What Fresh Hell Is This???

From today's Mogambo Guru... (sorry no link,... go to the Free Market News Network and scroll down to the editorials java box, then scroll down to the Mogambo...)

Her voice was crisp and clear as she read, "Whether ancient or modern, monarchy or republic, coin or paper, each nation descends pretty much the same slippery slope, expanding government to address perceived needs, accumulating too much debt, and then repudiating its obligations by destroying its currency."

So how is the destruction of our currency abiding? Well, James Cook figures that "The inflation rate that covers everything is (my guess) at least 10% annually." That is about what I guess, too, mostly because it sure feels like it.

...

Bill Bonner, who seems to have a natural comprehension of inflation that may explain his exalted position at the DailyReckoning.com site, writes "From barely 100 following the crash of '29, the Dow is now over 10,000. Who can doubt that the tendency is up? Yet, adjusted for consumer price inflation, the Dow is only about 500." So what is the real gain of 500% over 76 years? It comes to 2.14% a year! Hahaha! You think you are going to fund a retirement by growing your real, inflation-adjusted wealth by 2.14% a year? Hahahaha! No wonder you got such bad grades in math! You are as stupid as I am! Hahahaha!

And if we were actually getting richer on this 2.14% a year, maybe things could work out. But we are not getting richer. Marc Faber, editor of The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, writes, "In 1975, total domestic non-financial debts amounted to $2.26 trillion, and for the year total non-financial debt grew by $192.7 billion. In 2004, total non-financial debt reached $23 trillion, and annual non-financial borrowings are running at an annual rate of around $1.8 trillion." So non-financial debt increased by 1000% in 30 years? Wow! What does that work out as? It comes to a compounding of debt at a rate of 8% per year! As if that was not bad enough, he goes on to note that "Household total debt as a percentage of personal income has risen from 60% in 1975 to 120% at present." He is too polite to mention that this is a new record in the history of mankind, not just in America, but I am not so genteel: It's a new freaking record in mindless, stupid irresponsibility.

The system is breaking down. There is no justice in the justice system...there is no liberty in the governing system...and there is no money in the economic system...

Won't be long now...

"The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson

The Black Arrow...

I got my signed and numbered, first edition of "The Black Arrow" yesterday. I read a few chapters last night. Good stuff.

All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow. H. L. Mencken

One more time for the cheap seats...

...SOCIAL SECURITY IS ALREADY BANKRUPT!!! I know a lot of you are victims of the public education system, and even more of you are afraid of facing the stark reality of being responible for your own upkeep, but you are only making things worse for yourself by refusing to face facts.

Fact 1: There is no trust fund, lock box, surplus. Hasn't been since the 30's.
Fact 2: FICA is a tax. No more no less. It is not "allocated" only for pseudo-insurance.
Fact 3: The government cannot meet its finacial obligations...by a lot!!! So it must borrow to provide for operations. This includes Social Security pay-outs.
Fact 4: When you borrow for operations it means that you do not have enough revenue to operate in the black. This means you are operating in the RED!!! When done to the point that you can no longer pay off the accumulated debt, YOU ARE BANKRUPT!!!

This is where we are now.

I won't bring it up again. Promise. If you are too dense to do the simple math and the little research that is required to confirm this,...you deserve to be surprised........and then soundly thrashed about the head and shoulders for your stupidity!

Got Silver or Gold?

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. - Albert Einstein

The Star Trek Conundrum...

Ok...I admit it...I am a fan of Star Trek (but only the original series). I grew up on Star Trek and have about half of the original episodes on Tape/DVD. I was a big fan of Spock whose superior logic almost always had a hand in the final outcome of each episode. There are more than a few pictures of me dressed as Spock for several Halloweens and at least one "Miners and Trappers Ball"

But Star Trek presents a conundrum to me. As I re-watch the episodes I loved as a kid, I am amazed at the socialist implications brought forth in the "adventures". I suppose I was more taken with the Sci-Fi nature of the show than the philosophical one. But, since learning that most of what I was taught as a child, was wrong, I have started re-analyizing a lot of things.

Jay P Hailey, over at The Libertarian Enterprise, explains his view of this very same problem.

"From a Libertarian perspective, Star Trek sucks. It's a space fantasy rooted in a brain damaged little atheist socialist utopia. The writers as a general rule are either inhabitants of the political left wing or arguably outright sociopaths.

How can I watch that?"

....

"I can filter the entertainment from the ideas. And I don't have to accept the ideas.

Show me a story where the protagonist must face an exciting and engaging question of right and wrong, and I am there. That's the product I want. I am a sucker for explorations of the nature of right and wrong in the actions of protagonists and their friends and foes.

Sometimes Star Trek manages this. Firefly managed it in every episode (It clearly is a superior product), James P Hogan manages it in his books and so does L Neil Smith. (and Charles Sheffield, and Robert B Parker and so on, and so on.)

Whether I am a "good" libertarian is another question, and perhaps one open for discussion.

I am not going to filter my entertainment for "political correctness" from any angle. If a liberal, gay, transvestite astrologer writes a good story set in Plato's Republic, and it happens to catch my attention, I'll give it a shot."

More here...


I am a "small" L libertarian. I am not a party member because I realized the error of party politics when I discovered my libertarian leanings and stopped voting Republican. A lot of people don't understand what libertarianism is. A lot of libertarians (more than you would think) try to mold the philosphy into either a socialist or conservative version of what it really is. Then there are those who should know better but either don't or they are trying to discredit the philosophy for people who are trying learn. Robert Locke falls into the later catagory.

Vox Day takes him to task for both intellectual dishonesty and outright propagandism.

"One might not quibble with Locke – a good conservative name if there ever was one – if he were content to assert that libertarianism is a purer form of conservatism in the same way that Marxism is a more refined form of the democratic socialism that is now dominant in the Democratic Party and the "strong government" branch of the Republican Party. But Locke instead asserts that libertarians are not mirror-images of Marxists in a metaphorical manner, but in a very real and legally binding sense."

Vox goes on to slice-and-dice this neo-conservative into fruit salad. He also has an outstanding, additional critique on his Blog...

"I've already pointed out that ex-socialists have gravitated to the Republican party, where they call themselves neoconservatives, not the libertarians. Libertarianism simply has nothing to interest a socialist, (who requires a vehicle he can use to control other individuals), which is why ex-socialists are known to become Fascists (Benito Mussolini) or neoconservative advocates of "strong government conservatism" instead. Locke confuses legality with a clear conscience here, but legality is not and has never been synonymous with morality, although some fortunate societies may be blessed with a legal system harboring a basis in it."

Much more here...

"The legacy of Democrats and Republicans approaches: Libertarianism by bankruptcy." - Nick Nuessle

You Go, Girl!!!

My thanks to Bill St. Clair for the link...

-Ioseph of Locksley
(c) copyright 1993 W.J. Bethancourt III
(Tune: "The Sleeping Scotsman")

A lovely lady went one night to a revel in the East
With dancing and with singing, with wine and Roasted Beast
When the revel came unto an end, she started out for home
Wrapped well in her woolen cloak, and walking all alone.

CHORUS: The things you will run into, the people that you meet
Walking all alone upon a New York City street!

Now, New York City's not a place for walking in the dark
Not in the streets and alleys and especially not the Park
But off she went most happily, without a single care
Wrapped up in her woolen cloak, all in the midnight air.

A street-tough jumped in front of her, with three friends in the night
And pulled a six-inch switchblade, that glittered in the light
He waved it underneath her nose, and said with fiendish glee:
"Give me all your money, girl, this is a robbery!"

She gazed upon the switchblade, and smiled a happy smile
Said "Boy, you ain't got any brains, and lack a sense of style!
You're standing where I want to walk, please move out of my way!"
The tough said "Girl, I'll cut you, and rob you anyway!"

All wrapped up in her woolen cloak, her garb was quite unseen
Her hands were hidden out of sight, and so was chain-mail's gleam...
She said "Now, go rob someone else, my money stays with me!"
He said, "I'll take your money with my six-inch snickersnee!"

The lady's smile got bigger, the robber took a swing
The chain-mail took the blow; the lady didn't feel a thing!
She pulled a Kirby broadsword, the robber's soul to shrive,
And grinned and said, "I'll see your six, and raise you thirty-five!"

The bandit gazed upon the sword, and then upon his knife
He turned and ran, with his three friends, a-running for his life!
Don't think a lady's easy, don't think she's helpless prey,
Especially if she is a fighter in the SCA!

Now if you don't believe my song, then ask the lady fair
With Cheshire Cat upon her shield, a blazon very rare:
Sir Trude is her name, me lads, if she should pass your way;
The very first of the Lady Knights within the SCA!

*
-Ioseph of Locksley
grumpy baron