Ponderances, Inanities, and other Nonsense
Economics
Conspiracy theory conspiracy
Jul 19th
Over the past few months, I have lowered my ear to the ground to listen to the pitter-patter of the tiny footbeats of the angry and disheartened, with their teeth gnashed eyes clinched shut, who fight some insidious and hidden foe. I have always been sympathetic to their merciful pleas, with their wild and unfocused viewpoints that often make sense because they are just so intricate and well-thought.
I would even mull over these theories in my head on my drives to and from work and over lunch. I have shared a few that I thought interesting on this blog.
The common denominator in most of these is that some powerful, unseen force is working against us, to enslave us in a new fiefdom called “The New World Order” or some other fearful moniker. Is there any truth to this? Perhaps. Who really knows?
What is the “silver bullet” to slay this beast, if it does exist? Why, action, of course.
Let’s look at a couple of these theories of note:
1. 9-11 was an inside job, and was perpetrated on the American people to wrest power from them via the “Patriot Act” and to conceal the fact that the Pentagon, only the previous day had been pinged for “misplacing” 2.3 trillion dollars.
Well, chances are this was, in fact, a power grab. I can’t think of the Patriot Act without getting severely pissed off. This is the anti-Bill of Rights, and was over and done quickly and painlessly because the people were scared. Whether it was purposely perpetuated by someone or just an opportunity, the fact is our government took advantage of our fear. And why did we not right this after we wised up? It was as if as a collective we said, “Aw shucks, you got us this time…” You know what they say: you can’t be fooled again.
The fact that 2.3 trillion dollars was misplaced is mind-boggling. There is only about $625 billion in circulation, or a little over 1/2 of a trillion dollars, which means most of this was theoretical money. I can’t blame people for being suspicious about such bad accounting practices, since we would be up-in-arms if a company did it, right?
Obviously not, which brings us to #2.
2. A large international banking cartel and/or large multi-national corporations have taken over control of most of the world.
Maybe, maybe not. The attention that the Bildeberg Group has gotten in the past few years is intriguing, especially that it never makes public news, only conspiracy journals. How can these “heavy hitters” meet and it not be news?
All of the problems on Wall Street have been ridiculous. We SHOULD NOT EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER bail out a company…no matter what. Most of the large companies that are “too large to fail” are not…but that perception enslaves us. Why? Because the current mindset of these companies is to “socialize losses and privatize profits.” Did you get a check back from GM, or get any stock certificates in the mail? No? How about the large banks that got payouts last year? Probably not.
I tend to come back a lot to Ron Paul’s books “The Revolution: A Manifesto” and “End The Fed, as the solutions he offers make sense when looking at the big picture.
1. End the Federal Reserve Bank. Most people do not understand the significance and the evil of our economic system. It is basic supply and demand: the more of something in supply, the less it is demand (the less valuable it is.) The 2.3 trillion lost by the Pentagon and all of the money given to bail out GM, Ford, Chrysler, and the banks is created by ledger entries by the Federal Reserve Bank, or Fed. There is no oversight by the population (Congressional or other) into the Fed, as the Fed claims it works as an independent organization, and oversight would stifle their ability to remain neutral. Are they neutral? So, how about all of the people without houses and shitty credit? It only works as an instrument to favor the rich. Basically, with the time value of money, those who get the money first (ahem, *BANKS*) get to enjoy it before it gets very far into circulation. By the time we get it, inflation has set in. Our money is based on squat. It used to be on the “Gold Standard.” Want to see something shocking? The supply of gold has remained almost constant since 1973, but look what money has done against it. (Basically, I am implying that since the supply of gold is constant, then money has lost value in comparison.) The fact that the Fed claims to be independent but keeps giving money to people and businesses without accountability or public oversight is incredible. If most people understood how this worked, the Fed would have already been abolished.
2. Return to a gold standard. If money is backed by something, rather than just by its reputation, people will really start to care where their monies go. FDR and Nixon each had their parts in destroying our gold standard. The people let it happen and now we see our money being used against us by fancy economics that most people do not understand.
3. Be active politically! One of the things lacking with most of these conspiracy theories is an impetus to action. (Of course, Zeitgeist has this nebulous “Let’s create a resource-based economy” action, but isn’t very realistic.) Our political system is flawed by being composed of fallible humans. Most people behave when they feel they are being watched. Make sure you check up on your public servants. At a minimum, keep an eye on how they vote. Ideally, email or call them and tell them how to vote! Make them do your bidding!
3. Never vote to bail out businesses! A free-market economy can not co-exist with the Keynesian capitalism crapola! Oligopolies and monopolies pay for special interest favor to keep competition down. Like in a forest, when the taller trees die or fall, it gives opportunities (sunlight) to the smaller trees and allows them to flourish. The more opportunity in a market, the more innovation in the market, usually while having to stay competitive on price. Instead, we get these industrial behemoths that have no real competition and still look for price-cutting and innovation via off-shoring and acquisition. Allow these large businesses to fail!
I could probably go on for at least another hour about this. Be an active constituent! Find a site, such as Campaign for Liberty or one to your liking and get involved! Find out who is holding the strings to your puppets and hold them accountable!
Senate Energy Bill
May 13th
Once again, in the wording, it seems that the middle class will be suffering to make the world a better place for the rich and the poor, yet again.
I would much rather see subsidization or tax incentives for establishment of renewable energy sources than cap ‘n’ trade. Either way, it would be through taxing the middle class, however, lessening the tax burden of these companies would be a better approach, since it wouldn’t affect the end user’s cost as well (double taxation, anyone?) And who gets the money paid out under-the-cap?
Do we get a tax break? Don’t think so.
I remember reading about the proposition of Cap & Trade (or cap and regulate, or whatever it has been called in year’s past) in Al Gore’s pile o’ propaganda called “An Inconvenient Truth.” Of course he also suggested carbon credits as a viable option, and we all know about that racket.
Bottom line: This is a special interest scam…you will pay more for energy, brokers for carbon offsets will make a metric ass-tonne of money, and the environment will not get better (in fact, it will most assuredly worsen .) Energy companies will not bear any of the cost of enforcing this law…they will pass it down to the consumer. It is a distraction to legitimate environmental legislation, and should not be passed!
To rise above it all,…is it human nature to do so?
Apr 28th
After watching the Zeitgeist videos, I mentioned I was disappointed in the “punchline,” that they had offered up a very unrealistic resource-based society as a viable and reasonable alternative to our current paradigm, the monetary-based system.
Most of the propaganda that they delivered to support their theories–debasing religion, government, and multinational (global) corporations–were used in the same way that they tried to justify the need for this radical shift in ideology.
I don’t think this will work, as I think man’s own ethical limitations will destroy it before it has a chance of succeeding. Don’t get me wrong: I think that the idea is nice, but utopian societies are about as plausible as perpetual motion machines. You can draw it out on paper all you want, but it will just never work.
Granted, I believe the Federal Reserve Bank needs to be done away with, for the same reason that Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and countless others have cited: that the debt generated by this fractional reserve system will eventually impose a binary social class: the haves and have-nots, the lords and the serfs, the rich and the poor, the eventual dissolution of the middle class and then ever-increasing poverty.
Of course, no single person can be blamed for our woes. We are relentlessly inundated with all sorts of propaganda and dis-information to the point where it all becomes shit and barring our possession of scatological prowess, we are wont for the ability to filter it.
I think a pretty good estimation of our current situation is that there may be 5 or 6 National politicians with their hearts in the right place, and the rest receive money for their votes. Are there enough people in this country that could be put in their place, that they could not be bought for the right price to push some special interest agenda? It is doubtful. The people that wouldn’t want the money or power would already have to be rich and/or powerful from some other source, which probably would be someone who was already a beneficiary of special interest favor during their non-public careers.
Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t lost faith in our country or humanity. I believe that a great deal of misinformed people do what they think is right, and for the right reasons, but they don’t know what they are doing, just what they are told or convinced they believe is right. I have heard them called “sheeple,” (or sheep people), herd-folk that don’t deviate from the status quo or what they are told to believe by whatever group they identify with, whether it be some religious organization or fraternity or whatever.
Special interest favor is rampant and quite insidious, as it is wrongfully valued the same way congressional constituency is valued: that if a company has considerable resources (money) then it clearly has influence and its voice should be heard by by being able to contribute to the campaign funds of those who listen. So, basically, after you elect these people, they make decisions either based on what would be good for its constituency (who pay them nothing) or special interest (who pay them money). Not hard to see who they would go with. There has been a law passed that allows you to see who pays whom what, but you seldom see this information as the mainstream media really has no motivation to show it. In the last couple of elections, it was used as fodder to discredit someone politically by their competition.
Quite honestly, the more favors these companies solicit enables greater and greater control, and ensures that the contributions will be more and more plentiful.
The largest of these are insurance companies and banks. Insurance companies reap enormous profits by collecting money to cover health issues and make money by denying coverage. Either refusing procedures or discounting what they pay doctors. This wrangling with insurance makes it less lucrative for the doctors, who have to raise the price of their procedures so that they can receive a little larger amount to keep up with inflation. This further justifies insurance premium increases, etc.
Banks, on the other hand, directly benefit from money given them by the Federal Reserve Bank, which through fractional banking, allows them to create their own money out of thin air. They like this arrangement, and they can create their own money to pay for votes. Great arrangement.
I agree wholeheartedly that the Fed needs to go. It was bought and paid for by bankers for bankers and it does nothing to help the American people. Unfortunately, they have a stranglehold on our government and they have shit upon our Constitution. By the people, for the people…right, if they are bankers.
So, how can we get rid of it? We have to elect people that are independent thinkers, unpopular people that want to do good for the betterment of their country without asking for anything in return. People that are willing to put up one hell of a fight…to subject themselves to the slander of the media (that is owned by powerful people who already have special interest favor) and don’t mind suffering threats and their lives made public: uncorrupted and moral people. People who are in very short supply in this day and age.
Which means we are probably doomed to endure the current system (or something progressively worse) indefinitely…
Change is needed, but not Obama’s flavor
Mar 24th
I was a big advocate of health care reform, but the change I had in mind had a more altruistic flair, devoid of special interest and pork bellies. What I had in mind was intelligent bipartisan debate over what was the best course of action to ensure our citizens had adequate health care. That we could do careful study of other countries who have socialized health care and leverage lessons learned and improve upon their systems, not this lame excuse for universal health care. As the short-sighted “resolve on the fly and bring your pork” failed to reach anything that could be termed as a solution, our President grew weary and impatient and imposed a week or so to wrangle out the differences and pass a bill so he could check off an item on his agenda.
Before all of this transpired, I asked myself, “Does our government ever research anything?” Sadly, it would seem they do not. They think only of “what can we get for my constituency and possibly get re-elected?” Thousands of U.S. citizens have the knowledge of how health care works and could put together something good, but they weren’t part of the equation. That the money spent to research it could provide jobs and ensure a solvent approach. But this is health care we are talking about, where prevention is not part of the equation. But this pill they put together is very large, and without a glass of water large enough to swallow, will become a very dry and painful suppository in this country’s hiney.
But getting caught up into all of this minutiae does not really adequately define the ill feeling I am experiencing, and I think it goes much deeper than that.
The question to ask yourself is this: have we any freedom left? On Monday last, I was besieged with Thomas Jefferson quotes about the dangers of large government and social welfare. That the freedoms that were our forefathers’ legacy, won by bloodshed and incredible hardship should be given up with a whimper and leave our great nation a bankrupt mess.
Our bipartisan government does little to represent our National interest: the far left wants our inefficient government to help those in need, while the far right wants less business regulation and less taxes, but can’t seem to do so without pandering to special interest, primarily with big business and the rich. Throw in the whole abortion debate, three concurrent wars, Wall Street scandal, bailouts, The Fed, and Obama wanting to resolve the BCS, and we pretty much see that there aren’t many decisions left for us to make. The breadth of government control is such that the government is too unwieldy to function as a cohesive entity: decisons and programs affect other programs and get in each others’ way.
But the very root of all of this, the principal endeared by nearly all of our forefathers, save a few thousand Native Americans, is freedom. We should be free to make our decisions about what is best for ourselves. The idea of not having the idea to affect my own life in a way that I deem appropriate seems un-American.
But what about those less fortunate? What about those people? I think people would be able to help them more if they weren’t burdened by the labor of oiling the government machine. That behind every well-intentioned welfare program is a burgeoning bureaucracy haplessly rending it unwieldy and over-budget: simply government waste. And our country loves inefficient bureaucracy, and after generous application would drive any implementation over-budget.
One of the most ardently contested passages of our Constitution during its construction was “to promote the general welfare.” There were concerns even then that this would be a blurred line that was dangerous, as it could be leveraged to provide the Federal government power beyond its rightful means. And so it has, countless times. One well-intentioned bureaucracy at a time.
Without all of these welfare programs, government spending and control would be minimized, but it’s hard to convey that on Fox News, where they look like a bunch of zealots only intending to discredit and libel the liberal media majority, who in turn play up the role of the victims or lampoon and satirize the over-the-top accusations by Fox. It is almost comical, in a dark sort of way.
And the very idea of “redistribution of wealth” is unfair and Stalinist. Austrian Economics tells us that welfare programs end up bankrupting the middle class. No one is entitled in this country. No one. I believe this redistribution does more to injure the have-nots, as in this welfare state the people who are doing the paying for these programs feel that they “gave at the office,” and therefore are less-compelled to help those in need. But the government puts demands on those who would get this aid that they can’t always meet. Knowing where to go, what forms to fill out, targeting what they feel are the areas and demographics that need the aid. Do away with it all, and let us help those in need as we see fit!
Of course, all of this special interest favor is necessary for these politicians to be re-elected. But what about the ones that don’t and get re-elected anyway? (Ron Paul, and others). People respect fair leadership and doing what is right for this country.
I don’t want this health care reform to fail: that would mean National bankruptcy. I just want it gone, and all of this self-interest and special interest to cease. It’s making me ill…
Health Care Reform passed
Mar 23rd
Most countries have problems keeping their social health care afloat without a ginormous special interest group in the middle (insurance). Add a sprinkle (yeah, right) of bureaucracy to manage, and we should be bankrupt just in time for 2012…can’t wait for the Chicken Littles to start squawking…
On another note, all you people that will have health care that didn’t have it before…enjoy. And by all means, get healthy…harder times are ahead. But please, oh please, make sure you dispose of the American flag properly, after you are done wiping your arse with it.
Tax on Banks?
Jan 14th
I read today that Obama “unveiled a new tax on banks.” From a brief skim my take is it is retribution for the bonuses paid out by the large bank corporations after the bailout money was given to them.
This, quite simply, is ridiculous rhetoric that does nothing to help the economy, but may curry favor with voters come next election.
Quite simply put, the banks are partly to blame, but most of the blame should be sent to Ben Bernanke, Time’s Man of the Year and head of the Federal Reserve Bank and his predecessor, Alan Greenspan. This is what happens when you have a central bank that has the power to create money and artificially control interest rates. The recent housing bubble was the result of artificially fixing the interest rates at like 1% for many years, followed by the eventual rise, which popped the bubble. Until the Federal Reserve Bank is gone, we will not have a free market economy.
The way that the taxpayer (read “Middle Class”) will pay in the end s that the existence of all of the money that was created out of thin air to bail out these banks will dilute the value of the dollar, internationally. It’s not that we’ll pay more taxes, nor should we: The government already spends far more than they levy in income taxes, so taxing banks will not make a dent in the deficit, nor will it do anything to help the economy. As we are teetering on the edge of some hard times (rampant inflation), I would hope our President could come up with something more legitimate. I’m sure Joe Average will say “That’s right…stick it to them banks!” But really, it is not going to do anything, IMHO.
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