While the application of false but popular economic theories continues to wreak havoc on civilization, it is comforting at least to know that there are a lot of people out there who have better ideas than the ideas that have led directly to the need for the current depression (a depression, by the way, which is essential to correct all the damage that was already done during the boom).
I'm trying to do my bit to learn and eventually make a contribution. Just for fun, I thought a short quantitative performance review of my year might be good for New Years' Eve, especially since so much of my work is highly qualitative in nature. So I put together some numbers.
Review of 2008 profession-related achievements by the numbers
313,110
Number of English words of investment research reports translated out of Japanese (this is my "day job," read: the one that generates a current cash flow). This equates to roughly 800 pages of text.
48,226
Number of words of notes, ideas, and observations added to my New Ideas file for future project development.
23
Number of non-fiction books read
14
Number of blog posts published
11
Number of fiction books read (on paper)
9
Number of fiction books listened to (thanks Audible)
[43: Book total]
One of the problems today is people not reading enough books. Even reading a lot of Web pages and blogs on a regular basis, which I also do, cannot equal the systematic development of knowledge and understanding available in books. Blogs are also good for connecting ideas with current events and for discussing new ideas, but systematic understanding is essential, and it is this that is most lacking today. It takes time to read a book. It is an investment. It pays off. Especially if you choose the titles wisely.
2009 Goal
To greatly increase the number of non-fiction books read!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
What can one person do?
To start with, one person is the only one who can do anything, ever. So get over it.
This one person is getting toward the end of reading Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles (pdf) by Huerta de Soto.
This book cannot be recommended too highly. For what it's worth, reading this enables one to understand the exact manner in which the financial elite, the state, and their pet money-crank academic economists are entirely responsible for manufacturing economic crises, including the current particularly disastrous one.
They should know better because the economic theories driving current policy in the banking industry have been refuted either decades or centuries ago, depending on the particular issue. It is special interests which have the big stake in maintaining popular falsehoods for their own benefit.
Understanding is the first step in change. If all you can do is understand, do start by doing that please. It's not that hard anymore. Just turn off that non-sense machine, the media, and start reading a decent book.
Admittedly, an easier introduction to start with would be The Mystery of Banking (pdf), but it is also really worth it to take the whole 812-page ride with the Man from Madrid if you can manage it. Another brand new book in this field is The Ethics of Money Production (pdf). Although I have not had the opportunity to get too far into it yet, I'm venturing a guess that it will be going onto my recommended list after I do.
This one person is getting toward the end of reading Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles (pdf) by Huerta de Soto.
This book cannot be recommended too highly. For what it's worth, reading this enables one to understand the exact manner in which the financial elite, the state, and their pet money-crank academic economists are entirely responsible for manufacturing economic crises, including the current particularly disastrous one.
They should know better because the economic theories driving current policy in the banking industry have been refuted either decades or centuries ago, depending on the particular issue. It is special interests which have the big stake in maintaining popular falsehoods for their own benefit.
Understanding is the first step in change. If all you can do is understand, do start by doing that please. It's not that hard anymore. Just turn off that non-sense machine, the media, and start reading a decent book.
Admittedly, an easier introduction to start with would be The Mystery of Banking (pdf), but it is also really worth it to take the whole 812-page ride with the Man from Madrid if you can manage it. Another brand new book in this field is The Ethics of Money Production (pdf). Although I have not had the opportunity to get too far into it yet, I'm venturing a guess that it will be going onto my recommended list after I do.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Washington State Constitution: Article I, Section 1
"POLITICAL POWER. All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights."
Well, that was the ideal once upon a time in America, even when the constitutional convention of Washington State adopted this language in 1889.
A "modern" (and ancient) version better matching contemporary practice might read:
"POLITICAL POWER. All political power is inherent in the government, and the people derive their permitted rights from the consent of the government, and exist to protect and maintain state prerogatives."
How many are left out there who like the old one better? If not enough, we're all going to be stuck with the new (and ancient) version.
They used to call it tyranny, but I guess that was back when people used to learn history.
Well, that was the ideal once upon a time in America, even when the constitutional convention of Washington State adopted this language in 1889.
A "modern" (and ancient) version better matching contemporary practice might read:
"POLITICAL POWER. All political power is inherent in the government, and the people derive their permitted rights from the consent of the government, and exist to protect and maintain state prerogatives."
How many are left out there who like the old one better? If not enough, we're all going to be stuck with the new (and ancient) version.
They used to call it tyranny, but I guess that was back when people used to learn history.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
A formula to help with the "Inevitable Question"
A blog post I took note of the other day over at NoThirdSolution, and elements from a recent conversation with my German teacher congealed into one formula that may help avoid pitfalls for those of us who sometimes face what I will call the Inevitable Question: “(But) How would the purely free market society handle X?”
The post
The post cited argued that the New Orleans/Katrina fiasco was a result of government intervention. Thus, to the question, “how would the purely free market society handle X?”—X being the flooding of New Orleans—a simple answer would be that no city would likely have been built in a known recurring flood zone without extensive and systematic government subsidization and encouragement. The fact that the city was there and not somewhere else safer may well already have been a creature of government subsidies, regulations (badly distorting the operation of the insurance market), and make-work programs (Army Corp of Engineers building the dikes, etc.).
Thus, the answer to the question, “How would the free market have built those dikes?” may well be, “only a government would have been stupid enough to waste resources on building those dikes and encouraging the growth of a city in a known flood zone.”
One lesson from this hypothetical little interchange is that there is not always a need to struggle to come up with a creative free market scheme for building useless or dangerous structures of the kind that the state might build.
The conversation
The second input to my thought process was a conversation with my German teacher in which the concept of a statefree political philosophy came up in response to a question about my preference for US president (none). She struggled for a moment (since I usually seem like a reasonable sort of fellow) to mentally frame what I had said until her mind hit upon the conventional strawman terms in which we are all taught to consider and dismiss this possibility: “you mean you don’t think there should be any rules.”
I noticed later that even this summation can be easily translated into the form of the Inevitable Question: “How would the purely free market society handle X?” with X in this case being a strawman situation in which there are no rules or enforcement mechanisms in a society: in other words, Hobbesian anarchy, the war of all against all. This meme operates in conventional discourse to immediately and irrefutably discredit the statefree position.
But Hobbesian anarchy is, of course, the exact opposite of the position of advocates of statefree civilization. Advocates of a free civil society argue instead in favor of a small set of very crucial basic rules, for their consistent enforcement, and for their equal application to all human beings.
The state as we know it exempts itself from such consistent rules when it taxes, hands out favors and special privileges, wages war, and so forth, and the result of this is a great deal of unpredictability, chaos, and destruction of life and wealth. Indeed, from this perspective, Hobbesian anarchy may approach a fair description not of a statefree civilization, but of states themselves in action, their employees only modestly checked by a modicum of justice and the rule of law.
Spotting the trick in the Inevitable Question
The first thing to realize about the Inevitable Question is that it presents a stacked deck. This is because X is almost invariably a serious problem, but it is most often a problem that is created by the activities or existence of the state itself. Thus, the Inevitable Question can seem useful in one sense, but in another sense can be dangerously misleading and may even be inherently nonsensical.
At some point during an often long study of history, economics, law, and other disciplines, after wading through endless swamps of misleading history, fanciful economic theories, false conventional wisdom and plain-old propaganda, some of us have eventually reached the stage of advocating shrinking the state, building civil institutions, and moving toward a civilization that is free of the proven and inevitable corruption, interference, and disruptions of the state.
Why? Because, among other reasons, the state creates unending problems in society, such as X.
Thus, one productive approach to the Inevitable Question might well take a general form like this:
“The purely free market would handle X by being the purely free market, in which case X would not be a problem, because X is a problem that is caused by the poisonous influence of the state. This is, in fact, among the very reasons we advocate the purely free market. Thus, a statefree civilization would not have to handle X, by definition. That’s why we recommend it.”
After trying out this formula with a few sample values for X: war, business cycles, inflation, homelessness, unemployment, lack of education, and a surprisingly long list of other possibilities, it seems that it might come in handy in many cases. It might help keep advocates of consistent justice in society from spending valuable time inadvertently defending negative effects of the state that we do not really wish to defend.
Most importantly, it might help keep us from trying in vain to construct ingenious methods by which a purely free market society might successfully build massive and idiotic monuments to the state. Indeed, most of us would probably just say let's skip those.
The post
The post cited argued that the New Orleans/Katrina fiasco was a result of government intervention. Thus, to the question, “how would the purely free market society handle X?”—X being the flooding of New Orleans—a simple answer would be that no city would likely have been built in a known recurring flood zone without extensive and systematic government subsidization and encouragement. The fact that the city was there and not somewhere else safer may well already have been a creature of government subsidies, regulations (badly distorting the operation of the insurance market), and make-work programs (Army Corp of Engineers building the dikes, etc.).
Thus, the answer to the question, “How would the free market have built those dikes?” may well be, “only a government would have been stupid enough to waste resources on building those dikes and encouraging the growth of a city in a known flood zone.”
One lesson from this hypothetical little interchange is that there is not always a need to struggle to come up with a creative free market scheme for building useless or dangerous structures of the kind that the state might build.
The conversation
The second input to my thought process was a conversation with my German teacher in which the concept of a statefree political philosophy came up in response to a question about my preference for US president (none). She struggled for a moment (since I usually seem like a reasonable sort of fellow) to mentally frame what I had said until her mind hit upon the conventional strawman terms in which we are all taught to consider and dismiss this possibility: “you mean you don’t think there should be any rules.”
I noticed later that even this summation can be easily translated into the form of the Inevitable Question: “How would the purely free market society handle X?” with X in this case being a strawman situation in which there are no rules or enforcement mechanisms in a society: in other words, Hobbesian anarchy, the war of all against all. This meme operates in conventional discourse to immediately and irrefutably discredit the statefree position.
But Hobbesian anarchy is, of course, the exact opposite of the position of advocates of statefree civilization. Advocates of a free civil society argue instead in favor of a small set of very crucial basic rules, for their consistent enforcement, and for their equal application to all human beings.
The state as we know it exempts itself from such consistent rules when it taxes, hands out favors and special privileges, wages war, and so forth, and the result of this is a great deal of unpredictability, chaos, and destruction of life and wealth. Indeed, from this perspective, Hobbesian anarchy may approach a fair description not of a statefree civilization, but of states themselves in action, their employees only modestly checked by a modicum of justice and the rule of law.
Spotting the trick in the Inevitable Question
The first thing to realize about the Inevitable Question is that it presents a stacked deck. This is because X is almost invariably a serious problem, but it is most often a problem that is created by the activities or existence of the state itself. Thus, the Inevitable Question can seem useful in one sense, but in another sense can be dangerously misleading and may even be inherently nonsensical.
At some point during an often long study of history, economics, law, and other disciplines, after wading through endless swamps of misleading history, fanciful economic theories, false conventional wisdom and plain-old propaganda, some of us have eventually reached the stage of advocating shrinking the state, building civil institutions, and moving toward a civilization that is free of the proven and inevitable corruption, interference, and disruptions of the state.
Why? Because, among other reasons, the state creates unending problems in society, such as X.
Thus, one productive approach to the Inevitable Question might well take a general form like this:
“The purely free market would handle X by being the purely free market, in which case X would not be a problem, because X is a problem that is caused by the poisonous influence of the state. This is, in fact, among the very reasons we advocate the purely free market. Thus, a statefree civilization would not have to handle X, by definition. That’s why we recommend it.”
After trying out this formula with a few sample values for X: war, business cycles, inflation, homelessness, unemployment, lack of education, and a surprisingly long list of other possibilities, it seems that it might come in handy in many cases. It might help keep advocates of consistent justice in society from spending valuable time inadvertently defending negative effects of the state that we do not really wish to defend.
Most importantly, it might help keep us from trying in vain to construct ingenious methods by which a purely free market society might successfully build massive and idiotic monuments to the state. Indeed, most of us would probably just say let's skip those.
The perfect crime is the one not detected
Orson Scott Card, in his open letter Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? argues that the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie and Freddie's antics were responsible for the financial crisis due to Democratic party policies.
Card is correct that the deleterious effects of forced and subsidized lending practices helped set up the sub-prime bubble. Unfortunately, the fundamental problem is much broader, much worse, and lies elsewhere. Indeed, it lies well beyond any issues about which Republicans and Democrats differ. The Big Government parties (available in an exciting selection of Blue and Red colors) are united on being unwilling or unable to say a single word about this larger issue.
To place the effect of the CRA in this larger perspective, it may be helpful to imagine the process of overinflating a balloon. The CRA created a weakness at a particular spot on the latex surface of the balloon. When the balloon popped, it naturally popped starting at the weakest point, after which the air proceeded to rush out altogether, deforming the entire balloon.
However, we would not expect the balloon, in the process of being overinflated, to have not popped if only the weakest point on its latex surface had happened to be somewhere else. We would expect it to pop perhaps half a second later, starting in a different place. This is not to advocate or excuse the unending list of nonsensical policies, such as the CRA, that weaken the surface of the balloon, it is rather to argue that the overinflation of the balloon is arguably worse than each and all of these lesser destructive policies.
What few but the Austrian school economists and the Ron Paul movement are currently addressing is the fact that the balloon is quite unlikely to pop at all unless it is being overinflated.
The air pump in this case consists of the fractional reserve banking system pyramiding on top of ever-expanding fiat currency and electronic "deposits" (of nothing) created on central bank computers. The underlying process has, in one form or another, been going on for centuries, becoming ever more refined, effortless, massive, and destructive up to the present day. It exists and persists for a very simple reason. It is the usual reason: the use of state power to channel money. But how does it work and in what direction does the money flow?
The government provides special exemptions to the ordinary rule of law for banks. This allows banks to simultaneously lend out the exact same money that they are supposed to be "safekeeping" on deposit, a form of fraud. Indeed, most of that "money in the bank" that people are lulled into feeling that they have, is not actually in the bank. In return for this special legal treatment of banks, the government, its best friends, and the banks themselves are the first beneficiaries of the new money and loans thus generated fraudulently out of thin air.
The classic question to ask about a policy system such as this is who benefits? Most of the early forms of such fraudulent loans of other people's money went straight from banks to the king for his wars, or to the city for its expanding budget. Of course, the system has come a long way since then.
Today, this process operates as a massive hidden tax that extracts wealth from all the people to whom this money and its effects "trickle down" only late in the process, after the general price level has already been lifted.
In understanding this racket, it is important to realize that creating money out of thin air lifts the price level artificially, but this is a process that takes time, extending out over several months or years. During this period, those who get the money first can spend it before the general price level has been lifted—in other words, when the money still buys more goods and services. Those who get the money later, can only spend it after the general price level has already been lifted—by which time it doesn't buy as much. This is a massive scheme to transfer wealth:
Indeed, a more perfect criminal scheme has never been devised. It is insanely profitable, its victims are unaware of the source of their losses, and the state not only calls it all legal, but is itself at the top of the pyramid, the biggest player in the game.
It makes for fascinating reading, and once you know about it, perhaps also a certain degree of responsibility to learn more and spread the word. The first step is to find out more.
Books:
1. (Shorter, introductory): The Mystery of Banking (pdf), 2nd ed. by Murray N. Rothbard
Or order a physical copy.
2. (Longer, more detailed): Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles (pdf) by Jesus Huerta de Soto
Or order a physical copy.
Card is correct that the deleterious effects of forced and subsidized lending practices helped set up the sub-prime bubble. Unfortunately, the fundamental problem is much broader, much worse, and lies elsewhere. Indeed, it lies well beyond any issues about which Republicans and Democrats differ. The Big Government parties (available in an exciting selection of Blue and Red colors) are united on being unwilling or unable to say a single word about this larger issue.
To place the effect of the CRA in this larger perspective, it may be helpful to imagine the process of overinflating a balloon. The CRA created a weakness at a particular spot on the latex surface of the balloon. When the balloon popped, it naturally popped starting at the weakest point, after which the air proceeded to rush out altogether, deforming the entire balloon.
However, we would not expect the balloon, in the process of being overinflated, to have not popped if only the weakest point on its latex surface had happened to be somewhere else. We would expect it to pop perhaps half a second later, starting in a different place. This is not to advocate or excuse the unending list of nonsensical policies, such as the CRA, that weaken the surface of the balloon, it is rather to argue that the overinflation of the balloon is arguably worse than each and all of these lesser destructive policies.
What few but the Austrian school economists and the Ron Paul movement are currently addressing is the fact that the balloon is quite unlikely to pop at all unless it is being overinflated.
The air pump in this case consists of the fractional reserve banking system pyramiding on top of ever-expanding fiat currency and electronic "deposits" (of nothing) created on central bank computers. The underlying process has, in one form or another, been going on for centuries, becoming ever more refined, effortless, massive, and destructive up to the present day. It exists and persists for a very simple reason. It is the usual reason: the use of state power to channel money. But how does it work and in what direction does the money flow?
The government provides special exemptions to the ordinary rule of law for banks. This allows banks to simultaneously lend out the exact same money that they are supposed to be "safekeeping" on deposit, a form of fraud. Indeed, most of that "money in the bank" that people are lulled into feeling that they have, is not actually in the bank. In return for this special legal treatment of banks, the government, its best friends, and the banks themselves are the first beneficiaries of the new money and loans thus generated fraudulently out of thin air.
The classic question to ask about a policy system such as this is who benefits? Most of the early forms of such fraudulent loans of other people's money went straight from banks to the king for his wars, or to the city for its expanding budget. Of course, the system has come a long way since then.
Today, this process operates as a massive hidden tax that extracts wealth from all the people to whom this money and its effects "trickle down" only late in the process, after the general price level has already been lifted.
In understanding this racket, it is important to realize that creating money out of thin air lifts the price level artificially, but this is a process that takes time, extending out over several months or years. During this period, those who get the money first can spend it before the general price level has been lifted—in other words, when the money still buys more goods and services. Those who get the money later, can only spend it after the general price level has already been lifted—by which time it doesn't buy as much. This is a massive scheme to transfer wealth:
- From the poor, the retired and others on fixed incomes, savers, and those who work in industries farthest removed from government expenditures.
- To bankers, government employees, debtors, government contractors of all kinds, and any other industries and operations (don't forget universities) that are relatively close to the sources of government expenditures and new money creation.
Indeed, a more perfect criminal scheme has never been devised. It is insanely profitable, its victims are unaware of the source of their losses, and the state not only calls it all legal, but is itself at the top of the pyramid, the biggest player in the game.
It makes for fascinating reading, and once you know about it, perhaps also a certain degree of responsibility to learn more and spread the word. The first step is to find out more.
Books:
1. (Shorter, introductory): The Mystery of Banking (pdf), 2nd ed. by Murray N. Rothbard
Or order a physical copy.
2. (Longer, more detailed): Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles (pdf) by Jesus Huerta de Soto
Or order a physical copy.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
1% for Obama; 100% for Brother
Mr. Obama received 63mn votes, which would have been roughly similar for whatever candidate might have won. Is this a mandate?
US President is "the most important job in the world," said a Bloomberg article announcing the election result. The office surely does impact the entire world.
One problem with that is that it defies the job description utterly. I mean the original job description in the Constitution, the document that legally created the office of President. As the Founders roll over in their graves, the decisions of US Presidents impact the entire world, particularly those portions of it that, at any given time in recent history, no matter which party is in power, find US-launched or sponsored violent destruction raining down.
But how about the significance of those voting numbers? As I have been suggesting above, it all depends on your perspective. For example, the voting-age citizen population of the US is about 200mn. Therefore, about 68.5% of this group did not vote for the next US President; just 31.5% did. Indeed, only 20.6% of the entire population of the United States (305.5mn) voted for Mr. Obama. Thus, 79.4% of the US population did not, either by choice or by exclusion. Is the next President according to such a process their President? What power should he have over them, to make decisions on their behalf, to spend their resources and even lives?
And looking further afield, the global population is 6,734.9mn. This means that a scant 0.94% of people voted for the next occupant of this office.
Though I find political voting highly problematic ethically, I did vote yesterday too, in a way. The campaigning by many, many great candidates had been intense. But in the end, on economic voting day, the day of decision, the result was unanimous, as usual. What I voted for, incidentally, was a Brother HL-5280DW monochrome printer for my office.
One vote in favor; none against. 100%. As it should be.
US President is "the most important job in the world," said a Bloomberg article announcing the election result. The office surely does impact the entire world.
One problem with that is that it defies the job description utterly. I mean the original job description in the Constitution, the document that legally created the office of President. As the Founders roll over in their graves, the decisions of US Presidents impact the entire world, particularly those portions of it that, at any given time in recent history, no matter which party is in power, find US-launched or sponsored violent destruction raining down.
But how about the significance of those voting numbers? As I have been suggesting above, it all depends on your perspective. For example, the voting-age citizen population of the US is about 200mn. Therefore, about 68.5% of this group did not vote for the next US President; just 31.5% did. Indeed, only 20.6% of the entire population of the United States (305.5mn) voted for Mr. Obama. Thus, 79.4% of the US population did not, either by choice or by exclusion. Is the next President according to such a process their President? What power should he have over them, to make decisions on their behalf, to spend their resources and even lives?
And looking further afield, the global population is 6,734.9mn. This means that a scant 0.94% of people voted for the next occupant of this office.
Though I find political voting highly problematic ethically, I did vote yesterday too, in a way. The campaigning by many, many great candidates had been intense. But in the end, on economic voting day, the day of decision, the result was unanimous, as usual. What I voted for, incidentally, was a Brother HL-5280DW monochrome printer for my office.
One vote in favor; none against. 100%. As it should be.
Friday, October 31, 2008
"Successes" of intervention; the emotional challenge of looking at the truth
I found today's LRC podcast with Naomi Wolf, entitled America's Slow-Motion Fascist Coup, quite an important and insightful one. Besides the left-right [sic] crossover material and the quality and openness of the dialogue, two insights stood out for me.
First was the point by Lew Rockwell that government programs are actually generally successful from the point of view of the people who benefit from them: state employees, their favored corporate and other special interests. This suggests a reformulation of Mises' perhaps too-generous doctrine that government interventions do not accomplish the objectives aimed at by their advocates. Such measures may not accomplish the stated objectives—the cover story of benefitting the public, the poor, etc.—but they do tend to accomplish the actual objectives—benefitting special interests, the power elite, corporate cronies, and the political and bureaucratic classes themselves.
The second point I found important was one that Ms. Wolf made several times: understanding what is really happening with the state can be emotionally challenging. I think this factor is a very large one in explaining why so many people have a hard time really accepting deep insights about the nature of the state. Doing so can be very unsettling. It can disrupt our basic sense of security to realize that figures who were supposed to be our childhood heroes cannot really be viewed so unambiguously. Our war heroes are revealed to have been fighting the wrong battles. Our police are enforcing unjust laws. Our judges are using bogus legal frameworks. Our "schoolteachers" are primarily pushing state propaganda (knowingly or unknowingly) and only secondarily hopefully teaching bits of real knowledge in the process.
I came face to face with such an emotional challenge in a particularly difficult way a few months ago when my ongoing reading program took me through Professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo's two Lincoln books. The sheer vision of so much suffering, death, and destruction, accomplished by so much deceit, all to pull off a gigantic mercantilist rip-off, was certainly difficult to take in. All those "universal soldiers"—they believed; they killed; they died. But how many of them knew what it was really about? Now, to top it all off, generation after generation are still taught mountains of lies about what it was for.
If one really looks straight on at the reality of such things, it takes some emotional courage to just see—to realize that these are not nightmare images, but real pictures. Denial is a powerful force in the human psyche, and it works against people recognizing the sheer horrors that the state inflicts and the startling magnitude of the accumulated lies on which it is based. It takes time and effort to work through such realizations bit by bit; to pass through the initial reaction that "no, that couldn't be true."
From there, though, one has to switch back to the positive—what can we do?—and push forward with a contribution.
First was the point by Lew Rockwell that government programs are actually generally successful from the point of view of the people who benefit from them: state employees, their favored corporate and other special interests. This suggests a reformulation of Mises' perhaps too-generous doctrine that government interventions do not accomplish the objectives aimed at by their advocates. Such measures may not accomplish the stated objectives—the cover story of benefitting the public, the poor, etc.—but they do tend to accomplish the actual objectives—benefitting special interests, the power elite, corporate cronies, and the political and bureaucratic classes themselves.
The second point I found important was one that Ms. Wolf made several times: understanding what is really happening with the state can be emotionally challenging. I think this factor is a very large one in explaining why so many people have a hard time really accepting deep insights about the nature of the state. Doing so can be very unsettling. It can disrupt our basic sense of security to realize that figures who were supposed to be our childhood heroes cannot really be viewed so unambiguously. Our war heroes are revealed to have been fighting the wrong battles. Our police are enforcing unjust laws. Our judges are using bogus legal frameworks. Our "schoolteachers" are primarily pushing state propaganda (knowingly or unknowingly) and only secondarily hopefully teaching bits of real knowledge in the process.
I came face to face with such an emotional challenge in a particularly difficult way a few months ago when my ongoing reading program took me through Professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo's two Lincoln books. The sheer vision of so much suffering, death, and destruction, accomplished by so much deceit, all to pull off a gigantic mercantilist rip-off, was certainly difficult to take in. All those "universal soldiers"—they believed; they killed; they died. But how many of them knew what it was really about? Now, to top it all off, generation after generation are still taught mountains of lies about what it was for.
If one really looks straight on at the reality of such things, it takes some emotional courage to just see—to realize that these are not nightmare images, but real pictures. Denial is a powerful force in the human psyche, and it works against people recognizing the sheer horrors that the state inflicts and the startling magnitude of the accumulated lies on which it is based. It takes time and effort to work through such realizations bit by bit; to pass through the initial reaction that "no, that couldn't be true."
From there, though, one has to switch back to the positive—what can we do?—and push forward with a contribution.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Review: Religion, law, and economic transformation
I just finished Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition by Harold J. Berman (Harvard, 2003), published 20 years after Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Harvard, 1983).
The two Law and Revolution books are indispensable to the list of must-reads for becoming truly educated, taking oneself beyond the usual state-supportive propaganda found in textbooks and standard-issue academic output.
Berman is no ideologue, but he has great respect for the power of ideas. His agenda is to provide us with his best take on legal history based on a tremendous grasp of the historical and theoretical material. He also wants us to ask questions about where the Western Legal Tradition has come from and where it is going.
The level of depth, detail, clarity, and organization of this book is high. The author was a true teacher and clear researcher and thinker, and his deep knowledge of and reference to the original sources are both impressive and easy to follow. His conclusions are not merely things he wanted to say anyway; they are thoroughly informed by the patterns documented. He does not merely state his case; in good legal form, he makes his case.
The biggest takeaway for me was the power of ideas in shaping institutions. He argues that the German and English revolutions included comprehensive changes to legal philosophies, legal science, and substantive and procedural law (though all ultimately staying within the broad Western Legal Tradition) and that many of these changes were not only in harmony with the theological doctrines of the major Protestant reformations of the period, but were in some cases literally authored by some of the Protestant leaders, especially in the German case.
In contrast to Marxian and Weberian perspectives, Berman shows religious changes bringing about legal changes, which then ultimately brought about economic development to the extent that the changes enabled greater predictability and security of property and investments. Thus, Protestant "ideology" was not merely an "apology" for economic changes, but was among their driving forces. Also, Berman argues that the impact of Protestantism on economic law came not primarily from an alleged "individualism," as in Weber, but rather from the communitarian elements of Calvinist belief. For example, wide participation in subscriptions to the new format of the joint stock company was understood by many of the people actually engaged in it as form of mass action for the betterment of the world. This illustrates one of Berman's wider and refreshing (in modern academia) approaches: to take seriously what the people who were involved actually stated they were doing and what their own objectives were.
Another key point that I derived as I read was the degree to which these legal changes in the 16th and 17th centuries in Germany and England constituted the establishment of theocracies. Berman's own thesis is that much more than a "secularization" of the formerly spiritual jurisdictions, as many historians would have it, these periods were characterized by a "spiritualization of the secular." Indeed, the "secular" authorities took on, through their new laws and administrations, the religious tasks of enforcing religious morality and forwarding their view of what was needed in the secular world for the greater promotion of salvation, according to their Lutheran or Calvinist belief systems.
In the event, the felt need to have one state religion or another led to a couple of centuries of horrific religious warfare, with genocides, massacres, terrorism, the whole package. The idea of "toleration" during this period of the idea's early development was to grudgingly refrain from burning at the stake the adherents of a few approved select denominations, even though they were not the state religion at the time.
As I read, I connected the theocratic character of the legal changes of this era with the genesis of what I call do-gooder government, which thrives to this day. The Reformations provided strong impulses in the direction of using the powers of the state to "do good" for people, to try to make them be better in a particular religious context, to explicitly reform society in a religiously inspired image. [Update: For a brilliant sci-fi film treatment of do-gooder government in action, don't miss Serenity.]
I would add that while these religious changes certainly inspired legal changes, there would also still have been a certain process of selection of viewpoints. In other words, not just any set of new religious ideas, at least in their relation to state power, could have had the same influence. The princes had to take up these changes to some extent. I would submit that only those religious belief systems that would serve certain power interests, particularly those powers positioned to help incubate the systems while using them to their own advantage, could have been taken up in this particular story. Other ideas would have been ignored or worse.
In other words, though these were revolutions, the parasitic apparatus of the proto-state was doing some evolutionary selection of the ideologies leading the revolution. I do not take this to mean that these religious/legal innovators did not believe what they were teaching (in the way that cynical Marxians inevitably discount people's own accounts of their own motivations). Indeed, one of the disturbing things as I read Berman's accounts of original sources was sometimes the realization that these figures actually did deeply believe in many of the things they were writing! My point is rather a metaphorical application of the anthropic principle: the religious traditions that grew and survived also had to do so in the given power context. To become part of a new state religion, for example, a religious opinion would certainly have to be supportive of...well...the state. Just think of all those anti-state religions that were adopted as official state religions! (Well, Christianity, perhaps, but it had to shed its initial anti-state character well before it could serve as state religion).
As was the case in the first Law and Revolution book, Berman again notes numerous instances throughout Volume II in which the presence of legal competition of various kinds in Europe tended to improve the quality of legal procedure and content over time. For example, the competition for cases among the various courts in England, each with different sets of both substantive and procedural law; or the competition of German princes to hire a limited pool of qualified civil officials and judges, each of whom was free to work for any of the various German states.
There is so much detailed richness from the past in this book. So many personalities, legal cases, stories, come to life. It just has to be read to get the full effect. Don't miss it.
The two Law and Revolution books are indispensable to the list of must-reads for becoming truly educated, taking oneself beyond the usual state-supportive propaganda found in textbooks and standard-issue academic output.
Berman is no ideologue, but he has great respect for the power of ideas. His agenda is to provide us with his best take on legal history based on a tremendous grasp of the historical and theoretical material. He also wants us to ask questions about where the Western Legal Tradition has come from and where it is going.
The level of depth, detail, clarity, and organization of this book is high. The author was a true teacher and clear researcher and thinker, and his deep knowledge of and reference to the original sources are both impressive and easy to follow. His conclusions are not merely things he wanted to say anyway; they are thoroughly informed by the patterns documented. He does not merely state his case; in good legal form, he makes his case.
The biggest takeaway for me was the power of ideas in shaping institutions. He argues that the German and English revolutions included comprehensive changes to legal philosophies, legal science, and substantive and procedural law (though all ultimately staying within the broad Western Legal Tradition) and that many of these changes were not only in harmony with the theological doctrines of the major Protestant reformations of the period, but were in some cases literally authored by some of the Protestant leaders, especially in the German case.
In contrast to Marxian and Weberian perspectives, Berman shows religious changes bringing about legal changes, which then ultimately brought about economic development to the extent that the changes enabled greater predictability and security of property and investments. Thus, Protestant "ideology" was not merely an "apology" for economic changes, but was among their driving forces. Also, Berman argues that the impact of Protestantism on economic law came not primarily from an alleged "individualism," as in Weber, but rather from the communitarian elements of Calvinist belief. For example, wide participation in subscriptions to the new format of the joint stock company was understood by many of the people actually engaged in it as form of mass action for the betterment of the world. This illustrates one of Berman's wider and refreshing (in modern academia) approaches: to take seriously what the people who were involved actually stated they were doing and what their own objectives were.
Another key point that I derived as I read was the degree to which these legal changes in the 16th and 17th centuries in Germany and England constituted the establishment of theocracies. Berman's own thesis is that much more than a "secularization" of the formerly spiritual jurisdictions, as many historians would have it, these periods were characterized by a "spiritualization of the secular." Indeed, the "secular" authorities took on, through their new laws and administrations, the religious tasks of enforcing religious morality and forwarding their view of what was needed in the secular world for the greater promotion of salvation, according to their Lutheran or Calvinist belief systems.
In the event, the felt need to have one state religion or another led to a couple of centuries of horrific religious warfare, with genocides, massacres, terrorism, the whole package. The idea of "toleration" during this period of the idea's early development was to grudgingly refrain from burning at the stake the adherents of a few approved select denominations, even though they were not the state religion at the time.
As I read, I connected the theocratic character of the legal changes of this era with the genesis of what I call do-gooder government, which thrives to this day. The Reformations provided strong impulses in the direction of using the powers of the state to "do good" for people, to try to make them be better in a particular religious context, to explicitly reform society in a religiously inspired image. [Update: For a brilliant sci-fi film treatment of do-gooder government in action, don't miss Serenity.]
I would add that while these religious changes certainly inspired legal changes, there would also still have been a certain process of selection of viewpoints. In other words, not just any set of new religious ideas, at least in their relation to state power, could have had the same influence. The princes had to take up these changes to some extent. I would submit that only those religious belief systems that would serve certain power interests, particularly those powers positioned to help incubate the systems while using them to their own advantage, could have been taken up in this particular story. Other ideas would have been ignored or worse.
In other words, though these were revolutions, the parasitic apparatus of the proto-state was doing some evolutionary selection of the ideologies leading the revolution. I do not take this to mean that these religious/legal innovators did not believe what they were teaching (in the way that cynical Marxians inevitably discount people's own accounts of their own motivations). Indeed, one of the disturbing things as I read Berman's accounts of original sources was sometimes the realization that these figures actually did deeply believe in many of the things they were writing! My point is rather a metaphorical application of the anthropic principle: the religious traditions that grew and survived also had to do so in the given power context. To become part of a new state religion, for example, a religious opinion would certainly have to be supportive of...well...the state. Just think of all those anti-state religions that were adopted as official state religions! (Well, Christianity, perhaps, but it had to shed its initial anti-state character well before it could serve as state religion).
As was the case in the first Law and Revolution book, Berman again notes numerous instances throughout Volume II in which the presence of legal competition of various kinds in Europe tended to improve the quality of legal procedure and content over time. For example, the competition for cases among the various courts in England, each with different sets of both substantive and procedural law; or the competition of German princes to hire a limited pool of qualified civil officials and judges, each of whom was free to work for any of the various German states.
There is so much detailed richness from the past in this book. So many personalities, legal cases, stories, come to life. It just has to be read to get the full effect. Don't miss it.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Who needs war and crime?
The military and the police of course. Bureau budgets must always be maintained and expanded.
"Legitimacy and need are problems for the military and police, particularly if 'peace' breaks out, and if crime declines. More generally, if social order overtakes social disorder in public perceptions, the military and police become less important. This poses an organizational challenge that has been partially solved by the mass media and popular culture myth-generating machine..."
David L. Altheide, Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis, pp. 153-154.
"Legitimacy and need are problems for the military and police, particularly if 'peace' breaks out, and if crime declines. More generally, if social order overtakes social disorder in public perceptions, the military and police become less important. This poses an organizational challenge that has been partially solved by the mass media and popular culture myth-generating machine..."
David L. Altheide, Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis, pp. 153-154.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Review: Unstoppable Global Warming
I am reading Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years. I'm only two-thirds done, and this book has already so thoroughly demolished the theory of man-made global warming that there is nothing left of it, not even ash.
This was a little surprising, given the amount of hype and political action around this topic, but when you consider that massive political power and state-funded academic research jobs are at stake, not to mention a great media-headline generator, the true fuel behind this theory comes into focus.
So how about that demolition to sub-ash? What's in the book that can overturn most people's conventional wisdom?
This is not just a book, but a massive review of the scientific literature, citing hundreds of studies from all over the world. And while the emphasis is squarely on the science, it also presents some evidence as to the structure and motivations behind the fear-mongering and power issues underpinning this topic.
For example, it presents some strong evidence of intentional, or at least criminally negligent, presentations of data in some key studies and official reports, especially UN reports on climate change, that are then happily splashed across headlines to sell media. There is even evidence of political editing of key UN reports--after the scientists have signed off on them--that fundamentally change the findings.
My executive summary so far is that:
1) There is a long-term climate cycle that we are in the upswing of. It has been happening about every 1,500 years for at least the past hundreds of thousands of years, and causally is utterly independent of the results of human activity, most likely being fueled by a solar output cycle.
2) Many surface temperature readings that show greater warming are flawed due to changes in the environments around the temperature recording stations, mainly urbanization.
3) Climate modeling using supercomputers is incredibly flawed and the results cannot be trusted. In some cases, there is circumstantial reason to believe that key studies supporting the man-made global warming hypothesis are based on flawed data and careful selection of only that data that supports the hypothesis and ignoring of massive data that doesn't.
4) Hard measures of temperature change that are reliable, including satellite data, tree ring studies, ice core studies, and studies of the movement of tree lines up and down mountainsides show compelling evidence from all over the world that supports the 1,500 year cycle hypothesis, and either does not support, or contradicts, the man-made climate change hypothesis.
5) The data indicate that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been correlated with changes in temperature, but it follows such changes rather than causing them, and does so with a lag of several centuries.
6) Oceans are not going to flood, islands are not going to sink, and species are not going extinct as a result of human carbon emissions.
7) Anyway, warmer climates are better for most life forms, for food production, and for reducing the incidence of violent storms, compared to periods of cooling.
This book for me ties back into the key issue of the use of fear and the control of education to generate, maintain, and grow the political power of the state. This is a pure power grab for the state, implemented with the help of some of its pet intellectuals, who almost invariably receive massive state funding for their activities, and pet media friends.
One of my next reads on this broader topic: Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis
This was a little surprising, given the amount of hype and political action around this topic, but when you consider that massive political power and state-funded academic research jobs are at stake, not to mention a great media-headline generator, the true fuel behind this theory comes into focus.
So how about that demolition to sub-ash? What's in the book that can overturn most people's conventional wisdom?
This is not just a book, but a massive review of the scientific literature, citing hundreds of studies from all over the world. And while the emphasis is squarely on the science, it also presents some evidence as to the structure and motivations behind the fear-mongering and power issues underpinning this topic.
For example, it presents some strong evidence of intentional, or at least criminally negligent, presentations of data in some key studies and official reports, especially UN reports on climate change, that are then happily splashed across headlines to sell media. There is even evidence of political editing of key UN reports--after the scientists have signed off on them--that fundamentally change the findings.
My executive summary so far is that:
1) There is a long-term climate cycle that we are in the upswing of. It has been happening about every 1,500 years for at least the past hundreds of thousands of years, and causally is utterly independent of the results of human activity, most likely being fueled by a solar output cycle.
2) Many surface temperature readings that show greater warming are flawed due to changes in the environments around the temperature recording stations, mainly urbanization.
3) Climate modeling using supercomputers is incredibly flawed and the results cannot be trusted. In some cases, there is circumstantial reason to believe that key studies supporting the man-made global warming hypothesis are based on flawed data and careful selection of only that data that supports the hypothesis and ignoring of massive data that doesn't.
4) Hard measures of temperature change that are reliable, including satellite data, tree ring studies, ice core studies, and studies of the movement of tree lines up and down mountainsides show compelling evidence from all over the world that supports the 1,500 year cycle hypothesis, and either does not support, or contradicts, the man-made climate change hypothesis.
5) The data indicate that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been correlated with changes in temperature, but it follows such changes rather than causing them, and does so with a lag of several centuries.
6) Oceans are not going to flood, islands are not going to sink, and species are not going extinct as a result of human carbon emissions.
7) Anyway, warmer climates are better for most life forms, for food production, and for reducing the incidence of violent storms, compared to periods of cooling.
This book for me ties back into the key issue of the use of fear and the control of education to generate, maintain, and grow the political power of the state. This is a pure power grab for the state, implemented with the help of some of its pet intellectuals, who almost invariably receive massive state funding for their activities, and pet media friends.
One of my next reads on this broader topic: Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Prices should be falling
The long-term price level should be falling due to productivity growth. The fiat money monopolists' grand concern about how far inflation is above zero is silly. Keeping the price level flat is still a massive form of theft out of the pockets of every net positive holder of the state-mandated currency (other than some of the first recipients of new infusions). This is because the price level not only should not be rising, it should not be flat either. Indeed, it should be falling, as it did in terms of gold before the replacement of real money with paper monopoly tickets issued by state cronies.
The creation and near universal spread of the image that as long as inflation is not too far above zero, everything is fine, is a massive delusion, which masks a truly mind-boggling embezzlement racket. Even if central banks did manage zero inflation, the fact that prices were not falling with ongoing economic progress would indicate the ongoing degree of currency depreciation relative to the progress of the real economy.
What is "currency depreciation?" In the case of fiat money systems, it is embezzlement of the savings of every single person all the time everywhere. Rather than steal particular pieces of money, treasuries, central banks, and their cronies steal portions of the value of all the money that exists (leaving it all where it is in cash and deposits), and divert it into their very own newly printed notes and newly infused magical deposit credits for Wall Street. No mere private bandit could ever dream of running and maintaining such a crime syndicate.
What's the defense? A couple of possibilities. Own tangible assets (buildings, metals) and minimize holdings of fiat currency. Another—commonly adopted in the US, but not necessarily recommended—is to be in debt. Currency depreciation harms those with positive net cash and benefits those with negative net cash (the devaluation of a negative creates a double-negative and therefore a positive). No wonder there are so many in debt. Saving in fiat money is punished.
The creation and near universal spread of the image that as long as inflation is not too far above zero, everything is fine, is a massive delusion, which masks a truly mind-boggling embezzlement racket. Even if central banks did manage zero inflation, the fact that prices were not falling with ongoing economic progress would indicate the ongoing degree of currency depreciation relative to the progress of the real economy.
What is "currency depreciation?" In the case of fiat money systems, it is embezzlement of the savings of every single person all the time everywhere. Rather than steal particular pieces of money, treasuries, central banks, and their cronies steal portions of the value of all the money that exists (leaving it all where it is in cash and deposits), and divert it into their very own newly printed notes and newly infused magical deposit credits for Wall Street. No mere private bandit could ever dream of running and maintaining such a crime syndicate.
What's the defense? A couple of possibilities. Own tangible assets (buildings, metals) and minimize holdings of fiat currency. Another—commonly adopted in the US, but not necessarily recommended—is to be in debt. Currency depreciation harms those with positive net cash and benefits those with negative net cash (the devaluation of a negative creates a double-negative and therefore a positive). No wonder there are so many in debt. Saving in fiat money is punished.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The gutting of economics as an anti-state force by fear of offending the powers
The corruption of the academic world by state influence becomes more palpable the more one opens ones eyes to it. Why has economics, the most potent potential political force in history, become to most people an incomprehensible and seemingly pointless exercise, or the mysterious incantations of an anointed priesthood conversing with one another in their own secret language?
The following quotes from a recent biography of economist Ludwig Von Mises shed light on this question and also helped me more clearly understand why I chose not to continue in the academic economics track in the early 90s, and not to enter graduate school, but instead to continue studying on my own.
Even as an undergraduate, I was politely "guided" toward "more practical" directions than my study of classic treatises in Austrian economics in the Mengerian tradition onward, a discipline that is eminently comprehensible and offers clear policy prescriptions. Fortunately, the college culture was "free thinking" enough that I was able to continue on my course and still complete my degree (that's why I had chosen the college to begin with, in fact).
The discussion below is about the 1920s (emphasis mine).
Hülsmann (2007), Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, pp. 549-552.
The following quotes from a recent biography of economist Ludwig Von Mises shed light on this question and also helped me more clearly understand why I chose not to continue in the academic economics track in the early 90s, and not to enter graduate school, but instead to continue studying on my own.
Even as an undergraduate, I was politely "guided" toward "more practical" directions than my study of classic treatises in Austrian economics in the Mengerian tradition onward, a discipline that is eminently comprehensible and offers clear policy prescriptions. Fortunately, the college culture was "free thinking" enough that I was able to continue on my course and still complete my degree (that's why I had chosen the college to begin with, in fact).
The discussion below is about the 1920s (emphasis mine).
"Because of this ostracism of genuine economists, those who held (or hoped to hold) academic positions in political economy became eager to avoid any behavior that could offend the powers that be. The most innocent strategy was to understate one's findings when they risked upsetting certain powerful social groups."
"In a similar vein, an increasing number of young economists turned their attention to abstract and technical problems that did not have any political implications unwelcome to their employers. This helps explain the success of mathematical economics, econometrics, Keynesian economics, and game theory after WWII."
"The transformation of economics into a self-absorbed technical discipline made it politically toothless. A mere 'theory' based on fictitious stipulations and therefore without scientifically valid implications for public policy was no threat to vested interests, and the champions of this theory did not have to fear reprisals. Clearly, this state of affairs suited the majority in the economics profession, both employers and employees. But it was disastrous for science, human liberty, and economic progress."
Hülsmann (2007), Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, pp. 549-552.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The intellectual disease, and part of the inoculation
These quotes are by historian/biographers I have been reading on their respective subjects. The contrast is one of intellectual honesty, and the first contestant, Honest Abe, does not fare well, which is why his state-worshiping groupies have since felt the need to call him "honest." The second quote refers to economist Ludwig von Mises.
"What all this suggests is that the Hamilton/Clay/Lincoln agenda of government subsidies for road building and railroad corporations was wildly unpopular throughout the nation and had been an abysmal failure in every instance. None of these experiences seem to have phased Lincoln, however, for he continued to promote even bigger and more grandiose internal improvement projects throughout his political career."
DiLorenzo, T. J. (2003). The real Lincoln : a new look at Abraham Lincoln, his agenda, and an unnecessary war. New York :, Three Rivers Press, p. 83
"It is above all the story of a man who transformed himself in an uncompromising pursuit of the truth, of a man who adopted his ideas step by step, often against his initial inclinations."
—Hülsmann, J. G. (2007). Mises: The last knight of liberalism. Auburn, Ludwig von Mises Institute, p. xii.
"What all this suggests is that the Hamilton/Clay/Lincoln agenda of government subsidies for road building and railroad corporations was wildly unpopular throughout the nation and had been an abysmal failure in every instance. None of these experiences seem to have phased Lincoln, however, for he continued to promote even bigger and more grandiose internal improvement projects throughout his political career."
DiLorenzo, T. J. (2003). The real Lincoln : a new look at Abraham Lincoln, his agenda, and an unnecessary war. New York :, Three Rivers Press, p. 83
"It is above all the story of a man who transformed himself in an uncompromising pursuit of the truth, of a man who adopted his ideas step by step, often against his initial inclinations."
—Hülsmann, J. G. (2007). Mises: The last knight of liberalism. Auburn, Ludwig von Mises Institute, p. xii.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Avoid and scurry: FactChecker's Ron Paul smear distracts from the real issues
The February 12, 2008 FactCheck.org article on Ron Paul by Joe Miller, entitled "Wrong Paul," given prominent link placement on Newsweek online, demonstrates the extent to which the mainstream media is desperate to avoid any discussion of Paul's actual message. Miller felt compelled to write an article on Paul, but in doing so, apparently had to struggle valiantly to find evidence of concepts and claims he thought suitable for belittling, while ignoring entirely the core messages of the campaign, along with most of the details behind the core messages. Avoid and scurry.
Whatever the validity of the claims in the article, it misses the entire forest and most of the trees to examine bug legs on the forest floor for signs of dirt. This calls into question for me the level of intellectual honesty involved in the creation of such a piece of writing.
I have yet to investigate some of the claims, though regarding the most substantive-looking one, I read some time ago the original article by Robert Higgs restating the actual annual impact of total defense spending upward to nearly $1trn, and found it convincing. For an excellent case study, read Higg's article, and then read Miller's account of it, and see which you find more informative.
Interestingly enough, Higgs is an economist and historian who is the leading expert on the history and mechanisms of government growth through crises, including wars. I suppose Miller did not realize this when he failed to mention even the name of Robert Higgs, let alone his expertise on the topic at hand. An odd move indeed for a "fact-checker."
While Miller discounts the idea of including, for example, the Department of Homeland Security, under "defense" spending, Higgs writes, "Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, many observers probably would agree that its budget ought to be included in any complete accounting of defense costs. After all, the homeland is what most of us want the government to defend in the first place."
And of course a share of interest on the national debt proportional to historical spending on "defense" versus other government spending should be included in the total cost of "defense" spending. What's the alternative to that? Imagine a company that claims to be doing well, but conveniently omits from its accounts the impact of massive amounts of money it borrowed to set up and run its business. Or imagine a guy who claims to have a healthy net worth, but who conveniently fails to include his massive credit card debts on his self-deceptive balance sheet, and the associated interest payments. That's fraud.
Miller's article with its prominent Newsweek placement, symbolizes for me a lack of willingness in the mainstream media to engage in or report on content-based discussion of the real issues, and a strong preference for anything that can distract from the content. Could the author instead dare to actually state the main issues Paul's campaign represents, the claims he makes about war, fiat money, bloated taxation, and the mechanisms by which the state expands and intrudes by amplifying and leveraging fear in the populace? If countering and critique are the author's aim, could he try to counter core claims rather than peripheral claims? Counter them with better content, by locating and reporting on better understandings of the core issues? Those core issues are barely acknowledged, let alone addressed.
Judging from comparisons such as between Higg's original article and the quality of Miller's take on it, perhaps such content-based capabilities are lacking. That would explain why one might resort to raising as many distractions as possible to the content with which one is unable to deal, to ignore and deflect the real issues the Paul campaign raises. These ignored issues are the same ones that are not supposed to be raised too clearly into public awareness (such as by gracing the pages of Newsweek in an honest, recognizable form), else too many people might start thinking about them, investigating, learning, and finally...understanding.
That is scary stuff for entrenched special interests of all kinds. Watch them scurry.
Whatever the validity of the claims in the article, it misses the entire forest and most of the trees to examine bug legs on the forest floor for signs of dirt. This calls into question for me the level of intellectual honesty involved in the creation of such a piece of writing.
I have yet to investigate some of the claims, though regarding the most substantive-looking one, I read some time ago the original article by Robert Higgs restating the actual annual impact of total defense spending upward to nearly $1trn, and found it convincing. For an excellent case study, read Higg's article, and then read Miller's account of it, and see which you find more informative.
Interestingly enough, Higgs is an economist and historian who is the leading expert on the history and mechanisms of government growth through crises, including wars. I suppose Miller did not realize this when he failed to mention even the name of Robert Higgs, let alone his expertise on the topic at hand. An odd move indeed for a "fact-checker."
While Miller discounts the idea of including, for example, the Department of Homeland Security, under "defense" spending, Higgs writes, "Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, many observers probably would agree that its budget ought to be included in any complete accounting of defense costs. After all, the homeland is what most of us want the government to defend in the first place."
And of course a share of interest on the national debt proportional to historical spending on "defense" versus other government spending should be included in the total cost of "defense" spending. What's the alternative to that? Imagine a company that claims to be doing well, but conveniently omits from its accounts the impact of massive amounts of money it borrowed to set up and run its business. Or imagine a guy who claims to have a healthy net worth, but who conveniently fails to include his massive credit card debts on his self-deceptive balance sheet, and the associated interest payments. That's fraud.
Miller's article with its prominent Newsweek placement, symbolizes for me a lack of willingness in the mainstream media to engage in or report on content-based discussion of the real issues, and a strong preference for anything that can distract from the content. Could the author instead dare to actually state the main issues Paul's campaign represents, the claims he makes about war, fiat money, bloated taxation, and the mechanisms by which the state expands and intrudes by amplifying and leveraging fear in the populace? If countering and critique are the author's aim, could he try to counter core claims rather than peripheral claims? Counter them with better content, by locating and reporting on better understandings of the core issues? Those core issues are barely acknowledged, let alone addressed.
Judging from comparisons such as between Higg's original article and the quality of Miller's take on it, perhaps such content-based capabilities are lacking. That would explain why one might resort to raising as many distractions as possible to the content with which one is unable to deal, to ignore and deflect the real issues the Paul campaign raises. These ignored issues are the same ones that are not supposed to be raised too clearly into public awareness (such as by gracing the pages of Newsweek in an honest, recognizable form), else too many people might start thinking about them, investigating, learning, and finally...understanding.
That is scary stuff for entrenched special interests of all kinds. Watch them scurry.
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