My Monopoly Position

That's right, I have one and I didn't even have to use the govamint to get it!

O'Charley's, a restaurant two buildings down from my place of employment, went belly-up this morning, and less competition means more profits for me! Now it's us versus Christopher Seafood Co., all alone in the wide-open parking lot of Wal-Mart, Tropical Smoothie, and Ross. Yes, we were getting quite a few O'Charley's residuals all day, and I did pretty handsomely for a Saturday.

I figured I'd go and sabotage Christopher's grills or refrigerator compressor (even better because they'll likely serve spoiled food before they know it's ruined, and they'll have a law suit on their hands), thus solidifying our locational monopoly at the southwest corner of Kernan and Atlantic Blvd.!

All in a day's work. Long live Me, the King.

Wait... damn it. I just realized that I'm sure to be reported to the FTC and the DOJ Antitrust Division.

Crap.

An Inverse Business Cycle

Consider this: If the U.S. treasury can issue securities purchasable by private brokers and individuals, and if the Fed can and emphatically does purchase these same securities through open market purchases as a way to maintain interest rates and the integrity of the financial market, and if any profits that the Fed makes above its 'operating costs' goes back to the treasury, then:

1) Isn't Uncle Sam essentially getting loans at a big discount? Here's how I see it: tax revenues pay back the bonds issued by the treasury that are in hands of the Fed. The Fed pays itself and returns what's left over to treasury. Depending on how much is left over determines the discount on the loan. Now, I haven't stated anything new here, for this is what this guy is saying. In fact, Machaj calls it the modern "print on demand" scheme, and he's right. But he's missing something, and that's my number 2 point.

2) As this is totally unscripted and I have no facts to back this up, but instead a strong intuitive argument, the Fed turns up the heat in times of economic crises with its massive open market purchases and low fed funds target rates. I'd be willing to bet that more treasuries, and I mean significantly more, treasuries are purchased in times of economic downturns (In fact, the current recession is proof of this). But if this is true, then referring to 1), a significant amount of that money goes straight back to the treasury. And if this is true, then one could argue that the government has a business cycle that is the opposite of the one characterizing the private sector. That's right: Uncle Sam benefits off of our misfortune.

Add my second point onto the fact that in times of crises, popular liberal tax-whatever-moves and Keynesian spend-whatever-isn't-nailed-to-the-floor policies run rampant, and we have a knarly witch's brew of government mayhem. This theory explains more comprehensively why the current administration does nothing to make more attractive investment prospects at home; this explains why trillion-dollar deficits, over-reaching climate bills, and a total takeover of the U.S. health industry are all on the table and being played. This is precisely why the congress and president scoff at anything related to making and maintaining jobs in the private sector. This crisis is exactly what they want to happen; they couldn't do this stuff without it.

Economic recovery = Bad news for the nanny state. End of story.

The Ivy League Paradox

Universal education, or state-mandated education for all, is prevalent throughout the civilized world. Ironically, it is the scissor that cuts the threads of civilization. Forget the Paradox of Thrift. I call this the Ivy League Paradox.

Instead of intensifying the social division of labor in terms of education and intellectual endeavors, universal education dumbs down the content & concepts of its courses in order to be 'all-inclusive.'

In the free market, folks tend to find themselves in places where their needs and wants are best met, that is, where they can obtain the most resources while at the same time enjoying the greatest psychic benefit. The only way, short of theft and thievery (which is inherently discouraged in the market), that man can provide for his wants is to serve others in exchange relationships. Man realizes that if he is to maximize his wealth, it is in his interest to do that which society values most. Man will also take into account the disutility of labor, and through his judgment man will weigh such disutility in light of the gain to be made through the providing of wants of others. Only men on the individual level can pursue and obtain the right mix of these two factors in order to maximize their overall psychic benefit, because only they truly know what makes themselves happy.

Even in the hampered market we live in, we see the division of labor at work every day. College kids choose a major to their liking while at the same time weighing the incomes associated with their choices; Steve Jobs, excellent at entrepreneurship, makes great products that others can only dream about doing; Brett Favre and Drew Brees are quarterbacks for the NFL, as opposed to investment bankers and limo drivers; people with high time preferences and little resolve to acquire an advanced education tend to find themselves in entry level positions, such as restaurant cooks and ditch diggers, where they balance their own disutility of labor in the form of studying and specializing in a specific field against their desire for income and wealth. Even in the absence of state planning, everybody kind of goes where they not only want to go but also where they are best suited to go, relative to the desires of everybody else. I don't want Brett Farve managing my finances and I sure as hell don't want my coworkers at the restaurant operating on my heart and prescribing my Dad's medications.

Enter compulsory education, mandated by the State. People who have no desire to educate their minds, must. People who have not the ability to make anything of a formal education, must still go through the motions, even though it benefits nobody except those that derive a psychic income from the knowledge that 'society is smart.' Instead of folks entering the workforce at age 10, providing for others goods and services that they desire, and moreover finding out what they are best at doing at an early age and then specializing in that field, they must delay their talents and skills. People who otherwise would have been brilliant landscapers, excellent mom-and-pop store managers, shrewd investors and ingenious inventors are likely stuck in the theoretical mathematics department at a small college, or are integrated into a political machine vying for power, or were disenchanted with the whole process and now produce bastard children. Anecdotal hyperbole, but very real. But this is the paradox: what was supposed to produce more geniuses, a generally better-educated populace, and at the very least a literate body of citizens is failing to do so, and this failure is inherent in the very nature of compulsory education.

Imagine compulsory swim teams and running squads: Few individuals are biologically capable of such activities. If participation in these sports were mandated and forced upon a population, any standards currently in place for those who run because of innate ability or the sheer will to do so would ipso-facto have to fall in intensity in order to produce an acceptable 'pass rate.' That is, the quality of runners as a whole would fall relative to what it would have been. This has to happen or else the program is exposed as the fraud it is because half or more of all entrants are failing out. The resources dedicated to bring everybody up to the level of the 'ideal runner' are being wasted, and instead are producing something else that nobody not only intended to produce, but didn't want in the first place.

Ivy league institutions and gifted programs prove far too much. The reason for their existence underlines the fact that not everybody, and in fact very few individuals on earth, are capable of the intense intellectual division of labor called scholarly education. These institutions are in fact outgrowths of the division of labor, whereas mandatory public schools and community and public colleges, financed by taxpayer compulsion, are physical manifestations of the revolt against intellectual specialization. Granted, even Ivy league schools are funded by the taxpayer, they are still given sizable grants by private individuals, far more than are generally public institutions. If this is not enough, look no further than at the scholars at think tanks such as the Mises Institute, which is provided for solely by donor contributions and product sales, and produces outstanding work, judged so by its customers.

You can well guess what the state of education would look like in a free market. Think a lot less grade schools and 2- and 4-year universities, and a lot more specialized institutions with extremely stringent requirements, funded by donor contributions and corporate support. Indeed, why would customers of failing school systems continue to shell out dollars for those students who have no interest in learning, and more so for students who will not apply anything he learned to the practical world after schooling? The fact that education is at current compulsory proves this feature of a free market.

What Spending Freeze?

Liberal pundits and bloggers across the net, found

here

here

here

here

here

&

here,

are decrying Obama's upcoming proposal for a spending freeze, and comparing it to the likes of Herbert Hoover.

I've pulled a chart from the Budget of the United States Government, and right below we can see federal spending during Hoover's time as President (March 4, 1929 – March 4, 1933), and I've included a few years before and after, too:

I've made it perfectly clear with clever arrows and plus signs that total outlays increased every year of Hoover's presidency. Granted, this does not prove that spending is less than it otherwise would have been, but not only is Hoover not of the thrifty magnitude the pundits above describe him to be, I can't even find on record talk about some federal "spending freeze" during the 1929-1933 era. None of the pundits site this alleged factoid, and I've looked through a history teacher and Wikipedia. I'd like to believe that these folks are more than just talking points, so if you know something I don't, enlighten me!

I Told You I Was Good

Who needs a college degree? I told you here that there does exist a market for endangered species.

I was right according to this, and according to elementary economic theory, but who believes that silly stuff anymore.

Thanks, Dr. Perry.

Pragmatists Aren't From Mars, After All

On the one hand, Haitian immigrants might expropriate our property through the vote. They might not. Is this a mark against open immigration as such? I concede: Of course not, but instead it is a mark against majoritarian rule (the similar critique applies to my concerns with the welfare state and its usage by immigrants, too). I am obviously concerned, however, with the state of how things actually are. But Block is right (here) that being a pragmatist and going against your philosophical starting point is or can be a slippery slope.

Makes me think: What if, tomorrow, the U.S. found out that, say, Costa Rica has been plotting against it for decades, and has the complete capacity and intent on blowing every square mile of U.S. territory to bits? In fact, the U.S. knows when Costa Rica is going to do this, and the U.S. also knows where such weapons are located (no, really, we know this time) and could peremptorily strike first, preventing the whole shabang.

Is military intervention justified?

Certainly not from a Libertarian point of view. U.S. military intervention would involve the expropriation of resources via taxation of U.S. citizens, and if just one taxpayer said, "To hell with ya," it is unjustifiable insofar as the so-called 'non-aggression axiom' is concerned, the very axiom that the branch of libertarianism I am familiar with is based upon (I am excluding the possibility of a private military/defense force for illustrative purposes).

So, it's plausible that the U.S. is blown off the map by sticking to Libertarian principle. That's right, my nonexistent white culture: gone, along with all my buddies and family members.

Clearly here, it would pay, like it would with immigration above, to be a pragmatist, at least in the short run. The question is this: Even if we know as a metaphysical certitude that immigrants from country X are going to use the ballot box and the welfare state to expropriate our property and convert our kids to baby-vacuuming atheists and thus ruin our society, should we then step in and violate the initial axiom by fighting against immigration, or should we focus our efforts on the welfare state and the ballot box as such?

I do not condone Mr. Greenspan, as I hate the Fed with every bone in my body.

But I understand. It is a difficult decision to make.

Best Way to Help Haiti?

Art Carden argues at the Division of Labour blog that the best way to help the poor is to conduct an open-borders policy, thereby enabling individuals with fewer opportunities for economic advancement to come here and pull themselves up by the boot straps, or something like that. As much as I love Carden's lecturing style, he's dead wrong with this one, as are all other libertarians whom preach an 'open-borders' policy.

It would be one thing if all land was owned by individual, private owners: this includes buildings, homes, businesses, parks, roads, and all other land that possesses value. Then, we wouldn't be talking about an open- or closed-borders policy in the first place; the decision to include or exclude foreigners (this includes anybody not given advanced permission to enter a specific property) would operate on an individual basis, that is, property owners deciding what is best for the value of their own properties. In this way, no state is involved, and no board of bureaucrats and satraps decide for the community what's best for them, be it multiculturalism, isolationism, or otherwise. Business owners can exclude anybody based on any criteria if he so pleases, be it race, age, sex, religion, haircut, number of teeth, etc. We would expect that miscreants, delinquents, hoodlums, and any other type of human black sheep to be excluded from social exchange on any given property, as this would raise that property's value. This and similar policies would discourage such behavior, and if one considered such nefarious actions a psychological 'good,' he of course could admit the lowlifes on his own turf.

In present-day America, however, the situation is very different. The state owns the interstates, highways, 'public property,' considerable airspace, and even residential homes. The government has also made it illegal to exclude individuals from privately owned property on any physical basis, before a crime of some sort has been committed. One cannot discriminate when selling property, and no matter who you are or virtually what kind of criminal background you possess, if your income is low or nonexistent, you qualify for housing, food stamps, and other kinds of aid (cell phones, cable television, etc.). We see how our current society is strikingly different from a private property-based society, where there is no state to willy-nilly its subjects based upon the current political fashion.

Now, the problem with an open borders policy in our current society is this: Even if we assume that foreigners net an economic benefit to society, that is, that whatever malfeasance and misconduct they exhibit is outweighed by their labor productivity and diligence, we cannot say that society as a whole is better off. Humans do not derive psychological benefit just from economic, real-dollar profits and higher material standards of living. Those same foreigners who are economically profiting society might just as well be culturally degrading it at the same time. With state-owned roads and without the ability to exclude anybody short of blatant criminal misconduct, anybody can waltz into my store, move into my community, and utilize the public services system (transportation, education, etc.) as they please. Any reprobate can indirectly contribute to the degradation of norms, customs, religion, etc., of a society, thereby making many of its members worse off, even if the foreigner is assumed a saint in his own right.

Perhaps I see this more clearly than most; where I come from, "white" is a pejorative. I grew up fighting my middle school years away because of my white mannerisms, and in my neighborhood, I was violently excluded from an entire section by blacks my own age. I can't say the word 'nigger' in public, and to scoff at MLK day is heresy. Since I graduated, I have gone back as a substitute teacher to many black schools, only to hear black and hispanic numb skulls calling each other white, cracker, and uncle Tom. I cannot walk through the mall with my girlfriend on a Saturday night, lest we be subjected to racist and sexist heckling on the part of the overgrown baboons who populate these places. I have no real culture to call my own, because in places where white culture does manifest itself, such as the confederate flag and white hoods, they must be displayed in private, if at all. In fact, it is worse than mere white discrimination: blacks are extolled because of their misfortunes and ill-treatment in the past, and every day whites are made to feel sorry for actions that they themselves had absolutely nothing to do with. Holidays, months of the year and even presidential elections have come to stand more about race than any sort of substance.

I understand that similar situations can happen in a private property-based society, but I have serious doubts as to whether or not the situation a white male faces today is the same as a white male would have faced had landowners themselves been able to decide in full who it is they include or exclude on their own properties. My guess is, those who seek to suppress 'white' characteristics would be excluded from social interaction insofar as it takes place on property owned and operated by whites, because such nobodies would tend to depress their values.

In our current day, and on a much larger scale, there exists preferential hiring, diversity requirements (immigration and labor), minority scholarships, food stamp and welfare programs, and blatant reverse discrimination called 'affirmative action,' ALL of which assist other races and income classes at the expense of middle- to upper-class whites.

And this brings me to what I set out to destroy: open immigration, specifically for destitute Haitians. Haiti is the poorest country in all of the Americas, where more than 80% of its population lives in utter poverty. English is not a main language there, and foreign aid makes up roughly 40% of the government's budget. I'm willing to guess most Haitians are not familiar with classical liberal-libertarian property law and capitalism even on a primitive level, and thus most are friendly towards government interventionism. At best, then, open immigration from Haiti would import creole-speaking statists who hopefully will never have the opportunity or intelligence to vote. Importing them 'out of poverty' would make them better off at the expense of the communities they found themselves in, communities that had little to no say in who they wanted to import in the first place. Why must relatively free Americans be forced to suffer this kind of forced integration? This has become some sort of libertarian predilection that is utterly inconsistent with human welfare and the freedom of choice. 'Open-borders' in today's America is a euphemism for letting vagabonds and derelicts trample over what's left of property rights.

I understand that Haiti sucks right now, but that's not my fault. Their own government prohibits the preservation of private property rights and the movement of goods, services, and humans from one area to another. Importing crime, poverty, and ignorance into America via 'open borders' will not help their situation in the long run, and it certainly will not make mine any better off.

Ask me if I think it's fair to open up borders that I pay for in taxes, whether I like it or not, to at best creole recluses, and at worst human trash, subjecting my friends, family members, and even myself, to forced acculturation.

My answer is an emphatic no.

Synonym and Antonyms

Usury, the lending of money at relatively high rates to borrowers, is listed in Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus as follows:

Main Entry:	usury
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	lending money at a high interest rate
Synonyms:	exploitation, stealing (emphasis mine)

Apparently, time preferences are equivalent to criminal acts. A lending money to B at an interest rate above the market 'range' is immoral and exploitative.

This, of course, makes absolutely no sense. In the first place, it's hard to criticize a 'high' rate as such because that very rate is a component of the going market rate itself (assuming there is such a thing as a market rate). But of course, there is no uniform market rate, like there might be a uniform price for, say, Ramen Noodles or golf socks, because whereas these are uniform goods, the interest rate itself depends in large part upon the borrower of the money, and let us not forget that money borrowers are anything but homogeneous. Some borrowers have poorer credit histories than others; some need greater amounts of money than others; some need a specific amount of money longer than others, etc. Enter the interest rate, the price of borrowed funds, that approximates these varying circumstances. All else equal, those who are better at paying back borrowed funds can borrow money for cheaper; those with little or no collateral or equity to buffer against unforeseen losses find it more expensive to borrow money, etc.

With my example above, it's all too plain to see why 'usury' laws are completely ridiculous. In the unhampered market, what is considered an 'usury' rate is simply a rate that reflects competitive market conditions on the lender's side (monopoly position, etc.) and the borrower's relative risk-level. Usury laws that dictate how high of an interest rate can be charged on loans only serve to exclude market participants. Put simply, if you are a borrower such that the market determines your interest rate to be substantially higher than most other borrowers, the government steps in and makes it illegal to loan you money. End of story.

What struck me sour, though, was that the dictionary labels the equivalent of peaceful market exchange rates, however high as they may be, as exploitation, when it is the government and its usury laws that actually do the exploitation by excluding classes of borrowers from the starting line.

Negative Returns

When password requirements become too onerous, the level of protection decreases. Consider passwords of enormous complexity: x amount of numbers, y amount of capital letters, and z number of character entries. There is no easy way to remember such a complex combination, so a given account holder would now store the password on his PC, in a relatively easy location, such as his personal folder. Family members, roommates, and anybody else (all of which were the most likely to access his account in the first place) with the capability of accessing his computer will be able to find this information relatively easy, and thus the ridiculous requirement guaranteed a break-in.

Even if we relax one of the parameters, it is likely that protection will still be compromised. Consider a single requirement of only z number of character entries, say, 15. I will now string words together that make up a silly sentence, or perhaps my full name, or the like, whereas before I could have remembered a small set of 4 random numbers that excluded anybody else with ease.

Of course, none of this is guaranteed, but I do question the effectiveness of password requirements. However, they have guaranteed excluding somebody from the account with unbelievable reliability:

Me, the account holder!!!