that which he has not yet and may be prevented in many ways from having....
It is lawful to borrow for usury from a man who is ready to do so and is a usurer by profession; provided the borrower have a good end in view, such as the relief of his own or another's need.
This is the same philosopher who teaches you cannot do evil to achieve good.  Perhaps he is considering th Salvation army taking out bonds to finance a reconstruction after a natural disaster. But when such efforts are fully funded with charity, why bother and pay interest?   In any event such arguments are hypothetical.

Here is the problem: by the miracle of compound interest, power is aggregated in relatively few hands.  This power is then used to distort markets by advancing or withdrawing economic support, through acts of malinvestment.

At the same time usurers are gaining purchasing power and market distortion potential, the borrowers on the reverse side of the magic of earning compound interest, those deluded souls who are borrowers experience the horror of owing debts that keep growing, and often find themselves trying to pay back debt with deflating currency or underwater on an asset for which they borrowed the principal.  It is a highly leveraged trap that superficially appears beneficial but in practice is a dark art that drives souls ahead of it to misery and destruction.  Farmers lose their land, small businesses lose their working capital,  the elderly cannot afford their homes.

All evil is constrained by finance, it must be supported in time and place by capital.  A truly free market doe not support the acquisition of exceptional wealth, and although it would permit usury, as a practical matter it would not obtain, because of two features of a free market - regulation and sanction.

In a free market there are no real regulations, simply counter-party actions.  If people lent money at usury it is only a matter of time they begin fractional reserve lending.  People observing these acts would short the bank stock, and do well when the inevitable bank-run occurred.  Usury would be nipped in the bud. There are no central banks in a free market to protect usurers and fractional reservists.

A more direct sanction is the borrower simply does not pay the usury on the loan. A usurer may lend a million dollars, but in a year when the borrower returns it,  he refuses to pay the usury fee.  Yes the borrower has broken his word.  This is where the sanction comes in.  In a free market sanctions are limited by freedom to associate, and freedom of press.  So when the borrower declines to pay the interest, the lender may raise a stink about the borrower.  In the degree anyone cares, the borrower will be sanctioned.  The borrower very well may find the sandwich shop owner will not serve him a sandwich.  Or more likely, far more likely, is nobody cares and the usurer finds his work unrewarding.

Should the usurer resort to force, then he may find in fact no one will serve him a ham sandwich, to continue the meme.  In the business world today, "law" enforcement is almost entirely reputation-related. It is necessary and sufficient to have such free market law enforcement, and as we see demonstrated daily in the headlines, the entire regime of "regulatory enforcement" is pointless featherbedding.

Wherein a Mother Teresa can do great good with no resources, a Hitler or a Capone cannot work without financing.  The money necesary to do evil is gathered by usury. This link is so obscure that it is not clear that usury does damage.  For this reason usury is forbidden by the prophets in an act of love by our Creator.

When an unwarranted cruise missile drops on a wedding in Afghanistan killing all except a few maimed little girls, it is essentially usury that makes that possible, with additional support from other financial crimes like fractional reserve, etc, which merely leverage usury with money substitutes.

Islamic scholars are struggling with the issue of usury right now on a global level.  The Church did so 400 years ago and got the answer right, but begged off any opinion on modern finance on the excuse of not understanding how it all works. As with so much of Western Culture, within Islam resides much that can illuminate current discussions.  Now to tap into that discussion, and urge freedom.


Monday, November 28, 2011

Yao Ming Wine

One of the few class acts in the NBA, Yao Ming, is starting up his own winery, with a view to exporting to China.

USA exporters of wine ruined the market in China for American wine by selling off excess production for dirt cheap.  Why the excess production?  Huge tax breaks and subsidies for the wealthy is behind the boutique winery fad, not market demand.  Excess wine cannot even be dumped in the sewer or poured on the fields, since it is considered hazardous material.  I am not making this up.  So whether you have good wine but too much for your market (and do not want to cut your price in the domestic market) or bad wine you do not want to pay to be rendered un-hazardous so you can dump it, the best bet is to unload it cheap in China.  Then you can at least get something for it.  Result is the AVERAGE price for red wine exported from the USA to China is $3 a litre, or about $2 a bottle.  You think $2 Chuck is cheap?  About 1/2 the Red going to china is cheaper.

Problem is such cheap wine is distributed far and wide in China dirt cheap too, and not provided proper care.  Result?  In the last decade when Chinese open an an American bottle of wine... bleeecccchhhh!

The problem is the subsidies and tax breaks for the rich.  The tea party loves them and the occupy wall street don't understand them. So it ain't going to change.  But what feels good is to blame the Chinese guy for it all.  Google John Spiers for my email and I'll send you a raw trade data spreadsheet on USA exports of red wine for five years running.  Nothing will change if people have no idea what they are talking about.


Feds Pursue Victimless Crimes

The FEDS have seized and shut down 130 websites on the pretext they were committing crimes with intellectual property violations, selling counterfeit goods.

“Intellectual property crimes are not victimless,” said Attorney General Eric Holder at the time.
“The theft of ideas and the sale of counterfeit goods threaten economic opportunities and financial stability, suppress innovation and destroy jobs. The Justice Department, with the help of our law enforcement partners, is changing the perception that these crimes are risk-free with enforcement actions like the one announced today,” Holder added.

None of the above is true.  People selling things Louis Vuitton never made to people who would never be Louis Vuitton customers is hardly "wrong."  How can one steal an idea?  How do counterfeit goods threaten economic opportunities and financial stability, suppress innovation and destroy jobs?  This is oft-repeated but never demonstrated.  People who actually study it become anti-IPR like so many patent attorneys and economists are today. See the book below.

People such as myself who actually produce things for a living certainly do not believe Holder's assertions.  Although personally I think counterfeit goods is a was of time and talent for a merchant, I certainly see no harm in it.  I am not opposed to it, but I would never bother myself and certainly always urge people to do better with their time and creativity than work in counterfeits.

What happened at MFGlobal is only the tip of the iceberg.  While bankers and brokers steal countless futures, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are cracking down on on poor people flogging fake crap to other poor people.  Both parties are willing participant, no one is getting hurt.

And as an aside, on this false pretext defending economic opportunities and financial stability, innovation and jobs, 130 websites were seized by the government.  See how easy if is for them to shut down a site, even when, as the article points out, they do not have the right to do so?

But see how it works...  billionaires who have taxpayer-subsidized stadiums have a monopoly on selling Jerseys and then you and I also have to pay to have expensive law enforcement shut down these sites, on some very tendentious pretext.  In the meantime holder does not have time to notice if his boys are gun-running into Mexico.  Jersey counterfeit interdiction for billionaires - on it!  Gunrunning? What's that?


Sunday, November 27, 2011

Which Country Has The Most Splendid Soldiers?

Well, let's see.  The Vietnamese have defeated every invader since Genghis Khan (Vietnam was his only defeat) up to recently both the anger and rage of the United State AND the Peoples Liberation Army of China.  (The Vietnamese allowed the French a stay as Vietnam modernized with a French flair.  The influence has made Vietnamese food the best in Asia.)

The Afghanis go a step farther.  Not only do they defeat every invader, most recently the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but currently the USA military, which from Lebanon, to Somalia, to the Balkans to Iraq to Afghanistan cannot catch a break.  Our last clear, clean victory was when we pre-emptively attacked Granada, and Island of about 100,000 natives.  With no military.

What do these countries share? No standing military.  People who when offended or abused get their guns and defend their countries.  Sure they all get help from outside, but the outside help does no good unless there is a farmer willing to take the battle to the invaders.

When the colonists in US defeated the worlds major superpower, we too were farmers willing to stand up and deal with problems ourselves.  We should learn from the most splendid soldiers on the planet.


The Perennial Error

When a people finds itself with bad polity within or threats without, or both, they make the eternal error of asking for someone else to handle the problem.  This is the genesis of the state (I won't say government, for even anarchy is government: true self-government.)

Essentially, people will accept being oppressed if they do not have to deal with the fear of bullies. So they ask for others to arrogate power unto themselves, as much as they like, as long as the people do not have to face problems themselves.

So we accept child sacrifice, recruiting 19 year olds to go and fight monsters real and imagined.   And then we than them for their service.  To us. So we do not have to bother standing up to bullies ourselves.
“We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

Here is the first recorded instance, but one with to many replays to count.
1 Samuel 8

Israel Asks for a King
 1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders.[a] 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
 4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead[b] us, such as all the other nations have.”
 6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”
 10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
 19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
 21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”