Benefits of Natural Money

Following is a simple but powerful chart that explains a key difference between the Austrian School of economics and the Keynesian School of economics. (I cringe when using the label "Keynesian School of economics", since it is actually a political ideology with no basis in economics, except in terms of destruction.)

What we are looking at is the way that each system views Private Property and Time.

Note: To be more brief and direct, I will ascribe positions to the Austrian School based on my own interpretation. To get a full spectrum of Austrian views, refer to the vast library of materials on the subject.



First let's briefly look at Private Property.

Austrian View

The Austrian School holds that Private Property is inseparable from Liberty.

Therefore, a just economic system will not include any scheme that forces a person to work in order to retain his private property.

Keynesian View

In the Keynesian system, property tax essentially makes a person a tenant on government property. If the present owner does not produce enough to pay the tax, the government takes the property away and assigns it to a serf, I mean citizen, who will produce enough to pay the tax.

The Keynesian system is designed to allocate property based on production. The state is to be the beneficiary of the productivity of the property manager.

(We sometimes think of the Keynesian property manager as an "owner", but a true Keynesian never does. A Keynesian knows a serf when he sees one.)

Next let's briefly look at Time.

Austrian View

The Austrian School recognizes that people are more prosperous based on quantity, quality and efficiency of production. The more people produce, the more prosperous the society becomes.

It really is a simple idea. Produce more, have more.

In simple terms, to be more productive, we use machines.

Machines enter the production system through innovation, engineering, testing, manufacturing and deployment.

In order to bring a more efficient machine into the production process, one will need to use capital. The capital will come from real savings of real property which has been produced and collected in the past.

In simple terms, if my new machine makes everyone ten percent more efficient, then our purchasing power will increase by ten percent. We will all benefit from the extra production.

If the producer's project fails, then the producer will lose his collateral.

The investor will gain or lose based on the value of the collateral.

However, since everything we spent was a result of actual production in the past, every vendor was fully paid and society is essentially unaffected. (There are effects, but the effects are positive and not important for this discussion.)

Keynesian View

On the other hand, the Keynesian approach is based on consumption. The idea is that if we increase spending, the economy will prosper. A sophisticated argument can be made, but I will keep the explanation very simple by noting two things.

First, the Keynesians explicitly state that the purpose of their system (which we have used for over 100 years) is to destroy capitalism and therefore to destroy liberty.

In other words, the consumption model is bad, to put it lightly.

Secondly, because the way the "economy is stimulated" is by borrowing against future productivity in the form of costless money, this approach is like an individual attempting to borrow his way out of debt. That doesn't work.

The Keynesian model is anti-liberty, anti-capitalism, anti-prosperity and leads to destruction. Keynesianism is about instant gratification and promises the bill will be paid with future (read "kids and grandkids") production.

The Austrian model is in agreement with Biblical principle and leads to liberty, justice, prosperity, and personal accountability. The Austrian School is about good stewardship of work that has been completed in the past.

Shane's Ship Story

We have so many problems. Which problem is most important?

Someone says: Well clearly, my problem is the one we need to fix first… We must solve the thing that is most important to me first. After all, I am working on the thing I think is most important. Otherwise I would be working on something else…

May I encourage you to think with me on this?

What if there actually is a way to solve 95% of our problems by working together to solve a certain root cause of all our problems? I know this can be done.

Join me in recognizing that problems should be prioritized. Let’s see if there is such a thing as a highest priority problem.

Let’s use a ship analogy.

Suppose there is a large, sophisticated, 4,000 passenger ship designed to sail from one continent to another over the course of three months. Suppose this ship has a several problems, including a rude captain, four thieves, a murderer, a pirate, a lazy crew, poorly prepared food, severely damaged dishes, crumbling paint and lumpy mattresses.

Which problem would you address first? And when would this happen?

Suppose there are three groups who each identify the problems they consider most important. Suppose they divide their energies and go to work. Let’s say that they all succeed or that some succeed or that none succeed. You choose the outcome you prefer.

Let’s also suppose that there is one other problem. The ship has a large hole that takes on water at a rate of 500 gallons per minute. Using every available resource, only 250 gallons per minute can be pumped out of the ship. At this rate, the ship will sink somewhere over the deep ocean about halfway to its destination.

While all the issues are important, only the hole in the ship affects every person on the ship. Only one problem absolutely must be solved or all is lost for the passengers.

The same problem will provide gain for the pirate and his associates. They like the hole.

The pirate who drilled the hole will have a vessel waiting to collect the loot and carry him on to the next adventure. He knows that the mathematical reality of water flow guarantees the ship will sink.

The only hope for the passengers is for them to know about the hole in the ship and plug it.

While they cannot remove the water fast enough, there will be no need to remove any water if they simply plug the hole before they leave. If the hole is plugged along the way, then once the hole is plugged, they have time, resources and opportunity to save themselves and the ship.

If they have knowledge of the hole and understand its effect, they will plug the hole and the remaining problems will matter again.

If for any reason they do not plug the hole, nothing else matters because good food and soft mattresses are not needed by people who have been looted and left to die.

Now let’s see if there is such thing as a root cause.

Suppose the pirate offered safe passage and part of the loot to the captain, part of the crew, the murderer, thieves and the ship owner.

Now we see clearly that the passenger’s loss is their gain. We also see that the danger we face, this group does not face.

We can also see that the reason this group of people has gathered on the ship is to steal, kill and destroy.

If the passengers were aware of what was coming, they would patch the hole and deal with the pirate.

But let’s just suppose that the passengers patch the hole and don’t even realize that this plan was in motion.

With hope of success gone, the pirate, murderer, thieves, captain and lousy crew would leave. Since now there will be no insurance settlement, the ship owner would again need to provide a valuable product and service to stay in business. To prevent loss, he would ensure that the food and other comforts were at least adequate and he would hire a dependable captain and crew.

Now we see that the hole in the ship was part of a plan to capture wealth. When the hope of gain through theft was gone, the criminals disbanded, the owner protected his property and employed his capital to gain a return. The passengers were safe and recipients of good service.

The Lesson

Some problems make all other problems meaningless and unimportant. Some problems are a higher priority.

Some problems are the hidden cause of other problems. The secondary problems divert our attention and keep us busy while our ship is sinking.

The United States is like this ship. We are nearing the deep waters. We must plug the hole. If we plug the hole, the problem you are most concerned about will probably disappear.

Do you know what the hole is?

PASS ID Act - Papers please

When will we learn?

Why are two international agencies involved in the creation of the PASS ID Act? Why is the international agency AAMVA called the hub and backbone of this system which is designed to track US citizens?

Why does this type legislation continue to be brought forward when the people of the United States always reject the ideas? Who is overriding our wishes and rights?

We should be asking: Who has that kind of power and how did they get it?




S 1261 - PASS ID Act

For one example, from the text of the proposed legislation:

(2) Subject each person who submits an application for a driver’s license or identification card to mandatory facial image capture.

This is a problem.

Global Warming - A Planned Tool Of Manipulation

When will we learn?

The government and other powerful manipulators want us to believe global warming is a problem and that this problem is caused by man. They also want us to believe that all scientists support this position. That is an outright lie.

Thousands of scientists have attempted to make their positions known, but what they say is rewritten by bureaucrats in official reports, is suppressed or unpublished.

We should be asking: Who has that kind of power and how did they get it?

American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper

This is a very interesting article from the perspective of a gentleman in Russia.

Reprinted from:

Mat Rodina and Pravda

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather [than] the classics. Americans know more about their favorite tv dramas [than] the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blindth the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more [than] Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more [than] happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barrack Obama/ His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more [than] another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, [losses] and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more [than] ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more [than] a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barrack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go [thither], the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less [than] two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin

Another Gun Grab

The second amendment is not about hunting or recreation. The second amendment is about the right of the people to defend themselves from thieves and tyrants.

Any effort to curb second amendment rights is an effort to prepare the way for tyrants.

The following quote is attributed to Benjamin Franklin:

A well armed society is a polite society.

Well said Ben.

An "ism" for everyone

When will we learn?

This is a good video, which I understand to have been produced in 1948.