Perhaps Americans will — likewise too late — ask themselves what happened in the very near future. Perhaps just after the midnight knock comes and they are taken away into the night.

It is not an exaggeration.

America is now on the cusp of becoming a state that does exactly such things — things exactly like the things done by 20th-century horror shows such as National Socialist Germany or Stalin’s USSR. Literally. Not “this is where it might lead” or “the tendency is similar.” Exactly, literally, the same thing. The only difference is that it awaits being done on a mass scale. But the power to do it openly — brazenly — has been asserted.

And is about to be sanctified by law.

The National Defense Authorization Act will make it official. It will confer upon the executive branch and the military (increasingly, the same things) the permanent authority to snatch and grab any person, U.S. citizens included, whom they decree to be a “terrorist” — as defined or not by the executive or the military — and imprison him indefinitely, without formal charge, presentation of evidence or judicial proceeding of any kind. These “detainees” will have neither civilian rights in the civil court system nor — crucially — even the minimal rights to due process and decent treatment conferred upon prisoners of war. (And we are allegedly “at war,” are we not?)

The language of the bill specifically includes American citizens “caught” within the borders of the United States — aka, the “battlefield.” It is claimed by sponsors that only those awful them – you know, the enemies of freedom the Chimp and his successors like to reference as they systematically gut our freedoms — need worry. But read the actual document, and be afraid.

The wording is such that any shyster lawyer for the government will be able to draw up a memorandum at some point in the near future equating, say, criticism of the federal government’s policies in the Middle East with “substantially supporting” the enemies of the United States. As defined by the United States.

That is, as defined by the government.

At its whim. At the personal discretion of whomever happens to be the Maximum Leader, or even one of the ML’s duly appointed minions.

As the always excellent Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone recently observed, what happens when some nutjob who attended a few Tea Party meetings tries to bomb a federal building? Will the Tea Party itself — and anyone who “substantially supports” it — be thus transformed into an “enemy combatant”? How about the OWS protestors? How about this newsletter or website — and this author — which have on several occasions called b******* on the federal government’s usurpations and follies? How hard will it be, really, to describe such actions — such thoughts expressed in an article or an interview — as “substantially supporting” whatever the government decides amounts to “terrorism” or the threat thereof against itself?

Surely, the door is now wide open for such an interpretation by some John Woo or Dick Cheney waiting in the wings. Prospective jefe Newtie is practically turgid at the prospect of getting his hands on such power. And there is no longer (or soon won’t be) any legal means available to contest a one-way trip to Treblinka in Topeka — or wherever it is they will send you.

Taibbi writes:

“The really galling thing is that this act specifically envisions American citizens falling under the authority of the bill. One of its supporters, the dependably unlikeable Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, bragged that the law ‘basically says …for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield’ and that people can be jailed without trial, be they ‘American citizens or not.’ New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte reiterated that ‘America is part of the battlefield.’”

Graham further stated:

“It is not unfair to make American citizens account for the fact that they decided to help al-Qaida to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next. And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.’”

The key thing being…it is entirely up to the government to decide what constitutes “helping” al al-Qaida. It can be nothing more than a vague assertion. Indeed, no evidence of any kind whatsoever is necessary to “hold them as long as it takes” in order to “find intelligence” (not defined, either) by any means it wishes to employ.

As Taibbi notes:

“If these laws are passed, we would be forced to rely upon the discretion of a demonstrably corrupt and consistently idiotic government to not use these awful powers to strike back at legitimate domestic unrest.”

The Fuhrer (oops, President Obama) is about to sign this latter-day enabling act, and when he does, it will mark the moment that America’s coffin is nailed shut. The corpse has been on view since Sept. 11. But there was always some hope that, perhaps, it might be jolted back into life. Now we know the awful truth. Death is permanent.

And it’s coming for us.

Regards,

Eric Peters

We’ve Crossed the Rubicon was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

We’re continuing our conversation on what a scary place the U.S. is becoming — especially with that monstrous national defense bill about to land on the president’s desk. We keep wondering how much energy to devote to exploring our options elsewhere…and have invited you to do the same.

It’s quite the dilemma.The best move may be to stay in the U.S…even if it’s prudent to move elsewhere within the borders of the United States.

A lot of Americans are just saying “the hell with it” and jumping ship. About 6.4 million of them. From the Russian Times:

“Ever dream of leaving it all behind and heading out of America? You’re not the only one. A new study shows that more U.S. citizens than ever before are living outside of the country.

“According to statistics from the U.S. State Department, around 6.4 million Americans are either working or studying overseas, which Gallup says is the largest number ever for such statistic.

“The polling organization came across the number after conducting surveys in 135 outside nations, and the information behind the numbers reveals that this isn’t exactly a long time coming, either — numbers have skyrocketed only in recent years. In the 24 months before polling began, the number of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 living abroad managed to surge from barely 1% to over 5.1%. For those under the age span wishing to move overseas, the percentage has jumped in the same amount of time, from 15% to 40%.

“While the United States of America was at one point (and largely still is) a magnet for foreigners in search of work, the statistics make it clear that an opposite trend is quickly picking up steam.

“‘There’s a feeling among more-entrepreneurial Americans that if you really want to get anything done, you have to get out of country and away from the depressing atmosphere,’ Bob Adams of America Wave tells Reuters. ‘There’s a sense of lost direction, so more people are looking for locations that offer more hope about the future.’”

We’re sure the search for opportunity has plenty to do with it. But something tells us that’s not the whole story…

We have no army of pollsters, no budget to fund a study.

We do have a hunch, however, based on our own anecdotal evidence.

You see, people are fed up. Not just with economic conditions. But with the political ones. We suspect that that frustration is tinged with fear. We know it is in our case.

The state is growing outright despotic…tyrannical. You have congressmen who make no bones about telling us that we should all be subject to arrest and detention by the military. This at a time when the definition of “terrorism” is expanding to include any activity that annoys the political class.

The government has been in the business of prohibiting personal behaviors, regulating

professional ones and eating out our substance since the beginning. It’s all only gotten worse over time.

But now the state is showing its true face. And it’s so horrible that many of us feel compelled to flee for our lives.

But where to go? That’s what the poster Michael asks in this dispatch from his website, endoftheamericandream.com…

“Millions of American citizens have already left the United States in search of a better life. As the economy continues to crumble and as our society slowly falls apart, millions of others are thinking about it. But moving to another country is not something to be done lightly. The reality is that there are a vast array of social, cultural, economic and safety issues to be considered. If you have never traveled outside of North America, then you have no idea how incredibly different life in other parts of the world can be. For those that are unfamiliar with international travel, it can be quite a shock to suddenly be immersed in a foreign culture.

“In fact, no matter how experienced you are, choosing to relocate to a new country is never easy. But things have gone downhill so dramatically in the United States that picking up and moving to a foreign nation is being increasingly viewed as a viable alternative by millions of Americans. A lot of people have decided that they simply do not want to be in the United States when the excrement hits the fan. So what is the best country in the world for Americans to relocate to in order to avoid the coming economic collapse?

“For each person, that answer may be different. A lot depends on how much money you have and what your career situation is. A lot depends on what stage of life you are at and what your family situation is. Moving to another country can be very complicated and it can be a lot of work, but there are millions of people that have found it to be very rewarding.

“So why are so many Americans looking to relocate?

“Well, our economy continues to get worse and worse. If you have not heard yet, it has been announced that an all-time record 46 million Americans are now on food stamps.

“A lot of Americans want to escape this country before they get sucked into the vortex of poverty that has trapped so many other American families. 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty last year. In addition, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans living in extreme poverty today is higher than has ever been measured before.

“As poverty and despair spread across the United States, the fabric of our society is breaking down. As I have written about so many times, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear.

“Mob violence is becoming increasingly common in America. As society breaks down, the government is becoming even more repressive in an attempt to maintain control. Paranoia has become standard operating procedure, and we are all considered to be potential terrorists. Sadly, the United States is rapidly being turned into a totalitarian ‘Big Brother’ police state. Millions of Americans are not excited about living in a giant prison, and they are starting to look for alternatives.

“Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to pile up the biggest debt in the history of the world. Our government is drowning in debt, our businesses are drowning in debt and American consumers are drowning in debt. At some point, this entire house of cards is going to come crashing down.

“Are you sure that you want to be living in the United States when that happens?”

It’s not as simple as just buying a plane ticket, however. There are a few things to consider. The article lists six:

“Money

“It is a lot easier to move to another country if you are independently wealthy. Since most of us are not, you will likely have to consider how you will pay for the lifestyle that you plan to have once you move.

“There are some countries (like many of the nations of northern Europe) where the cost of living is extremely high. If you plan to move to Europe, that is something that you will need to plan for.

“There are other nations where the strength of the U.S. dollar is a huge benefit (at least for now). If you have a sufficient bankroll saved up, there are some areas of the world where you can literally live like a king.

“Jobs

“Unless you are retired, you will need to consider what kind of job you are going to have once you move. If you do not speak the language of the country where you are moving, that is going to really limit your career options.

“Also, you will need to keep in mind that wages in many areas of the world (especially in the Third World) are much lower than in the United States.

“Laws

“Americans are often shocked to learn that the rights that we enjoy in the United States do not apply in the rest of the world.

“You need to evaluate whether or not you can live with the laws that will be imposed upon you in the country that you choose to relocate to.

“For example, I would not have the same freedom of speech to write the things that I do in a lot of other countries. There are many countries that actually hunt down and arrest bloggers like me.

“Also, it is important to keep in mind that huge taxes or huge fees are often imposed on those moving to a new country. You may actually have to pay a tax on whatever possessions you bring with you.

“Security

“In many areas of the world, you will not be able to count on the police coming to help
you if a crime is committed.

“Even if police are available where you choose to live, that does not mean that they will not be corrupt.

“So it is imperative that you come up with a security plan. Keep in mind that in many countries, the ownership of guns is either banned or is severely limited.

“Family

“If you choose to relocate overseas without the rest of your family, you probably will not get to see them very often at all anymore.

“It will be important for you to evaluate whether you will be able to take long-term separation from your family or not.

“Also, it can be very lonely living overseas in a foreign nation where you do not know the language. In many countries, Americans are deeply hated, so you may find it difficult to make friends.

“Culture Shock

“This is something that should not be underestimated. Moving into the middle of a foreign culture can be absolutely shattering for many people. A lot of Americans have absolutely no idea what life is like on the other side of the globe.

“If you are thinking of moving to another country, it might be a really good idea to visit it first so that you can get a feel for what you are getting into.”

So what is the best country in the world for Americans to relocate to?

Obviously, there is no one answer. But some places would be horrible for most Americans, while other places would be perfect for different Americans.

We’re not too keen on anyplace in Europe, for example. The Old World is mostly pretty in that Old World way, but it is also expensive to inhabit, in love with central planning and going broke.

Latin America seems inviting. That’s why Agora Financial as well as our friends at Casey Research, Sovereign Man, The Daily Bell and The Dollar Vigilante all have a presence there, in Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, respectively.

We hear that the Seasteading folks led by Patri Friedman — grandson of economist Milton Friedman — are looking away from the seas and inland to Honduras. They mean to create charter cities as allowed by that country’s constitution. These charter cities are to become free economic zones that will lift the locals out of property…and attract many liberty-minded entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, in Guatemala, there is actually a library named after Ludwig von Mises! Who knew?

There’s much more to come on this subject, good patrons. Much more. We hope you’ll stick around for the conversation. And we invite you to weigh in with opinions on which country is the best for Americans looking for freedom and opportunity. (Send your opinions here: ggibsonagora@gmail.com.)

We still hold out hope that we all can make a go of it here. Maybe that hope is in vain, but we don’t think so. Not yet. And despite all the bad news. Maybe something will give. Maybe the awareness will continue to grow. Maybe we’ll even get a Ron Paul presidency!

We suspect, however, that the change we need will be more grassroots than top down. It will come from tens of millions of individuals living more deliberately…taking matters in their own hands…with some of them setting themselves up to live abundantly right here in these United States.

If you aim to be one of them, then we suggest you start by clicking here.

And we wouldn’t worry too much if we were you. Yes, these are perilous times. Yes, there are reasons to fear. But for those who are prepared and aware, there is opportunity everywhere.

Gary Gibson

If You Leave the U.S. Permanently, Where Should You Go? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

“The tide of war is receding… It is time to focus on nation building here at home.”

– President Obama, June 22

Ideology makes people stupid. Employing ideology as the basis for policy is a recipe for disaster. Surviving in a complex, uncertain environment requires flexibility, pragmatism and, perhaps above all, self-awareness. That’s true if you’re in the business of making cars or selling doughnuts. It’s truer still for those whose business is statecraft.

When the Cold War ended 20 years ago, Americans chose to view the outcome through the lens of ideology. We congratulated ourselves on winning an unqualified victory, to which we attributed transcendent significance. The outcome had ostensibly rendered a great historical judgment, testifying to the manifest superiority of democratic capitalism — that is, to the American way of doing things. The universal embrace of liberal values, democratic politics and market economics seemed sure to follow, sealing our triumph and extending the American Century for centuries to come.

In Washington, such expectations qualified as advanced thinking, finding expression in the expansive claims that became a hallmark of the 1990s. “We stand tall. We see further into the future.” Thus did Madeleine Albright elaborate on the attributes accruing to the world’s “indispensable nation.” Meanwhile, her boss, Bill Clinton, was wagging his finger at China. Beijing needed to align itself with the “right side of history,” the president counseled, which meant that the Chinese should take their cues from America.

Expanding on or embroidering these themes got your books on best-seller lists, your columns in all the best newspapers and your smiling face on the Sunday talk shows. My favorite artifact of this era remains The New York Times Magazine dated March 28, 1999. The cover story excerpted The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman’s just-released paean to globalization-as-Americanization. The cover itself purported to illustrate “What the World Needs Now.” Alongside a photograph of a clenched fist adorned with the Stars and Stripes in brilliant red, white and blue appeared this text: “For globalism to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is.”

That globalization was transforming the world into a global village had become self-evident, with the United States serving as lord mayor, guidance counselor and purveyor of entertainments. More importantly still, America occupied the office of police chief. So we wished to believe.

A mere decade after the end of the Cold War had delivered history to a neat and satisfying conclusion, the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. Along with horror and heartbreak came humiliation. How could 19 thugs armed with nothing more than box cutters have caught the indispensable nation so completely off-guard?

Many factors contributed to the United States being surprised. Prominent among them was the self-congratulatory mind-set to which Washington had succumbed during the 1990s, manifesting itself in a sense of privilege and dominion appropriate to an almighty superpower. Like the song says, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.” Was not America history’s anointed Superman?

Remarkably, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, served not to overturn such thinking, but to affirm it. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did not disagree with the claims of American prescience and prerogatives expressed by Clinton and Albright. Sharing in the view that the United States was, indeed, an almighty superpower, they merely wanted to assert that power more aggressively. After Sept. 11, they had little difficulty converting George W. Bush — hitherto proponent of a humble foreign policy — to their view.

If the results achieved from winning the Cold War had turned out to be less conclusive than first thought, then surely one more big push would deliver history to its intended destination. So the ideologues in power, now Republicans rather than Democrats, and those cheering from the sidelines, neoconservative voices now ascendant, determined to pull out all the stops. As Richard Perle and David Frum, co-authors of the agitprop classic An End to Evil, put it, “There is no middle way for Americans: It is victory or holocaust.”

Yet the crusade that Perle, Frum and their confreres so vigorously promoted did not unfold as expected. Launched with high expectations of victories won with Superman-style ease, the Global War on Terror turned out to be a long, hard slog and soon enough lost its luster. Over the course of his two terms as president, George W. Bush succeeded chiefly in running the United States military into the ground and the American economy off the rails. Along with victory or holocaust, there turned out to be a third possibility that Perle and Frum had overlooked: exhaustion resulting from our own folly and malfeasance.

With the meter still running, the enterprise launched by Bush a decade ago has taken the lives of over 6,000 U.S. troops, wounded many thousands more and consumed trillions of dollars, while undermining America’s standing around the world. (There is little point in citing the vastly larger number of Afghans, Iraqis and the like who have had their lives torn apart — in Washington, that number doesn’t count.) Rather than peering deep into the future, the United States is demonstrably unable to see even into next week, with major events — the Arab Spring being the most recent example — catching Washington asleep at the switch.

No longer instructing the Chinese on how to manage their affairs, we now routinely tap them for loans so that we can pay our bills. And needless to say, The New York Times no longer proclaims the United States to be an almighty superpower. Meanwhile, what was once advertised as a single coherent war has fragmented into several only vaguely related “overseas contingency operations” in locales as far afield as the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Were that not enough, we’re broke and stuck with an unemployment rate above 9%.

The years 1991 and 2001 are commonly treated as breakpoints, markers that inaugurate distinctive chapters of history, the first labeled “Post-Cold War,” the second “Post-Sept. 11.” Yet there is a strong case to be made for amalgamating the two decades into a single period: Call it the “era of ideological fantasy,” when U.S. self-regard and Washington’s confidence in its ability to remake the world in America’s image reached unprecedented heights.

To survey the past 20 years from our present, much reduced vantage point is to be struck above all by the once cherished, now discarded illusions littering the landscape. Prominent among those shattered illusions are the following:

1. The insistence that history has a discernible purpose, made manifest by the evolving American experiment that is destined to prevail universally.

2. The conviction that the United States is called upon to exercise “global leadership” and that our governing elites possess the capacity to do so effectively.

3. The assurance that U.S.-promoted globalization will produce unprecedented wealth while simultaneously contributing to global peace and harmony, with the American people thereby assured of both greater prosperity and greater security.

4. The notion that a self-regulated or minimally regulated market produces the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens.

5. The belief that America’s privileged place in the international order relieves the United States of any obligation to live within its means.

6. The expectation that in times of crisis, the American people and their leaders will selflessly unite, setting aside partisan differences to act in the common good.

7. The claim, for too long indulged by conservatives, that the Republican Party takes seriously the preservation of traditional values.

8. Perhaps above all, the belief that the United States, having mastered the art of war, can quickly and economically overcome any foe, high-tech precision weapons and superior professionalism, offering a surefire recipe for victory.

Not one of these is true. No amount of recalibration or reformulation or trying harder next time will make any of them true. To pretend otherwise serves no purpose. To escape from our era of ideological fantasy requires acknowledging this reality — facing the dismal consequences that 20 years of American arrogance and misjudgment have yielded. Seldom has a nation relinquished a position of advantage as quickly and recklessly as has the United States in just the past two decades.

What this means for the so-called conservative movement today is this: It’s time to face the music, assess the damage — much of it to be laid at the feet of the faux-conservative Republican Party — and begin the hard work of recovery and restoration.

The most urgent priority is to staunch the hemorrhaging of American power. In this regard, two facts stand out. The first is the federal deficit, hovering around $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year. The United States government borrows 40 cents for every dollar it spends. The second is the war in Afghanistan, nearing its 10th anniversary. There the United States is spending $10 billion per month in hope of pacifying a country with a total annual gross domestic product of perhaps $27 billion.

Together the deficit and the Afghanistan war exemplify the chronic imbalances that, unless corrected, will accelerate American decline. But correction will occur not through pledges or posturing or citing the memory of Ronald Reagan, but by reviving a sense of modesty lost when the Soviet empire collapsed and a capacity for self-restraint flung away when terrorists brought down the World Trade Center.

A pox on ideology. Let’s try reality for a change.

Regards,

Andrew Bacevich

The American Conservative

An End to Empire was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The Economic Collapse Blog concludes,

We are entering a time of extreme financial stress in America.  The federal government is broke.  Most of our state and local governments are broke.  Record numbers of Americans are going bankrupt.  Record numbers of Americans are being kicked out of their homes.  Record numbers of Americans are now living in poverty.

The debt-fueled prosperity of the last several decades came at a cost.  We literally mortgaged the future.  Now nothing will ever be the same again.

To say that “nothing will ever be the same again” is just pessimistic and unnecessary. We actually can return to the prosperity of the past, by replacing debt and austerity with freedom and independence.

There is no need for Americans to suffer through what European countries are suffering, because nearly all the problems we face are caused by governmental intrusions into many aspects of our personal and economic lives — intrusions by federal, state and local governments. Regardless of the good intentions that the welfare and military socialism statists have in justifying their use of compulsory government powers, what America needs is to cut the shackles of State-imposed dependence, restrictions, regulations, taxation, all those policies of moral relativism that involve violations of the Rule of Law: theft, trespass, denial of Due Process, and other acts of State-initiated criminal aggression.

Freeing Americans includes repealing all forms of intrusive presumption-of-guilt regulations and restrictions that are in place having nothing to do with whether any individual is suspected of any crimes against others. Regulations are before-the-fact demands by the government that presume the individual and one’s business guilty, in which one must submit one’s private personal or financial information to the government to prove one’s innocence. Government regulations and arbitrary restrictions are literally searches and seizures by the government of information that is none of anyone else’s business, and effect in the stifling of everyday citizens’ growth and prosperity.

Ending all personal income taxes, corporate taxes, estate taxes, and capital gains taxes frees people who own or share in the ownership of businesses — i.e. employers and prospective employers — to invest in their own research and development and in the expansion of their businesses, which is the genuine force behind jobs creation, in both blue collar and white collar sectors. Ending all personal income taxes frees people to explore their own ideas and inventions, and to start their own businesses that will employ more people and advance society further. Also, ending all personal and corporate income taxes allows individuals and businesses to donate more of their own money to worthy charitable organizations, like it used to be before the intrusiveness of the government entered the scene and discouraged such charity giving.

Some may respond to such suggestions, “Well, if we do all that, then how will government functions be funded?” My response is: do you mean, how do we fund public employees’ 6-figure pensions, how do we fund all the extravagant public employee salaries that are now on average higher than private sector salaries? Or, for example, do you mean to ask how we fund the federal Department of Education that has done nothing but create bureaucracies and turn American education into a Soviet-style indoctrination camp for State-worship? As far as the federal government is concerned, just about every agency and department in Washington can be eliminated, because they are unnecessary and have been nothing but parasitic and slowing America’s growth and progress almost to a halt.

We also need to be honest about the “War on Terror” and the War on Drugs, which are not wars on terror or drugs, but wars on freedom. The war on drugs has been extremely hypocritical, by going after only “street drugs,” but not alcohol and not prescription drugs, all of which have been just as dangerous and lethal. The war on drugs criminalizes victimless behavior, discourages personal responsibility, and has been a boondoggle for law enforcement agencies through confiscation of private property and through bribery, and has caused a black market in drugs which incentivizes the formation of drug gangs and cartels that leads to increased violence, as well as the corruption of otherwise “good” cops and other government officials. What would happen if we immediately ended the War on Drugs and required individuals to be responsible for their actions and decisions? Do we really need to have costly government “anti-drug” enforcement agencies?

And regarding this “War on Terror,” many of the terrorists themselves have expressed explicitly that their primary motivations for their terrorist acts have been political, and not religious, responding to the U.S. government’s many decades of intrusions on those foreign lands as well as the U.S. government’s intrusive interventionist foreign policy. Even a top U.S. general has recently stated that for every one innocent civilian the U.S. military and CIA murders, ten new terrorists are created.

So, what would happen if we simply just closed all the U.S. military bases on foreign lands and brought all U.S. troops, contractors, and bureaucrats back to the U.S.? Does anyone in his right mind actually believe that there would be more terrorism against the U.S.?

If we closed all those foreign bases and brought everyone home and ended the violence that the U.S. military has been committing against foreigners, why, that would mean that the military socialism and welfare redistribution of wealth from middle-class workers over to defense contractors would have to stop. And, I’d like to ask, just how selfish are those defense contractors, knowing how counter-productive U.S. government aggression in the Middle East has been, knowing that they are playing a major role in making America less safe and much less productive, less prosperous and less free?

And how selfish are these big corporate-statist financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, etc., in insisting that their billions of dollars in bonuses that result from bailouts and quantitative easing continue, at the expense of poor, middle-class workers and producers? How selfish will the parasites continue to be, as America continues to decline economically and morally? How much longer do we need to suffer at the hands of the most destructive of political institutions, that Federal Reserve? Because Americans’ inherent, inalienable rights to trade, commerce and contracts with free, competing currencies have been unconstitutionally squashed by this voracious federal Leviathan, we are all becoming poorer, and America is literally turning into a Third World economy. Which isn’t even an “economy” anymore because of the intrusive crimes of the State — America is a State-owned political prison.

In other words, just how helpful has the federal government been to America’s progress? What would happen if we just eliminated the federal government, and restored to the states their constitutionally-recognized inalienable rights to independence and sovereignty that political criminals have stolen from them in these 235 years of America? Is it possible to have an organized country consisting of independent states, but without a central-planning compulsory federal government? Of course it’s possible — and, for us to survive, it is necessary to make such a change, in addition to the elimination of the theft of taxation, the search and seizure of regulations, and the counter-productive wars on drugs and terrorism, and the sooner the better.

In honestly considering such solutions, one would have to conclude that, without a central federal government and all of government’s intrusions, no one would be able to monopolize territorial jurisdictions, monetary functions or the defense of others. There would be freedom, prosperity, and yes, much more security, and with a further assurance of stability for future generations.

Regards,
Scott Lazarowitz
Whiskey & Gunpowder

January 28, 2011

How to Replace Austerity with Freedom, Independence and Prosperity was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The promise of change is, of course, a con. Legitimate change from the burden of big government would necessitate a move toward smaller government. But this is not what the statist mentalities have in mind when they preach change. They wield the word “change” as a shrewd angler wields an alluring fly. It’s a deceptive hook that works because much of humanity is always looking to get more out of life than it is willing to put in. Both Democratic and Republican regimes realize this. Consequently both promise the voters more entitlements, more pork, more privileges.

Slouching Toward Gomorrah

Thus the politics of usurpation proceeds as usual. Mendacity and decadence win out. The abomination of government health care is forced upon us. Our borders become more porous with each passing month. Amnesty for 20 million aliens looms over the horizon. Washington’s imperial overreach stretches to 140 countries throughout the world. Our society slouches toward Gomorrah and the death spiral of ancient Rome. Yet incredibly neoconservatives congratulate themselves with annual celebratory dinners paying tribute to their “successful stand against the enemies of freedom and high-minded culture.”

Our schools, our churches, our publishers, and our entertainment industries are being infested with the serpents of Cultural Marxism. Political correctness dominates the herd mentalities and philistines who overwhelm the perceptive and productive at the polls every other November. The ignominious despotism that Tocqueville warned would come from “unbridled democracy” is stealing over our lives like the debilitating paralysis that invades the bodies of the arthritic. Yet our pundits revel in hosannas to their phony “engineered economic recovery” and how the upcoming century will finally bring us that “heaven on earth” that Rousseau, Marx and Keynes so naively promised, and that the huckster economists and social engineers of the West have been trying to stuff down our throats for 100 years now.

This is certainly not the governing philosophy in which Jefferson and the Founders meant for us to engage. Gushing hundreds of billions of tax dollars to slimy Wall Street bankers so they can puff up their bottom lines and appear to be rightful entrepreneurs is an unspeakable outrage; and it is not the way to bring about legitimate economic recovery. If we want a legitimate recovery, we need to let these dinosaurs go the way of Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” so that real productivity (rather than debt induced stimulation) can come about.

In the cultural arena, giving amnesty to 20 million Central Americans, who have been indoctrinated under socialist / fascist regimes into believing they have a right to cradle to grave security, is hardly the way to restore the American Republic of self-reliance and free enterprise. It is, however, the way to pound the final nails into freedom’s coffin, which is what Obama, Reid and Pelosi understand very clearly.

Allowing our leaders to get away with this kind of political-economic quackery is what the novelist Ayn Rand meant in Atlas Shrugged when she spoke of the “sanction of the victim” being the harbinger of dictatorship. It is what Aldous Huxley meant in Brave New World Revisited when he wrote that a “really efficient totalitarian state” would be comprised of “a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude.” They have been taught to love it by society’s reigning intellectuals in the schools, the churches, and the media.

Signs of Hope

Yet despite the insidious decadence confronting us at every turn, there are signs of hope, significant signs of an awakening desire to face up to the truth — in other words, to face the root causes of our problems.

The response to the Ron Paul campaign was the first such sign. The Tea Party revolts were the next sign. And now we are beginning to see a few intrepid MSM pundits speak openly about the corporate-statist collusion of Washington and Wall Street and its connection to our economic problems. The reason why this is grounds for optimism is that if ever MSM catches on and begins to venture out from the “politically correct” statist herd, then the jig is up for the corporate-statist authoritarians and their Machiavellian hold over us.

A promising example of the new MSM intrepidity can be found in a recent 12-minute report, The Great Con Job, by Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC. This is a powerful attack upon the banking / bureaucratic con game that has been orchestrated over the past 15-20 years in America. CLICK HERE to view this remarkable video Remove from email version. Ratigan is one of MSM’s more fearless TV journalists. How deeply he grasps the root causes of our political-economic problems I don’t know. It is doubtful that he has connected the dots all the way back through the fraudulency of Keynesian economics and FDR in the 1930s, and then to 1913 where the root causes were laid for America’s destruction with the inception of the Federal Reserve and the progressive income tax. But Ratigan is sharp and amazingly articulate, and he has demonstrated throughout his career that he will not play lackey to the establishment as 90% of his journalistic brethren are doing. This is why I maintain there is room for optimism.

We must remember that the Berlin Wall did finally fall. The monster state of the Soviet Union came crashing down with it — all because the ideological monopoly (which must always precede any political monopoly and dictatorship) became impossible for the communists in the Politburo to maintain. The ideological / political monopoly here in the West is not the same kind as that which plagued the USSR. Ours is voluntarily accepted by the journalistic and political players, rather than coercively enforced through legislation and police suppression. Our submission is more of what Rand and Huxley wrote about 50 years ago. It has been ingrained into us through intellectual sophistry over the decades in the schools and then reinforced by a compliant priesthood and media. Thus it will be more difficult to discredit because it is self-imposed. But unlike the Soviet patriots, we have the Internet which will help immensely.

The Ratigan Report is a very hopeful start toward building that awareness among the intelligentsia that is necessary for statism to be thwarted. Dictatorial government cannot be brought down without such an awareness among the perceptive and independent of the populace. The herd will do as it always has done throughout history — obey its masters. But the rebels, the doers, the dissidents are a breed apart. They will do the right thing once the truth has been shown to them. Then the revolution begins. And I think it has now dawned upon great numbers of American intelligentsia that the Emperor in Washington is naked, and that its rapacious godfather on Wall Street is equally and despicably devoid of legitimacy.

A Grassroots Uprising

This awareness can be built into a major grassroots uprising throughout America. This is what I have written about in The Conservative Revolution: Why We Must Form a Third Political Party to Win It. The oppressive rule of the statist elites cannot maintain itself if we will muster the backbone to stand up to it. But this will take a far more rational approach than the present level of political activism in America. It will take an exposition of the root causes of our despotism, which are the institutions of infamy enacted into law in 1913 — the Federal Reserve and the progressive income tax. But most importantly, it will take an effective third-party political strategy that can circumvent the corporate-statist elites and their control over our two major parties in America.

Such a plan is outlined in The Conservative Revolution, and is the foundation of the newly formed Conservative American Party. It is called the “Two Pillars Strategy.” It is a unique, never before envisioned approach to politics that will go to the root of our problems and bring back sanity to our country. The key to its success will be its genuine reform of our tax and monetary systems. It will lower tax rates to 10% for everyone, simplify tax preparation to 10 minutes every April, neuter the Fed, and reduce inflation to zero. The “Two Pillars” reform plan will bring back millions of jobs from overseas, dramatically restore the productivity of our nation, and because of the way the tax plan is designed, it will stop the growth of the Federal Government cold and begin its automatic reduction.

A second key to the plan’s success will be because of its universal appeal, the “Two Pillars Strategy” will easily get the Conservative American Party 15% in the polls, which will qualify it’s candidate for the National TV Presidential Debates. This will get a vital third voice — a true limited government voice — in front of 70 million voters that can challenge the corruption and obtuseness of our two major parties. This has never been done in the 48-year history of the debates. It will electrify the country.

Conventional pundits scorn the concept of a third-party as “unworkable in America,” but they are oblivious to the two major mistakes of “marginalization” and “cloning” that all third-parties have made for the past 150 years, which when corrected will allow a third-party to succeed. The Two Pillars Strategy corrects these two major mistakes. The Conservative Revolution demonstrates that a third political party (espousing freedom and headed by a candidate with gravitas) can indeed work, and that those who think otherwise are immersed in a fallacious darkness that is greatly contributing to the stultification of America.

Is this all a pipe dream, “delusional rantings of reactionaries that refuse to accept modernity,” as the leftist establishment will surely try to portray it? Not at all. It is a thoroughly researched, powerfully designed, revolutionary plan to take back America starting in 2012 with the two pillars of tax and monetary reform, combined with two additional pillars of immigration and foreign policy reform. Eminent scholars and pundits have endorsed the “Two Pillars Plan.” A 90-minute documentary is presently being made about it by the acclaimed film maker, James Jaeger, of Matrixx Entertainment. It is titled Spoiler: How a Third Political Party Could Succeed. To give the reader an idea of the exciting potential here, Jaeger’s film, Fiat Empire, has been viewed by over 5 million people. If we can get the same numbers for Spoiler, the Demopublican establishment and their destructive grip over America will be ended.

In a front page USA TODAY article, Tuesday, April 20, 2010, Richard Wolf writes that, “The nation’s fastest-growing political party is ‘none of the above’….For the first time since Gallup started asking in 1992, both major parties are viewed unfavorably by most Americans. Nearly four in 10 voters call themselves independents, Gallup says.”

It is from this rising sea of discontented independents (40% of the electorate), combined with fed up Republicans and Democrats (probably another 20%), that the impetus will come for the third-party revolution necessary to save America. All it takes is 35% of the vote to win in a three man race.

If we as citizens want to stop the runaway freight train of debt and delusion that is consuming our myopic politicians in Washington, if we want to stop the suicidal immigration policies and imperialistic militarism that are destroying the last vestiges of the American Republic, then we must challenge the monopoly that corporate-statists have over our politics. We must open up the system by injecting a rational third voice into the process.

Breaking the Monopoly

Democrats and Republicans will not tell the truth to voters; they are bought off by the corporate-statists. Our schools will not tell the truth; they are controlled by the corporate-statists. Our media will not tell the truth; they are owned by the corporate-statists. Only a third political party can break this monopolistic grip. But it has to be a REAL third-party that can garner the necessary 15% in the polls so as to qualify for the National TV Presidential Debates where it can forcefully contest the philosophical fraud and political perfidy of the Demopublicans in front of 70 million viewers. This, the Conservative American Party can do because its revolutionary “Two Pillars Strategy” will circumvent the two flaws that have doomed all conventional third-parties for the past 150 years.

Imagine Ron Paul (representing Constitutional conservatism) and Patrick Buchanan (representing cultural conservatism) — one as Presidential candidate and the other as Vice-President — on a Conservative American Party ticket in 2012. Imagine them confronting the Democratic-Republican monopoly in front of 70 million viewers on nationwide TV during the 2012 Presidential debates. Imagine them giving half-hour lectures on the major TV networks prior to each of the three debates like Ross Perot did in 1992. Imagine a Paul / Buchanan ticket campaigning throughout the heartland. It would inspire conservatives, libertarians, independents, blue dog Democrats, and Tea Parties everywhere. Imagine the potential! They wouldn’t win, but they could launch a true patriot party that could win in the next two election cycles. What’s important is that the restoration of the Republic could begin in 2012. The ground is being laid right now. A passionate book has been written, and a galvanizing film is being shot. The grassroots of our country are being sown for a momentous paradigm shift in American politics. The Conservative American Party is, in the words of Victor Hugo, “an idea whose time has come.”

Regards,

Nelson Hultberg
Whiskey & Gunpowder

April 23, 2010

Saving America from Corporate-Statism was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Like it or not, the Aussie share market still takes its marching orders from the U.S. action. It hasn’t decoupled yet – even though what drives the respective economies of Australia and America is somewhat different. Australia has resource demand for its raw materials from emerging markets. America does not. But both countries have debt (especially household debt), and plenty of it.

Here in Australia, what will investors think of the new powers being sought by the Federal government on behalf the corporate regulator, ASIC? ASIC would have the power to tap phone lines, impose fines of $500,000 on insider traders, and double jail terms for insider traders from five to ten years. Hmmn.

Better yet, what will corporate insiders think? We’ve seen some strange share price activity since moving to Australia four years ago. Shares move on no news and volume spikes. Then a few days or weeks later some important announcement comes out. And frankly, the disclosure rules for insider buying (or selling), or at least the enforcement of those rules, seem fairly voluntary.

Not that it’s any better in America or anywhere else. But perhaps because of the smaller financial community and the underpowered regulator, the insiders have a better time of it here than they might other places. Ahem.

But the power to tap telephones? Yikes. That sounds draconian. But it’s fully in line with the encroachment of government power into private life, so it’s no big surprise.

Outside Australia, more trouble is piling up for the world’s most debt-addled nations. “We no longer classify the United Kingdom (AAA/Negative/A-1+) among the most stable and low-risk banking systems globally,” said ratings agency Standard and Poor’s. The FTSE finished lower on that cheery note.

This is the big back story to today’s financial markets. The debt problem has not gone away. Banks have recapitalised, making up for some of their losses from 2008 and 2009. But you still have a financial system addicted to debt and leverage. Investors have bought into the recovery story, though, and taken a punt on shares at just the time they ought to be reducing their allocation to shares (in our estimate). Why?

The deleveraging that kicked off in 2008 still had a long way to run. The banks know this, which is why they’ve decreased risk by being stingier with lending. Shareholders, on the other hand, have done the opposite. And that could cost them.

“Any discussion about the response to the crisis,” reports Peter Larsen at Reuters “must acknowledge the need to reduce the levels of debt that have been built up. A study by McKinsey, the consultancy, found that previous deleveraging episodes have generally taken four forms: a period of belt-tightening, in which credit growth lags behind economic growth for many years; massive defaults; high inflation; or a period of rapid GDP growth as a result of a war effort or an oil boom.”

So which will it be? The RBA releases its report today on financial aggregates. We’ll see if credit growth is lagging the economy. Not likely, we reckon. Massive defaults? High inflation (higher than the RBA is comfortable with)? Or war and an oil boom?

None of them are particularly attractive. But none have really happened yet either. That’s why we think 2010 will have more fireworks. Perhaps a debt default by a sovereign government or two. And then you have fewer and fewer surviving financial firms all deemed too-big-to-fail by the government. Not good.

This just in…the U.S. Senate has voted to raise America’s statutory debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion. This will allow the Treasury to borrow more money to both service existing debt and pay for this year’s $1.3 trillion annual deficit. Ben Bernanke was also confirmed for another for another four-year term as destroyer in chief of the U.S. dollar by a 70-30 vote.

Prediction: at some point the American people are going to turn on the clowns ruining their money and their financial future, piling up debt that will take decades to pay off, if it’s ever paid off at all. The Congressional Budget Office reckons that interest on that debt will more than double as a percentage of GDP. In nominal terms, it will triple from $202 billion to $723 billion.

That’s just interest. That is the price of living above your means as a nation. That is the price (really just part of the price) for making promises you can’t keep. It’s a big price. And in the meantime, we’d take U.S. dollar rallies with a lick of salt. And though we read this morning that George Soros thinks everything is in a bubble – including gold – we’d keep an eye on old yeller and look to buy more on dollar strength.

Regards,
Dan Denning
The Daily Reckoning, Australia

February 1, 2010

The Debt Problem Has Not Gone Away was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

I find it perplexing that only 20 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the West continues to implement laws that mimic all of the failed policies of our former “communist” foes. In fact, our current president won the election by promising to “spread the wealth around.” But… truth be told… we don’t have to look to Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union to find a society destroyed by coercion, socialism, and the overreaching power of the State. We could just look at Detroit…

In 1961, the last Republican mayor of Detroit lost his re-election bid to a young, intelligent Democrat, with the overwhelming support of newly organized black voters. His name was Jerome Cavanagh. The incumbent was widely considered to be corrupt (and later served 10 years in prison for tax evasion). Cavanagh, a white man, pandered to poor underclass black voters. He marched with Martin Luther King down the streets of Detroit in 1963. (Of course, marching with King was the right thing to do… It’s just Cavanagh’s motives were political not moral.) He instated aggressive affirmative action policies at City Hall. And most critically, he greatly expanded the role of the government in Detroit, taking advantage of President Lyndon Johnson’s “Model Cities Program” – the first great experiment in centralized urban planning.

Mayor Cavanagh was the only elected official to serve on Johnson’s task force. And Detroit received widespread acclaim for its leadership in the program, which attempted to turn a nine-square-mile section of the city (with 134,000 inhabitants) into a “model city.” More than $400 million was spent trying to turn inner cities into shining new monuments to government planning. In short, the feds and Democratic city mayors were soon telling people where to live, what to build, and what businesses to open or close. In return, the people received cash, training, education, and health care.

The Model Cities program was a disaster for Detroit. But it did accomplish its real goal: The creation of a state-supported, Democratic political power base. The program also resulted in much higher taxes – which were easy to pitch to poor voters who didn’t have to pay them. Cavanagh pushed a new income tax through the state legislature and a “commuter tax” on city workers.

Unfortunately, as with all socialist programs, lots of folks simply don’t like being told what to do. Lots of folks don’t like being plundered by the government. They don’t like losing their jobs because of their race.

In Detroit, they didn’t like paying new, large taxes to fund a largely black and Democratic political hegemony. And so, in 1966, more than 22,000 middle- and upper-class residents moved out of the city.

But what about the poor? As my friend Doug Casey likes to say, in the War on Poverty, the poor lost the most. In July 1967, police attempted to break up a late-night party in the middle of the new “Model City.” The scene turned into the worst race riot of the 1960s. The violence killed more than 40 people and left more than 5,000 people homeless. One of the first stores to be looted was the black-owned pharmacy. The largest black-owned clothing store in the city was also burned to the ground. Cavanagh did nothing to stop the riots, fearing a large police presence would make matters worse. Five days later, Johnson sent in two divisions of paratroopers to put down the insurrection. Over the next 18 months, an additional 140,000 upper- and middle-class residents – almost all of them white – left the city.

And so, you might rightfully ask… after five years of centralized planning, higher taxes, and a fleeing population, what did the government decide to do with its grand experiment, its “Model City”? You’ll never guess….

Seeing it had accomplished nothing but failure, the government endeavored to do still more. The Model City program was expanded and enlarged by 1974′s Community Development Block Grant Program. Here again, politicians would decide which groups (and even individuals) would receive state funds for various “renewal” schemes. Later, Big Business was brought into the fold. In exchange for various concessions, the Big Three automakers “gave” $488 million to the city for use in still more redevelopment schemes in the mid-1990s.

What happened? Even with all of their power and all of the money, centralized planners couldn’t succeed with any of their plans. Nearly all of the upper and middle class left Detroit. The poor fled, too. The Model City area lost 63% of its population and 45% of its housing units from the inception of the program through 1990.

Even today, the crisis continues. At a recent auction of nearly 9,000 seized homes and lots, less than one-fifth of the available properties sold, even with bidding starting at $500. You literally can’t give away most of the “Model City” areas today. The properties put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York’s Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area the size of Boston – Detroit properties in foreclosure have more than tripled since 2007.

Every single mayor of Detroit since 1961 has been a Democrat. Every single mayor of Detroit since 1974 has been black. Detroit has been a major recipient of every major social program since the early 1960s and has received hundreds of billions of dollars in government grants, loans, and programs. We now have a black, Democrat president, who is promising to do to America as a whole what his political mentors have done to Detroit.

Those of you with a Democratic political affiliation may think what I’ve written above is biased or false. You may think what you like. But there is no way to argue that what the government has done to Detroit is anything but a horrendous crime. You may think what I’ve written above is merely a political analysis. Perhaps so, but politicians drive macroeconomic policy. And macroeconomic policy determines key financial metrics, like the trade-weighted value of a currency and key interest rates.

The likelihood America will become a giant Detroit is growing – rapidly. Politicians now control the banking sector, most of the manufacturing sector (including autos), a large amount of media, and are threatening to take over health care and the production of electricity (via cap and trade rules). These are the biggest threats to wealth in the history of our country. And these threats are causing the world’s most accomplished and wealthy investors to actively short sell the United States – something that is unprecedented in my experience.

Regards,
Porter Stansberry

November 2, 2009

Editor’s Note: A big thanks to Porter Stansberry for this article. We here at Whiskey were very eager to run it. If you would like to read more from Porter and find out about his investment research, just take a look here.

Detroit’s Socialist Nightmare Is America’s Future was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Despite what a few elderly Mr. Naturals may say about abolishing “capitalism,” we’re not going to have an advanced economy without a coherent banking system, and by advanced economy I mean one in which the lights stay on. By coherent I mean a system that is able to deploy accumulated wealth for productive purposes, in the service of continuing civilization. (And, yes, I know that the followers of Daniel Quinn are not so sure that civilization is worth the trouble, but unless you support the killing-off of about six billion humans right away, things on Earth are not favorably disposed just now for a return to hunting-and-gathering.)

I would hasten to cut through the fog of despair to reassert — for the thousandth time — that a true American perestroika is possible, if the public could overcome the plague of cognitive dissonance sweeping the land and form a consensus for action that comports with reality’s agenda. But that is looking less and less likely. Instead, what we see is a rush into delusion, seasoned with grievance and gall. Spectacles like last weekend’s march on Washington don’t happen for no reason, of course. From where I sit, the uproar can be attributed to comprehensively bad American leadership, a crisis in authority and legitimacy that has left a functional vacuum in every executive office throughout the land — from the White House to the state houses, to the lairs of the CEOs, to the towers of the deans and department chairs, to the glitzy sets of the nightly news deliverers, to the makeshift quarters of the NGO chiefs. In former times, clueless and impotent leaders stuck their heads in the sand. Nowadays, with pandemic narcissism abroad in the land, the heads are more usually inserted into the aperture that leads into the large bowel….

But I indulge in diverting objurgation when I should perhaps explain this American perestroika more clearly. The Russian word roughly translates to “restructuring.” They flubbed it in 1989 because their system was too ossified and too far gone — though history and circumstance eventually did it for them. A similar outcome is possible here, too, in which things just have to completely fall apart before emergent reorganization occurs. But you can be sure that if we allow this to happen, an awful lot of things will get smashed along the way, including lives, careers, families, property, and cherished institutions.

This monster we call the economy is not just an endless series of charts and graphs — it’s how we live, and that has to change, whether we like it or not. Now, it is obviously a huge problem that a majority of Americans don’t like the idea. If they were true patriots, instead of overfed cowards and sado-masochists, they’d be inspired by the prospect. But something terrible has happened to our national character since the triumphal glow of World War Two wore off. I just hope that the Palinites and the myrmidons of Glen Beck don’t destroy what’s left of this country in a WWF-style “revolution.” In the best societies, such are marginalized by a kinder and sturdier consensus about justice. In America today, the center is not holding because there is no center.

American perestroika really boils down to this: we have to rescale the activities of daily life to a level consistent with the mandates of the future, especially the ones having to do with available energy and capital. We have to dismantle things that have no future and rebuild things that will allow daily life to function. We have to say goodbye to big box shopping and rebuild Main Street. More people will be needed to work in farming and fewer in tourism, public relations, gambling, and party planning. We have to make some basic useful products in this country again. We have to systematically decommission suburbia and reactivate our small towns and small cities. We have to prepare for the contraction of our large cities. We have to let the sun set on Happy Motoring and rebuild our trains, transit systems, harbors, and inland waterways. We have to reorganize schooling at a much more modest level. We have to close down most of the overseas military bases we’re operating and conclude our wars in Asia. Mostly, we have to recover a national sense of common purpose and common decency. There is obviously a lot of work to do in the list above, which could translate into paychecks and careers — but not if we direct all our resources into propping up the failing structures of yesterday.

The most dangerous illusion, of course, is a belief that we can return to a hyped up turbo debt “consumer” economy — and perhaps the most disappointing thing about Barack Obama, is his incessant cheerleading for a “recovery” to what is already lost and unrecoverable. The man who ran for office on “change” doesn’t really have the stomach for it. But, of course, events are in the driver’s seat now, not personalities, even charming ones. I’d venture to say that if Mr. Obama thinks he’s seen a crisis, and gotten through it, then he ain’t seen nothin’ yet. We are for sure not returning to the kind of credit orgy that made the last twenty years such a nauseating spectacle — of which, by the way, the misfeasances and wretched excesses of Wall Street were just one manifestation.

Some theorists out there say that economy follows mood, not vice-versa, and that the anger and sourness on display around the USA, in events like the weekend Washington march, is a clear sign that tectonic shifts in the structures of everyday life are sure to follow. There are too many truly good and intelligent people in this country, to leave our fate to the Palins and the Glen Becks [and Obamas—ed.] But the good people had better man up and start telling the truth with some conviction that the truth matters.

Regards,
James Howard Kunstler

September 17, 2009

Reality Receding Across America was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The slow, agonizing death of that dream began in 1913 with the establishment of the Fed. It was damaged further by the behavior of the Fed and the big money men through events which led to the Great Depression, and suffered mortal blows under Roosevelt and Truman. The avalanche of irrational spending and social legislation since that time has lead to impractical expectations that could never have been true in any country at any time…after America in the early nineteen hundreds.

“Achievement” based on our own talents and effort has has been replaced by the entitlement mentality and the politics of envy. Passing lightly, for the moment, over the fiscal impossibility of Mr. Obama’s latest scheme to duplicate a chicken in every pot — “A college education for every young American!” — this is yet another feel-good, gimme, pie-in-the-sky statist ploy. In a nation with the drop out rates and widespread illiteracy among youngsters, how does anyone propose to qualify every last kid in America for matriculation? Where are the extra classrooms, textbooks, and teachers to come from?

The whole idea is ludicrous because no matter what the Constitution says (not that statists care), all men are not created equal intellectually. All men are not created equal in terms of what they want to do with their lives or what they would find fulfilling careers. Some of us do not want a MacMansion if it means living in the city. Some would stay cramped in a railroad flat in NYC for decades just to be in the Big Apple. Some like being mechanics and plumbers and electricians, careers which provide them with considerable personal satisfaction and very much above average incomes. Some don’t want to do anything except lie around watching TV or to talk trash, smoke dope, mug strangers, and “draw” welfare.

I did an analysis in 1990 and discovered that over 90% of all youth going before the courts in Seattle were functionally or totally illiterate. How does Mr. Obama propose to turn such into college graduates? A shockingly disproportionate number of “gifted” kids drop out of school, bored senseless with the watered down curriculum and “social” programs. Some, in time, will earn a GED and go to college; many will be wasted.

Each generation in the last century saw a lessening of expectations academically. Use a search engine to find the final exam for the 8th grade — as high as undergraduate education went late in the 19th Century — for Kansas, I think in 1895, although it may have been 1875. I have two college degrees and have done graduate work in five fields. I could pass that exam, but I certainly could not cover myself with glory.

The HS education of the Thirties was the equivalent of a BA in the Sixties. Very few of those who have been graduated since the Eighties will ever begin to know what the average college graduate knew in the Viet Nam era. The real truth is that most of the erudition the highly-educated have came from work they had done on their own because they wanted to know. They view education as a life-long pursuit.

These days we have a show asking “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?” We have millions who never even heard of diagramming a sentence.

Two years ago a high school junior in a “good” school in Houston took Biology. At her age, we were dissecting angle worms the first day and worked our ways up through rats, eels, and cats. HER class went to nearby Galveston and got a small shark. The course of instruction consisted of keeping the shark alive until the last week of school when the teacher dissected it. This is not the sort of biological “knowledge” that leads to future research geniuses. Neither does “Bowling,” another of her classes, or “Yearbook.” She had yet to have mastered the multiplication tables and was still on “pre-Algebra.” I had my first real Algebra course in the 7th grade and three more in high school plus geometry, Latin, Spanish, and Business Law, which stands me in good stead to this day. A college education these days is little more than a necessary stamp of the ticket and does not begin to guarantee even an entry level job, as witness how few recently-graduated lawyers were able to get jobs in that field ten years ago and ever since. We’ve got more lawyers than we need and nowhere near enough engineers, veterinarians, and butchers.

We cannot make genuine college graduates, with what most of us think that term should mean, out of every bit of the raw material at hand. Kids who read poorly, if at all, have no idea how percentages work, and think they are “entitled” to free food, housing, insurance, and medical care are not college material, any more than all of them can become stars in the NBA, successful actresses, or morticians.

Naturally, we cannot set the matter of cost aside. The federal government has beggared this nation for generations and is on a rampage in this century that cannot fail to usher in The Greater Depression. Japan has been suffering from Depression for 19 years, now, and it didn’t spend nearly as much as Washington did. There are so many “social” programs now, and so many more being demanded, that it is not feasible to fund college even for those who qualify even under the current very lax standards.

College is a sheer waste of time for those who have neither the inclination nor the ability to succeed there. Year after year the costs have gone up, and the degree it took four years to earn in my day now takes six. Rather like car loans. Less product for more money.

We can all but guarantee that with true joblessness running nearly 20% (by the standards used during the Great Depression), firms cutting back hours and cutting salaries, and the difficulties universities are having getting operating funds because charitable giving is down, that prices will continue to rise, enrollment will drop (making cost per student even higher), and we will see increasing defaults on student loans. My son has about $75,000′ worth, himself, for which he was graduated summa cum laude and has an MBA. That is also over a year’s salary for him. To add to the strain, through governmental witchery some of those student loans got thrown over into a program with 15% interest rates, breaking the agreement Andrew had made! Nobody consulted him; they just broke the contract and said, “This is how it is now.”

I have written before that the future of higher education is on-line schooling, just as the best option for fortunate children is home-schooling. Three years ago it cost almost exactly what going to the University of Texas for ‘Drew’s MBA would have…but his books were included, classes were never closed to enrollment, and he didn’t spend a great many dangerous, expensive hours on freeways, hunting parking places, or hanging around campus between classes. His work involved all written projects and reports, developing the writing skills he had learned at home. (By the time your mama the editor has marked up all of your papers for three years…)

There isn’t even an illusion of pie in the sky any more. The big rock candy mountain is down to a pile of grubby shards. ALL of the children in America may not and can not go to college for free or even otherwise, and $4000/a year or even a semester is a token. A college education these days costs as much to the families — or a state — as does incarcerating a felon, although it yields a better proportion of taxpayers eventually.

Next time we will discuss other factors which lead to the dismal level of “scholarship” in America and what that portends for the future. Governmental policies have driven away manufacturing jobs, and brains have been drained. There will be less and less interest in “service” industries. My focus is always on what we, as individuals, can do to solve problems for ourselves. We can see that our children do not end up unable to distinguish between they’re, their, and there, or confused over whether to write “companies” or “company’s.” Education, charity, and financial responsibility all need to begin at home, as they did long ago.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

September 16, 2009

The Education Bubble, Part I was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

It brings back the question, which has loomed dimly at the margins of America’s collective consciousness, as to whether we can get through the long emergency ahead without going through a wringer of domestic political convulsion. At this rate, sooner or later, anything identified with wealth could become a target for the wrath of the unemployed and foreclosed. The first rock that flies through an East Hampton window, or the first firebomb tossed into the lobby of Goldman Sachs Manhattan headquarters could ignite a chain of events that shoves all economic policy out of the political arena and quickly divides everyone at the center of power into armies out for blood.

What the nation — including President Obama — can’t seem to get through its head is that the USA has entered a period of epochal economic contraction.  Instead of growth, as measured in conventional econometrics, we can only expect (in the best case) transformation to a different economy within the limits of real contraction. The president has got to stop promising renewed growth.  While this would affect the perceived “standard-of-living” as measured in things like shopping mall sales and vehicle miles driven, it would not necessarily mean diminished “quality-of-life.”  It would mean different ways-of-life for a lot of people — for instance, young adults who had expected lifetime employment as corporate executives but who, instead, find themselves ten years from now working at farming. We have an awful lot to get real about.

A genuine reorganization of the US economy seems beyond the ken not just of all US politicians but of the entire US news media and business leadership. A wonderful example last week was the idiotic press conference by General Motors marketing chief, Bob Lutz, who thinks he can revive the American Dream with electric cars. (By the way, this is pretty much the same thinking I encountered at the Aspen Environmental Forum among the Green celebrities.)

From a purely practical standpoint, the electric car is absurd.  If they were produced on a mass basis, they would crash the electric grid — assuming that the masses could afford to buy them, which assumes a lot. We simply don’t have the electric generating capacity to run even one-quarter of the current car fleet on volts, and building the necessary nuclear or coal-fired power plants in five years is also an absurdity. (Don’t expect wind, solar, biomass, or anything else to pick up the slack.) If electric cars were produced as just a niche product for the elite (e.g. Goldman Sachs employees), they would soon provoke the resentment of the non-elite left to the mercy of the oil markets.

Anyway, America’s motoring dilemma has gone beyond the issue of how we power the cars — and even beyond the insanity of blindly maintaining our extreme car dependency per se.  The continuation of Happy Motoring now hinges on two other big quandaries: 1. the likelihood that there will be far less capital available for car loans, and 2.) the likelihood that there will be far less government money for road maintenance. The problem of Peak Oil — and the prospect of price-jackings and shortages — is just the cherry on top.

By the way, for practical purposes Bob Lutz of GM is an employee of the US taxpayers now, since the US owns 60 percent of the “new” General Motors, so he must be considered a spokesman for national policy. Since a transformation of the US car fleet to electric vehicles is absurd, what would be an appropriate response to profound economic contraction? How about walkable communities connected by mass transit?  Why is that not a focus of the “new” General Motors?  In 1941 the company made the transformation from cars to armaments in a matter of months; why can’t it produce the rolling stock for a renewed passenger rail system?  Or trams?  Is this not enough of a crisis? The answer is that there is no leadership in this direction. If President Obama declared this to be a policy objective, and stuck to it for more than one business day, he could drag the sleepwalking American public in this direction, and the rest of national leadership in government, business, and media with it.

This kind of thing is what prompts casual observers to wonder if the president is a cynical shill for business as usual, or a victim of the worst conventional thinking with no real vision, or just another clueless sleepwalking bozo with a charming veneer.

In circles that pass for “progressive” these days, the natives are getting restless. Their agitation seems pretty inchoate for the moment — still resting on vague, poorly-defined wishes for “change.”  These vague promptings need to be focused on specific action that is realistic within the context of comprehensive contraction and transformation.  A big piece of this would be the recognition that our suburban sprawl economy is dying, and that we now have to bend our efforts to reorganizing American life on the most fundamental physical terms.  We have to inhabit the landscape differently, move around it differently, generate food out of it differently, and make things on it again.  Whatever remaining real capital there is in the system can’t be squandered on cash bonuses for Wall Street employees.

Regards,
James Howard Kunstler

July 16, 2009

Contraction and Electric Car Whimsy was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.