LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic
Individuals Not Ideologies
-
Feds Uses Bribery, Class-Warfare To Catch Tax Cheats
From CNN, via Lew Rockwell, the latest Federal incentives for snitching and snooping on your fellow citizen:
“In 2006, the IRS really started cracking down on big time cheaters and introduced a new whistle-blower program, in which informants are paid a minimum of 15% and a maximum of 30% of the amount owed.
But there’s a catch: In order to collect a reward, the taxes, penalties and interest in dispute must add up to at least $2 million. And if the suspected tax evader is an individual, his or her annual gross income must exceed $200,000.
So far, the new incentives have been effective. The IRS has received tips from about 476 informants identifying 1,246 taxpayers in fiscal year 2008, the first full year the program was implemented………
Who snitches?: In this program, the most common informants tend to be dissatisfied middle-ranking employees in big companies, said Tim Gagnon, an academic specialist of accounting at Northeastern University……..
Stephen Whitlock, director of the IRS Whistleblower Office, said that informants have had some connection to the taxpayer but they are not always close acquaintances. They have typically been employees, investors or business associates.
He also said many claims are for substantially more than the $2 million threshold and involve businesses or very wealthy individuals.”
My Comment:
In other words, what you have is the IRS incentivizing class-warfare. By dangling a chunk of cash in front of their noses, the government encourages employees to act against their own economic interest on the basis of a non-existent public good.
Non-existent?
Well, yes. Since the government is using its tax revenues mostly to pay off its own friends, to fatten the banks and financiers, loot the tax-payer, murder foreign nationals, and generally mismanage the country, the public interest (in so far as we can ascertain one) may well be better served by not paying taxes.
Tax cheats, while clearly not heroes from a moral standpoint, are also not the villains they’re often made out to be.
The villains are those who constantly demand higher and higher taxes and destroy the productive capacity of this country in pursuit of hubristic and vain schemes that have done nothing but turned a nation built on free enterprise into one enslaved by political patronage…
Tax snitches, as I said, don’t even serve their own economic self-interest. Sure, they get their one-off reward for snitching. But they’ve effectively ended any chance of their being hired by anyone…unless they manage to evade detection.
Any taxes an employer pays to the government must inevitably be passed on to employees and customers. That’s as ineluctable an economic law as any.
Ergo, pay taxes and the Feds get the money….don’t pay and the economy, the customer, or employees eventually get it.
An employee who plumps for snitching is obviously not only treacherous and disloyal as a human being, he’s also an economic fat-head.
More Agora - Updated 3/6/2010- Stansberry Response/SEC
Blogger Jennifer Lake seems to have gotten some facts mixed up about libertarian newsletter publisher, Agora Inc.
[I've since had time to read through her archives and some of the entries are overtly anti-semitic]
“Agora Inc. was established as a publishing company in Washington D.C. in 1979 by its founders; William Bonner, Jim Dale Davidson, Porter Stansberry and Lord William Rees-Moog.
(Lila: I don’t believe Stansberry was involved in founding it…he might not even have been born would have been very young at the time; and it’s Rees-Mogg. Moog is the electronic synthesizer. Also, most people who’ve written on the subject don’t mention Rees-Mogg as a founder, except Lyndon Larouche.
Besides Larouche, the person who harps on Rees-Mogg is a minor Internet spammer and web-stalker, Tony Ryals, who apparently lost money in an investment promoted by Davidson and has spent the last five years multiple posting on the company and on anyone connected to it, and as I can testify from personal experience, most of his rants are exaggerations, distortions, disinformation, and “magical” thinking, with occasional much-mangled facts hidden somewhere, if you have the patience to unearth them)
(Since I wrote this, I’ve found a piece with this information by EIR. EIR or Executive Intelligence Review is a Larouche outfit whose macro perspective has generally been regarded as conspiracist, anti-semitic (Christopher Bollyn), and/or paranoid, although many also concede that some of its work is accurate.
I am not linking it here, although I’ve seen it cited by William Engdahl, a credible left-oriented writer, as I’m not sure whether the citation is genuine or a hoax of some kind).
“Notorious for promoting Penny Stock fraud”
(Lila: Not to defend Agora, but it promotes penny-stock and many other investments, not all of which are fraudulent by any means, unless you count any promotion of stocks to be fraudulent. Most penny-stocks in tip-sheets, truth to tell, are promoted in questionable ways. For that matter, a large proportion of investments of any kind, even in mainstream publications, are promoted quite questionably. Check out the government/real estate industry promotion of the housing bubble, if you disbelieve me).
“and supporting an offshore investment network, Agora has a core membership of world-traveling Libertarians who have connections at the highest levels of government and industry.
Through the illegal practice of naked short-selling, domestic Agorans function as “economic hitmen” and support “sovereign” enterprizes of all descriptions that move national and personal resources overseas to emerging markets.”
(Lila: This seems to be some kind of populist nonsense. Who exactly are “domestic Agorans” and how do they function as “economic hitmen”? I’ve never heard of naked short-selling in conjunction with Agora, but it’s certainly true that penny-stock promoters often work with naked short-sellers, often through off-shore havens and exchanges like Vancouver. I know financial reporter Carol Remond has written on this in relation to some Agora newsletters, and I’ll try to unearth the link. However, I’ve never heard of any one at Agora encouraging the moving of “national resources” overseas….unless you include pointing out that employers will go where labor is cheap.)
“The primary operatives of Agora pose as financial experts and advisors, selling information over the internet that targets a variety of consumer interests including “natural health”, real estate, travel and leisure. Agora counts George Soros and known Rothschild agents among its “friends” as well as American “patriots” and “truthtellers”.
(Lila: Never heard that Soros was a friend.
(March 6, 2010): See above for research by EIR/William Engdahl)
Jim Rogers, Steve Forbes, and Marc Faber are. As a right libertarian outfit, Agora and its original founder/s would likely not be terribly sympathetic to a pro-regulation, pro-one world government, mega currency speculator like Soros. It’s possible that one or other faction within the outfit might sympathize with Soros, but they would likely be more liberal-left in their political leanings than the outfit. I’ve seen Daily Reckoning columnist Rocky Vega mention Soros, not obviously any more sympathetically than he mentions anyone else. Vega cites work experience at McKinsey and at Goldman, and is a relatively late addition to the team. He appears to have joined after my brief stay there)
Now, I’ve been quite critical of Agora (within the limits of what you can say of a place where you once worked and with which you still have a tenuous business association - via my book with Bonner). I’ve noted their strident marketing hype; the SEC conviction of one of their newsletter publishers, Porter Stansberry, in 2007 (a conviction that’s been appealed, and that in all fairness wasn’t a very convincing one…right guy, wrong case, is my opinion on that, and you can read why at the website of UK investigative reporter, Brian Deer); the questionable histories of some of their senior people (Davidson, Masterson); and some other bizarre incidents; but in this case, Ms. Lake’s blog seems to have wandered off into fiction.
[You can read Stansberry’s account of what happened at The Daily Reckoning. Here is the SEC’s original case brought in 2003. Here is the link to the 2007 conviction.
March 9, 2010: Here is the link to the New York Times piece on the SEC case in 2003, which, as Stansberry points out in his defense, treats the case as a First Amendment issue. (That’s not entirely true either, but the case is a weak one, as I blogged before).
On the other hand, it’s also clear from reading some of the marketing literature put out by the company that some of the hype used by some of the newsletters, the ‘hard sell’, walks a fine line. In the case cited by Deer, some of the language seems fraudulent, even though Deer’s use of the term “pump” (which implies ownership of the stock by the ‘pumper’) is also not warranted by the facts he cites.
Could all this contradictory and exaggeration posting be disinformation? Could be. But why and by whom, is the question.
And, darn. “Rothschild agents”? That sounds exciting. (March 6, 2010: See EIN above, again)
Ms. Lake goes on:
“The Natural News is owned by Truth Publishing International, Ltd, a corporation chartered from Taichung, Taiwan, that also owns the News Target Network and a radio web, viewable here http://www.islaearth.org/community-action.php?page=49 The material from ‘Truth’ is indicative of interlocking relationships with Agora Publishing (or Agora Group) from Baltimore, Md., a large enterprise for international travel, real estate, investment, and health. Subsidiary, Health Sciences Institute (http://hsibaltimore.com) markets products from Northstar Nutritionals (www.northstarnutritionals.com) that has a few items to sell –like ‘Soothanol X2? a DMSO/herbal tincture for pain relief, 1 fluid oz. at $49.95– but this appears to be mostly a business of information. Agora, a name taken from the Greek for ‘marketplace’, is first and foremost about making money with money. The owner/founders of Agora have invested deeply to profit from general and specific disasters like economic collapse and the Swine Flu Pandemic. One associate of Agora founder Bill Bonner, a Mr. Addison Wiggin who heads the multi-million dollar financial research, wrote “The Demise of the Dollar..and Why It’s Even Better for Your Investments” and issues special-reports to its membership like the “Single Best Way to Make Sure You’ll Never Run Out of Money” which appears to be a financial mechanism he calls “The Endless Paycheck Portfolio”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bonner_(author)
http://www.agora-inc.com/international.htmI’ve a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg in comprehending the business nature of Agora (see http://webindexnet.wordpress.com ); doubtlessly so in the scope of the debt-for-nature activity. According to the wikipedia, Vilcabamba Ecuador became a haven for international expatriates beginning in the 1960s as a community slowly took root there. By the 1990s, the native Ecuadorans themselves were forced to emigrate for lack of work (or finances), many resettling in Madrid Spain and No. America. Were these engineered real estate turnovers? Vilcabamba is a truly incredible location, poised below the reach of the Podocarpus National Park, one of the most bio-diverse and precious places on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilcabamba,_Ecuador
http://www.planeta.com/planeta/98/0598podocarpus.html
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/southamerica/ecuador/work/art5120.html (site of The Nature Conservancy, $5.42 billion in assets for 2007)Bill Bonner, noted from the wiki link above, wrote in his book “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets” that “mass delusions are part of the human condition”. Capitalizing on them, after all, must be good business.
…and if you’re considering some Vilcabamba real estate, Mike Adams wants you to “get it” first by reading this, “Guiding Principles for People Looking for Vilcabamba, Ecuador Real Estate” http://www.greenlivingnews.com/1057_Vilcabamba_Ecuador.html If you ‘pass go’ here are some of the neighbors you’ll have in Vilcabamba http://newparadigmdigest.com/tag/entrepreneurs/ with their own contact info. Btw, I have no problem with ex-pats, I wish them blessed and happy lives. What interests me are the larger forces at work that make these situations appealing in the first place. It’s in everyone’s purview to have a high-quality life wherever and however they choose to live.
Agora Financial publishes a journal called The Daily Reckoning, editor Addison Wiggin, featuring contributions from ’staff’ such as Lew Rockwell (LewRockwell.com), Gerald Celente (Trends Research) and Dr. Ron Paul (US Congress) http://dailyreckoning.com/cast-of-characters/ This group, and the extended arms of Agora, advocate nation-building investments in developing countries that often include international projects funded by US taxpayers. Non-profit Agora Partnerships USA, for example, uses ‘micro’ venture capital and US tax-paid grants to seed entrepreneurial programs abroad and build ’sustainable economies’ for other countries. Agora Partnerships USA shares an office in Washington DC with USAID, United States Agency for International Development, and it’s TechnoServe program.
http://www.agorapartnerships.org/press/Press/press-releases/about/contact/contact-us
http://www.usaid.gov/sa/usaidsa/technoservepress.pdf
The same building hosts the Economic Research Services of the US Dept of Agriculture, it’s primary policy, financing and forecasting service for domestic and global planning. Agora appears to be well within the loop, so this is about far more than hiring a Health Ranger to gatekeep for Shangri-la.”My Comment:
Where to start, with so many mistakes?
For starters, Lew Rockwell, Gerald Celente, and Ron Paul are not staff writers for Agora. They are libertarian columnists whose writing Agora frequently runs. The Daily Reckoning publishes material from scores of libertarian writers, sometimes without telling the writer. Drawing conclusions from that is plain silly..
Next up, as far as I can gather, Agora Partnerships has nothing to do with Agora Inc. I looked through their website carefully, and could find nothing to confirm the kind of affiliation that is charged here. The identity of the name seems to be purely coincidental. I could be mistaken, and maybe there is some hidden link. But there’s certainly no evidence for it on Ms. Lake’s blog.
(Correction: In light of the EIR/Engdahl piece, I will be doing a little more leg work on this purported association…)
Agora no doubt profits from many of the ideas or concepts it promotes. It’s been an advocate of Americans diversifying into foreign real estate for years….and it sells foreign real estate (correction: it advertises foreign real estate being sold by its affiliates and associates). But as critical as I am of the outfit, I’ve never come across anything to suggest that its libertarian ideas weren’t sincere….
Does Agora enjoy high-level government/business connections? Yes….but not the kind this blog charges, I think.
“Empire of Debt” (Bonner & Wiggin) and its spin-off “IOUSA” (Wiggin & Incontrera) were promoted by the mainstream media, and specifically, by Peter Peterson and his Concord Coalition. I’ve blogged about Peterson’s political and financial agenda more than once. The Concord Coalition seems to be a part of any bipartisan initiative about government debt you come across….and the programs it supports are usually social-welfare busting. I’ve also noted connections between Agora and the CIA, including the employment of former CIA agents, and the appearance of former CIA director William Casey’s Colby’s name on an Agora newsletter. But it’s not unheard of for financial newsletters/ tip-sheets to use former government employees or intelligence officers to ferret out economic tips. In fact, it stands to reason they would…corporate intelligence and state intelligence often melding seamlessly into each other.
By itself, these aren’t damning facts.
And by itself, these facts are irrelevant to any public interest.
There are other facts that certainly need untangling for those involved, should there be a public interest, but Ms. Lake’s blog seems so wrapped up in its partisan (”economic hit-men”) obfuscations that it seems to have missed those…
Update (March 8 ) I had time to go through her archive and I found overtly anti-Semitic language about “parasites” and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in one of her posts, confirming my decision not to link the material cited by Engdahl (with the EIR byline).
(Note: her blog began only in July 2009)
India Changing…
Jayant Bhandari in Liberty Unbound:
“Now, as I travel through India’s smaller towns and villages, I gather many impressions, both of change and of continuity.
I stay in rooms that cost me $2 a day, and purchase all-you-can-eat food for 50 cents. I pay my driver the princely sum of $7 a day. To Westerners, these prices will appear astonishingly low, but inflation of food prices in India is close to 20%. Food is very expensive for regular folks, and speculators are being blamed. I am constantly amazed that there is never any mention of the fact that the Indian government still runs one of the most efficient printing presses in the world — printing money, of course. The only thing that limits inflation is the high rate of real economic growth. Yet the Indian government is getting extremely addicted to increasing expenditures. The government’s fiscal deficit is about 12% of GDP. To me this is like addiction to heroin. What will happen if the growth rate falters?
In an isolated place, a woman sells me a 15-kilogram bag of fruit for a total of 60 cents — fruit worth about $15 in Bhopal. Her companions think she’s won a lottery. These wretched women chase me and beg me to buy some from them. I feel sorry for the little girl who had tears in her eyes. Yet I am repelled by the fact that so many Indians easily grovel and beg. The worst is when well-off people do this. A visit to a government office in India is essential if you want to understand the degradation that the Indian public accepts even today.
I meet the top management of a company constructing a major highway. The highway was deemed uneconomical, so the government and the company agreed that they would use eminent domain to confiscate a lot more land than was necessary from the farmers, at 5% of the market value. The extra land would be converted into condos or commercial space. The poor people would subsidize development. Why should they subsidize the development of the country? This is socialism in practice, although the farmers are branded communists when they rebel. Meanwhile people in the West believe there is something romantic about poverty — a view that is not only hypocritical but pathetically wrong..…”
Why The Establishment Is Attacking Ron Paul
“If the guy is such a sure loser in 2012, why all the attacks? In his quiet way, Paul must have tapped into something. And you can get an idea of that something from what Pat Buchanan wrote the other day about the CPAC poll.
After asking “how do conservatives justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states — to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states?” Buchanan answered his own question by making the case that such policies are not conservative at all.
“Ron Paul’s victory at CPAC may be a sign the prodigal sons of the right are casting off the heresy of neoconservatism and coming home to first principles,” Buchanan concluded.
Buchanan has put his finger on why the unemotional Texas congressman produces such an emotional reaction. The party establishment has to dread the prospect of a candidate who can unite the youthful libertarian conservatives with the Buchananite America-first types. Such a character might win a plurality running against Romney, Huckabee and neocon Barbie doll Sarah Palin.
And Paul might have the most money of them all, thanks to the support of those young voters who actually understand how the internet works. I suspect this is what all the shouting is about, even though the subject of it all never raises his voice.”
Paul Mulshine, NJ Star Ledger, via Lew Rockwell.
Mercedes Sosa Sings Solo Le Pido A Dios
Argentine singer Haydee Mercedes Sosa (July 9, 1935 – October 4, 2009) was dubbed “the voice of the voiceless ones” for her socially conscious music. She became popular through out Latin America as a leading exponent of nueva cancion , a type of song that combined Latin American folk music, rock rhythms, and highly politicized lyrics, and was often associated with left-wing politics. Many nuevo cancion artists went into exile in the 1970s and 1980s, when right wing military dictatorships came to power in their countries. Sosa herself went into exile in Spain.
Solo le pido a Dios
Solo le pido a Dios
I only beg God
Que el dolor no me sea indiferente
To let me not be indifferent to pain
Que la reseca muerte no me encuentre
May death never find me indifferent
Vacio y solo sin haber echo lo suficiente
Empty and alone without having done enough
Solo le pido a Dios
I only beg God
Que lo injusto no me sea indiferente
To let me not be indifferent to injustice
Que no me abofeteen la otra mejia
So I don’t turn the other cheek
Despues que una garra me arane esta frente
When a claw has already scratched my face
Chorus:
Solo le pido a Dios
I only beg God
Que la guerra no me sea indiferente
To let me not be indifferent to war
Es un monstro grande y pisa fuerte
It is the great monster that tramples
Toda la pobre inocencia de la gente
The poor innocence of the people
Es un monstro grande y pisa fuerte
Toda la pobre inocencia de la genteSolo le pido a Dios
I only beg God
Que el engano no me sea indiferente
To let me not be indifferent to deceit
Si un traidor puede mas que unos quantos
If one traitor is stronger than the rest of us
Que esos quantos no lo olviden facilmente
May the rest of us not forget too easily
Solo le pido a Dios
I only beg God
Que el futuro no me sea indiferente
To let me not be indifferent to the future
Deshauciado esta el que tiene que marchar
Helpless are those who are forced to leave
A vivir una cultura diferente
And live in a foreign land..P. J. O’Rourke On Santa And God
P. J. O’Rourke via Samizdata:
“I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on virtually everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club. Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. His nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.”
Frank Chodorov On Destroying The Citadel Of Power
Frank Chodorov, on the seduction of power, from Mises.org
“For, it is said that while Saul of Tarsus was carrying out his duties as Commissar of Truth, the Messiah he had been denying appeared before him and convinced him of his error. So, after a bit of soul searching, he quit his job and thereafter dedicated himself to the task of preaching the very doctrine he had been denouncing. And because he was now the persecuted rather than the persecutor, he was effective; everywhere he went he found willing listeners, even in Rome itself. More important than their numbers was the conviction of his converts that in the eyes of God the lowliest in society was equal unto Caesar. The psalm of freedom — of the dignity of the individual — reawakened their souls. Neither the lash nor the dungeon vile nor the wild beasts in the arena could rob them of their self-esteem. By their very suffering and death they transmitted their faith to others, the sect grew, and at long last Caesar capitulated.
From the story of Saul, who came to be known as Paul, we draw the lesson: that when people want freedom they will get it. When the desire of the business man for “free enterprise” is so strong that he will risk bankruptcy for it, he cannot be denied. When youth prefers prison to the barracks, when a job in the bureaucracy is considered leprous, when the tax collector is stamped a legalized thief, when handouts from the politician are contemptuously rejected, when work on a government project is considered degrading, when, in short, the state is recognized to be the enemy of society, then only will freedom come, and the citadel of power collapse.”
Philanthropic Versus Misanthropic Libertarianism
Mad props to Humble Libertarian for coming up with this:
“Libertarian thought often starts with “me” and says to others “you shouldn’t violate my rights,” which is certainly true, but somewhat off-putting because it’s egocentric. Aside from being off-putting, it’s the moral low-ground. It’s moral and true, but it pushes the moral imperatives of libertarian thought off on someone else. The moral high-ground is to accept and practice the moral imperative for yourself. Libertarians would always do better to say, “I shouldn’t violate your rights- I won’t violate your rights.” In practice this makes a world of difference. On the issue of welfare and property redistribution, for example, the first approach would sound like this: “Who are you to take my hard-earned money and give it away to the poor? Even if I should give it to them, you have no right to confiscate my property from me.” The second approach is a sharp contrast to the first in both tone and content: “Who am I to take your hard-earned money and give it away to the poor when I’m likely not even giving enough myself? Even if you should give it to them, I have no right to force you to, especially when I’m not giving enough myself. How hypocritical of me would that be?” See how much more humble that is and sounds?
The first example is a challange. Its tone is antagonistic and its premise is egocentric. The second example is an invitation and a catalyst for conversation. Its tone is humble and its premise is philanthropic- motivated by love and concern for other human beings and their rights. The distinction here can ultimately boil down to these alternatives, egocentric libertarianism on the one hand, and philanthropic libertarianism on the other.“
Psychic Income Versus Real Income (Updated)
John Mauldin in Frontline Thoughts on one off balance sheet vehicle that might get us out of this crisis faster than we think: psychic income, our dreams for our future…
“Every night we go to sleep on our psychic income, and every day we get up and try to figure out how to turn it into real income……The future is never easy for all but a few of us, at least not for long. But we figure it out. And that is why in 20 years we will be better off than we are today. Each of us, all over the world, by working out our own visions of psychic income, will make the real world a better place.”
My Comment:
In response to RobertinDC, my loyal reader, who politely calls this a “crock,” I should add the context of Mauldin´s note, which is technological change.
Mauldin argues that even if the market stays flat or depressed in real terms, even if unemployment increases and the standard of living falls, none of us can know for sure what the future holds. In ten years time, the world may very well be a better place.. in terms of possibilities… than it is today because of technological innovation.
Is this implausibly “feel good” stuff?
Well, yes.
Of course.
It takes no great courage or imagination to imagine plausible scenarios.
Imagination is the ability…the very creative and fundamentally life-giving ability..to imagine implausible..even unbelievable scenarios and then make them not only plausible but inevitable.
And, again in a fundamental sense, that is how creativity in all fields works. Focusing solely on the negative is itself a form of delusion.
I don´t mean by this that you can wish yourself into any outcome you want. There are also physical laws at work that you have to accept. You cannot wish away a contraction of the economy because of overspending, for instance. The economy has to correct.
But the effects of the contraction, the extent, and its resolution can in fact be ameliorated by a change in attitude.
And by staying alert to every possibilty, we can also sense when deterministic interpretations - such as, “this is the way capitalism is“ — are being used to cover up what is in truth a very manipulated reality.
In that case, what we should focus on is an imagined ideal, the way capitalism should be, which may be implausible or even a crock, in some views, but is our only true guide to a way out of this debacle.
This is why I wrote, in 2007, that the economy didn´t have to crash. It was in a PR piece for the book.This wasn´t because I lacked a healthy sense of reality. But reality in the sense that physicists understand it is a very different thing from the “common sense” understanding of reality. The physicists´view is actually closer to what might be called implausible or even unbelievable. But it´s none theless true. The same divergence between common sense perception and underying reality exists in the economy. Cynicism is often right. But not always. Pessimism is often warranted. But not always.
There were fundamental problems in the economy in 2006-2007, but the way the crash occured struck me then as very strange.
I suspected at the time that some of the indices were manipulated…and now the deepcapture team (and others like Pam Martens) have shown how they could have been (see prior posts).
In time, you are going to find that this is true of many of the indicators we use to read the mood of the investing public. Markets are driven by emotions. And smart crooks with the ability to manipulate that emotion can make big money from the manipulation….
And if they can, it stands to reason they will.
What is surprising is only why it took so long for supposedly tough minded financial reporters to figure that out.
In any case, whether manipulation is proved or not, what ordinary people can do is to take for their model the good trader. Good traders are people who can “keep their heads when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you”..as Kipling said.
The hall mark of expert trading is to control the emotions and rein them in from succumbing to mass moods. What does that mean in practical terms?
It means when everyone is panicking, look for silver linings, and when everyone is complacent, learn to worry…
Intellectual Self-Defense for Libertarians
I posted this at Lew Rockwell last week:
“There are two ways to approach the world.
In one, the popular one now, you try to control the bad actors. You create laws to trip them up before hand, or round them up after. You rely on regulations and regulators.
Nothing wrong with that, except that we already have lots of regulators and it didn’t help.
Why?
The reason is so obvious you question the intelligence of anyone who can’t see it. It’s simple. People willing and able to scam the system are going to be willing and able to game the regulations too.
In a fight between regulators and scammers, my money’s on the scammers. They’re usually richer and nastier.
In the second approach, you don’t overlook the bad actors. You hope they get what they have coming to them. But you don’t rely on laws or lawyers because you’re old enough to have figured out that bit about the bad actors being bigger and nastier than the good ones.
So what do you do?
You focus on getting out of the way of the bad guys. You limit the damage they can do to you. And most of all, you figure out how to avoid them in the first place.
Here are five warnings I wish I’d heeded more:
1. Be careful whom you deal with
Don’t lie down with a dog and you won’t get up with fleas. Delousing yourself is much harder than not getting loused up in the first place.
But delousing is what we do a lot of these days. It’s practically the only thing going on in the economy now. Right now there are people all over the country delousing the SEC.. and the Congress… and the banks…and the hedge-funds. There’s even a global delousing effort going on. The fumigators are at work. Pest control is in full force and the exterminators are crawling over the baseboards in the cellar. There’s an international delousing effort at the BIS, with headquarters at Switzerland and local shops all over the world.
A Bug Czar has been crowned and fleas have been declared insecta non grata.
There - that should do it, eh? Any bug with a classical education should figure it out.Which is another way of saying none of this will work. Or if it works, it won’t work the way you want it to.
The fact is, lice and ticks are at home on a dog. It’s R & R for them. Holiday Inn, Bed & Breakfast, and a luxury spa combined. Get them to leave? Good luck. Much better, don’t take your dog to bed in the first place. Much better, if you have a dog, let him drool in the kennel, not on your pillow.
The short version of all that is we do jack-ass things and then wonder who’s braying.
I say jack-ass with no disrespect. Some say that those who get conned “deserve what they get.”
That is the New Testament of the confidence man and the Sunday sermon of the predator.
As financial doctrine, it occasionally makes sense. As moral insight, it’s almost always junk. Very often victims are only weak, naive, or ignorant. The kind of people who wouldn’t know malice if they saw it in the dollar-bin with a white tag tied to its toe. They’re people who follow the rules, thinking other people follow them too. They’re honorable, so they believe in the honor of their fellow man.Now, not only is being honorable not wrong, it’s the way things should be. But doves should learn not to coo at snakes, and beautiful souls have to wise up to what goes on in the rest of the world… or expect an ugly life.
So, rule number one. Research the people you plan to make your associates. And don’t dismiss your research. When you find out your prospective partner filed for bankruptcy six times in the last ten years, don’t tell yourself it will be different this time, because it won’t. One bankruptcy is a financial failure. Three is a losing streak. Six is a career decision. Follow your gut instinct.
If your boss conducts business with a wink and a leer, don’t pass it off as southern charm. He’s not Dagwood Bumstead looking for a lump of emotional candy. He’s a creep, and you’re a pawn in his narcissistic chess game. Ask for a transfer about two minutes after that. If you’re out of a job, so be it. There’s no guarantee you won’t be out of one, if you put up with it.
2. Never stop learning
Ignorance kills, as a lawyer friend of mine likes to say. Don’t be ignorant. Learn as much as you can about as many things as you can. Do your research. Know what you’re dealing with. With the internet, it’s much easier. You can do a google search on anything or anyone. You can go into google news archives and find newspaper articles and information from as far back as the 1980s.
So start reading.Project Gutenberg has thousands of classic books online. PubMed allows you to access medical journals. LexisNexis will allow you to research law. Edgar will show you company filings. You can search houses for sale on Realtor.com and look up where a house is on Google Earth. You can go to WhoIs to find out about domain names and IP address. You can find out how well a website is doing by looking up Technorati or Alexa rankings. The Way Back Machine lets you look up old magazine articles, even when they’ve been pulled off the current site. Some sites like Zabasearch collect people’s information and put it all in one spot. That’s free information. If you pay, you can get much more.
Mind you, I find data sites downright creepy, especially when they’re online, and especially when they’re centralized and can be accessed with a key-stroke. If people have paid for their sins, why not let them start fresh? There may be a recording angel, but surely he lives farther north than DC.
On the other hand, just because the technology is already out there, it pays to keep up with what’s being done with it. Because if it’s out there, your business partner… or your employer… or your enemies ….or your friends.. probably know about it already. They might even have mined it for information to deploy against you. Shouldn’t you be prepared?
3. Limit what people know about you. Many of us from small towns grew up around trustworthy people. Our friends and our neighbors knew everything about us, and we didn’t mind, because no one was malicious enough to hurt anyone else.
The big world isn’t so nice. People who have things to hide themselves will be only too anxious to find something on you, attack being the best form of defense in their minds. If they can’t find anything wrong, they’ll hit you with whatever else they can, even a silly thing you said casually. They’ll dig out what your crazy cousin did fifteen years ago. Or perhaps you saved your husband’s latest rant about his mother online. Don’t be surprised if you wake up one morning to find it in the New Yorker.
So, keep things to yourself, even among close friends and relatives.
That’s a hard one for me. I’m a verbal person. I write, I talk, even if it’s only to myself. Leave me next to a blank wall and I’ll strike up a conversation. And it will be two-way.
Fortunately, most people are unlikely to hurt you. But occasionally you’ll run into a psychopath who will. And if you work in politics, the media, or in business, psychopathy is practically the norm.
So keep track of what’s being written about you on the net with Google alerts. Write to sites that aggregate information and ask for your name to be removed from their lists. You might have to repeat that every year . Put yourself on the national do-not-call list so that your telephone number’s out of the reach of marketers.
And then limit the information you give out, even to your lawyer.
It’s taken me half a lifetime to figure out that any questionnaire shoved under my nose doesn’t automatically deserve to be filled in. Leave things blank unless you’re told it’s mandatory to fill it in. Or become creative. Develop fictitious personalities, throw-away mail addresses, exotic, non-existent addresses. Use another name when doing business. Avoid registering products or filling out questionaires in your own name. Use fake birth-dates and vary them according to a system that you, and only you, know. Change your passwords every few weeks, using a system to keep track. Write them down broken up in alternate pages in a notebook, without anything to signify what the numbers mean. If the book is lost, no one will be able to make use of the information. Neither will you, of course, but losing a little time is better than losing your savings.Hacking email, spying on private business, blackmailing and outing people, it’s all fair game these days. Attacking the privacy of public figures has become a national pastime - witness the Letterman case. But it’s not just public life. Private business is a circus of outing and shaming too. Corporations spy on and threaten each other, as well as their employees. Employees write tell-all books.
We live in a spy state, where every half-wit believes it’s his divine right to nose into anything, no matter how little it’s his business. So, these days not only is it wise to keep your own secrets, you might be wise to keep other people’s secrets.
But what should you do if inspite of that, you become a target of an attack on your privacy?
Often, nothing, unfortunately.I’ll give you the example of an aunt of mine who didn’t want anyone to know she was sick, in case it would prejudice employers against hiring her. A colleague not only hacked her email but forwarded details about her illness to dozens of people. A frail, sensitive woman, her health broke down under the stress.
I’ll give you the advice I gave her. Say your piece once in private, and say it once in public. Then forget about it. Move on. You’re not the first person to have been screwed over and you won’t be the last. Innocent people are constantly being ruined by the powerful and the unscrupulous. That’s the ugly truth of our system. Reputations are often lost, unjustly. Our salvation is to worry less about our reputations and more about our consciences.
What we do where no one can see and none can retaliate is the test of who we are.As for what others think, the world is a large place. Move far away, if you need to. As for the system, stop trying to reform it. It’s beyond reform.
4. Learn to say no
Telling someone no doesn’t come naturally. We’re trained to go through life being agreeable. In fact, learning to say no might be the hardest thing you learn. But it might also be the most important, and once you learn it, it can become good sport.
Speaking for myself, I’ve come to relish saying no to pests. And the nay-saying that gives me the greatest pleasure of all is nay-saying to internet marketers. It’s not that I’m ever rude to one. I never hang up. My malice is much deeper. I let them prattle on, even asking polite questions. Then I stop them courteously and ask them why they think they have the right to call me on a weekend and waste half-an-hour selling me something I didn’t ask for. Occasionally, when they’re especially pushy, my toying becomes cruel. I turn the tables on them. Instead of selling me things, they find themselves signing petitions or supporting causes or accepting market analysis or invitations to baby showers or anything else at hand.
Can I call you, I ask. Tonight? Tomorrow? I press them to reply. Can you buy two? Now? Pretty soon, they’re begging to hang up.
Try it and see. It’s balm in gilead.
I advise you to use this technique on rude or uncooperative colleagues too. Give them a taste of their own medicine, and do it generously. Let their cup run over. You will get something better than love. You’ll get respect.
5. Learn how to retaliate
Despite all the myths propagated about forgiveness, I’ve learned that submitting meekly to injustice usually breeds weakness, resentment, and ill- health. There’s nothing that drives up your self-respect as much as socking it back to bullies. I’m not advising being unduly aggressive. Try a friendly approach as long as you can. But when that doesn’t work, time to get tough. Throw some metaphoric crockery. Thumb your nose and thumb it publicly. Turn on the spotlight and watch the cockroaches run.
In other cases, all you may need to do is wait. Time has a knack of delivering even the biggest fish to a patient angler…and when that moment comes, don’t flinch. Yank that line and watch your target flop and wriggle on the sand.
Watch with a smile. Defy the received wisdom and develop a healthy conscience about revenge. It’s highly moral. Only our wimpy but violent age derides its feline nobility.
The uncomfortable truth is the New Testament is meant for people on the same moral level of development….for family.. and for friends. But in the big, dirty world, the Old Testament works much better.
Gandhi said an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind. I say an eye for an eye, and after the first blind man, everyone else’s eyesight gets better in a hurry.
Become a moral vigilante. Why waste time going through the system if you can get better results outside of it? Use the law to warn, to shame, to threaten. But don’t labor under the delusion that a court case always helps. Your enemy will pour his time and money into creating mushroom clouds of paper. He’ll drown you in verbiage and “accidentally-on-purposes.” He’ll postpone and prevaricate and petition. He’ll appeal and block and delay…. and hide behind a fog of corporate black ink like an injured squid.
Instead, if you’re obliged by professional ethics to speak up, consider other channels of actions besides the court. Try mediation or arbitration. Perhaps you’re better off complaining to the Better Business Bureau. Or posting on a consumer forum.
Monetary compensation is often not the best justice either. It can make you look like an extortionist. Try going public. Give the bully a taste of his own medicine. Post the hacker’s private information on a website. Put him on the run. That might not make you rich, but the moral satisfaction is tremendous.
Of course, it could also be dangerous. You risk violating the law yourself. In that case, you might be best off to leave your job. Maybe even leave town. Leave the thugs to the mercies of the universe. It sometimes does a better job of retribution than it’s given credit for. Villains do not always go to jail. And if the skeptics are right, they might never go to hell. But they often get dragged into divorce court, which is a good deal worse, from all accounts.
And meanwhile, there are all those other ways the wicked verily get their reward.
Envious rivals cut their throats; the tax man cometh, and the SEC with him; and then cometh old age, failing libido, dead-beat in-laws and brain-dead grandchildren. The inheritance get squandered and the sycophants and courtiers vanish with the money. The trash-mouth gets acid reflux, the glutton gets dyspepsia and the aging lecher ends up alone, romancing his own hairless skull and wrinkled hide.Then at the end comes the greatest punishment of all for persisting in evil deeds. You stare into the mirror and evil stares back at you, looking not so much devilish as hollow and bewildered, less like a fiend from hell and more like a Goldman CEO at a Congressional hearing.
Hannah Arendt taught us about the banality of evil. It was left to our age to practice the evil of banality. Habit, laziness, gullibility, ignorance, vanity, greed, fear, cowardice, bravado. We are duped not by heroic evil, but by humdrum vice.
The greatest and best defense we have against the charlatans and knaves who brought our society to its knees is not the law.
It is self-knowledge and discipline.”Libertarian Living: Neuroeconomics and Cooperation
“The Science and Ethics of Cooperation,” by Michael Townsey, Prout Institute:
“The cooperative system is fundamental to the organization and structure of a Prout (the Progressive Utilization Theory) economy. It is an expression of economic democracy in action - cooperative enterprises give workers the right of capital ownership, collective management and all the associated benefits, such as profit sharing.[i] Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, the propounder of Prout, goes further and argues that an egalitarian society is actually not possible without a commitment to the cooperative system.[ii] The commitment is not just to an economic order but also to a cooperative ethic and culture. This essay explores some of the scientific evidence that humans have a predisposition to cooperation and in particular to economic cooperation. The evidence comes from a new and exciting field of research known as neuro-economics. We then turn to those insights provided by sociological studies.
Neuro-economics
Neuro-economics is the study of the neuro-physiological underpinnings of economic decision making. The field is new and providing unexpected insights into human economic behavior. Classical economic theory requires individuals to make complex calculations to maximize their personal advantage or utility. Utility, however, is a strangely ambiguous concept. On the one hand it is given a numerical value which implies the counting of something but on the other it is entirely abstract and not anchored to anything in the real world that can be counted. The advent of neurophysiology led to the idea that utility was really a surrogate for some chemical currency inside the brain, with most interest focused on serotonin molecules because these are known to be responsible for the experience of pleasure.
It turns out that a wide range of molecules of emotion[iii] impinge on the mental cost-benefit calculations that are supposed to take place inside the brain and they have unexpected effects. For example, in a ’sharing experiment’, person A was asked to share a sum of money with person B. These experiments demonstrated behavior inconsistent with neoclassical theory. People appear to put a high value on fairness. In a follow up experiment, persons A and B were placed in the same experimental scenario as before, but they were (unknowingly) given an intranasal administration of oxytocin. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that plays a key role in social attachment and affiliation in animals and causes a substantial increase in trust in humans. In these experiments the effect of oxytocin was to increase the amount of money that A gives B. The experimenters concluded that “oxytocin may be part of the human physiology that motivates cooperation.”[iv] It is worth adding that such hormone-mediated interactions are not confined to human relationships but are also likely to be involved in human-animal relationships.[v]
Oxytocin is not the only neuro-chemical to promote cooperation. Recent observations of bonobo monkeys in the jungles of the Congo reveal fascinating contrasts with chimpanzees.[vi] Bonobos are matriarchal and show little aggression compared to the patriarchal chimps. Chimps respond to strangers with aggression, while bonobos demonstrate curiosity. When under stress, chimp tribes degenerate into fighting while bonobos respond to stress by engaging in collective sexual activity. Scientists have concluded that bonobos demonstrate higher levels of trust both with each other and with strangers. Of most interest, however, from a neuro-economics point of view, is the ability of the monkeys to perform a simple task requiring cooperation in retrieving some bananas that are out of reach. Although both species are intelligent enough to work out a solution (for example, by one climbing on the shoulders of the other or by one holding a ladder for the other), the chimps fail because they cannot trust one another. On the other hand, bonobos have no trouble cooperating to retrieve the bananas.[vii]“
Thoreau On the Dangers of Comfort
“We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agriculture.
We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that the higher state be forgotten.
There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint.”
—- Henry David Thoreau, “On Practicing Economy in Life”
Roderick Long: Six Talking Points for Libertarians
Roderick Long at Austro-Athenian blog has a list of principles he thinks libertarians should emphasize in public interaction to define themselves as a clear-cut alternative to either conservatives or liberals:
1. Big business and big government are (for the most part) natural allies.
2. Although conservative politicians pretend to hate big government, and liberal politicians pretend to hate big business, most mainstream policies – both liberal and conservative – involve (slightly different versions of) massive intervention on behalf of the big-business/big-government elite at the expense of ordinary people.
3. Liberal politicians cloak their intervention on behalf of the strong in the rhetoric of intervention on behalf of the weak; conservative politicians cloak their intervention on behalf of the strong in the rhetoric of non-intervention and free markets – but in both cases the rhetoric is belied by the reality.
4. A genuine policy of intervention on behalf of the weak, if liberals actually tried it, wouldn’t work either, since the nature of government power would automatically warp it toward the interests of the elite.
5. A genuine policy of non-intervention and free markets, if conservatives actually tried it, would work, since free competition would empower ordinary people at the expense of the elite.
6. Since conservative policies, despite their associated free-market rhetoric, are mostly the diametrical opposite of free-market policies, the failures of conservative policies do not constitute an objection to (but rather, if anything, a vindication of) free-market policies.
New Labor Turns Brits into Libertarians?
From The Guardian:
“A poll run by PoliticsHome this week revealed a fascinating result to the question: “Do you think in general, the state has too much or too little of a say in what people can and cannot do?” Nearly four-fifths of the sample (79%) answered that the state had too much of a say, while only 8% believe the state has too little say.
If the poll is an accurate reflection of the nation’s mood this is an important finding. For some time I have been aware of sharp change in the public’s attitudes to surveillance, as well as a general feeling that the government is too quick to seize personal data and tell people how to lead their lives.”Atlas Flubbed
Just to rile up market fundamentalists, here’s a sharp jab from a lefty blog at “going Galt” - the fantasy nurtured by some naive libertarians that were capitalists (theorized as financiers) to take a day off, society would collapse.
(The reference to Galt is a reference to Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” a book about which I have mixed feelings. Rand is a far more complex and interesting figure than either her defenders or her critics seem to realize..)
The quote below confuses genuine capitalists and the predator financiers currently in power, but it packs some punch:
“Have you heard of the documentary, “A Day Without A Mexican?” You know why it’s not called Atlas Shrugged? Because the people who made it aren’t utterly detached from reality. Because doing actual work gives one perspective. Because spending the day going from rooftop to rooftop in a helicopter to chew the fat with other geniuses could lead you to believe you’re the glue that holds the entire planet together. People who don’t have private islands have a more realistic idea of what they do to contribute to society.
You know why the uber-wealthy don’t go on strike? Because they know there are millions of smart, hardworking people ready to take their places…..”
My Comment
What I’d like to know is why more people don’t vote with their pocket books against this predator class. For instance, I try to avoid using Microsoft Word because of my antipathy to Gates’ monopolistic practices.The issue is not capitalism, ultimately. It’s monopoly and the absence of competition. In other words, it’s the absence of real free markets that’s the reason why “capitalism” is now synonymous with predation — and why rants like this are increasingly persuasive.
The Tytler Cycle
“The average age of the world’s greatest democratic nations has been 200 years. Each has been through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith. From faith to great courage. From courage to liberty. From liberty to abundance. From abundance to complacency. From complacency to selfishness. From selfishness to apathy. From apathy to dependency. And from dependency back again into bondage.”
– Alexander Tytler on the cycles of government
[Correction: I'm getting feedback that this quote exists in different versions and may not actually be from Tytler or may be attributed to him while being a pastiche from other individuals partly or wholely. No time to verify now, will be back later on this. My fault. I didn't think to google it, as I've seen it quoted so extensively].
My Comment
Tytler misses a link here. Apathy leads to cowardice and then cowardice to.
dependency. Courage is a primary spiritual virtue - it’s part of effort or action.
You don’t have anything without courage. In religious teaching the opposite of love is never posited as hate, but fear.Fear is the source of practically every evil that comes upon us. Selfishness stems from fear. Greed stems from fear….
We have become sheep because of fear.
That’s why I’m interested in trauma in childhood. That’s where we first learn fear and learn to hold it in rigid patterns in our bodies and minds. [Thanks to Kevin Duffy for the quote from Tytler]
Update: In response to a comment, I thought I’d add this here:
Most cyclical theories are simplistic in their broad outlines, but they’re useful when you look at them from a meta-theoretical level
By metatheory I mean the overarching narrative in which they are placed - i.e., what does the schematization of the theory say about the way that particular person or age reads history…There’s Vico - Age of God, Age of Heroes, Age of Men.
There’s the Greek republic-democracy-tyranny
There are the mahayugas and yugas (great ages) in the Hindu cycles (which are cosmic, not political)Ravi Batra, who was the first economist to write extensively about a coming great depression (late 1980s), I believe, has a new book out which includes his cycles - he has an age of acquisitors followed by an age of intellectuals (I forget the exact name) and then a golden age..and I think it’s based on the varna (caste) system - which originally was not socially pernicious.
Correction: Robert Prechter predicted a coming great depression early on, as well. I’ll verify the dates….
Carson Versus Marks On Libertarianism And Scarcity
An interesting exchange from The Libertarian Alliance’s website on libertarianism and scarcity, with Kevin Carson responding to Paul Marks’ critique of his work:
[Marks]
“Neither land nor capital are [sic] “artificially scarce” - they are just scarce (period). There are billions of people and only a certain amount of land and machinery? .[T]he idea that land and capital are only scarce [emphasis mine] compared to the billions of people on Earth because of either wicked governments or wicked employers (or both) is false.”
[Carson]
First, simply to get the second part of Mr Marks’ statement out of the way, I nowhere asserted that all scarcity of land and capital is artificial. I argued only that they were more scarce, as a result of state-enforced privilege, than they would otherwise be, and that returns on land and capital were therefore higher than their free market values. In any case, as Franz Oppenheimer observed, most of the scarcity of arable land comes not from natural appropriation, but from political appropriation. And the natural scarcity of capital, a good which is in elastic supply and which can be produced by applying human labor to the land, results entirely from the need for human labor for its creation; there is no fixed limit to the amount available.
But getting to his main point, that land and capital are not artificially scarce, I’m not sure Mr Marks is even aware of his sheer audacity. In making this assertion, he flies in the face of a remarkable amount of received libertarian wisdom, from eminences as great as Mises and Rothbard. As a contrarian myself, I take my hat off to him.
Still, I wonder if he ever made the effort to grasp the libertarian arguments, made by Rothbard et al, that he so blithely dismisses. Is he even aware of the logical difficulties entailed in repudiating them? Does he deny that state enforcement of titles to land that is both vacant and unimproved reduces the amount available for homesteading? Does he deny that the reduced availability of something relative to demand is the very definition of “scarcity,” or that the reduction of supply relative to demand leads to increased price? Or is his argument rather with Rothbard’s moral premises themselves, rather than the logical process by which he makes deductions from them? I.e., does he deny that property in unimproved and vacant land is an invalid grant of privilege by the state, and thereby repudiate Locke’s principle of just acquisition?
It seems unlikely, on the face of things, that Mr Marks would expressly repudiate Mises and Rothbard on these points. After all, elsewhere in his critique he cites Human Action and Man, Economy and State as authorities. Perhaps he just blanked out on the portions of their work that weren’t useful for his apologetic purposes.
In any case, if he does not repudiate either Rothbard’s premises or his reasoning, Mr Marks has dug himself into a deep hole. For by Rothbard’s Lockean premises, not only the state’s own property in land, but “private” titles to vacant and unimproved land, are illegitimate. Likewise, titles derived from state grants are illegitimate when they enable the spurious “owner” to collect rent from the rightful owner - the person who first mixed his labor with the land, his heirs and assigns. And the artificial scarcity of land resulting from such illegitimate property titles raises the marginal price of land relative to that of labor, and forces labor to pay an artificially high share of its wages for the rent or purchase of land….”
Recent Comments