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An "Austrian" Economist's Advice For Greece & The EU

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Submitted by Dr. Richard Ebeling via The Cobden Centre,

For months, now, the mass media and the financial markets have anxiously watched and waited to see the outcome of a war of words, accusations, and threats that have been fought between Greece and its Eurozone and European Union partners.

Over several decades Greek governments accumulated a fiscally unmanageable debt and have been unwilling to introduce any meaningful, long-term economic and budgetary reforms to get the country’s political-economic house in order.

Greece’s Euro and EU partners have warned that Greece may be formally or informally expelled from the common currency and, perhaps, from the economic union if the terms for a new series of loans based on domestic Greek reforms and some debt restructuring cannot be agreed upon.

However, in the whirlwind of often sensational and uncertain daily new events, it is sometimes useful and even necessary to step back and try to take a look at the wider context of things in which those current events are occurring.

Greek and European Union Crisis is the Result of Collectivism

The fiscal and other economic policy problems that are plaguing Greece are simply the highly magnified and intensified problems that are affecting many of the other European nations

Many of them have accumulated large national debts that press upon the fiscal capacities of their taxpayers. They all have highly regulated markets and restricted labor markets. They all have aging populations expecting generous government-funded pensions as the years go by. They all have costly welfare state “entitlement” programs that must be financed through taxes and deficit financing.

They also share a generally anti-capitalistic mentality. Intellectuals, politicians, many in the electorates, and most certainly the national and EU bureaucrats neither understand nor advocate the classical liberal ideal of truly free markets or the wider political philosophy of individualism and individual rights to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property.

The market-oriented entrepreneur is neither trusted nor valued. Rather than seen as an innovator and creator of new, better, and less expensive products serving the betterment of the general consuming public, the business enterpriser is considered an exploiter, a manipulator and “selfish” profit-seeker only doing damage to the society in which he operates.

The free enterpriser must be either heavily controlled or regulated, or he must be put out of business. The only good businessman is the one who works hand-in-hand with politicians and bureaucrats to manipulate and restrict markets for their mutual advantages.

The fact is that whether it is the EU political leadership and bureaucrats in Brussels or the local politicians and bureaucrats in the respective national capitals of the member countries, they all reflect one general political-economic set of policies: those of the interventionist-welfare state with its regulation of markets, its redistributive policies, and its use of state power to benefit some at the expensive of others through favors and privileges of one type or another.

Greece’s version of these problems and policies are in its essentials no different from those in the other Eurozone and European Union member states. Only the degree to which they have all come together in the current crisis has magnified the seriousness and consequences for all to see when such policies are carried far enough.

What, then, are the European Union and its member states such as Greece to do to start escaping from the current crisis and other similar crises in the future?

Greek Spendicus cartoon

Ludwig von Mises’ Analysis of Europe’s Dilemma – Seventy Years Ago

Over seventy years ago, while Europe was being destroyed in the carnage of the Second World War, the famous Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, wrote a series of essays on how the European nations might recover from the ravages of totalitarianism and total war through which they were living.

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was one of the most well-known free market economists of the twentieth century. Internationally renowned for his demonstration of the unworkability of socialist central planning and the inherent contradictions of interventionist-welfare state, as well as his development of the “Austrian” theory of money and the business cycle, Mises worked in the years between the two World Wars as a senior economic policy analyst for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce in his native Austria. In this role he witnessed and analyzed the growth of government power and control across Europe, as well as in his own country, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Mises explained how Europe’s financial and economic policy problems were the culmination of traveling down the collectivist road of government regulation, control and planning:

“For two generations now the policy of the European nations has been based on nothing else than preventing and eliminating the function of the market as the regulator of production. By duties and trade-policy measures of other sorts, by legal requirements and prohibitions, by the subsidization of uncompetitive enterprises, by the suppression or throttling of business that offers unwelcomed competition to the spoiled children of the political regime through the regulation of prices, interest rates and wages, the attempt is made to force production into paths which it otherwise would not have taken . . .

“The result of these policies is the severe economic crisis under which we suffer today. The crisis had its starting point in mistaken economic policy, and it will not end until it is recognized that the task of governments is to create the necessary preconditions for the prosperous operation of the economy, and not squandering more on foolish expenditures than the industry of the population is able to provide.”

Mythical Greek Creatures cartoon

The Politicized Economy of Power, Privilege and Connections

Mises also understood the political and economic corruption to which such a strangling system of government interventionism leads. He explained it with great cogency in the waning year of the Weimar Republic in Germany a few months before Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party came to power in January of 1933.

In an essay on “The Myth of the Failure of Capitalism” (1932), Mises described the essence of the politicized economy that replaces a free market-oriented economy in an increasingly interventionist system:

“In the interventionist state it is no longer of crucial importance for the success of an enterprise that the business should be managed in a way that it satisfies the demands of consumers in the best and least costly manner.

“It is far more important that one has ‘good relationships’ with the political authorities so that the interventions work to the advantage and not the disadvantage of the enterprise. A few marks’ more tariff protection for the products of the enterprise and a few marks’ less tariff for the raw materials used in the manufacturing process can be of far more benefit to the enterprise than the greatest care in managing the business.

“No matter how well an enterprise may be managed, it will fail if it does not know how to protect its interests in the drawing up of the custom rates, in the negotiations before the arbitration boards, and with the cartel authorities. To have ‘connections’ becomes more important that to produce well and cheaply.

“So the leadership positions within the enterprise are no longer achieved by men who understand how to organize companies and to direct production in the way the market situation demands, but by men who are well thought of ‘above’ and ‘below,’ men who understand how to get along well with the press and all the political parties, especially with the radicals, so that they and their company give no offense. It is that class of general directors that negotiate far more often with state functionaries and party leaders than with those from whom they buy or to whom they sell.

“Since it is a question of obtaining political favors for these enterprises, their directors must repay the politicians with favors. In recent years, there have been relatively few large enterprises that have not had to spend very considerable sums for various undertakings in spite of it being clear from the start that they would yield no profit. But in spite of the expected loss it had to be done for political reasons. Let us not even mention contributions for purposes unrelated to business – for campaign funds, public welfare organizations, and the like.

“Forces are becoming more and more generally accepted that aim at making the direction of large banks, industrial concerns, and stock corporations independent of the shareholders . . . The directors of large enterprises nowadays no longer think they need to give consideration to the interests of the shareholders, since they feel themselves thoroughly supported by the state and that they have interventionist public opinion behind them.

“In those countries in which statism has most fully gained control . . . they manage the affairs of their corporations with about as little concern for the firm’s profitability as do the directors of public enterprises. The result is ruin.

“The theory that has been cobbled together says that these enterprises are too big to allow them to be managed simply in terms of their profitability. This is an extraordinarily convenient idea, considering that renouncing profitability in the management of the company leads to the enterprises insolvency. It is fortunate for those involved that the same theory then demands state intervention and support for those enterprises that are viewed as being too big to be allowed to go under       . . .

“The crisis from which the world is suffering today is the crisis of interventionism and of national and municipal socialism; in short, it is the crisis of anti-capitalist policies.”

In Mises’ description, we find all the elements of what plagues the modern Western economies, including the United States. The politicizing of market decisions and outcomes with government support for those financial institutions and corporate enterprises defined as “good big to fail.” The pervasiveness of “crony capitalism,” with “connections” and government-business partnerships that serve the political class and anti-market business groups at the expense of consumers and those who wish to freely compete on a more open market. And the use of taxpayers’ dollars to feed the network of those receiving the favors, privileges, protections, and subsidies that government has the power to hand out in various and sundry ways.

Greek Bailout is a Sieve cartoon

A New Politics and Economics of Freedom for Prosperity

In 1940, Ludwig von Mises came to the United States as an exile from the tyrannies covering the map of Europe under the onslaught of the early Nazi conquests. From this new platform, Mises proceeded to write a series of papers and monographs during the war years outlining the changes that would have to be implemented to restore Europe’s freedom and prosperity.

(Most of these essays and monographs are published in, Richard M. Ebeling, ed., Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises: Vol. 3: The Political Economy of International Reform and Reconstruction[Liberty Fund, 2000]).

To reverse this trend towards and consequences from political and economic collectivism, Mises argued that it was necessary to bring about a reawakened understanding of the principles of free market capitalism and classical liberalism And what needed to be implemented were economic policies consistent with those principles to create the institutional foundation for free men to interact for mutual benefit and material improvement.

The most fundamental changes to establish the foundations for the political and economic revival of Europe, Mises said, involved the mentality of the people. The first of these changes in thinking, he said, required no longer focusing primarily upon the short-run gains from various economic policies. Indeed, the economic calamities of the 1930s and the war through which Europe was then passing represented the fruits of a political economy of the short run. “Of course, there are pseudo-economists preaching the gospel of short-run policies,” Mises admitted. “‘In the long-run we are all dead,’ says Lord Keynes. But it all depends upon how long the short run will last.” And in Mises’ view, “Europe has now entered the stage in which it is experiencing the long-run consequences of its short-run policies.”

Practical politics in the earlier decades of the twentieth century had been geared to providing immediate benefits to various groups that could be satisfied only by undermining the long-run prospects and prosperity of society. In the new postwar period, Mises said, taxes could no longer be confiscatory. International debts could no longer be repudiated or diluted through currency controls or manipulations of exchange rates. Foreign investors could no longer be viewed as victims to be violated or plundered through regulations or nationalization of their property.

The countries of Europe needed to design economic policies with a long-run?perspective in mind. European recovery would require capital, and this would mean attracting foreign capital investment to assist in the process. Foreign private sector investors – especially American investors – would be reluctant unless they had the surety that there would be a protected and respected system of property rights, strict enforcement of market contracts for domestic and foreign businessmen, low and predictable taxes, reduced and limited government expenditures, balanced budgets, and a non-inflationary monetary environment.

These were the institutional preconditions for the economic reconstruction of Europe, Mises argued. Once these general changes had been made, governments would have done all in their power to establish the general political environment that would be most conducive to fostering the incentives and opportunities for the people of Europe to start the recovery and rebirth of their own countries.

The entrepreneurs, however, were the ones who were most despised and plundered by governments in that interwar epoch of interventionism and economic nationalism (many of whom ended up being killed by the Nazis during World War II due to the fact that in Central and especially Eastern Europe a large percentage of the entrepreneurs had been members of the Jewish community).

The lifeblood for European recovery had been lost, particularly in Eastern Europe. There would have to be a new respect and regard for these creative men of the market in order to foster the emergence of a new generation of such individuals. “If there is any hope for a new upswing it rests with the initiative of individuals,”Mises said. “The entrepreneurs will have to rebuild what the governments and the politicians have destroyed.”

A Time When Euro was a Currency cartoon

The Need to End Special Interest Politics and Privileges

The second change needed in the European mentality, Mises said, was an end to special interest group politics. Governments throughout the interwar period had followed a “producer policy,” in which individual manufacturers, farmers, and workers in various niches in the system of division of labor formed coalitions to gain favors for themselves at the expense of others in the society.

At the behest of trade unions, governments intervened, supported, and subsidized policies that in the longer run resulted in restrictions in output, misdirections of capital, and restraints on labor markets. Such policies had to be abandoned because they work counter to the integrative role prices and competition were meant to play in assuring coordination of markets, and the incentives and ability for capital formation. Producer-oriented policies were better called “production-curtailing policies,” Mises said, since they serve to protect the less competent producers from the rivalry of the more competent. Europe could ill afford to indulge in favors for the less efficient and less productive if the ravages of war were to be overcome quickly.

Third, Europe needed to give up the redistributive welfare state. Mises stated emphatically that, ?it is the duty of honest economists to repeat again and again that, after the destruction and the waste of a period of war, nothing else can lead society back to prosperity than the old recipe – produce more and consume less.

Who would be left to be taxed in any “tax the rich and subsidize the poor” scheme in a setting in which war has made practically everyone a “have-not,” when the focus of economic policy should be to foster capital formation, not wealth redistribution? “There is no other recipe than this,” Mises declared. “Produce more and better, and save more and more.”

Unless these changes occurred in people’s thinking, Europe’s path to reform and reconstruction would be more difficult and protracted than it needed to be. Neither the war nor its destruction stood in the way of Europe’s future. Ideas would determine what lie ahead.“What ranks above all else for economic and political reconstruction is a radical change of ideologies,” Mises said. “Economic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual and moral problem.”

And this intellectual, spiritual and moral problem could only have its solution in a restoration of a political philosophy of individualism and the economic policies of free market, liberal capitalism, in the view of Ludwig von Mises.

Today’s Europe Still in the Grip of Collectivist Ideals and Policies

It is true that Europe, today, does not have to recover from a devastating war, with its costs in human lives and physical property, and its resulting dramatic consumption of capital.

But today’s Europe suffers from its own destructive economic policies that hamper businesses and the spirit of entrepreneurship; siphon off the life-blood of enterprise and capital formation through the heavy burdens of taxes and straightjacketing anti-competitive regulations; rigid labor markets and generous welfare states that reduce the adaptability to change and lowers the incentives for people to want to be gainfully employed in profitable enterprises; and growing national debts to feed the costs of these unsustainable systems that threaten other European countries with the same fiscal abyss that has been facing Greece.

Greece’s and the European Union’s economic and political crisis will not be resolved through a new debt deal between the government in Athens and the European authorities. It will be merely one more stop-gag “solution” to a problem whose nature is endemic to the current ideology and politics of State-Power and collectivism.

Its real solution requires something deeper and more comprehensive: a revival of the classical liberal ideal of individualism and the economics of free market capitalism. This, unfortunately, is not likely to occur any time soon.

 

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Fri, 07/17/2015 - 22:31 | 6326105 g speed
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make it simple--punish corruption

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 01:05 | 6326375 Radical Marijuana
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g speed:

It is never simple, due to the paradox that only better organized gangs of criminals can displace the previous gangs of criminals that developed to become the most dominate. Recommending we should "punish corruption" does not address the paradoxes with respect to enforcement of any rule of law, such as that "nobody guards the guardians."

The only connection between human laws and natural laws is the ability to back up lies with violence. That is how and why the current situation exists that governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. The only things which actually exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies, operating robberies. Human beings and civilizations operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which have deliberately inverted the meaning of entropy, due to the biggest bullies' bullshit being able to become the dominant social stories. The current groups which are the biggest bullies, or the best organized gangsters, are the banksters. The degree to which they already dominate the funding of politics, means that they have effectively become the new royalty, which is above the rule of law, because they can control those who job is supposed to be to enforce that rule of law.

While it is quite facile to say that we should "punish corruption" the entire political economy is now based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks. I.e., there is practically nothing which is not corrupt, since the vicious spirals between the monetary systems, through the funding of the political processes, have resulted in that monetary system becoming like a totally metastasized cancer, which is killing its host, while that parasite is now so totally entwined throughout society that any treatments would most probably precipitate killing society, while not treating that will only allow those forms of social sickness and insanity to continue to have even worse longer term consequences.

The recommendations that we should "punish corruption" are being made out of the frame of reference which presumes upon the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals. Such an approach has no ways to cope with the entire system being profoundly corrupt! Basically, people are perceiving political problems in the most absurdly backward ways possible, due to the degree that all the dominant natural languages and philosophy of science have been dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, so much, for so long. There is almost nothing but a core of organized crime, surrounded by layers of controlled opposition groups, which both stay inside of the same basic bullshit frame of reference, and which are all dominated by the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, which therefore, also of course includes the so-called Austrian economists.

Rather, in order to deal with the ways that the entire political economy is almost totally based upon the corruptions that are governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, one has to go THROUGH the looking glass of our Bizarro Mirror World. It is not an exaggeration to assert that our civilization is based on perceiving its politics in the most absurdly backward ways possible, which problems can be better understood by regarding human beings and civilizations as general energy systems, which have deliberately misunderstood themselves in the maximum possible ways, due to that being the most socially successful ways to operate systems of organized lies and robberies, as in the case of the international banksters being able to make and maintain systems whereby the powers of governments enforce frauds by privately controlled banks, that can make the public "money" supply out of nothing, as debts, to be used to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources.

We should be going through series of intellectual scientific revolutions to better understand how human beings and civilizations operate as entropic pumps of energy flows. However, doing that requires radical changes in the ways that we perceive time and space in general, and therefore, entropy in particular. The essential issue is that there are NO human beings who are actually producers. There are only different styles of human beings living as predators. However, the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has advanced the attitude that there is some false fundamental dichotomy there, which includes that somehow there is some fundamental dichotomy between what is corrupt versus what is not corrupt. A GREAT PARADOX is that the only way that any rule of law can actually operate is that it is enforced by those who are the best at being dishonesty and backing that up with violence. That paradox of enforcement is inherent to any human rule of law, and therefore, is necessarily present with respect to any recommendations that we should "punish corruption."

Punishing corruption is NOT simple! Rather, it is hyper-complicated because all human beings necessarily live through systems of more or less organized lies, operating robberies. Currently, those who are doing that the most are the biggest gangsters, the banksters, who are able to operate symbolic robberies, in the form of them being legally allowed to create the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts for everyone else, while those frauds continue to enforced by governments, which are in turn controlled by the FUNDING OF POLITICS, through vicious spirals in feedback loops through the monetary systems.

The "Austrian Advice" is just more useless and misleading old-fashioned bullshit, which stays inside of the basic world view promoted by the biggest bullies for thousands of years. Similarly, asserting that we should "make it simple--punish corruption" also stays inside of the same basic mistakes, which are thoroughly entrenched throughout all of the controlled opposition groups, that stay inside of the bullshit world view that was originally promoted by the biggest bullies.

To deal with the banksters being the best organized criminals, who have applied the methods of organized crime to control governments, one has to go THROUGH the dualities of false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, to arrive as better unitary mechanisms, based upon understanding human beings and civilizations as general energy systems. However, that includes going THROUGH the ways that we now perceive the concept of entropy in totally inverted ways, and yet, tend to take that reversed meaning almost totally for granted.

Overall, the real problems are that there now exists globalized electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs. Meanwhile the profound paradigm shifts that happened in physical science to enable those technologies has not been surpassed by anything like that being allowed to happen in political science. Instead, our political processes continue to be dominated by old-fashioned religions and ideologies, such as Austrian economics, etc., that are forms of controlled opposition, which do not directly admit and address the basic realities that governments are not only the biggest forms of organized crime, but that they also necessarily must be. Similarly, Austrian economics, and similarly superficial notions, like it would be simple to punish corruption, do not admit and address that governments are necessarily controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which are currently the banksters, to the degree that the currently established systems are almost TOTALLY CORRUPT!

INTENSE PARADOXES continue to get bigger, faster, due to progress in physical science, through profound paradigm shifts, not being surpassed by progress in political science going through profound paradigm shifts. Of course, the reasons for that are due to the history of warfare being organized crime on larger and larger scales, becoming the foundation for political economy to become based upon enforced frauds. The deeper reasons for that are that human beings and civilizations necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, while those who were the biggest and best at doing that were also the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites with respect to doing that, who were able to promote their stories to become socially dominant, despite those stories actually being as absurdly backwards as they could possibly become.

There are deeper basic reasons for how and why applying the basic concepts of general energy systems to human beings and civilizations discovers that those most closely match the principles and methods of organized crime, and must necessarily do so. Some of those basic reasons are that the death control systems were necessarily central to everything else, and those murder systems developed to become the most socially successful when done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries, which was then how and why we ended up with a political economy which is almost totally dominated by governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks.

None of the old-fashioned religions and ideologies have anything worthwhile to offer in the way of realistic resolutions of the real problems, because all of those were various forms of controlled opposition, that was co-opted and compromised to operate within the biggest bullies' bullshit frame of reference long ago. Instead, the only genuine solutions require profound paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceive political problems: the only things which actually exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. The only "solutions" are to continue to have to muddle through that madness, wherein those who are the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals mostly have gotten away with promoting their bullshit social stories, based upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible ideals, which always actually make the opposite happen.

It is NOT possible to stop corruption. Rather, the entire system is necessarily based upon the "corruption" that everyone lives as predators, or lives through being entropic pumps of energy flows. The idea that there are any human beings who are "productive" is bullshit. Nobody "produces" anything. Everyone is only transforming energy. There is only one energy, and therefore, only one political system, which is engaged in the entropic pumping of energy flows, which is best described by the principles and methods of organized crime, because the death controls are necessarily central to everything else.

Austrian economics does not come within light years of going through sufficient paradigm shifts to be able to reconcile progress in physical science to enable progress in political science. Similarly, alleged "simple" solutions such as "punishing corruption" are actually absurd impossibilities, in every way, on every level, since the whole system is totally corrupt, and must necessarily be totally corrupt, in the sense that civilization could never be anything else than some elaborate systems that were entropic pumps of energy flows, whose paradoxical social perfection was the perfection of them being able to lie about themselves to everyone.

What is theoretically possible is for our perceptions of political science to be radically revolutionized, by changing the ways that we perceive the concepts of time and space, and therefore, perceive entropy. That then is the theoretical underpinning to approach dealing with the realities that the current political economy is almost 100% corrupt, due to the degree that governments are enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, which are allowed to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts for everyone else.

That basic system exists because EVERYONE lives by being a predator, while those who were the best and biggest of those became the international banksters controlling governments. The deeper problems are due to the overwhelming dominance of the biggest bullies' bullshit language and world view, which has resulted in there being almost nothing but controlled opposition groups, operating inside of that bullshit world view, using that bullshit language, when they appear to resist the core of organized crime, in the form of bankster controlled governments.

At the present time, the schools and mass media, which were also dominated by their funding, inside of the same monetary system, which is almost inconceivably crazy and corrupt, as well as quite completely so, have resulted in the vast majority of people becoming incompetent political idiots, or Zombie Sheeple, while the ruling classes present themselves in public as wolves in sheep's clothing, while the controlled opposition groups are a range of Black Sheeple, such as how the Austrian school of economics are reactionary revolutionaries, who stay within the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, while attempting to "lead" people back to the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals that enabled the banksters to get away with becoming almost totally triumphant in their campaigns to "corrupt" governments to enforce frauds by those banksters.

However, any alleged "simple solutions" based upon "punishing corruption" in order to decrease or stop that corruption, tend to be absurdly backwards, and practically impossible throughout the range of short to medium, to longer terms. The basics are that money is measurement backed by murder, because the debt controls are backed by the death controls, which are the most abstract ways that all private property is based on backing up claims with coercions. More abstractly, the basic processes are SUBTRACTIONS, from which necessarily follow ROBBERIES, or, in the case of the banksters controlling governments, the symbolic robberies through enforced frauds.

Since we mostly continue to presume to understand time and space in the old-fashioned, common sense ways, (deliberately ignoring the progress in physical science like the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, which made it possible to build atomic bombs to back up electronic frauds, to develop out of the previously existing systems of paper frauds, backed by gunpowder) we also continue to mostly take for granted misunderstanding entropy in totally inverted ways. The majority of people want to continue to believe in old-fashioned religions and ideologies, such some who prefer Austrian economics, for example. The vast majority of people want to approach political problems by still relying upon dualities, expressed as false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals. There is almost always presented relatively good analysis of the problems, but which stays being too superficial, and therefore, results in finally promoting the bogus "solutions" which are too superficial.

Therefore, I find it ironic that the article above recommends:

... it is sometimes useful and even necessary to step back and try to take a look at the wider context of things in which those current events are occurring.

However, that articles does not actually do so in any sufficiently significant ways. The wider context that I recommend stepping back to take a look at are the ways that natural selection was internalized as human intelligence, and then that was applied to the single greatest human concern, which was other human beings, resulting in the history of warfare, whereby success was based upon deceits and treacheries, which became the overall history of how War Kings made the powers of states, which powers were covertly captured by the Fraud Kings, the banksters. That resulted in the currently existing systems, which are debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits, whose runaway debt insanities are headed towards provoking death insanities.

In that context, I would recast the conclusion to the article:

Its real solution requires something deeper and more comprehensive: a revival of the classical liberal ideal of individualism and the economics of free market capitalism. This, unfortunately, is not likely to occur any time soon.

The economics of "free market capitalism" should be recast in ways which are reconciled with understanding human beings and civilizations as entropic pumps of energy flows, which requires radical transformations of the concept of entropy, similar in political science to how the concepts of time and space were radically transformed in physical science. OF COURSE, that is "not likely to happen any time soon."  Rather we will more probably have to continue to watch and wait as the core of organized crime continues to attempt to enforce even more globalized frauds, through backing up electronics with atomic energy, etc., while those developments are superficially resisted by controlled opposition groups, that still stay INSIDE the biggest bullies' bullshit world view.

However, those problems are amplified to astronomical sizes by progress in physical science enabling technologies to become trillions of times more capable and powerful, in ways that can NOT be resolved without political science surpassing the paradigm shifts that physical science has already gone through. There exist combined money/murder systems, which are being expressed through globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of atomic bombs, etc. ... Those systems have become almost inconceivably crazy and corrupt, so that "punishing corruption" goes off the scale by many of orders of magnitude more than ever before in human history.

At the present time, it appears that the most probable future for the established systems based upon governments enforcing the banksters' frauds are to drive that to cause the overall decline and fall of civilization. The only way that there could be sufficient "punishing corruption" is perhaps to for that civilization to madly destroy itself, since that whole system is so thoroughly corrupt. The only theoretically possible resolutions to the real problems would have to be based upon enough people recognizing what those real problems actually were, in ways whereby then enough people could agree upon realistic resolutions to those real problems.

I REPEAT, that would have to be that enough human beings were willing and able to better understand themselves and their civilization as entropic pumps of energy flows, but in radically transformed ways, because enough of them would have to be able and willing to go through admitting and addressing how and why the existing political economy was almost totally based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, and that, in turn, would have to be understood in the larger context of human and natural ecologies, including the emerging industrial ecology. Of course, at the present time, all of that appears to be politically impossible, since the ruling classes almost totally get away with continuing to have governments enforce their frauds, while the vast majority of people continue to want to behave like incompetent political idiots that do not do anything effective to resist that, especially since there is almost nothing which is publicly significant than various sorts of controlled opposition, which is the majority of the content published on Zero Hedge, while the most mainstream mass media continues to promote the "everything is wonderful" view of the banksters.

By and large, there is practically nobody who is interested in advancing political science in ways which are consistent with the advances in physical science. Rather, about the only things that we observe being done are that technologies are applied to become better at backing up lies with violence, and/or technologies are applied to provide more fantastic special effects within the context of repeating the same old-fashioned, stupid, social stories.

In the case of those who continue to promote Mises, it is as if the development of electronics, and atomic energy, etc., has no relevance to political economy, except superficially to recognize that there are globalized electronic communications, along with an overwhelming abundance of weapons of mass destruction. The basic concepts used to understand political economy continue to be presented without reference to progress in thermodynamics and information theory, and even more so without considering how those should be revolutionized, to correct the ENORMOUS ERRORS that resulted from the biggest bullies' bullshit world view manifesting within the history of the philosophy of science.

Although there are much more scientific ideas about power and information, which have been applied to understand natural evolution, and natural ecologies, those ideas have barely been applied to understand human evolution and human ecologies. The reasons are relatively obvious, when one does that, namely, that it reveals that the biggest gangsters are the banksters, who have applied the methods of organized crime to the political processes, so that the currently existing, globalized, civilization is actually based upon governments enforcing frauds by privately controlled banks, while the vast majority of people continue to act like Zombie Sheeple with respect to those central social facts, due to effects upon them for generations after generation living within the long history of successfully backing up legalized lies with legalized violence.

The European Union and the Euro were projects of the international banksters, to attempt to consolidate their global hegemony over the world's public "money" supply, by creating supranational organizations that would continue to be willing and able to enforce the banksters' frauds. However, that project has run into some problems, on various scales. The banksters are promoting their notions of what their bullshit "solutions" should be, while their controlled opposition groups are similarly promoting their kinds of bogus "solutions." However, basically BOTH are staying with the same frame of reference, based upon continuing to take for granted old-fashioned dualities, false fundamental dichotomies, and impossible ideals. The theoretically possible alternatives are to start using more unitary mechanisms, leading to promoting more realistic ideals.

The philosophy of science should be extremely important to a civilization based upon technology. That should be done through creative synthesis of post-modernizing science with ancient mysticism. However, doing that would have to directly challenge and overcome the current dominance of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, which is as absurdly backwards as it could possibly be, due to its social successfulness being based on the ability to continue to enforce frauds. Furthermore, that degree of dominance of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view also currently includes all of the publicly significant controlled opposition groups. But nevertheless, it should be painfully obvious that progress in physical science, which enabled there to be developed globalized electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs, ought to make profound paradigm shifts in political science imperative!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 02:08 | 6326432 Spitzer
Spitzer's picture

epic rant. Is that you ? Two Planks ? from the 2 planks blog ?

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:12 | 6327172 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

No, Spitzer,

I'm not this:

http://twoshortplanksunplugged.blogspot.ca/

However, I agree with the masthead saying:

TwoShortPlanks

If ‘War is an extension of Politics by other means’ then, Politics is an extension of Economics by other means and further, Economics is an extension of Servitude by other means. We go to war today so we create servitude in others tomorrow. Politics, Economics, Warfare, Servitude; they’re all manifestations of the same fundamental flaw in the Human Psyche, that Control is a cure for Fear.

... My approach tends to go beyond psychology, to look more at ecology.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 07:38 | 6326602 Slomotrainwreck
Slomotrainwreck's picture

The book, "The Market For Liberty" Text file - https://mises.org/library/market-liberty-1 free audio book - http://freekeene.com/about/books/ opposes statutory law and advocates natural law as the basis for society; TMFL points out that society would not be lawless in the absence of the state. Conversely, it spends a great deal of time outlining how different businesses and organizational structures would interact in a laissez-faire society, and how these interactions would create checks which would ultimately keep the tendency for crime low. In keeping with radical free market principles, the book is skeptical about the potential for violent anarcho-capitalist revolution to bring about good outcomes and advocates the acceptance of free market principles from the citizens.

"The Market for Liberty", Chapter 4 "Government – An Unnecessary Evil", states that government is a coercive monopoly; that democratic governments decide issues largely on the basis of pressure from special interest groups; and that the notion of "a government of laws, not of men" is meaningless because laws must be written and enforced by men, and therefore a government of laws is a government of men. It argues that the eternal vigilance which is held to be the price of liberty is a constant non-productive expenditure of energy, and that is it grossly unreasonable to expect men to keep expending their energy in such a way out of unselfish idealism. It also argues that because of the danger of one interest group using the government to impose laws favoring itself or crippling its opponents, people are constantly in fear of different interest groups. Thus, blacks fear suppression by whites; whites worry about blacks gaining too much power; and any number of other groups, such as labor and management, urbanites and suburbanites, etc. are pitted against each other. Government is identified as a cause of strife. The checks and balances of government are also recognized as a source of waste that is no substitute for external checks such as competition. This chapter identifies many tools by which the government convinces people that government is necessary, such as state schools that brainwash the young into accepting pro-State ideas; investing government with tradition and pomp and identifying it with "our way of life." It also blames people for having a fear of self-responsibility.

Source Wikipedia and TMFL

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 07:54 | 6326654 new game
new game's picture

short version, fiat brings forward tuesdays epic lies backed by violence. this bringing fwd concept is upsurping of the natural laws. tic tock muthafuckers...

rm, thanks again for your well thought out extremly articulated and redundant rant. all true for history to observe. not much can be done unless you or i like houling in the woods with nobody listening. the tree falling concept. sure it made noise, but the decibels went unheard until, tic tock everybody is hearing the trees fall. ha, laugh love and enjoy the last of the days before some very darks days(literally). 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:30 | 6327225 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Yes, Slomotrainwreck, I agree with that summary of the problems:

... that government is a coercive monopoly; that democratic governments decide issues largely on the basis of pressure from special interest groups; and that the notion of "a government of laws, not of men" is meaningless because laws must be written and enforced by men, and therefore a government of laws is a government of men. ... because of the danger of one interest group using the government to impose laws favoring itself or crippling its opponents, people are constantly in fear of different interest groups. ...

The international banksters have become the overwhelmingly dominant special interest group, which have dominated all aspects of the funding of the political processes so much, for so long, that nobody else has any practical ways to compete with that group of trillionaire mass murderers.

Due to the "many tools by which the government convinces people that government is necessary, such as state schools that brainwash the young into accepting pro-State ideas;" the vast majority of people continue to act like incompetent political idiots, that tend to want to continue to believe in the banksters' bullshit.

For a few decades, in the Canadian context, I have been working on the problems regarding the FUNDING OF POLITICS, and I continue to do so through Electoral District Associations. However, after doing all of my political experiments and court cases against the government of Canada regarding the laws that control the funding of political parties, as well as talking about those issues face to face with tens of thousands of different people from all walks of life, I have finally been forced to come to the conclusions that I have expressed above.

We ARE living inside of a civilization which IS in the process of a "slow motion train wreck." My attitude is that I feel like I am sitting on the cowcatcher at the front of that train, while I WISH that I could persuade the engineers driving that train to drive differently. However, it is probably too late for that to actually be possible. We appear committed to already have to go through our civilization experiencing its "slow motion train wreck" due to it being based upon enforcing frauds, that never stops those frauds from being false, and therefore, our society is going out of control, due to its established systems being based on backing lies with violence, through which each short-term increment of successfully enforcing frauds drives society as a whole to overall become more psychotically out of touch with relatively more objective realities, and therefore, society as a whole more and more obviously is in the process of a "slow motion train wreck!"

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 10:10 | 6326819 Fukushima Fricassee
Fukushima Fricassee's picture

Fuck this post if I want to read a book I will buy a classic.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:31 | 6327228 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Fine, nobody is forced to read anything posted here.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 10:11 | 6326821 cheech_wizard
cheech_wizard's picture

Down arrowed for 1) being long-winded, and/or 2) quite possibly sofware generated.

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:49 | 6327261 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

The only "software" is my own brain. What I write is like a stream of consciousness response to reading the original article above, which then provokes me to reply. I merely record what I happen to think regarding that article, during the 20 minutes after I read that.

Several decades of doing the same things, over and over, are the history of my pounding upon and polishing up my ideas, which I amuse myself by once again articulating. Although I believe those ideas have imperatively important theoretical merit, which is why I persist, in the real world, politics continues to be almost totally dominated by old-fashioned religions and ideologies that are thousands or hundreds of years old, while the vast majority of people adamantly refuse to think any differently, despite the existence of globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of atomic bombs, which exist because of the merit in the progress in physical science, such as through quantum physics or the special theory of relativity, etc. ...

I REPEAT, that is the problem with "Austrain Advice!" It is ridiculously old-fashioned. The ideals of "free market capitalism" have some merit, but only as raw ore that needs to be smelted and transformed, so that "free market capitalism" is transformed in the ways which would make that consistent with better understanding of general energy systems, which requires radical corrections to the basic philosophy of science, due to the degree that has ENORMOUS ERRORS which are mostly taken for granted.

Post-modernizing science has proven that the ways that common sense thinks about time and space was profoundly WRONG. Since entropy is the ways that energy is distributed in time and space, the classical understanding of entropy is also profoundly WRONG.

Political science SHOULD go through the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, as outlined by Thomas Kuhn.

http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html

HOWEVER, we appear to have run out of time in order to do that. The resistance to changing the ways that we perceive politics is way stronger than the resistance to changing the ways that we thought about more abstract physics. BOTH the core of organized crime, the banksters, and the big corporations that have grown up around those banks issuing the public "money" supply, AND most of the layers of controlled opposition groups, WANT to stay within their old-fashioned paradigms.

The reason why my posts are longer is that it takes a lot to set up the context in which I present my ideas, since those are radically different than what most other people automatically are presuming to be correct, without ever critically thinking about that!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 15:00 | 6327435 Icelandicsaga.....
Icelandicsaga...............................................'s picture

Wow epic ananlsis....I have trouble with  theories a d schools of whatever...it ends with the dynamic fitting factor , trying to join two different pjpes or realities together ..beating on them until they fit...but the result does not hold water when under stress. Austrian school or Keynesians, or Chicago school....or objectivism ...they all end badly ..too doctrinaire, too little common sense, too little ability to recognize major paradigm shifts. Old saying, those who swim in schools ...get eaten by bigger fish. 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 16:56 | 6327722 SofaPapa
SofaPapa's picture

RM:

Your posts fascinate me.  As a long-time reader here, I've seen a lot of them, and have cited you on more than one occasion in my own.

I have never finished one of your longer contributions (which is most of them).  They are obscenely repetitive and redundant, and could probably be shortened by about 2/3 to 3/4 with a little simple editing.

But for the most part, I agree with your analysis.  As someone with a history of working in the physical sciences, your writing reminds me of the "papers" from the early days of the scientific revolution (our most current one, anyway), written by the Europeans who were figuring out gravity, electricity, and early biology.  Those papers are also far more free-flowing and "mystical" than what is permitted into the scientific press today.  As such, the poster who says he thinks this is computer generated is off-base.  No computer I know of has a unique character.  Your posts do have a distinguishable personality.

Long story short, keep on trucking.  Tell the story in your own way.  Your ideas are affecting some of us, despite ourselves! :)

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 23:32 | 6328624 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Thanks SofaPapa.

Of course, everyone is correct when they assert my stuff could be way better edited. However, every time I try, the damn stuff ends up getting longer, rather than shorter! Hah!

 

Sun, 07/19/2015 - 11:04 | 6329353 Born2Bwired
Born2Bwired's picture

It would be nice to read all your thoughts in an eBook or Blog, and your contributions augment the eBook/Blog beyond that. Otherwise after reading the similiar narratives from you twenty times one ends up skipping them because you are repeating 90% and going through to find the other 10% is difficult. 

I do find your information some of the best here on ZH. But perhaps crystalizing it and storing it elsewhere than just in the comment sections of various articles would give you a wider audience and more focus.

Thanks again. But I have twenty articles ahead to read and have to skip most of your posts because of this. 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:10 | 6327068 Ace006
Ace006's picture

Nope. The Greek railway workers' salaries are legal. Now what?

Fri, 07/17/2015 - 22:49 | 6326152 tankster
tankster's picture

stop-gag, heh heh...

Fri, 07/17/2015 - 22:53 | 6326163 Chuck Knoblauch
Chuck Knoblauch's picture

A flat interest rate on all loans.

A flat tax on all incomes.

Cut out the middlemen.

Small central government.

 

 

Fri, 07/17/2015 - 22:59 | 6326176 Stifmeister
Stifmeister's picture

I logged in specifically to like your comment!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 03:01 | 6326482 Bioscale
Bioscale's picture

Moneychangers must be proud of you.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 00:31 | 6326328 TheReplacement
TheReplacement's picture

How about a flat tax on corporations only, no usury but rather a flat fee, hang the middlemen, confiscate the proceeds of their theft, call all debt odious and reset?

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 04:13 | 6326532 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

guys, even the stupidest tax regime, as long as it was written as a law on one page only, would be an improvement on what we have witness globally. give me simple

look our Eastern Europeans including Russia, and note that they have a flat tax. then have a look in the media and note how this is treated as an open but unspeakeable secret

kudos to the well written article. excellent exercise in Austrian School thinking, btw

as for flat rates for loans... well, the problem there is that rates are prices. a flat price is what only a dominant price-maker can set in a market, be he natural or constituted

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:52 | 6326722 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

Exactly why Slovakia went for a flat tax.  They knew corruption would work in the elites favor, and flat would at least get them some tax.  

The US spends 10-20% of it GDP on tax and tax avoidance measures.  Imagine if that was not needed?

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:07 | 6326745 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

This is a point I'm surprised that many do not understand. Pulling time forward ie. borrowing in the present against future earnings, should have a corresponding cost equal to the risk the loan entails. Cheap credit via data entry and not by savings, distorts the pricing mechanism that SHOULD regulate interest rates.

The marketplace determined rate is usurped by central banks central planners ideas of what an economy "needs", resulting in mispricing and inefficient uses of capital diverted into malinvestment 'bubbles' which further distort price information.

Cheap credit, in the long term, is the costliest credit because it directs economic energy into inappropriate and capital destroying avenues.

That's how you get a Greece.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 11:27 | 6326969 Your Creator
Your Creator's picture

taxes on corporations are really a tax on the people because you and i buy the products and services that the corporations make.  The people pay the tax.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 19:09 | 6328014 Seahorse
Seahorse's picture

all people pay all taxes

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:18 | 6327080 Ace006
Ace006's picture

Just what we need. Simplistic solutions that don't address the main point: get people to turn away from collectivism. A flat interest rate is just silly.

Fri, 07/17/2015 - 23:26 | 6326214 Aquarius
Aquarius's picture

The practise of government today is to squeeze the productive to get the money and resources to feed the ego's and vanities of those that refer to themselves and "leadership" and :lawmakers", while filling their pockets. Government despises "democracy", freedom, and liberty by definition alone; in practise, is an ugly brutish gangster that serves those who pay the most; it is feudal, and self-serving, a priori.

Government is an intense "Collective", which at all times is Irrational, barbaric, insane and devoid of truth; such is the nature of the Collective, a place in which all men gather when desirous of criminal intent.

In the Collective there is no reason nor intellect.

Where men do not rise to claim their Individuality created for Humanity, the Collective rules without compassion, mercy or care and will collapse their Societies through the natural evolution into states and then beyond to cyclic devastation.

Few care of history, but it is so written for all to see, The wet-dreams of the proto-Human mortals.

"Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche


Sat, 07/18/2015 - 00:04 | 6326287 Skateboarder
Skateboarder's picture

Most humans do not recognize that we owe each other nothing, simply for being born and existing, and it is righteous for it to be a choice to form a union with others, not a requirement. Force - it's the name of the game. It's too late to go back.

p.s. Nietzche accepted god at the end. If god is pure good, then there must be something that is pure evil.

Blind Guardian - Punishment Divine

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 05:32 | 6326562 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Oh this is rich in stupidity, just like the article itself! Collective is "irrational, barbaric, insane and devoid of truth," hm moron? Do you Western moron even know that "collective" is not an entity capable of thinking? It is not an organism, you moron, but an organization of human beings, and just like every organization it has its rules, morals and principles which are governing its existence! Stupid Western scum! These Westerners who call themselves libertarians must be as dumb as their fellow countrymen, those stupid, degenerate liberals! According to that Western trash family is also "irrational, barbaric and insane" since it is form of collectivism!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:25 | 6327211 Bananamerican
Bananamerican's picture

"scummy moral moron degenerate trash barbarian..." (yawns)

Fri, 07/17/2015 - 23:48 | 6326262 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

As much as collectivism is the monster here, the proximate issue is first the printing of "money" out of thin air.  Debt, investment, and capital itself are meaningless when demoninated in fake monetary units.  Information flow through the tranfer of money loses integrity, and no market actors will ever make the choices that Mises admonished us about.

To those who think "limited government" is the answer, just how limited did the US Federal Government stay after 1789?  Remember the Whiskey Rebellion. How about before 1789?  Shay's Rebellion which brought George Washington, that father of the US, out of retirement to suppress and call for a powerful central government, lest people seek to rebel against its tyranny more often.

Government is but the arm of the State, and the State is always owned by the elitists.  Whether they are aristocrats, party apparatchiks, or what have you the story is always the same. 

The State is slavery.  The proof is its fake "money" and how that is used to get a piece of everyone's hard work without the thieves lifting a finger.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:21 | 6326759 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

But it ain't too bad if you are pals with the guy with the printing press.

Funny money is the ultimate crime from which all other financial crimes flow.

We are testing the boundaries of "monetary elasticity" much like blowing more air into an overly expanded balloon.

At some point...Boop. All gone.

Fri, 07/17/2015 - 23:58 | 6326278 Aquarius
Aquarius's picture

On the fact that Economic Theory is founded in the Collective pragmatism of Political Expediency...

And the fact that just about every Politician sprouts "Terrorism" as his her 'reason d'etre',

read here: 

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/americans-are-a...

The bottom line is that "Terrorism" is merely the preferred Poltical Tool for the generation of more Power and Loot by the wannabee poltically oriented User(s). It is a farce, an illusion: a lie. 

Terror is well know to be used in persuading the immature emotional sensitivies of the unwashed bringing and instiling "FEAR" and thus herd behaviours to a direction and resultant impact of the Political Desire. Makes looting easier.

"Quantitative Easing is a Bankers (Political) Terrorist Act as is "Political Correctness" which is desgned to bring absolute Political Power to the Banker Class by the disempowerment of fundamental societal intelligence, total unemployment and ruined nations. This underlying policy of the banking system eagerly assisted by the bureaucrats and political eagerly corruptable and for-sale "Leaders": and all the other thoughtless classes that hangs off them blindly and wantingly loyal, is Marxist socialism at its extreme and goes by the name of Totalitarianism. This is what NSA and its "partners" are about - the criminalisation of the enemy at individual level - as Obama has "ordained" 'Death to those that oppose'.

Today, the Banking System (the TBTF) as we know it, appears to be at the edge of the abyss and ready for total collpase - Let it be known to all the feral and political barbarians that would LOOT humanity and its Capital, civilization refuses to and will NOT be built on a foundation of BULL-SHIT ('store high in transit' - an insurance shipping term).

 

Ho hum

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 01:01 | 6326371 PGR88
PGR88's picture

First end the corruption of the money supply and financial markets - which means getting rid of central banks

Do that, and government will have to compete fairly with private citizens for money and capital

Kill central banks and the corrupt nanny state wil die.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 03:09 | 6326488 Batman11
Batman11's picture

"If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it," wrote Adam Smith in 1776, "better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country will not therefore be diminished... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed to the greater advantage."

When the UK was the workshop of the world in the 1800s the US and Western Europe caught up by forgetting all about Adam Smith.

The UK was the home of the industrial revolution and therefore had all the technological advantages.

The US and Western Europe used tariffs on UK manufactured goods to catch up with its more advanced technology.

If Adam Smith's ideas had been popular 100 years ago the UK would still be the workshop of the world and the US would be a third world agricultural nation.

The free market is a useful tool to stop others catching up.

This benefits the West when it has most of the advantages.

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 03:11 | 6326492 Batman11
Batman11's picture

Unfortunately, our numpty businessmen have moved nearly all manufacturing to China for short term profits.

In China labour is cheap, but it also has a total disregard of intellectual property rights. The advantages of decades of product development and manufacturing expertise have been handed to China on a plate.

Global super power status moved from the UK to the US as the workshop of the world moved from the UK to the US.

Our businessmen have now moved the workshop of the world to China, global super power status will soon follow.

Well done Milton Freidman, you half-wit.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:34 | 6326702 Fed-up with bei...
Fed-up with being Sick and Tired's picture

So true!   I just ordered BRANDED LG headsets...from Ebay.  THEY SAID< "LG" in the description and I did indeed get a good discount but less than 60% of normal retail....out of box, etc.  THEY ARE CHEAP Chinese knock offs.  I should have KNOWN. WORSE, I contact Ebay and they tell me that they cannot help me.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:54 | 6326794 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

The US and Western Europe used tariffs on UK manufactured goods to catch up with its more advanced technology.

What?

Please explain how tarriffs in Govt. coffers convey a benefit to private industry to compete.

The Cotton gin and McComick reaper were not invented and built with Govt. subsidies.

Any first adopter advantages Britain gained with the steam powered locomotives and weaving looms were lost within a few years of other companies designing alternate patents. Tarriffs only conveyed a pricing advantage to domestic manufacture after the fact of it's entry to the marketplace.

And a good portion of iron that Britain needed to manufacture came from Pennsylvania and the cotton for it's mills from the Southern States which were also subject to British tariffs.

That's how govts. funded themselves before income taxes were levied.

Mercantilism only works if you have the means to enforce a monopoly on the production of goods entering a country. Britain had this advantage with her colonies but certainly not with Europe and the United States.

Your assertion, sir, is codswallop.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:52 | 6327270 Batman11
Batman11's picture

It is a matter of history that can't be re-written to make your point.

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 03:13 | 6326493 juujuuuujj
juujuuuujj's picture

Except... Both austrian school and Keynesian economists are in power and they both agree on austerity. And on saving the banks.

The answer is democracy, not any particular economic doctrine.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:58 | 6326799 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

This makes my head hurt.

Can someone please take over? I haven't the strength right now.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 03:17 | 6326495 Batman11
Batman11's picture

We wonder why no one reacts to the corruption of today's elites.

The elites are working collectively and the 99% see themselves as individuals with no power.

This is how the 1% can lord it over the 99%.

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 05:47 | 6326573 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

You should really educate yourself about where your "individualism" as an ideology comes from, for you will find it originated from those industrialists at the beginning of industrial revolution in Grosse Britain, as a tool or weapon of discouraging workers to form unions. And you will find that those classical Western economists were just preaching individualism "gospel" on the behalf of the industrialists just like the Keynesians nowadays are preaching on the behalf of banksters, or rather those running central banking franchise.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 06:17 | 6326586 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Well now I'm really confused, wouldn't "individualism as an ideology" somehow prevent the individual from making a conscious decision to form/join a union? That being the case, where did unions come from?

Far more likely that self-interested individuals found common ground to achieve their own personal goals (individual goals), whether it is suppressing labor & material costs to increase their own wealth OR forming "labor cartels" called unions to increase their (the individuals of the collective) own wealth.

The motivation is the same, self-interest and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that, its both sides of the same coin.

Or so I'm told ;-)

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:10 | 6326657 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Are you playing stupid or you indeed are a genuine idiot, hm? Did I not state that individualism was used as a weapon, a tool of industrialists to wreck those workers plans into joining together in order to fight for their rights more effectively? It's in my very first sentence. And those libertarians and "free-markets" economists indeed are preaching individualism as an ideology... indoctrinating people thus. It's so evident even the idiots shouldn't have much difficulties seeing it. And self-interest is indeed a prime motivator. Industrialists have their interests, as workers have their own. The self-interest of industrialists is to form conglomerates, corporations, and from there, eventually merge with the state writing the laws and regulations with the purpose of giving themselves protected status -- just like you have in your Murica now. And how do you like your fascist state, where interests of the industrialists have clearly prevailed, where they managed to fuck you up mentally... made you unable to achieve your own interests, hm, Murican? Don't like it? ehehe

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:32 | 6326701 Fed-up with bei...
Fed-up with being Sick and Tired's picture

Even of more interest to us, is the fact that after unions are formed, "protecting self interest" they collect Dues and set aside Union Member's monies for future pay-outs (Pension plans) and, in the case of my Older Brother, who paid in for over 40 years (he started at 18), his Union will not tell him WHERE the money is, how it is invested, etc.  So, in the end, the Oligarchy model is running the unions as well.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:41 | 6326709 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

You shouldn't pay anything. I am not advocating unions, only stating that workers uniting in their quest of advancing their self-interests are more successful in achieving them. It is colectivists thing. What you should do is only elect someone who will represent you in negotiating with industrialist (possible more than one, as it is harder to bribe more people than it is only one). And that's all.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:45 | 6326713 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Forward the state!...ROTFLMAO!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:05 | 6326743 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Who was talking about the advancement of the state, moron? I surely did not!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:21 | 6326754 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

And while we at it, moron, why don't you show the audience here where are those stateless works in practice, hm? Some historical facts if you could provide! Where have those stateless, which is a code for non-collectivist I presume, forms ever existed, hm? Even gatherings of hunters or farmers is an organization of people guided by the codes they erected, and are thus collectivist in nature!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:37 | 6326775 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

You stupid individualist morons must be equating individualism with personal responsibility and accountability, with the trust in oneself, which were the pillars of classical Greek's philosophy! You got it all wrong you morons! It is completely different thing, completely unreleted to the subject! In organizations those virtues must exist, else they cannot exist themselves, you idiots!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 10:37 | 6326875 PleasedToMeatYou
PleasedToMeatYou's picture

"...why don't you show the audience here..." 

Thanks for clarifying your point of view.  It's all performance art to you, isn't it? 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:43 | 6327090 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Oh, faggot, how are you on this sunny day? Have you sucked some dicks today, or is it a period for shoving round objects into your asshole? Or maybe both?!  ehehehe

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:38 | 6326703 nmewn
nmewn's picture

"Did I not state that individualism was used as a weapon, a tool of industrialists to wreck those workers palns into joining together in order to fight for their rights more effectively?"

No, actually your direct quote is:

"You should really educate yourself about where your "individualism" as an ideology comes from, for you will find >>>it originated from<<< those industrialists at the beginning of industrial revolution in Grosse Britain, as a tool or weapon of discouraging workers to form unions."

The concept of the "individual as an ideology" is as old as mankind, from Greek philosophy to when the first individual found he preferred his meat cooked (instead of raw) unlike the "collective idiots" living around him.

"And those libertarians and "free-markets" economists indeed are preaching individualism as an ideology... indoctrinating people thus."

I've never heard of this place where laissez faire economy, conducted by free individuals was ever fully implemented. It has always been prevented with the help of indoctrination and propaganda by collective useful idiots and the state.

So where would that be?

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:41 | 6326740 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

I am not talking about Greeks, and Greek's philosophy was not any more individual than it was collectivist. You Westerners are not Greeks, but people from the English speaking world (even though you like to call the West, and thus Westerners, all those people from the countries you occupied... infested; you even call Japanese Westerens). Speak for your English world, for your 5-eyes, 5 English language speaking countries, where individualism as doctrine came from? First thing I ever heard about individualism as an ideology was from those classical economists, and I am sure they were bought to advocate industrialist's interests just like Keynesians are for bankster's! Of course it's hard to prove it, but as saying goes, you recognize them by their fruits. There are no proofs that Keynesians are bought and paid preachers of the central banking franchise operators, until one looks at their "fruits," now does it?! Anyhow, stick to your English speaking world, your West! Classical antiquity does not belong to Western culture.

 

So, how do you think leissez-faire economy could be conducted by non-individuals then, hm? You do understand that individuals are basic elements of any collectivist form... organizations, hm? You idiot! Retard!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 10:06 | 6326810 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

I see that nmewn's point went right over that collectivist numbskull of yours.

WHIFF...and it's gone.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:28 | 6327097 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Your head must have been hit pretty hard with shovels indeed if that ignorant, stupid mammal is making sense to you! Perhaps you need more hitting, hm? I would be happy to provide the service, you just need to ask nicely! ehehehe

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:32 | 6326694 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

I have to say, Murican, I am shocked to find out that your Murica is not blossoming after surrendering all your power to industrialists and oligarchs! ehehehe Perhaps you should ask your moronic preachers of that individualist doctrine why are you so unable to achieve your own interests, hm? And if you set yourself on the quest of finding the answer to that question, you will find that moronic preachers have only been echoing industrialist's tactic all the way from the industrial time designed to quell workers' self-interests.

 

On a related note, the self-interest of the workers could just as well lead to calamity, if they are not able to moderate their desires of getting paid more and better, and have their rights respected. If workers prevail, and are immoderate... liberal in their self-interests, firms and businesses will go out of work, as they will extinguish firms' profitability eventually. The key is somewhere in Protestant ethics of being humble and modest. Cultural thing. It has to be a norm accepted by all participants. Too bad you are mostly liberal and Protestant ethics is dying, hm? It means you are finished. But it is for the best. You get to fix the wrongs of past... of your ancestors, and cleanse the bad seed from the good one. At long last you get to be free of liberals and niggers.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 08:42 | 6326711 nmewn
nmewn's picture

lol...I knew before I started I would spend way too much of my valuable time on you.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:11 | 6326747 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

No, moron, l you are too ignorant and stupid to make any point you are trying to make! They are not even yours, and I have seen them all before!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 10:12 | 6326822 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

Forget it buddy.

Some kinds of stupid are like magnesium. Once lit, you just got to let it burn.

You gotta be a Protestant, DAMMIT.

It's the only way to salvation.  ;)

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:07 | 6327059 nmewn
nmewn's picture

I lost track of his inconsistencies & failures to hold two or three simultaneous thoughts somewhere between his overuse of the words moron & idiot.

I think there were five...but like I said I lost track...lol.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 10:32 | 6326848 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

Joe Pesci voice:

Ok...ok...ok...I get it.

Grosse Britain???? (rolls eyes)

He's FRENCH...That explains it...

Ok...ok...right?

 

http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/filepicker%2FXf03XWUwQlKZnNYdHEZr_Joe-...

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:22 | 6327088 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Just you repeat rolling untill you get it, boy! ehehehe It is a well known fact that Western libtards have problems with understanding! Don't stop rolling and eventually you'll get it! ehehehehe

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 10:06 | 6326811 post turtle saver
post turtle saver's picture

oh look, the "Murica" crowd is out in this thread (shocking, I know)... thanks Dathedr, it's easier for us when idiots like you go the extra mile and label yourselves...

in general, I'm shocked, *shocked* I tell you, that the fifth column communist swarm is drawn to this article like moth to flame... as is always the case with this crowd, get too close to the light of truth and it will burn you to oblivion, a fate I wish on all socialists, communists, and other ne'er do wells that insist on living as well or better than I do by sticking their hands in my pockets...

you and the rest of your slope headed, mouth breathing, knuckle dragging idiot kind can take your word-twisting poisonous arguments and stick them where the sun doesn't shine... your "ideals" will gain no purchase anywhere where free men still draw breath, I assure you...

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:19 | 6327078 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Good, because we free men of this planet certainly don't want your Western ideals. But it is not we who are trying to force upon the world our ideals, only you Western trash! You don't seem to get that. Just to refresh you memory, or perhaps there is nothing to refresh to start with, is you Western scum who is living in fascism now, and it was you Western scum where fascism originated from! And don't for a second think you Western libertarian morons haven't had your hand in birth and rise of the fascism in your lands, because you have! Now you can keep talking about liberty, freedom and democracy like true Muricunts do, it doesn't concern me, but never forget to keep your freedom, liberty and democracy to yourself! Don't spread your ideals around the world! Keep it to yourself and everything will be fine!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 12:57 | 6327142 post turtle saver
post turtle saver's picture

lol you fucking commie... we're gonna free the shit out of you, for Jesus...

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:13 | 6327173 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Communism has nothing to do with anything, you stupid liberal moron! It is a cultural thing, and nothing else! Communism was also your Western disease, a carbon copy of your liberals... of yourslef, you stupid degenerate libtard! Just you keep all your diseases to yourself, and, like I said, there should be no problems! Comprendo, libtard scum?

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 13:16 | 6327188 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Ah, and for freeing, Muricunt, you come here and I promise you, you will be free of everything!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 15:59 | 6327578 gregga777
gregga777's picture

It's easy to talk big anonymously.

Sun, 07/19/2015 - 02:01 | 6328796 Dathedr
Dathedr's picture

Really, Westerner? And how does talking by giving your real name makes it different? Come in any Serbian land, or even Balkan, I will meet you there and we'll talk big, Western scum! You can come armed, it won 't make any difference, because you won't be coming back!

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 09:37 | 6326776 unklemunky
unklemunky's picture

we are born, we live and we die alone. We are individuals. It is our basic hardwired behavior that makes us protect ourselves first. You idiots are like talking to a fucking brick wall. Your way does not work. People are rational. Steal what they make via taxes and regulation and guess what...they either make less or go somewhere where they are not extorted. It is the whiney pussies like you guys who sit on your fat asses whining about fairness while holding your hand out palm up..

You ever see a herd of buffalo running from a lion? All kinds of collectivism going on there. They are all trying to not be the dumbest and slowest buffalo. Its fuck everyone else, get my buffalo ass out of here. Well, you guys are fucking stupid buffalos.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 17:14 | 6327771 Faeriedust
Faeriedust's picture

Actually, MOST of us are born with extremely strong social impulses.  DO read up on the current psychological research before you pontificate.  Otherwise you are just running your ignorance up a flagpole and expecting us to salute it.

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 05:48 | 6326574 adonisdemilo
adonisdemilo's picture

The European Union is bang on course to replace the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with its Statist, Interventionist "we know best , do as you're told or else" attitude.

We can only hope that it self destructs, soon.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 11:29 | 6326971 numapepi
numapepi's picture

This is exactly what I have been preaching on my blog for years. Until the reality of governmnt spending is understood by enough people the lot of Mankind will drop, faster and faster until it all collapses.

 

http://incapp.org/blog/?p=2602

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 11:37 | 6326997 sam site
sam site's picture

 

The key to recovering our individual economic freedom, restoration of free markets, sound money and prosperity lies with the awakening of the masses from their handicapped stupor and capture. 

As you say, “Economic prosperity is.. an intellectual, spiritual and moral problem.” But at it’s core, it is a physical problem and that's how our parasitic rulers have manipulated us. 

Today you have most of Western populations dependent on, believe in and even blindly defend – Big Government.  They believe Hilary’s maxim that “government creates jobs.. not companys”. 

They have been chemically dumbed-down by vaccines, fluoride and GMOs and now display a blind loyalty to anything that government-sponsored education, news, movies, media and medicine promotes. 

They have even been trained to immediately dismiss all talk of government manipulation, as described in this article, as crazy conspiracy theories.

In short, the public has been captured and is mentally controlled through a systematic poisoning agenda.  You will never convince them that they have been disabled and handicapped because

the government represents their safe- haven savior providing secure comfort from the anxiety and depression resulting from their toxic injury.

This is why Ron Paul, as a promoter of your Misis Libertarian economic philosophy described in this article, only appealed to a small minority of cleaner, healthier and more independent young people. 

The emotionally dependent older voters were already captured through accumulated toxicity and were therefore dependent on Big Government.

You can provide articles like this that show the problem clearly, but to emotionally compromised voters through toxic injury, these

people will never be capable of understanding and joining the movement to overthrow our hidden government and corporate manipulators. 

As such, they will remain an obstacle to reform and an enemy asset that will never “get it”.  Their stubbornness will infuriate you as you try to make these sheeple and zombies awaken from

their toxic coma, but all your efforts will just make them dig in their heels as they cling to their fear-driven Establishment safe-haven.

 

 

 


 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 17:12 | 6327767 Faeriedust
Faeriedust's picture

It helps to avoid watching television.  Most of the poison comes in through the eyes and ears, directly to the Mind.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 15:03 | 6327440 Batman11
Batman11's picture

Markets are irrational and have been since Tulip Mania in 1600's Holland.

Do not look for rational explanations, the prospect of easy money turns human beings into gibbering idiots.

 

While the bubble is inflating people get the true joy of Capitalism.

Making money while doing nothing.

 

Stocks, house prices, <yet another asset type> are going up in value.

I have heard of someone who has made lots of money, I want in.

I am making money, I need to borrow money to carry on investing and make more money.

Gibber, gibber, gibber ....................................

The bubbles burst; I am going to be ruined.

No more gibbering, till next time.

 

The new internet .... gibber .... sub-prime ..... gibber .....  property ..... gibber ..... social media  ..... gibber ..... Apple .... gibber .....

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 16:15 | 6327615 Batman11
Batman11's picture

Those on the Right may tell you they have succeeded on their own merit and are in favour of the survival of the fittest, but their policies indicate they know they need the wealth of their parents to help them take every step.

A meritocracy gives everyone equal opportunity to compete on a level playing field and is necessary for Darwinism.

What does a meritocracy look like?

1) Everyone succeeds on their own merit

2) There is no un-earned wealth or power, e.g inheritance, trust funds, hereditary titles

3) There is a uniform schools system for everyone with no private schools or universities

The Right are only too aware their future generations are unlikely to make it on their own merit and actively support the mechanisms that circumvent Darwinism.

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 17:27 | 6327799 sirik
sirik's picture

"....but their policies indicate they know they need the wealth of their parents to help them take every step."

You know about the parents of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates ...?

"3) There is a uniform schools system for everyone with no private schools or universities"

..... if they like it or not !

So, freedom down to the sewage.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 17:45 | 6327838 Batman11
Batman11's picture

Is succeeding on your own merit a bit frightening for you?

Mummy and Daddy please help. 

I can't stand on my own two feet.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 17:08 | 6327759 Faeriedust
Faeriedust's picture

Crony capitalism is nothing new.  Cronyism and capitalism have gone hand in hand since the latter was invented in the 17th century.  Remember the British East India Company, a Royal Chartered monopoly?

Any time producers are allowed to grow to where individual companies or groups of under seven control a vital industry, there will be To Big To Fail and Strategic Resource arguments made to shelter and protect the incumbents from harm.  The only way a "free" market can work is with constant government intervention to set boundaries, enforce rules, and bust cartels.  In other words, there's no such thing as a Free Market or an Invisible Hand.  In the real world, private greed that is not carefully shackled by strong government, public interest, and the opprobrium of religious sanctions, is a socially destructive force.  That's why every religion that has ever existed (except Satanism, which is a parody that proudly preaches the philosophies of Modern Capitalism as the faith they are) has considered Greed to be a Sin.

 

 

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 17:19 | 6327788 sirik
sirik's picture

 "In the real world, private greed that is not carefully ...'

Greed is a disease, right ?

So Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, or even Rembrandt, and so on...  were sick people ?

And Hitler, a socialist,  or Napoleon Bonaparte,  Louis 16th , who 'enforce rules ' are nice guys ?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:54 | 6334023 Ckierst1
Ckierst1's picture

Bullshit!  Oh, cronyism is as old as mankind, but "capitalism" as a system of political economy didn't come into systematic usage until the mid 19th Century, particularly as implemented by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engles and, as such, most definitely didn't exist in the 17th Century when capital merely refers to valuable assets.  You are describing mercantilism, an elitist philosophy of political economy frequently implemented under the monarchical governments of that time.  Neomercantilism, its modern counterpart, doesn't require a monarchy, however.  It can also operate as an attribute of other tyrannical structures of political economy such socialism, including its subsets, fascism, communism and social democracy, and their variants.  All that needs happen is that the subject governments are able to variously create elites, your cronyism.  I don't particularly favor the currently fashionable term "crony capitalism" as a euphemism for neomercantilism, particularly if someone is trying to conflate concepts involving free markets with the those of capitalism, so as to besmirch the efficacy of free markets as a mechanism for equitable, just and efficient allocation of resources, as you seem to be doing.  In reality, laissez faire free enterprise has yet to be generally implemented by any government.  The "invisible hand" has generally been cuffed by governments that insist in meddling in markets to variously pick winners and losers.

Sat, 07/18/2015 - 17:09 | 6327763 sirik
sirik's picture

Remark:

Ebeling didn't mention once the euro, or a single currency, as a problem.

Which is correct and what identifies the big distance between our 'mainstream" economists, the press and our beloved leaders

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