This post from FSK is interesting.  FSK asks, “Is speculating immoral?”.

Suppose Farmer Smith, who lives in Farmville, observes the market in the winter.   Via forecasting, the farmer determines that peanuts will be a profitable crop this year, and plans accordingly.  He expects to get $1.50 for a pound of peanuts come harvest time.    If his peanuts fetch that price, he plans to invest in X and Y with that money to make improvements on his farm, buy new machinery, or whatever farmers do.    So the peanuts are planted in one of his fields.

Speculator Jones investigates the peanut market and forecasts peanuts will be worth $2/lb come harvest time.   He looks around and discovers Farmer Smith planted peanuts.  Speculator Jones approaches the Farmer and says, “I’ll offer you $1.75/lb for your peanuts come harvest time!”.

Farmer Smith, unsure of the market and thinking it is a good deal, agrees.  A contract is drawn up, reviewed, and both parties sign it as an honest contract.

Scenario 1)

Harvest time arrives.  Farmer Smith brings all the peanuts in from the field.  He goes home and checks the market price for peanuts.  To his shock, he discovers peanuts are selling for $1/lb.

He falls on his knees, calls for his wife, and both of them are overjoyed they had the wisdom and fortitude of signing the contract with Speculator Jones.  Sure enough,  Speculator Jones shows up and pays them the price of $1.75/lb of peanuts as agreed.  Speculator Jones is not happy.

Farmer Smith goes into town and at the local coffee shop, brags to other farmers how he slept well, secure in the knowledge his peanut price was guaranteed, because of Speculator Jones.  The other farmers congratulate Farmer Smith for his business acumen and remark, “Boy.  Speculator Jones sure is stupid!”.

Scenario 2)

Harvest time arrives.  Farmer Smith brings all the peanuts in from the field.  He goes home and checks the market price for peanuts.  To his shock, he discovers peanuts are selling for $2.50/lb as a shortage of peanuts occurred in the mid-west.

He turns purple with rage.  He forgets all of those restful nights of sleep he had as Speculator Jones transferred price volatility of peanuts away from Farmer Smith.  He shakes his fist at the ceiling cursing the day he entered into agreement – forgetting it was voluntary of course – with Speculator Jones.  Speculator Jones shows up, takes the peanuts, and pays Farmer Smith $1.75/lb, as agreed.  Farmer Smith is not happy.

Farmer Smith goes into town and at the local coffee shop, rages to the other farmers, “He ripped me off!  He exploited me!”. The other farmers commiserate with   Farmer Smith as Farmer Smith is regarded as a pillar of the community.  The other farmers remark, “Boy.  That Speculator Jones sure is a crook!”.

However, one farmer at the coffee shop decides to ask Farmer Smith a question or two:

Q) “Farmer Smith, did you enter the contract voluntarily?”

A – Farmer Smith is a bit taken aback but gruffly responds) “Yes.”

Q) “Did Speculator Jones honour the terms and conditions in the contract and pay you as agreed?”

A – Farmer Smith is getting offended now) “Yes!  What’s your point?”

Q) “What did Speculator Jones do that was wrong then?”

A) “STFU! He exploited me and ripped me off!  Don’t talk to me anymore about it and if you were wise, you wouldn’t deal with him either!”

The farmer remains silent as he effectively has been shut down, and he doesn’t want to risk the “pillar of the community” to make things difficult for him  in Farmville.

Take a look at the Federal Reserve’s website. Look at their motto:

“The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, provides the nation with a safe, flexible, stable monetary and financial system.”

Let’s see:

1) Dollar devalued to 4.5 cents since 1914? Check.

2) Ensure boom/bust cycles continue despite pro-State trolls lauding it as a way to prevent them? Check.

3) Ensure it acts as a “lender of last resort” to prop up and encourage “too big to fail” institutions to focus on return, neglecting risk? Check.

4) Cartelizes banking into an unstable fractional reserve model? Check.

5) Transfers wealth away from the productive class to the parasitic class? Check.

6) Monetizes government debt so the State doesn’t have to tax the people directly in order to support the welfare/warfare State, thus breaking accountability and transparency to the people?, impoverishing them in a way not one in a million understand? Check.

7) Failing to prevent fast failures results in increased powers to prevent future ones?  Check.

Missioned accomplished.

I was reading this article here, and as usual, the global powers are utilizing the “financial crisis” as a mechanism for consolidation.  As Rahm Emmanuel recently said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”:

Of course, the IMF is heating up the charge to stampede towards a global currency to

“The imperative of greater global currency stability means the world can no longer rely, as it has done since the end of the gold standard, on a currency issued by a single country, the head of the IMF said on Tuesday.”

Yes.  So instead of having central banks inflate the currency in concert, let’s do away with the pretence of sovereignty of nations (not that I am wedded to sovereignty)  and just flat out have one central bank.

So what should the value of fiat currency be?

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…..tock.

Zero.

Why?

If I opened up “Gilligans’s Money Printing Shop” and printed up pretty pieces of paper with a uniform size and different inks on it, denominating different units of purchasing power (denomination) and told the market to use my money, what would happen? I’d be laughed out of town or utterly ignored. How could I prevent a competitor from starting the same enterprise?

People would rightly say, “Your money has no value! You didn’t do anything of economic value to create money! How do we know that you wouldn’t print a bunch of it up and give it to yourself or your friends to rob us of our economic output when you’ve done nothing to merit it! You’re a cheat!”

Now, if I had the biggest guns/thugs in town – a monopoly on violence – and demanded my form of money to be used to pay tribute (taxes) to me, then what? You’d cave. By way of violence, I have forced you to accept my form of money thus creating demand for my paper/electronic tickets. If you don’t pay property tax, I’ll take your f–king house. If you don’t pay income tax, my banking buddies will seize your accounts, deny you credit, have your employer garnish wages, or a whole plethora of devious tricks to prevent you from feeding your family. Don’t worry though. Once and a while I’ll let you replace some of the personnel in my system. I’ll call it voting. It’ll fool you into thinking you’re free. All hail me!

All of our money is created out of debt by the State/Banking cartel and backed by government violence via legal tender laws and taxation.

Now they control the value of our money. There is no way to escape theft through taxation and indirect theft through inflation in this “red market”.

We need to return to what money should have been before the government/banking cartel hijacked it.

Some say, “Gold is just a shiny yellow metal and no better than paper!  You can’t force me to use gold!”

As FSK noted, “People should be forced at gunpoint to use gold as money!”. rather, “People should be free to choose what they want to use as money!” In practice, this would mean a return to commodity money, such as gold/silver/copper and the exchange rates between the two being purely market (i.e. no government intervention) driven.

Money is not wealth. Money is not “value” – in this you are correct. Money is merely a commodity universally accepted in a market to trade for all other commodities.

The free market gave rise to the notion of money and historically it has been many commodities, eventually settling on precious metals as markets expanded and other commodities were displaced over time, as metals met a number of highly desirable features: portable, fungible, durable, divisible, scarce, and no one could create it out of thin air to an unearnd claim goods and services on the market, like the gov’t/banking cartel does today.

Commodity money is not created out of debt, like fiat is. Debt carries interest; interest paid back from future loans. Fiat is unsustainable requiring infinite economic growth to keep the shell game going.

Before government defaulted on money, paper money used to be redeemable in specie. It was backed by an objective weight of something, usually gold or silver. It was a promissory note. Some folks clamoured for government to monopolize the production of money as some private minters were debasing their coinage. So they got government to mint money….where it was *GUARANTEED* to be debased?

The US defaulted on their money twice in the last century. First in 1933, when FDR stole the gold from citizens at gunpoint and made gold ownership illegal, but foreigners could redeem their dollars, and again in 1971, defaulting on foreigners finally.

Unlike fiat money and bank credit (a substitute for money), commodity based money is not created out of debt (loans). Debt must be repaid. Debt carries interest. The interest on old loans can ONLY be paid by the principle of new loans which carry interest. Everyone see this? This is pure *PONZI* like the social security system. Madoff simply emulated these models and is chump change compared to this scam.

Some say, “We can’t have a gold/silver/copper standard because that would make the mining companies a monopoly on our money!”.

1) What do they pay their employees with?
2) What do they pay their stockholders with?
3) What do they pay their capital/operational expenses with?
4) What do they pay their taxes with?

In addition, that form of money doesn’t return to them to be slaughtered the way fiat/bank credit does. In other words, once it is spent into circulation it *STAYS* in circulation. Oh sure, some may save. Some may hoard. BTW, what’s the difference between saving and hoarding? Is a hoarder simply someone who is more uncertain than you are? However, rising interest rates encourage others to lend their money. The economic actor who collects that interest…what does he/she do with it? Savings is simply deferred spending is it not? Maybe they spend it on something today..or in the future.

This notion of a one bank monopoly sitting on all the gold is silly. Competition (assuming the bank did not seek and obtain rent-seeking by way of violence – government legislation/regulation) would create more banks, competing currencies, and serve us best.

This post seems to be circulating as  a valid refutation of free markets.  Sadly, all too many just knows they hates the marketsss they’ll jump on anything that appears to be the ammunition they need to fire at whatever they were pointing at anyway.  In the end, they don’t realize they are shooting blanks…nor do they care.

The author of the post argues the “creamy middle” of a debate is valid as opposed to just looking at two ends of the spectrum:

“The experiment of having government own all the means of production in an industrial society, along the lines proposed by Marx, received a thorough test at the hands of the Communist bloc and failed abjectly.”

and at the other end:

“At the same time, the experiment of having government keep its hands off the economy altogether in an industrial society, along the lines proposed by a great many free-market proponents these days, received an equally thorough test, and failed just as dismally. The test took place a little earlier; in America, it ran from the end of the Civil War into the first decade of the twentieth century, and the result was a catastrophic sequence of booms and busts, the transfer of most of the nation’s wealth to a tiny minority of wealthy people, the bitter impoverishment of nearly everyone else, and a level of social unrest that included two presidential assassinations and so many bomb.attacks on the rich and their families that bomb-throwing anarchists became a regular theme of music-hall songs.”

The author then states on paper, “free markets are as mythical as hippogriffs”:

He is correct as I wrote in a bit of a rant previously.   If A is good, the opposite of A must be evil, right?  No.  The opposite of evil is fair, not good.

How can the author of that post  state free markets are an abject failure yet acknowledge a free market is a myth?  I hope that question triggers some cognitive dissonance.  We’ve never had one!

Inspired a bit by Jan Helfeld’s interview with Harry Reid stating America’s income tax is “voluntary” (I see that government has its own dictionary redefining conventional meanings of commonly understood words):

I went to the Canadian Revenue Terrorist Agency website to find it as I once read our system was also “voluntary”.  While I was looking, I found this gem:

“You’ve earned it. Claim it.”

It’s the usual “if you earned something, you should tell us about it.   Maybe we won’t take it from you.”

In a morally just society, it should be:

“You’ve earned it. Keep it.”

The former presupposes the mugger has the moral right to take your wallet and decide how much you get to keep.  It presumes the mugger has the right to come to your door and if you don’t make the effort to plead with him/her, they’ll take it all.  The latter does not.  Which society do you want to live in?

• Everyone plunders everyone else.
• The few plunder the many.
• Nobody plunders anybody.

I feel nauseous.  I gotta go outside.

I’ve recently invested in a number of books from the Mises Institute.   In addition to the printed material, I’ve also managed to download their entire audio/video content via torrent.  That took some careful planning to ensure I didn’t go over my monthly cap.

One of the books I am currently reading is “The Discovery of Freedom”, (1943) written by Rose Lane Wilder, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, of the “Little House on the Prairie” fame.

She’s quite the writer.  I’m impressed and I wanted to share an excerpt from her book that resonated pretty strongly with me (emphasis mine):

They revolt against their King, and replace him by another King; they revolt against him, and set up another King.  In time, they revolt against the monarchy; they set up another kind of living Authority.  For generations or centuries, they revolt against that kind of Authority, and set up another kind.

From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler, history is one long record against certain living rulers, and revolt against kinds of living Authority.

When these revolts succeed, they are called revolutions.  But they are only revolutions only in the sense a wheel’s turning is a revolution.  An Old World revolution is only a movement around a motionless centre; it never breaks out of the circle.   Firm in the centre is belief in Authority.  No more than the Communist or National Socialist (Nazi) today, has any Old World revolutionist questioned that belief; they all take it for granted that some Authority controls individuals.

They replace the priest by the king, the king by an oligarchy, the oligarchs by a despot, the despot by an aristocracy, the aristocrats by a majority, the majority by a tyrant, the tyrant by oligarchs, the oligarchs by aristocrats, the aristocrats by a king, the king by a parliament, the parliament by a dictator, the dictator by a king, the king — there’s six thousand years of it, in every language.

Every imaginable kind og living Authority has been tried, and is still be tried somewhere on earth now.

All these kinds have been tried, too, in every possible combination; the priest and the king, the king who is the priest, the king who is God, the king and a senate, the king and the senate and a majority, the senate and a tyrant, the tyrant and the aristocrats, a king and a parliament — Try to think of a combination; somewhere it has been tried.

I liked this.  At least the subjects would revolt.  Who would do that today?   People are too busy pursuing who is going to be voted off the island, who dances the best, sings the worst, and who is doing Paris Hilton.

The notion of a central Authority is failed and discredited.  It’s time to try something else.  What would that be?

No Authority at all.  There’s a true revolution.  Do we need governing?  Absolutely.   What we don’t need is a centralized monopoly on violence to provide it.  Some say government is needed to protect property.   Once you grant this institution to have the power to tax, then it must have the power to collect those taxes unopposed.   Taxation is property theft.   It’s a moral faceplant right out of the starting gate.

As David was kind enough to point out to me, citing Lysander Spooner:, either the constitution authorizes the government which we now have, or it has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

Or as Bob Lefevre said, “If men are inherently good, we don’t need government.  If men are inherently evil, we dare not form one.”

This article discussed corporations saying, “We’re too busy dealing with the economic crisis to be regulated right now! Come back later!”  I liked this comment:

“I am too busy dealing with the financial crisis right now, can I stop paying taxes?”

That made me laugh and cry at the same time. If we tried it, the State would kill us. First a nice letter, a second one, a phone call, then a knock at the door, then a drawn gun, then a bullet, if you resist.

In order to understand where we are today, you have to understand the series of lenses we look at the problem through. These lenses distort, not clarify the problem.

1) We have central banks artificially controlling interest rates. This distorts the price of money and causes market actors to make mal-investment in one area of the market neglecting others.

2) We have central bank/private banks who usurped and monopolized money production away from a free market activity into the hands of a cartel. This cartel controls the volume and value of a form of money that is entirely created out of debt. Debt carries interest and must be repaid. Money to pay off the interest of old loans must come from the principle of new loans, which is entirely Ponzi. If the volume of old loans being retired exceeds the volume of new loans issued, our money supply contracts. Unchecked, our dollar collapses in hyper-deflation.

A free market would not ascribe value nor tolerate the imposition of government paper tickets we call money on it, unless violence was utilized by government to create artificial demand for it (i.e. payment of taxes in their fiat).

3) Years of politically expedient legislation imposed upon the banking industry such as the Community Reinvestment Act which mandated banks lend to people who otherwise could not afford a to maintain a loan for a home. It sounded nice, but ended up wreaking havoc on both parties.

4) The number of *MASSIVE* moral hazards existing in the market, again a central bank and GSE’s such as Fannie/Freddie.

What we have is the banking industry “regulated” (cartelized) into an inherently unstable fractional reserve banking model. Not that they mind; the biggest of them will have the central bank step in as “the lender of last resort” to bail them out. They like this arrangement as they can unilaterally focus on the return side of given instruments and neglect the risk side. Does this sound like a HUGE moral hazard to you? That’s because it is.

In a true free market, there would be a wide spectrum of banking. On one end, there would be 100% reserve banks (i.e. warehouses) and on the other end there would be banks practising fractional reserve models of one kind or another, but would be watched most vigorously by other banks. No-one distrusts a bank more than bankers.

We suffer the “captured regulators” problem. Regulatory agencies are the revolving door between the State and the industry being regulated. Often, “representatives” of controlling interests in the industry are plucked to write rules/legislation backed by the State. On the surface, this sounds like a good idea, as most would see plumbers regulating banking as not a good idea, although these days, I wonder if they wouldn’t do a better job.

Once the representative as done a good (corrupt) job if implementing legislation/regulation insiders can afford to shoulder but inhibits incoming competition as they cannot afford it, this results in poorer quality and higher prices for the rest of us. The representative is then ejected back out into the industry to an awaiting posh job.

The first commodity to be traded in a regulated market are the regulators.

I heard someone say, “The free market is a myth!”  They’re right.

Free markets wouldn’t tolerate the imposition of a central bank.

Free markets cannot engineer bailouts to the banking industry.

Free markets cannot bail out zombie companies with extorted money today and pass the debt onto the backs of the unborn.

Free markets don’t reward the incompetent at the expense of the competent.

Free markets can’t impose tax codes to alter peoples behaviour at large (look how the HRTC tax credit is diverting money from businesses who might have otherwise received it).

Free markets wouldn’t ascribe legitimacy to fiat money. Legal tender laws would be repudiated and vanish. In practice, we would return to sound money.

Free markets would not tolerate limited liability laws protecting those who direct their organizations in such a way that harm others yet leave them immune, except in rare high-profile cases where scapegoats are required to construct the facade of the State protecting the serfs.

Free markets wouldn’t provide moral hazards to various industries, backed by the State gun.

Free markets wouldn’t suffer the “Captured Regulators” problem where a revolving door is created between industry and the State who write costly rules incumbents can afford to shoulder but new competitors cannot.

Free markets would render the boom/bust cycles created by the State/banking cartel accepted today as “normal”, obsolete.

Free markets trend to create better quality products at lower costs. The opposite occurs when the State provides services as they can simply extort revenue streams from their victims.

Free markets don’t go to war or kill people as it is too costly to restore compensation to those injured.

Free markets don’t tolerate agencies with a monopoly on force.

Free markets would not accept paper tickets imposed on them by the very same people who would kill them if they refused to pay tribute by way of their paper tickets issued.

Free markets would not legitimize/validate the idea that it is morally acceptable for a violent monopoly to evict a family from their land in the event they should stop paying tribute to them, with all other market actors cheering on the gang of violent thieves and excoriating the victims.

Free markets don’t recognize political borders where people can be contained, restrained, and harnessed into the State debt-based fiat money pogroms where central banks pit us against each other, deflect us via the voting scam, and use us as pawns to enrich the invisible (although they are beginning to appear) beneficiaries.

This is why people are correct when they say, “The free market is a myth!”.

If only it weren’t.

Note to readers.  Feel free to add your own ideas of what free markets wouldn’t do…I’m sure I missed a whack of them when the steam on my rant wore out.

OK,  its bothered me enough.   Enough even to write this trivial little post.

Every mainstream article I’ve read says the same thing:

“OMFG!  Gold is at an all time high!”.

It is NOT at an all time high.

Gold hit an all time high of $877US/ounce back in 1980.  In inflation adjusted dollars, that translates to $2,298.60US/ounce in 2009.

If gold goes north of this price, THEN it will have hit an all time high.

Why is it mainstream media gets this all wrong?  Is a bunch of intellectually bereft sheep all running around quoting each other, or is there a central mis/disinformation agency coordinating what outlets will say?

Is it possible they don’t want to report the inflation adjusted number to let people know how much the State/banking cartel has ripped us off via their inflation pogroms?

In the spirit of Halloween, I give you a most unflattering picture of Mark Carney, un-photoshopped, our illustrious governor of Canada’s central bank fiat franchise.

Seriously.  This picture physically made me flinch and recoil from my f–king browser when this popped up.  Would you want this coming down a back alley at you?  Is that a freaking smile?  How’d the handlers not bury this one? It still disturbs me:

Let’s give an appropriate caption to this picture.  I’ll start:

“I’ll get you, my pretty!”

“Yeah, I am going to  suck the purchasing power out of the dollar!”

“All of us from the Goldman Sachs coven look like this in real life!”

“Go ahead.  Save your money.  I’ll take its value via inflation anyway.  You feeling lucky punk?”

Feel free to add your own.

I was approached a while ago by the creator (a college student doing a project) of this movie with respect to this post, and received a nice thank you for my input.

I haven’t watched it in its entirety, but I am starting to notice body language emanating from parasitic politicians FSK writes about frequently.  Pay particular attention to former prime minister Paul Martin’s idiosyncrasies. How did the author get these people to agree to appear on camera?

Here is the intro to what appears to be 15 parts.

As usual, the author holds out the false hope the State can be reformed, but its nice to see people working on exposing the scam.

I was watching Stefan Molyneaux deliver a speech at the NH Liberty Forum, and I thought he did an important exercise with the audience.  First, the sources:

Part I:

Part II:

The argument is entitled “Against Me”.  Molyneaux manages to summarize the issues with getting into debates with statists is not to fall into the traps where you pit charts, statistics, and endless data against them justifying why it is wrong to support a pro-State point of view.    The statist will simply pull out their charts, statistics, and endless data and use ad-hominem attacks against your sources.   Using the “Against Me” approach, you don’t have to recite a single fact, just simply reveal the violence/coercion inherent in the statist position.   You can stop banging your head against the table and spend endless hours collecting data to refute the Statist argument, wasting your time, effort, and energy to no avail anyway.

His theory is to bring the “gun in the room” in a statist debate to light.  Once the gun is pointed out, it shows the statist position in a debate, no matter what it is, is *ALWAYS* backed by the barrel of a gun.   Once the gun is seen, there is no intelligent debate anymore.  It is simply violence and coercion.  If you debate a statist in front of others and the gun is seen, others (ironically including the statist him/herself) get extremely uncomfortable as they see the lack of morality and evil inherent in the Statist point of view.

Let’s apply the theory in a synthetic, but all too often common argument:

Statist) “I support Obamacare!  Not supporting it is evil!”

You) “I totally support your right to believe in Obamacare.  Furthermore, I would never dream of using violence and coercion against you believing in Obamacare, nor *ACT* on supporting your beliefs.  If you wish to support Obamacare, open up your check book and write a check to the government to support it!  And I would never advocate that people show up in clown suits to haul you in jail for acting on your belief.”

(You could point out that food is more important than healthcare to the vast majority of people, yet the production and distribution of food is a free market activity, should we not nationalize that as well?)

“Now, will you accord me me the same courtesy and respect ?  Do you support my right not to support Obamacare?  Furthermore, do you support my right to *ACT* on my belief?  Am I free to disagree with you?  Will you accord me the same respect I am according you?”

Statist) “Well…yes.” (What else is he/she going to say? If they say “No.” then the gun in the room is immediately seen.)

You) “So if I wanted to tally up my share/cost of Obamacare (insert any government boondoggle, scams, corruption, wars etc here), and I *ACTED* on my belief to withhold those portions of my taxes from the government, you would support me in my right to have, hold, and act on my belief?

Statist) Silence – Cognitive dissonance rising..

You) “I’m not free to do that, am I?  What would your level of support for Obamacare be if a large number of people withheld their tax dollars (I am deliberately leaving the central bank government monetary printing press out of the discussion as most do not understand how that operates) from supporting it, thus driving up the cost of *YOUR* personal share to enable it?”

The Statist might argue that they advocate the use of violence/force/coercion to ensure you pay tribute to the “Social Contract”.    You don’t have go there.  The gun in the room has just been revealed.  You’ve done your job.  You can’t reason with the barrel of a gun.  The debate is over.  The Statist’s final argument is violence.  The Statist’s has shown people in the room that he/she supports the gun to be pointed at you.  When (not if) will the Statist point (or support the pointing) the gun at everyone else?

Isn’t it nice that you have made the Statist feel uncomfortable for a change?

There was a funny bit in the presentation.   A (clearly) Ron Paul supporter has an exchange that goes something like this:

RP Supporter – “In a democracy, people make decisions about government policy directly.  In a Republic, we choose people to make those decisions for us.” (Ed’s note: She’s wrong.  I live in a so-called democracy.  I don’t remember when I could decide government couldn’t tax me, and we also are deflected into the voting scam by electing “representatives” into the Mafia.)

Molyneaux – pauses, and then states, “Well my first response would be the difference between a democracy and a republic is the illusory paperwork.”

Big applause from the audience.  Perhaps they are beginning to realize the concept of controllable government, under any form, is uncontrollable and corrupt.

Molyneaux has a good speaking style.  He provokes a great deal of laughs from the audience and keeps them entertained yet thinking it through.

Over at Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty site, I saw an amusing post that bears repeating here:

Here is an extremely “complex” view of free market healthcare:

Now, in contrast, here is the US government’s plan. It’s very simple.  Click for details (if you dare):

I saw this poster on the web:

The last sentence gets it wrong.  I took the liberty of modifying it:

There. That’s better.  Or this:

Let me know what you like best.

From Reuters via Yahoo News, Bernanke is on a PR campaign to prop up the Federal Reserve’s waning credibility as faithful stewards of its paper franchise monopoly.

Bernanke sought to demystify the role of the Federal Reserve, and especially debunk ideas that the Fed has almost unfettered power as an unelected fourth branch of government.

“I’m answerable to the American people,” Bernanke said.

Bernanke should do stand-up comedy.  He isn’t answerable at all to the American people and he said so to Bernie Sanders:

Now, Sanders expresses “outrage” (posturing) incredulously wondering if only “large, greedy corporations” get the money at the expense of other businesses.  Sanders of course, appears to not willingly or not wittingly admit corporations are creatures of the State as well.

As usual, the Fed gets a free pass again with this one:

Markets would likely assess that inflation would rise if Congress or the administration started to meddle with interest rate decisions, he added.

And the Fed’s track record on inflation since inception is…a saved 1914 dollar has the purchasing power of about 4 cents.  Whew Ben.  The purpose of the Fed is to loot and pillage everyone.  It’s not prejudiced.  It steals from all savings.

Next, the article cites Bernanke as “bristling with emotion” when “asked about a measure before Congress to open the Fed’s monetary policy decision-making to scrutiny by a congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office.”.

This of course is, HR 1207 and similarly S. 604, which Reuters fails to mention.  Bernanke whines:

“I don’t think the American people want Congress running monetary policy. That’s exactly what (the bill) would do,” he said.”

First, most American – and other nations -  people don’t understand monetary policy as they have been prevented from learning what it is via State run education and a bought off State/Media propaganda cartel.

Next, even if they DID understand monetary policy but are brainwashed into thinking they can control government, do you think they would agree money should be controlled by an unelected institution as opposed to an elected one?  In otherwords, if Bernanke was answerable to the American people, and the American people’s voices are represented via Congress, Bernanke should laud the measure, no?   The reporter of the article should have pointed that obvious flip-flop out, but as usual, the Fed gets a free pass.

If the reporter was doing their job, they should have mentioned that the Constitution expressly forbid outsourcing of monetary control to a third party. That’s exactly what happened when Congress created the Fed in 1913, oops I mean when Congress created the Second Bank of the United States  in 1816-1836, oops I mean Congress created the First Bank of the Unites States in 1791-1811.    This of course leads to the question, “Hey!  If the Constitution can’t prevent the banksters from lobbying Congress to give them a license on monetary control, why do we have a government anyway?  It’s supposed to protect us from each other, but it keeps feeding us to the wolves!”  You cannot restrain a predatory tiger (the State) in a paper cage (a Constitution).   It gnaws at the bars, fed by lobbyists, banksters, special interests, campaign contributions, and other such bribes.

HR 1207 was created by Ron Paul.  He is a shining gem in a pile of shit and I was quite interested in him during the 2008 primaries.  Ron Paul exceeded the limit on the carefully controlled debate spectrum.  The Media cartel, acting in the best interests of the Status Quo/Establishment parasites, either ridiculed but more often than not, ignored him.  Paul argued for the abolition of the Fed, citing it was unconstitutional.  I think he even introduced a bill to that effect, but no-one (obviously) would co-sponsor it.  1207 calls for “auditing” the Fed.  As usual, the existence of government institutions is not to be questioned, but the useless debate over the mechanics of “control” can be allowed. Ron Paul’s argument, “The Fed should be abolished because it is unconstitutional!” is weak.  The stronger argument is, “The Fed should be abolished because it is immoral!”.

The correct question to ask is, “Why do we need government either via the Fed or Congress to control our money at all?”.  Ask that question and it immediately leads to, “Who needs a government anyway?”.  Do we need to be governed?  Yes.  Does that mean we need to have a monopoly on violence to govern?  No.  Any monopoly on violence is automatically corrupt.  It will be sought out those who wish to manipulate it to their advantage to the disadvantage of others.  Always.

The article ends with the typical “man on the street” interview:

Retirees Elbert and Gloria Willingham of Overland Park, Kansas, who were among the studio audience, gave Bernanke two thumbs up.

“I’m very impressed with Bernanke. I strongly hope that Obama sees fit to reappoint him — it would be bad for the economy if he didn’t,” Elbert Willingham said.

“He’s down to earth and believable. He’s got the ideas, but also the practical understanding,” his wife added. “He cares about the small businessman.

Of course, the media would not cite anyone who gave Bernanke “two-thumbs down”, preferring to rush to numbskulls with heads filled with pablum.  These people STILL know nothing other than the cut of Bernanke’s jib.  He’s “believable”?  That’s these two dipshits “analysis”?  Bernanke’s a “good liar” and we think he should be “reappointed?”.    Epic fail.

And they vote:

The citizens of Toronto are currently enduring a strike by the union responsible for garbage collection.   Citizens have been polarized by viewing either the Toronto’s municipal governmeent as the enemy or the union.

What we have here is not unions vs. the city. This is a false opposite fallacy erected by the State. What we have is the productive class (citizens who pay taxes) vs the parasitic class (the municipal government AND the union).

What people lack is the ability to rationally think of what a true free market solution would look like as most of us have been prevented from learning via State-run indoctrination camps called “public education” and the pro-State shilling by the mainstream media cartel.  So I’ll put the question bluntly, “What would the garbage collection market look like in the absence of government?”.

Government is simply a ruling monopoly on violence that takes money from you by force in return for “services”.   You are SOL if you say, “F–k the city!  They are providing me a lower quality of service for higher prices!  I have no control over it!  I am going to withhold X% of my taxes representing the service(s) I disagree with in protest!”.  Doing so would risk violent government assault against that person.

The city is a monopoly who “owns” the garbage collection market. This is akin to the Mafia “owning” the drug trade. All “own” these markets as they would deploy violence against those who would enter it without permission (a license). Licenses are extremely valuable.

As an aside, the worst thing that could happen to the Mafia is to decriminalize the drugs it traffics.  Why?  Because their excessively high profit margins – thus justifying risk – would vanish virtually overnight.  It would no longer be lucrative to arm yourself to the teeth to protect the trade.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mafia contributes heavily to campaigns of the most rabid anti-drug politician.  Lobbying the government to ban substances that have high demand is profitable for the Mafia!  What we get instead is politicians declaring a “war on drugs” to appear like they are “doing something!”.  As usual, government expands via ineffective new departments, we all pay via higher taxation/inflation and body counts from the drug “wars”.  This is not free market activity although some cite the drug trade as criticism of “free markets” – when it isn’t.

On the other hand, unions are State-sanctioned organized labour cartels that artificially distort the price of labour.

A union would not be given “legal” – a word reserved for use by the ruling monopoly on violence – status. A union is a State-sanctioned labour cartel, artificially driving the cost of labour up and the quality of service down. This trend is not a normal occurrence in a free market. Organized labour will prevent others from wanting to work harder at lower prices. How low? What ever the market deems the economic value of their work is.

There is nothing wrong with workers saying to an employee, “F–k you! We’re leaving because we hate the working conditions here and the way you treat us!” and starting a competing business elsewhere.

There is also nothing wrong with an employer saying to his workers, “F–k you! I am firing the lot of you and replacing you with those who want to work!”

No entrepreneur can say, “F–k the city! I can offer better garbage removal at lower prices! Let me canvas people in a particular area to see if they want to subscribe to my service!” as they have to compete with “free” – garbage collection is paid via property taxes, and a homeowner is SOL if they withhold even a portion of their taxes, as they would risk the State violently cracking down on them to enforce tribute or protection money payments.

As usual, we have been divided by the “union vs. the city” fallacy.  It is, “the State vs. the free market” battle.

In a free market, no one would have a monopoly on anything. Nothing would prevent anyone from starting up a garbage collection business, nothing would prevent people from choosing the best provider, and we would see the natural free market trend of   quality of service going up and the cost down.

As usual, we all pay for lower quality of government “service” through higher taxes.

Via Kitco, this article by Darryl Robert Schoon describes Goldman Sachs (GS) as a “vampire on the jugular of America”.   Obviously, Schoon derides GS as a heinous organization, “The banksters profit at the benefit of everyone else!”.

Schoon uses Matt Taibbi’s article in the Rolling Stone as a springboard to  his with the quote “organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy”.

Next, Schoon laments “Democracy no longer serves the role intended by America’s founding fathers.”.   Um…the founding fathers never intended democracy to serve any role, that’s why the United States was founded as a Republic.   The word “democracy” never appears anywhere in the US Constitution.  Most people can’t tell you what a Republic vs. Democracy is anyway.   But, boy, can they ever go on about sports, Brangelina, and Jon and Kate Gosset.  The founding fathers recognized that democracy leads immediately to powerful centralized governments whereas Republics intend to limit centralization.  Problem is once a centralized power is established, it immediately seeks to increase that power – think parasites multiplying and consuming a host a la cancer.

I like Schoon’s writings.  He is aware of the problem and is finally coming around the correct root cause analysis:  Government is the problem.  Goldman Sachs is a symptom.

At the very end of the article, Schoon gets it right:

“When Wall Street pimps take their cut of America’s money, they’re not alone. Without the US government, the pimps of Wall Street couldn’t do you like they do.”

He needs to take it to the next logical question, “Why do we need a government anyway?”  People who are proponents of gold/silver money recognize the perils of fiat.  Monopolization of money production is second only to the government’s monopoly on violence.  State brainwashing from the cradle to the grave makes it difficult for this idea to flourish, but the Internet is breaking the mainstream media – essentially a propaganda tool for the State – monopoly on information dissemination they have held for generations.

Organized greed will ALWAYS defeat organized government.  Why?  Because the greedy immediately start infiltrating/lobbying government and financing political campaigns to have it serve its purposes! Where do politicians go when they leave office?  Right into positions made available to them in return for performing “favours” for the industry.

Do people need to be governed?  Yes.  Does that automatically mean their needs to be a government to govern them?  No.  Our behaviors – human action – are governed by many forces, most of them outside of the insitution of government.

Stefan Molyneaux does a decent job explaining this:

The Stateless Society and Caging the Devils: The Stateless Society and Violent Crime

I was watching the movie, “The Shawshank Redemption” – a movie derived from a Stephen King novella, “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” and I was struck by a particular segment of the movie.

In case you don’t know the plot of a movie, in a nutshell, it is essentially about the development of a friendship between 2 men (Red and Andy Dufresne) serving time in Shawshank prison over a great number of years.

In this scene, new inmate Andy has approached long time resident Red in the prison courtyard as Red was the man who could “get things” from the outside world and bring them into the prison.  Andy wanted a “rock hammer” – a very small hammer about 7 inches long – it looks like a toy hammer.  Red of course was wary of the item and the trustworthiness of his new client and negotiations commenced.

The Youtube segment can be found here:

Note: I couldn’t figure out how to splice the video to hone in on the clip I wanted you to see, as the “start” and “end” parameters don’t appear to work as documented via a Google search.  I went over to splicd.com that uses Youtube APIs to generate a link that shows the specific segment to emphasize; you can see that here.

Now, Red knows that Andy is having trouble with the small group of prisoners who rape other prisoners – “bull queers” – so Red wants to get an idea what Andy wants the rock hammer for.  Andy says if there is any trouble he “won’t use the rock hammer.”.  Red then asks him if he will use the rock hammer to tunnel his way out of prison, in which Andy snickers.    Red wants to know what is so funny.  Andy replies, “You’ll understand when you see it.”.  In other words, Red is assessing risk to his business if he trades with Andy.

Once Red makes up his mind to go ahead with the exchange,  price is negotiated.  The rock hammer goes for about $7 in the outside world.  Red tells Andy is normal markup is about %20, but states the rock hammer is a specialty item – “risk goes up, price goes up” – and wants $10 for it.  Andy agrees; it isn’t clear in the movie how Red is paid.

Next, Red outlines the terms and conditions of the sale.  Red states that the item is high risk to Andy – “if they find it, you’re gonna lose it.”   If the hammer is confiscated, Red warns Andy that he is not to reveal who got him the hammer.  Red states if his name is mentioned, “we’ll never do business again.  Not for shoelaces or a stick of gum.  You got that?”.  Andy agrees and thanks him.

An agorist network is where a counter-economy is initiated by participants to trade outside of the taxation/inflation system – a virtual prison – we all are enslaved to.   Some say, “What if someone rats you out to the State!?!”.  An agorist network has TREMENDOUS value to the participants.  They are preventing the State from confiscating the fruits of their labour via taxation.  If they trade in cash and hold that cash for any length of time, they need to convert it to gold or silver rounds/bars to prevent State theft via inflation.  If someone betrays the network, they will immediately be ostracized from the network and their trustworthiness factor goes to ZERO.  No one will do business with them again.  They will be denied access to participate in the agorist network; economic pariahs if you will.

The movie then cuts to a scene where they show the process and the participants bringing in Andy’s rock hammer (shown here via splicd).

The agorist network is keeping the prisoners – a supposedly heinous bunch of people – honest!  Recognizing the value of the network, they all seek to benefit from it.  If any participant betrays another, they’re done.  It’s very interesting that an prisoner does NOT do something that would prevent them access to the “economy” to obtain goods/services to increase their standard of living.  In other-words, their self-interest prevents them from doing harm to others.

Wow.  That’s something you don’t hear everyday.  That is completely the opposite of a corporation where government grants limited liability to decision makers that direct the company in such a way that harms others.

Now some might say, doesn’t Red hold a monopoly position?  He’s exploiting prisoners!  Nonsense.  If a prisoner thought Red was f–king them over, they would start another network or seek out another competitor.

In fact, there is a scene later in the movie where Andy wants to surprise Red with a gift – a harmonica.  In order for Andy to keep it a secret, he orders the harmonica through a “competitor” although that exchange process is not a scene in the movie.

I thought this was interesting. If some say, “An agorist network will NEVER work because people are not trustworthy!”, cite prison as a working model!

From this article, apparently the political State of Canada is having issues.  As usual, the core of the problem is not being honed in on, but deflected to the standard, “Well at least it wasn’t as bad as last month!” which is now considered good news.

One statement made me LOL: “We jumped into this recession totally unprotected.”. Nope.  Central banks manipulating monetary policy led us by the nose into this recession.  Signed.  Sealed. And delivered.  As usual, the government/banking cartel is not to blame.

What we are witnessing here is the results of the structural defects in the way our monetary system operates.

Some call it the Debt Virus. Others call it the Compound Interest Paradox.

Since every dollar in circulation is backed by one “anti”-dollar of debt, it eventually must be paid back to those privileged to issue it. Who are they? Well, the BoC is one. The chartered private banks are another. Paper money represents about 5% of the total money stock; the other 95% is bank created credit, created via a few computer keystrokes when a loan is created; the loan ends up as a deposit in an account.

By way of a simple accounting trick, the loan is an interest-bearing asset and the deposit a liability. Thus the books balance.

Over time, old loans (plus interest) are paid off. However, only the principle was created. The interest was not. Where does that come from? From new loans created *AFTER* the old ones. A loan, once paid off, actually *DEPLETES* the total money stock by the amount of the interest.

This is pure Ponzi requiring infinite economic growth (i.e. the rate and amount of new loans *MUST* be equal to or greater than the rate and amount of loans being retired.

In order to incent us to take out more loans, our central planners via the BoC, artificially lower interest rates, in hopes of stimulating loan creation. Trouble is we are not responding the way they want us to. If this process continues, the collapse of the Bank of Canada Loyalty Points (dollar) in hyper-deflation of the dollar is inevitable.

What this means is that more and more businesses and people must compete harder and harder for the remaining dollars in circulation to pay off their outstanding debt (as well as live). Businesses must sell at lower prices to pay off loans that are becoming increasingly difficult to service. Jobs are lost. Salaries reduced. Some strain. Some struggle. Some lose to bankruptcy.

We have to reinvent what money should have been before the government/banking cartel hijacked it.

For immediate release:

This year, Canadian taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. Wouldn’t economy do well if government stopped robbing people via taxation extortion? In fact, maybe it wouldn’t have soured in the first place?
A. Shut up.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But I hear people are saving money and paying off debt.  Isn’t this simply a round-about subsidy to the banks who create money out of thin air as you gave them the license to counterfeit money when they issue a loan?
A. Shut up.

Q. OK.  If I am to buy a flat screen TV, which one should I buy?
A. It doesn’t matter.  My spouse and my colleagues’ spouses bought as much stock as we could in companies who make flat screen TV’s, prior to this announcement.  I also have a position waiting for me at one of these companies in return for the favour when I leave office. Funny how that works out…for me.  Was that out loud?

Q. Isn’t that a conflict of interest?
A. When you have a monopoly on violence you can do pretty much what you want.  You need not be consistent in any viewpoint.  People have been scammed into thinking voting can change things.  If it really could, we’d have made voting illegal.  Ooops.  Was that out loud again?

Q.   If we made stuff they wanted with the money we send them, I can see how it might work, but bottom line is that we buy the crap they make, but we don’t buy the crap we make..which is very little these days.  So how does this help the Canadian economy?  Doesn’t it really stimulate the Chinese economy?
A. Shut up.

Q. How long will countries that make stuff accept our money – which loses value to inflation – if we have nothing to offer them?  Won’t they stop after a while?  When we have no skills left?  When they buy out all of our hard assets like real estate, mines and mining rights, or whatever we have left at firesale prices?
A. Shut up.

So let me get this straight. It’s kinda hard for the layperson like me to get my head around it:

Q) You lowered interest rates in 2000-2001 to levels we hadn’t seen in 40 years or so to stave off the dot com recession and the fragile nerves of people post 9/11, right?
A) Right.

Q) You didn’t want that little recession to hurt people who flocked to the over-inflated dot com industry as a result of wild speculation, right?
A) Right.

Q) So by lowering interest rates, this encourages people to borrow and spend, right?
A) Right.

Q) Doesn’t lowering interest rates make otherwise impractical projects practical? Or sometimes, if all that new money flows into a particular asset class, like housing, it causes the value of that asset to rise? Isn’t this called malinvestment? I.e. Investing in something that doesn’t really meet market demand because interest rates distort market decisions?
A)Yes.

Q) So loose credit policies you authorized (easy money) created the housing bubble? I.e. People were afraid *NOT* to get a loan to buy a house otherwise they thought they would be priced out of the market? This encourages speculative behaviour, right? Even prudent savers would be tempted, no? It’s a positive re-enforcing loop, is it not?  In otherwords, most people acting in their rational economic self-interest based on the market distortions you created *CAUSED* their – in the oft repeated phrase of the former head of the Federal Reserve – “irrational exuberance”?
A) I suppose it is.

Q) So YOU created the market distortion that led to a boom in housing! Yet, when things go bust, the free market takes the blame? Because of your disastrous monetary policies? What’s free market about that?
A) Shut up.

Q) Isn’t a free market and a central bank opposite ideas? If one exists, the other doesn’t?
A) Shut up.

Q) I know what I’ll do, I’ll vote someone in who understands what you’re up to and will fix your wagon! What do you think of that?
A) Good luck with that. Blue, Red, Orange, or Green…knock yourself out. It doesn’t matter. There is no real choice in your feudal system. Only top and bottom.   I’m on top…and you’re not.

That’s all the time we have for today!  I hoped you enjoyed the new Q and A format. Thanks for coming! Don’t let the door hit your a$$ on the way out!

Below is some helpful advice on how to best to help the Canadian economy by spending your stimulus cheque wisely:

If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China .
If you spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs.
If you purchase a computer it will go to India .
If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras , and Guatemala (unless you buy organic, in which case it will go to the US, and they need the money more than us, actually).
If you buy a car it will go to Japan .
If you purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan .

And none of it will help the Canadian economy.

We want to keep that money here in  Canada . You can keep the money in Canada by spending it at yard sales, going to a hockey game, or spend it on strippers, domestic beer or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in Canada.