Category Archives: Economics

What can I do to fight evil and live in a just society?

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I received an email from Tom Garrett, President, Society of Libertarian Entrepreneurs with a link to this video:

Nice stuff but when the government takes everything you have and gives it to the parasites you end up living the life of a slave and any improvements you make in your inner self are of little immediate value.

I would prefer to retire in Galt’s Gulch and let the system collapse but as Roberta X has pointed out, ‘We’re a bit short of Galts and Gulches an’ Midas Mulligan’s been in a Federal pen for a good long while now, accused of “redlining.”’

Quote of the day—Sandro Rettinger

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I’ve decided I really am a heartless bastard about it, though. Screw the old people. Kill Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid entirely. “But we made a promise! We have to honor that!” people will screech. Fuck that noise. Old people made an agreement with the politicians of their day to pay in 5 cents on the dollar on the premise that I’d make up the difference now that they’re at an age where they’d like to retire. They’re welcome to find those politicians and demand their retirement of them. It’s not my problem. They counted on the promises of government when they could have fought to disband the whole fraud before it was catastrophic.

Sandro Rettinger
March 24, 2011
Comment to Our Economic Titanic,
[I’m inclined to at least partially agree with Sandro. There isn’t much else that can be done at this point.

But most of the politicians responsible are dead and there isn’t much money you can squeeze out of a dead politician. I suppose we could put a crater where their grave is and dump sewage into the hole. But as Heinlein pointed out such activities provide “only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about”.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Alan and others are sort of optimistic about the coming government collapse. Kevin is pessimistic.

The argument for optimism is basically that government is a parasite and that once the parasite dies the host (or new offspring of the host) will be able to flourish. I can see that.

I can also see that as the government nears the end those in power will rationalize almost any action to “Maintain order” or “To preserve the union” in the face of the riots. They will “just have to”. Your “goods, knowledge, and skills” may be required by others. And “whatever means necessary” will be utilized to implement “justice”.

As my brother Doug told me recently after I expressed some satisfaction about owning some productive farm land in our time of economic collapse, “We own land only as long as the law allows it.”

This is the difference between the Soviet Union and us. When the Soviet Union collapsed they already owned and controlled everything. There was nothing left for the government to take when the checks started bouncing.

I’m not saying the government will be successful in the acquisition process but both success and failure would be exercises of considerable unpleasantness.

Quote of the day—Milton Friedman

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Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.

Milton Friedman
[We are likely to get a lot of this in the near future.

But the main reason I was reminded of this was because of gun control without legislation being contemplated.

I wonder if there is a special name for that like “inflation” for taxation without legislation? Other than “unelectable” of course.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

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Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

Ayn Rand
[A friend of mine once compared government aid to candy that causes cancer. It tastes sweet and is almost irresistible but eventually it will kill you.

Some lessons are taught over and over with only a few ever really grasping it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Barron Barnett

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This agency needs to be put down like a rabid dog and it’s behavior and rate of growth reminds me of some other agencies in the early 1990s.  The only difference  is they haven’t shot a woman holding a baby or burned a bunch of people to death. Instead they are giving people extra unnecessary dose of radiation at the point of the gun, claiming necessity, but in reality it’s pointless.

Barron Barnett
March 13, 2011
TSA Body Scanners Giving 10x Dose
[With the clarification that it is the agency and not the people that need to be put down I’m in complete agreement with this.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Milton Friedman

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Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

Milton Friedman
[It is predicted the Federal budget deficit will reach $1.65 trillion this year with a $14.1 trillion debt and about $2.1 trillion in income. Yet the House cannot reach agreement on spending cuts. The House Republicans want to only cut $60 billion in spending and the Democrats only want to cut spending $6.5 billion. If you were to scale this down into numbers people might be able to relate to it would look like the following.

If your family income were $50,000 then:

  • Family debt is $335,700
  • Family deficit is $39,300 (spending is $89,300/year)
  • The head of household wants to cut $1,430 in yearly spending
  • The spouse wants to cut $154.80 in yearly spending

The children should cut up the credit cards and sell everything that isn’t the bare minimum needed for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and communication. If the debt still isn’t being paid down they should consider selling their parents organs.—Joe]

Alright, Classmates…

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We’ve been talking about this for several years here.  Who can tell us how Rand Paul utterly failed in this interview;


ETA; YouTube imbedding has been disable for this video, but you can still see it here.


Letterman make a pretty good attempt at it, but Paul is left like a deer in the headlights and didn’t even make the attempt.  As Rand herself would say; “Blank-out.”  Then she would go on to explain how the self described conservative voices are the worst, most deadly enemies of conservatism.


I give him a C minus as a junior high school student.  He did show having done some homework and some listening in class, but I’d flunk him from high school.  Maybe it was just nerves, but I don’t buy that.  You don’t forget your main point– the thing you’ve ostensibly been striving for all your professional life.  I kept waiting for it– fully expecting it, but alas.  Maybe he’s just another Republican.


Anyone?


HT to theblaze.com

Collective Firing Rights

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There sure is a lot of talk about it, but little discussion of it.  Where is it written that public service employees (formerly known as public servants) have a right to collective bargaining?  Regular citizens have rights.  Government employees have responsibilities.  Do your job and quit yer bitchin’ or get out and get a real job– start your own business.  Whatever.  Just shut up and go away.  We never really needed most of you in those public positions in the first place.


I’m not so sure we should ever allow them to organize.  That’s what regular folks do, once in a while, and even then their employers have the right to collectively fire them.


Surely the public servants’ “right” to collective bargaining should come with the right to be collectively fired.  Maybe it’s time to grant them the latter, over there in Wisconsin.


Somehow an angry rent-a-mob of Marxist beatniks and global “One Big Union” socialist revolutionaries demanding more goodies from the pockets of taxpayers doesn’t sit right.  They’re certainly not what they want to be– equal in principle to civil rights marchers.  Not even remotely.


Since they’re pissed off at the state government and trying to stifle the democratic process therein, shouldn’t we be calling them Angry, Anti Government Protestors?  I’ll say they’re just exactly the same as Timothy McVeigh.  What the hell; they’re incipient terrorists.  If it’s good for the goose…


I say fire the lot, eliminate half the positions permanently, and cut all state taxes by half.  Tomorrow.  That would do for a start.  There’d be some breathing room for new start-up business and a rapidly shrinking deficit.  I don’t see a down side.

Our Fragile Infrastructure

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This recent post of Joe’s reminded me.  I don’t remember whether I posted about this before, but a couple years ago during a state highway upgrade outside of Moscow, Idaho, a fiber optic line was cut.  One little line.  Typically, we think of having a cell phone, a computer with internet access, a land line, and a radio as being diversified with regard to our communications.  Well, not necessarily.


When my cell phone was unable to reach anyone outside the Moscow area I tried the land line.  No go.  Then I tried to get on line and check e-mail.  Nope.  Then I turned on the radio.  More than one station dead.  It turned out that more than one cellular service, our local internet access, much of the land line traffic, and even some radio station feeds were using the same FO line.  I don’t know if that’s changed.


I view large scale electrical generation plants in the same light.  Your local food supply may depend on one or two highways and one rail line, and the stores have been relying on the “just in time” inventory method more and more.  A similar situation may exist in your local hospital.  I don’t know.  It costs money to keep extra rooms, beds, personnel and supplies available, much beyond the normal demand.


We tend to take a lot for granted.

We cannot go back

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Co-worker Chet stops by my office and chats every once in a while. We both grew up on a farm, we share similar views on the world, and have similar concerns about the current economic situation. One of the concerns is the potential for world wide economic collapse. This has lead us to ponder how we might deal with the collapse of technology. How would or could we survive in a world with greatly diminished supplies of various natural resources such as oil, metals, fuels, and even water (electricity is needed to move it for irrigations as well as direct human consumption). As a consequence of those reduced supplies the food supply would be dramatically reduced. Our total population as well as the distribution of that population would make “going back” even to the time of our childhood (the 50’s and 60’s for Chet and I) nearly impossible without dramatic and extremely painful consequences.

Some of the concerns are that food production today is heavily dependent on oil based fuels, fertilizers, and pesticides. The yields (bushels/pounds per acre) on the farm today about almost 50% greater than what they were when I was a small child yet our food surplus is smaller than what it was then. If we were to attempt to go back to horse powered farm production it would take something like 20 years to increase the horse population adequately and it requires about 1/3 of the farm capacity to feed them.

The food distribution problems are just as bad. The populations of major cities require food (and frequently water) be brought in from at least 100 miles away if not 300 miles away simply because the land within a smaller radius is not capable of supporting a population that size. How do you transport the food with greatly reduced oil supplies? We can’t produce enough fuel on our farms.

Shall we talk about heating? Coal, natural gas, and oil either directly or indirectly via electricity produce much of the heat for our buildings. How are those supplies going to hold up in an economic collapse? The metals to distribute electricity are already being stolen and sold for scrap (H/T to Roberta). Read Doctor Zhivago or watch the movie. It’s a novel but it was based on events from the Russian revolution and civil war of the early 20th century. People will burn their furniture and even their own houses to keep warm. In todays world I expect even pieces of streets and road (asphalt) will disappear in the night to be burned as heating fuel.

Apparently these concerns are far from new. Yesterday Chet sent me an email (bold added):

As we have discussed several times we cannot easily go back to our parents or grandparent’s way of life if we lose today’s technology.

It looks like this idea has been known for some time. I found this quote in ELEMENTS OF TECHNOLOGY published in 1831 (second edition).

“The augmented means of public comfort and of individual luxury, the expense abridged and the labor superseded, have been such, that we could not return to the state of knowledge which existed even fifty or sixty years ago, without suffering both intellectual and physical degradation.”

Full book at: http://www.archive.org/details/elementsoftechno00bige

That is from 1831!

The civil unrest in the Mid-East is not just something that happens someplace far away. Wisconsin may be the first sign of stress in the U.S. but other states are very close behind and things are going to get far worse before they get better. The attitudes of the people protesting economic belt tightening and demanding revolution will guarantee it. A lot more people need to do a reality check to avoid disaster.

A brief family discussion about these concerns late last year resulted in daughter Kimberly taking it upon herself to read up on how to make your own simple medicines, grow various foods, and we made plans to plant fruit trees on some of our land. Kimberly now has avocados trees about two feet tall and pumpkins blooming in our living room:

KimsPumpkin

We might not be able to go back without suffering intellectual and physical degradation but some people will survive. Will it be you? Or should anyone even be concerned? I am concerned. Far, far from everyone has sufficient land or a Kimberly in their family.

Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

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Who is John Galt?

Ayn Rand
From the book Atlas Shrugged and tagline for the movie.
[The trailer for the movie is here, via David.—Joe]

‘Our Progressive Health Care Bill is Better Than Theirs’

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Maybe you thought the newly elected Republicans would move to get government’s meddling, grubby hands out of the health care industry.


Think again, suckers.


How many times must we be treated to silver hairspray dude trying to act as though he genuinely believes what he’s saying?  That guy didn’t make it two and a half minutes without an edit, and he was reading from a prompter.  This is our leadership?  It’s an insult.


The least they could do is get these phonies a few more acting lessons, so when they’re bullshitting us to death, at least they’d do a good job of it.  I really wonder who it is they think will find that video appealing.  I think that guy came right off the set of the Lawrence Welk Show.


If you’re figuring on politics to help reverse this encroaching socialism, you’d better be working more locally, because the national-level Republicans are up to the same old Progressive tricks.

Quote of the day—Milton Friedman

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I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it is possible.

Milton Friedman
[It improves the economy, improves the conditions of the individual, and increases freedom.—Joe]

Making Your Own Ammo – Cheap?

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I started casting bullets last winter for my percussion guns, and since it’s been going well I recently started looking at bullet molds for the .30-30.  I don’t use the Winchester much, but if I could make ammo for a few pennies per round, I might use it more often.  I already have loading dies for that cartridge.

 

I figured a bullet mold would be a good investment, but then I figure for the .30-30 I need a bullet sizer (maybe a lubrisizer while we’re at it, ‘cause lead bullets need lubed), a .309” sizing die, top punch, gas checks, gas check seater plug, some good lube, handles for the mold.  Then I’ll need some different powder…

 

That’s several hundred dollars to start loading “cheap” ammo for a rifle I probably haven’t fired 100s of dollars of commercial ammo through in all the years I’ve owned it.  But then I figure I could also cast 9 mm and .357” bullets, but that’s more molds, sizing dies, and punches.

 

I don’t know; do any of you have all this extra hardware and cast a lot of bullets, and do you find it’s paid for itself?  Sure it depends on how much you shoot, but there’s also the independence factor – you’re making your own bullets.  Or is it just a big drag on your time, such that you find yourself buying more bullets or loaded ammo than you make?

 

Hmm.  The percussion revolvers’ chambers act as their own sizing die, the loading ram acts as it’s own “top punch”, I can lube the bullets by dipping them in the tallow I get as a byproduct from hunting, they don’t need gas checks or special lead alloys, or loading dies, punches, et al.  I already have the ~20 dollar conical bullet mold and the ~20 dollar ball mold and the ~60 dollar furnace.  That’s an investment of about 100 dollars.  After that it’s mostly just lead, powder and caps, and there’s no recovering of spent brass, no cleaning of brass, and no decapping, sizing or crimping the brass.  The drawbacks though are obvious in that we’re back to the mid 19th century.

 

I see that Lee is soon to come out with an eighteen cavity 00 buckshot mold.  It’s near the bottom of the page here.

Maybe now they will let people defend themselves

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California is likely going to be forced to release 40,000 inmates from prisons due to over crowding.

With the economic in shambles few of these people will be able to find work and will resort to crime for the basic necessities. With the huge deficit and debt California has don’t expect an expansion of parole officers and/or police to protect the public from people that are still dangerous. And besides, what would they do with them if they caught them committing a crime? Put them back in the prison that was already overflowing?

California politicians who oppose people being able to defend themselves may face a sudden change of attitude in their voters in regards to gun control.

One might also expect a rise in the black market. The excessive regulation and high taxes stifle the utilization of cheap labor these newly released inmates represent. If the incentives to go straight are strong enough (getting shot for committing a minor crime could be sufficiently motivating) the price of the labor will become very low. If the labor is cheap enough entrepreneurs will consider getting into a grey market which bypasses the regulations and taxes. I would not be surprised that a dollar earned “below the radar” of the state is worth two dollars earned in full compliance with the state. If this does happened the underground economy will further erode the financial position of the state.

And what will be the end result? Will it be a Mad Max world, a libertarian utopia, or an invitation for the Feds to create a police state?

The Science is Settled

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As we all now know, if you want to answer a question scientifically, you take a poll.  That’s the New Scientific Method.  Scientific American magazine took such a poll regarding anthropogenic Gluball Worming (that’s Kim Du Toit’s term, IIRC) and since they didn’t like the results, it would seem Reasoned DiscourseTM has kicked in.  I suppose the New Scientific Method will have to be amended – you take a poll of Open Society socialists only.  Then you’ll get the right results.

This from Hockey Schtick, which has ostensibly maintained a link to the unwanted results.  Take it for what you will.  Do your own investigation.  Myself, I find it hard to believe even though I know the left like the back of my hand and therefore such things should come as no surprise.  I heard of this poll on the Dennis Prager show last week, and figured I should share.

I used to subscribe to Scientific American, until I received the impression that desperate academics were using it merely as a vehicle for getting published.  I got tired of wading through so much evidence of non-inspiration, just to find the few interesting tidbits.  Still I’ll give them credit for being the only place I’d heard of superfluids, pre internet.

To me it’s not terribly important one way or the other.  The left has been crying “Wolf!” for generations now and it has worn thin, and worn out, for me decades ago.  The planet Earth was supposed to run out of oil in the 1980s, and so we were supposed to adopt more socialism.  The “Population Time Bomb” was going to get us by then too, we were told as elementary school students, and so we were supposed to adopt more socialism including forced population controls.  The planet was going to freeze up in a new ice age, we were told back in the 1960s, and then it became Glueball Worming, and now it’s “Climate Change”.  Those are just a few highlights, but this crap has been non-stop for what – about 150 years?  They’ve lost control of the narrative now.  What will happen as a result?

I figure it’ll have to get more down to the point – It’ll have to be plain old threats from the left at some point.  When the spoiled child’s attempts at lying and manipulation fall flat, the all-out tantrums come next.  The best we can do I suppose is ignore them, but when they start breaking things it gets difficult.

Quote of the day–President Barack Obama

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I believe it is a mistake for us to borrow $700 billion to make tax cuts permanent for millionaires and billionaires. It won’t significantly boost the economy and it’s hugely expensive, so we can’t afford it.

President Barack Obama
November 14, 2010
Obama Says He’s Committed to Middle-Class Tax Cut Extension
[Just the phrase “we can’t afford it” and the word “expensive” in reference to a tax cut tells you how out of touch with reality he is or desires to change your perception of it. The proper usage of those words is more like, ‘You can’t afford spending money on expensive items.” You use a different set of words to describe taking money from people at gun point.—Joe]

Perfect!

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There was a call-in to one of the Marks that fill in for Limbaugh, responding to the Mark’s favorable comments on the “Fair Tax” today.  The Mark repeated Steve Forbes’ call for a flat 17% income tax.

The caller tried to make the point that, although 17% would represent a large tax cut to the rich, which isn’t a bad thing, it would represent an undue hardship for those with the lowest incomes.  The Mark’s reply was that at least this makes everyone a taxpayer, and therefore we’d all have a stake in things.  True, but the major point was missed, in my opinion, by the host.

The correct reply to the caller’s concern is; “Perfect!  Now you’ve started down the road to understanding, Little Grasshopper!  If 17% percent is too much for the poor, it is too much for everyone else.  If 17% will restrict the poor, it will restrict everyone else.

Let’s refer to the poor as our canaries in the income tax coal mine.  If 17% makes the canary sick, we’re all being slowly poisoned, and whether we notice it right away or not, we’re all inhibited or restricted because of it.


Reduce taxes and investment and employment increase.  Raise taxes and investment and employment decrease.  Even if all you care about is revenue to the fed gov, and the issue of personal liberty is meaningless to you; do you want 17% of 14 trillion, or say, 8.5% of 28 trillion?  That’s the sort of question we’re asking here.  I say if there’s going to be an income tax it should be constitutionally limited to 5%.  Any more than that not only cuts into charity in a big way, it encourages a black market, and stifles liberty and economic growth.  If the fed gov can’t make it on a 5% flat tax, they’re either doing too much or wasting too much, and they need to be replaced with someone who can do the job right.

There’s another mechanism working here, that is at the same time obvious and proven, largely unreported, and almost never discussed.  That is; America once was, and can be again, a haven for creativity, productivity, wealth creation, and a haven for wealth in general.  Make it a safe bet that your property rights will be protected, and capital will flock to America, while at the same time wealth creation will be, once again, popping and scintillating across the fruited plains.


Let the enemies of Mankind go off and bang their heads against a concrete wall someplace.  It doesn’t matter, so long as they’re ignored and powerless here.

Our mission is to defend the homeland

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Chet came by my office today and started talking about “When we were kids.” We are about double the age of most of our co-workers and have a little more in common with each other than we do some of the other people. We both grew up on farms. He in Kansas. And, of course, me in Idaho. It gives us a perspective that “some of the younger folk” don’t really appreciate. We remember when most of the homes had outhouses instead of indoor toilets. And our parents lived through the “Great Depression”. We remember what our parents told us about what they and others had to do to make it through. I keep wondering if that will someday be referred to as “GD I” and this go around “GD II” but that is another story.

We talk about economics quite a bit. “What is it going to be like this time?”, we ask each other. Back then it was a world-wide thing too. That was what enabled Hitler to gain power.

This time it wasn’t economics that Chet wanted to talk about.

“Remember those old movies about WW II when the Germans would stop someone on the train and demand their papers?”, he asked.

My officemate had stepped out for bit and I knew we were going to have “a session”. I leaned my chair back and put my feet up on my desk and said, “Yeah. I remember.”

He continued, “We used to think how scary that was. How terrible it was they would do something like that. Right?”

“Absolutely!”, I agreed.

“There is an article in the New York Times today about how our government is doing that today on trains that run between New York City and Detroit”, he said.

I told him I had just read a blog post about that same sort of thing this morning. We chatted a while about it. Neither of us knowing what we could really do about it. “But it sure ain’t right.” we agreed. We always used to believe it couldn’t happen here. We were “special”. We were a free country and that sort of thing just didn’t happen here. It couldn’t happen here.

But it is. It is happening here, right now. And as Roberta X said this morning, Getting Used To It Doesn’t Make It Right.

My officemate returned and Chet left with us both shaking our heads in sadness.

I found the New York Times article and after I read it I went over the Chet’s office. “The government is claiming that if they are within 100 miles of an international border or the three mile limit off the coast they don’t need warrant or anything. They can just grab people they think are ‘of interest’ and demand they prove they are citizens”, I told him. “Right here in this office we are within 100 miles of the Canadian border.” I let it sink in for a couple seconds then continued, “Think of what 100 miles inland from both coasts, the Gulf, and both the north and south borders cover. I’ll bet 50% of the U.S. population is covered by that.”

Chet and I didn’t have much to say after that you wouldn’t have already concluded. We could be headed for some scary times. We talked about it for a couple minutes and went back to work. I think we just got used to it.

If it makes you feel any better about the whole thing–the agent in charge of the Rochester station told the New York Times, “Our mission is to defend the homeland.”

Yeah, I’m sure it is. I think I heard that line in a movie when I was a kid.