Using Your Deposits - Bitcoins

Here is a splendid look at the crime of fractional reserve banking which has contributed to the bitcoin debacle.  It is simply not credible that Bitcoin is something brilliant or new or both.  My guess was it was another intel fun-time thing.  But the more I read it is following the trajectory of the pedestrian thinking on banking, the more I think it was just a dorm room "neato idea."

This article indicates the Bitcoin nation is a group of profoundly conventional thinkers.  it has the problem defining money correctly, but otherwise it is instructive.

A deposit is how some people use their reserves.  The do not expect anyone else to use it in another way.  Free banking makes that shift in expectations, this gets back to the conflicting purposes of deposits of money.

It is admittedly true that the depositor will not miss his deposit much until he asks for it. But this does not mean that the bank is free to make use of it. After all, the depositor either wanted the good kept safe or he was unsure of when he would need it back. Since the depositor doesn’t even know when he will ask for its safe return what makes the bank so sure it can?

Exactly.

Bitcoin is hailed as something new.  Anything that emerges in a false economy should be viewed as another manifestation of that very false economy.  People who did not get in on microsoft in the 1980s were consoled with beany babies, until that speculation too went bust.  Bitcoins are beany babies for those not in the equities boom going on right now.

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It's Just Metadata

It's not to stop terrorism, it's to track you.

ConclusionThe dataset that we analyzed in this report spanned hundreds of users over several months. Phone records held by the NSA and telecoms span millions of Americans over multiple years. Reasonable minds can disagree about the policy and legal constraints that should be imposed on those databases. The science, however, is clear: phone metadata is highly sensitive.

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Selective Enforcement

A friend of mine was sentenced to 16 years in the slam today for losing some $20 million for clients which earned multiples of that under his management.

“He got bit by the venture capital bug,” said Mike Lang, an assistant United States attorney who was one of the prosecutors. “We’re in Seattle. Everyone is making money. He wanted a piece of that.”

Well,,, not quite, his clients, the few who complained, had an outsized sense of entitlement and were enraged when he was unable to compliment their outsized sense of entitlement with predatory return rates briefly.  No one complained when they were cleaning up under his management for twenty years. Then the unthinkable happened, he lost for a while.  Stop the world, the rest of us must all attend to and pay for the inconvenience of the complainers.

At the same time -

On top of it all, no one was held criminally responsible for the collapse in mortgage-backed securities, no one was held responsible in LIBOR rigging, no one has been held responsible for anything to date, and no one will be held responsible for currency rigging either.

Bankers actively stealing billions face no responsibility whatsoever.

Back in 2008 I had Rydex double short financials knowing the system must fail, as hedge.  When the play began to pay off, SEC Chairman Chris Cox outlawed shorting on Financial, to protect them from their bad management.  Government changed to rules in the middle of the game to protect its owner, the banks.  Cox never went to prison.  He did say it was probably a mistake, but who cares.  He is unspeakable rich for taking care of the bankers to the harm of all investors.

Banks are ludicrously managed, and they are in charge of the U S A.  Our very worst managers make the decisions for our peace and prosperity.  Such is capitalism.

Since I sat behind him for eight years in school SPAngler, SPIers. I know Mark very well.  He is no criminal, as many of his "victims" agree.  (Some who lost money understand that can happen, others believe if live dishes out any inconvenience whatsoever, someone must pay harshly.)

For those with an extreme sense of entitlement, the rest of us, having paid for a pointless trial, that took money the "victims" might have recovered, the rest of us must must now pay for 16 years of incarceration to keep talent on ice.

Sure, I've lost money because the game is rigged, and it is clear that when Cox et al changed the rules in the middle of the game they knew what they were doing, that is why they did it,  it was criminal intent.    But no, I am not calling for any trial, but I think there should be truth commissions, so people can see how capitalism really works, and how only free markets promote peace and prosperity.

Some people let money go to their heads, like the ones who complained about Mark Spangler after losing their money.  Money is just not that important.  There is more where it came from.

Should there be no sanction for wrongdoing now?  Well, there is no sanction for wrongdoing now.  almost nothing of the vast wrongdoing on a daily basis by the State has any reply at all, except ever mounting resentment.  In this case, let the community he lives in decide to what degree he will be inconvenienced for his sins.  Condign punishment, whatever it is.

The state brings chaos to orderly society.  It is time to escape from chaos into the order of anarchy.

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China Economic Tactics

When our economic central planners are getting it completely wrong, China only has to get it partially wrong to beat the pants off of us. They too have their Solyndras:

Li's warning followed the failure of Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy to make a payment on a 1bn yuan (£118m) bond last week. The default was the first of its kind for China and widely seen as pointing to the end of 11th-hour government bailouts for troubled enterprises.

But they are letting companies die, as opposed to USA, which keeps banks on life support, and so too automakers, and bigpharma, and big ag, etc...

The figures come as China's leadership says it wants to transform the growth model away from an over-reliance on often wasteful investment, making private demand the driver for the country's development.

Imagine that!  Even communists know something of which the capitalists have exactly zero sense - free market are the only hope.

Since out policies are so bad, the Chinese can afford to pursue some bad policies and still win.

However, figures this week revealed that Beijing is copying the Japanese tactic of ramping up public infrastructure spending to replace the steep slowdown in private sector investment. Fixed asset investment, a measure of government spending on infrastructure, expanded 17.9% during the first two months of 2014, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

We need freedom.

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OTB - Open To Buy

I’ve been to plenty of trade shows in which food products are sold, primarily as gift items, for example dried fruit, nut mixes, candy and so on.  Just about any packaged food can be a gift item.  Like any other item at such shows, the proprietors and reps are writing orders like crazy.

Apparently at many food shows, this is not the custom.  This strikes me as strange.  Stores need products for their shelves.  The time to write orders for a store is at a trade show when you see, and perhaps sample, the product.  Why wait?  Will anyone remember what something tasted like later?

Serious buyers have a buying plan, and they work it.  The balance left to allocate at any time is called open to buy.  It works roughly like this.  There is the standard distribution in specialty goods, 80% reorders across categories and 20% new items.

Of the 20% new, they know how many dollars they need put into each item to test new...

 so say they have a $1.2 million a year in purchases, to make it simple, a $100,000 a month (a buyer would never straight-line demand, but let’s keep it simple.)

Retail is theatre and needs constantly changing scenes.

 So they need $20K in new product each month, this is their open to buy.  “New” may be only 20% of their sales, but it is what keeps people coming into the specialty stores, even specialty food.    They may come in and go “ahhhh” when they see the new, but their purchases 80% of the time they buy the same old same old.  That 80% same old same old only takes 20% of their time to find, that 20% new takes 80% of their time to find.  It is not professional to leave a purchase for later when you have the opportunity to do it on the spot.

They need new, but they do not want a lot, just a no risk test order of new.  Say this is $1000 worth of whatever.  So that means they buy 20 new items a month to test in their stores.

$100K total purchases, 80% reorders, 20% new. The $20K OTB broken down at $1000 per new item.

So at trade shows they see something new and different and it appeals, the specialty buyers write a $1000 order on the spot to test in their stores, and the order means nothing.... it is just a test and it also serves the purpose of being “new.” You (or your rep) gets say 25 of these orders orders at a show out of the 5000 buyers visiting the show, and you walk away with $25,000 in orders from first rate stores...  (Yes, probably more, but you get my point.  In any event, then you work the feedback for redesign iteration.)

 Retailers buy things for their store...  if they go to a show and fail to do so, then why did they go?  People who fail to develop a buy plan before going to a show could stand an upgrade in professionalism,  and those who do it right have the advantage. Retailing is also a discipline...

Now, having said all that, as a vendor, a reasonable question for you to ask a retailer is what is their plan for promoting your products in their store?  What is the OTB for a new item, and the reason you need to know so you can best support their programs.

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Squatters

I met a couple of anarchists who were engaged in squatting, that is occupying empty property as a place to live, apparently without the owners knowledge or permission.  If people can move into property you own without you knowing, then it is a good indication you do not really "own" it in any moral sense.

Does that sound controversial?    Not in the law.  In the USA we have what is called adverse possession.  Since property rights are not human rights, your property can be alienated.  (You cannot alienate life and liberty, that is to say give them up or have them taken.)  You can give up you property by selling it, or not using it.  In USA if someone uses your real estate under certain conditions for a set amount of time, then the property legally becomes yours.  Funny twist to this law, the taking must be adverse, against your wishes, open and notorious, and so on.  If you have permission to use property, you cannot take it.

Land reallocation is critical because through nefarious means such as usury nefarious gains are usually invested in real estate.  Great place to actualize leveraged power.  People must be and work somewhere, how about land you "own."

Some Christians have the crazy idea that property rights are inalienable, when in fact the Bible is very detailed on a forced land reallocation at intervals.  Concentration of property ownership is contrary to peace and prosperity. Hard to keep land, as a Christian, for more than a generation or two.

Moslems go one better, in their land unused for three years is up for grabs.

Unused land makes used land all the more valuable.  Any scarcity pushes prices up on what is available.  Here is a tricky problem -

Underused or unneeded buildings total 77,000 altogether, according to the government itself. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has said that many assets are “in an alarming state of deterioration.” There is bipartisan support for some amount of privatization of these assets and lawmakers should push forward with the issue.

So there are some 77,000 government buildings standing idle. The problem here is one cannot adversely possess government property under the legal fiction you cannot adversely possess what you already own.

We need some sort of use it or lose it law which automatically puts unused "public" buildings at public auction on the courthouse steps (we really do handle it that way) with some sort of designation that the sales proceeds goes to something paid out immediately, some unfunded fed obligation, like bridge repair or something.  Just try to make is not another instance of fraud.

Bringing 77,000 buildings onto the market will lower the value of all buildings, which will contribute to  the economic recovery.

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Question As to What Business

What type of business do you recommend that would best weather severe economic problems in the U.S.? An export business focused on foreign markets that hopefully wouldn't be affected as much? If one had an export business, wouldn't problems in the U.S still be a problem (loss in domestic manufacturing capability)? What about the specific export product? Agricultural products maybe, non-high tech, housewares? Having your own business may not be the "lifeboat" one thinks. Or maybe it's a business like a barber, manual labor, truck driver, that cannot really be outsourced, but always needed no matter how bad or good the economy is doing. 

It seems to me that is thinking like an investor, not an entrepreneur or customer employed.  Your criteria is make money no matter what, and avoid problems.  Quite the contrary, being customer employed is to accept you will not make money if you fail to produce to customer satisfaction, and you intend to make an unmistakbly bad situation better, not avoid it.  Business is a participation racket, not a protection racket.

The work begins not with gaming how to make money and avoid danger, but acknowledge what causes you pain and gives you joy working on a solution. In this way you make a unique contribution, come what may.  It also becomes a lifestyle, your lifestyle, unique among all lifestyles, you become orignal and authentic.

Certainly for some that is in the skilled trades (what you call manual labor), and “no truck drivers, no nothing.”  Good truck drivers are critical.

I never said being self-employed is a lifeboat, but a revolutionary act, doing good while doing well when everything is geared toward collectivization and the destruction of the individual.  Fight the power, doing good while doing well.

)

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Sampling and Licenses

On Mar 9, 2014, at 1:30 AM, T M wrote:

John:

Thank you for the sample contract.

I have two more question.
A. on the timing of registering the business entity
B. on meeting the Chinese

A. since it will be a few months before I have a sample in my hand, I am considering waiting until I get my first order before registering the business entity. I would paying fees for months with no income coming in. 

***right... of course...***

But this depends on a few factors:

1. If I contact the HK government office to ask for the names of the top suppliers of cast aluminum cookware, they might not take me seriously unless I show them that I have a registered company?  Will they check this or can I wing it?

***No one will ever ask...  no one cares...  your money talks...  and the focus will be on the retailers who said "it is a good idea and does not exist, " not on you....***

2. When I talk to the designers in USA and factory rep in HK, will they want proof that I have a registered company in order to give me factory references?

***Again,  the focus will be on the retailers who said "it is a good idea and does not exist, " not on you....***

By the time I have the first sample in my hand in San Francisco, I will need to have a wholesale license in order to negotiate with the buyers, and I would need this before I negotiate with sales reps in the USA.

*** I don't think so...negotiating and writing orders is not a business, selling goods (defined as placing on a common carrier against and order) is a business.  Orders are paperwork, and orders are not sales. Any license is a registration with tax collecting authorities.  No sales, not income to tax.  Wait until you have income to be taxed before applying for the privilege to be taxed.***

So this would be the time to register the business. 

***I don't think so... per above.***

I am wondering if I can wing it through the HK phase of development. 

***You need not wing anything when no one cares and it is not necessary.  What you cannot wing is what people care about, and that is market in USA.   The focus will be on the retailers who said "it is a good idea and does not exist, " not on you.... do what matters, forget about what does not matter and no one cares.***

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Brilliant Booth Design Element

At the ExpoWest Natural Foods Show in Anaheim this week I was floored by a booth design element I thought was brilliant.  It was a map of the USA covering the back wall of the booth. Compliments of wiki, let me show you sort of what it looked like:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_USA.png#file

The map was entitled "(named product) market penetration density by State."  Any buyer walking by gets 1000 words of info from this graphic instantly.  First all buyers see the item is spreading in diverse markets.  Second, any buyer from an empty state sees he will be the first to introduce the item.  Third given the relative Arizona/California market penetration density Californians can see their market is under-served.   I could see this map selling goods without the buyer knowing what the item is.

I changed one aspect...  they had only one dot for California,  and I split it in two since that is really two states and NorCal is 1/3rd the market of SoCal, so splitting it up makes each dot even smaller relative to Arizona.

I would update this map demonstrating changes over the year, each year.  I asked the sales clerk who came up with the idea..?  "Marketing."  Bonuses due there!  Brilliant marketing and execution.  It makes news, enhances the image and grows the business.  Ogilvy would have applauded.

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The Currency Crack-up

Not sure why I started studying usury and such, maybe it is intuitive, but two very smart people wrote a book reviewed by Mish:

No one knows and importantly, Turk and Rubino don't claim to know either. Rather they outline a number of possible scenarios including a "Debt Jubilee", "Crypto-Currencies", a flight to tangible assets in general and gold in particular, currency wars, capital controls, wealth taxes, and bank bail-ins.

Exactly... or all of the above, none of which is good for anyone owing debt.  (Debt Jubilee will be for what banks owe us, not for what you owe the banks.)  A flight to tangible assets means the means of production, your baking oven or reputation with people in trade, that is to say, your business will be exponentially more valuable.  On the other hand...

"After reading the preceding 26 chapters of this book, a very reasonable conclusion might be to borrow as much fiat currency as possible and use the proceeds to buy hard assets ... This is a seductive thought, but it rests on a flawed assumption that powers-that-be will simply let debtors walk away from their obligations... It becomes easy to envision bankers arranging to have debt contracts rewritten to have debt paid back at fair value, not depreciated currency". 

Exactly.  You choices will be poverty or the military, as with student loans today which cannot be bankrupted. This is what history has shown, and Spain is doing today, as you read this.  The bottom of the market is not low prices, it is no customers.  When people are miserable because of the investment choices when the prices fall will think it cannot get worse.  It will get worse.  Get customer-employed now.

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Los Angeles Import Start Up One Day Seminar

If you need an all-day boot camp to jump start your business start up, come join me Saturday, March 15, from 9am to 5pm at Orange Coast College.

Importing as a Small Business

Class Description Learn how you can become an importer now in a one-day seminar highly rated for the instructor's experience, pace, candor and humor. You will be guided through licensing, selecting products, finding suppliers; working with governments, bankers, brokers, carriers; financing, costing and pricing, and gaining orders for your products. This knowledge becomes the basis for an export business as well.  After the seminar,  help via email with instructor and past students is included.  Class ID: 16510 Saturday, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm; 1 session starting March 15, 2014, ending March 15, 2014 Tuition: $95.00 Instructor: Spiers

Enroll now to assure you have a place...

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Trillion Dollar Madness & Minimum Wage

The reason usury is wrong is not because someone said so, but because it does damage.  I am one of the rare voices who says clearly what we call "interest" today is usury (the sophist arguments to the contrary do not stand).

There is something going on that is unprecedented in size, and that is the lending of fractional reserve based (asset-less) credit at usury.  With no gold standard there is no rational end to how much can be lent, there is only one dollar too much and down comes the system.

So far we are at $100 trillion and nothing to show for it, except payment obligations unto the third and fourth generation.

The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

When equity values go down as debt goes up, are you getting any signals yet?

When I say nothing to show for it, please name a single aspect of life on earth that has improved since we went off the gold standard.  Wages?  Health care?  Law?  Housing?  Education? Food?  Clothing?  Religion? Please tell me.  If you subscribe to the idea of wealth as personal accumulation, you may look at the 1% and find much satisfaction.  But if your idea of wealth has the integrity of etymology, then wealth is the degree to which the widest assortment of goods and services is available to the widest group of people at prices they can afford on their own.  In this correct understanding of wealth, no one has exceptional wealth, but everyone has access to more than the uber-wealthy have today.  Think Henry VIIIs assortment of goodies, and anyone else today.  We in the West have killed progress with capitalism.

Let me give you an example of how it works:  Seattle voters reject repeatedly a 4.25 billion dollar  (before overruns) tunnel.  A mayor (lawyer, see Kant on why USA must fail) is elected on the platform of no tunnel, never.  Within a year a bi-election is held on the topic and a result is bought and paid for, maybe $150,000.  Now we have a $4.25 billion dollar two mile tunnel project.  In mud, along a waterfront, and currently stopped cold at 24 feet out of two miles.  No one has any idea why the boring machine will not move forward.  Perhaps the God that warned sins are unto the 3rd and 4th generation  has halted the destruction that would be billed to a fifth generation.  Who knows?  All other explanations right now are grounded in belief, not facts.

In the meantime, $4.25 billion is a lot of debt to splash around, and one one side of the ledger we have debt assigned to people who actually produce something in life, and credit to people who screw everyone else, because the laws protect them.  The actual means is the capitalist lending of fractional reserve based (asset-less) credit at usury.  $4.25 billion is a designated amount that productive people must divert from their hopes and dreams to a one percent.  For their $4.25 billion dollars, these people get a 24 foot hole in the ground.  Even if the tunnel is ever completed, like the mass transit light rail boondoggles, they cannot ever cover their costs.  If we had a free market, and not capitalism, we'd have cheap and plentiful mag lev.  But the problem is the 98% of the 99% who beg the abusers for ever more abuse, by demanding entitlement over freedom.

Now multiply pointless, stupid wastes of effort all over the world, and you have a false economy and debt now at the ten trillion dollar mark.  No idea how much higher it can go, we only know two things:

1. At some point it will crash.

2.  The longer that takes, the more horrible the results.

The other pointless waste of credit is our wars, which create huge tallies for a few.  It is sort of condign punishment that the government house "unions" who did not resist the fascist adventures overseas, find their pensions spread all over the ground in the Middle East.  See the Taliban for you retirement checks.

So what we have is a one percent who have a tally of asset-less backed debt, to which almost all people  bow down in awe.  Among that one percent is some very unhappy and fierce balance envy, where a Soros envies a Buffet who envies a Carlos for having more balance than the other.  They experience a libido dominandi, where personal accumulation is how scores are kept.  None of them understand survivorship bias, or at least think they are exempt.

Offer for change comes in the form of progressives' demanding $15 minimum wage, a coordinated protest marches around the USA on March 15 for a $15 minimum wage, with the rallying cry "because the rent won't wait."  The solution to income inequality is to up the minimum wage so you can give it to the rich?  Brilliant.  Warren Buffett loves the idea of taxpayers transferring more money to the poor so he can end up with it.  Buffett sure as hell has nothing to offer (insurance, candy, banking, construction etc, all subsidized industries) anyone who actually produces anything in life themselves, so he has always depended on welfare transfer payments to come out on top. His #1 holding, Geico, is the Government Employee Insurance Corporation.

So party on progressives!  Keep demanding more money for your abusers so you can be miserable and poor sitting on a bus and staring into the iPhone, at nothing.

Or not.  The most revolutionary act you can perform is to start a business.  And a good corollary is to eschew any debt.

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Conflicts

You know, every time I think I am getting out there in my thinking, I run across someone so far more smart and so far more out there I sound like a valley girl in comparison.

For example he writes that: “The state, as such, has no religious value. No state ever had. Political achievements, conquests, victories—none of these are religiously significant.”  He criticized his countrymen for their ultimate regard of the state using the ultimate accusation for a Jew; “Regarding the state as an intrinsic value is the essence of fascism.”  

And don't we know it!  And then the idea that the abusers become as deformed as the abused:

Rule over the occupied territories would have social repercussions.  After a few years there would be no Jewish workers or Jewish farmers.  The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police–mainly secret police.  A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech, and democratic institutions.  The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the state of Israel.  The administration would have to suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other.  There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.

And then the source...

"On the one hand he was a libertarian, an extreme form of classical liberalism, and believed that human beings should be free to determine their way of life without any state interference. On the other hand, he was an ultra-Orthodox Jew who insisted that the state and religion must be separated completely to avoid corrupting each other.

Modern states are legal fictions, like a corporation.  Time to visit the charter and rework it given the failures of the current one.  But on to his views on Christians -

Christianity regards itself as the legitimate heir of Judaism, and the heir cannot take possession of the inheritance while the testator is still alive.  The Church did not desire the physical annihilation of Jews.  It was interested in the liquidation of Judaism, and every Jewish convert was precious testimony to its truth.  The Church desired the repentance of Jews and not their death.  However, the existence of scores of generations clearly indicated that there was no prospect of a total conversion of the Jewish people, and only ‘with the last of the Jews would there be an end to Judaism.’ In effect, the extinction of Judaism could only be attained by the annihilation of the Jews.

Fair enough, from a Jewish perspective... and then Catholic teaching...

839 "Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ",328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329
840 And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

To make things even more complicated, the Moslems believe Jesus will return too, not as God, but as the prophet Jesus to convene the last judgment.

Christians:  We told you so!

Jews: Not you again!

Muslims:  Book 'em Jesus, murder one.

You think we have problems now...  but what is amazing is for the vast stretch of history, all these people have gotten along quite well, in spite of the existential differences.  I wish we were in one of those golden ages, like the Tang Dynasty.  Free trade, tolerance, peace and prosperity.

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Why Romney/Obamacare is Fascism

Nearly 40 years ago a god-brother got involved in medical testing and made a fortune.  Easy and expensive,  capitalist insurance (as opposed to free market insurance) forced prices up higher than costs, and personal wealth ensued.

Now comes a college dropout that is allowing the costs of medical testing to fall fast, a matter of deflation, which we need if our economy is to recover.

There are a billion tests done every year in the United States, but too many of them are done in the emergency room. If you were able to do some of those tests before a person gets checked into the ER, you’d start to see problems earlier; you’d have time to intervene before a patient needed to go to the hospital. If you remove the biggest barriers to these tests, you’ll see them used in smarter ways.

If you remove the legal barriers.  You see in a fascist dictatorship, we are not free to buy what we want or know what is going on with our bodies.  The HEPA rules to keep your medical records secret is not to protect you, but to protect big govt and big pharma from you.  If you know the horrible things going on, like 1/2 of all medicine taken is worthless, even harmful, you might ask for change.

Orwell warned of mind-control and Huxley warned of chemical control 75 years ago, guess which one the state has chosen for the means of oppression?  Both!

Now listen to the young lady and spot the opportunity:

No one thinks of the lab-testing experience as positive. It should be! One way to create that is to help people engage with the data once their physicians release it. 

She has taken the kool-aid.  She can be beat.  Can you spot where?  "one the physicians release it."  She has bought into the weltanshauung in which the state agent, the doctor, is caretaker of your medical records.

So, set up a subscription in say a free place, where... hmm... Georgia, Vatican, Hong Kong, Singapore, Andorra, wherever humans can breathe free, and have people send in their blood drop (or data thereof) and publish the raw medical information.

Then doctors around the world, or any health-care professional can pitch healthcare improvements to the individual, on a yelp-based QC system.

Now, once you do so, this young woman will adjust in a heart beat, and you'll have some fearsome competition, but then that is best for the rest of us.  Do good while doing well!

You can make amazing personal wealth either working with or against the state.  Most billionaires make it selling guns to the warmongers, but like McGowan at MCI you can make it going against the warmongers.

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Honor Labor

Last week I took in a lecture at the University on what unions no longer do.  The engaging speaker was a sociologist whose work focussed on income equality.  He noted how unions helped wage equalization among minorities, women and immigrants, and sadly, with the decline of the unions there is a decline of this effect.

In the Q&A, there was lamenting at the decline in unions, fear at the assault on government unions, and anxiety for the $15 min wage issue.  I was disheartened, no concrete plan to revitalize the union movement.  The speaker averred we should forget about industrial unions since those jobs are never coming back.

Although wage equalization (to the degree it effects justice) is a good thing, the core benefit of unions is anti-fascism.  To completely ignore that aspect was well, I guess, why unions are in decline.  If you have no idea why you exist, you are unlikely to persist.

If you follow the history of the unions, they grew as the state and industry began to meld, the very definition of fascism, the state and industry as one.  As industry and the state began to destroy the person, the family, etc, workers fought back.

Government worker unions are house unions, so any discussion regarding them ends there.

But as to reviving the good of unions, it is only if and when they recover their core rationale of anti-fascism that they will revive, and contrary to the assertion of the good professor, manufacturing will return as well.  Fascism engenders false economies, and anti-fascism will rebalance the economy.

Instead, from the commanding heights of labor, we get calls for single-payer health care and minimum wage.  We do not need a fascist minimum wage economy.  We need a renaissance in the labor movement.

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