The only way to create a stable financial system is to force banks, investors, and creditors to bear their own risk. The only way to make them bear their own risk is to end bailouts once and for all. And the only way to end bailouts once and for all may be to dissolve---or at least permanently weaken---the Fed.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Government guns versus private guns
They (politicians) don’t want ordinary people to own guns — and government should have all the guns. If you wanted to compare the number of people who die from government guns versus private guns — historically, government kills about 95 percent of the people. Maybe it’s worse than that, when you think of the 20th century.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Coercion is evil
Coercion is evil precisely because it thus eliminates an individual as a thinking and valuing person and makes him a bare tool in the achievement of the ends of another. Free action, in which a person pursues his own aims by the means indicated by his own knowledge, must be based on data which cannot be shaped at will by another.
Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992), The Constitution of Liberty
Friday, May 25, 2018
Stand a little less between me and the sun...
When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.
Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993), Economics in One Lesson
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Quote from Peter Schiff's 2014 book The Real Crash
Quote from Peter Schiff's 2014 book The Real Crash (or at Amazon)...
No regulator will ever be as effective as the threat of failure.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Bill of Rights; Unnecessary and Dangerous
Perhaps the most insightful piece among both Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers is Federalist Paper No. 84, surprisingly written by one founding father (crony) I despise the most, the father of central banking Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804). Yet, this federal-centralist proposed the Bill of Rights as "unnecessary" and "dangerous", of course confirmed by U.S. history, as well elaborated by Proems & Poems 19, 20 & 21 in my latest and 10th book One-Hundred Proems and Poems on the Peculiar Human Ability to REASON, Singular Human Right to CONSENT and Other Neglected Matters. Below is an excerpt from Proem No. 21...
"True to Alexander Hamilton's predictions implied in Federalist No. 84 and as bold it may be to say, every aspect of life not mentioned in the U.S. Bill of Rights are intrusively touched by government law, regulation, policy, license, permit, tax, tariff, ban, surveillance, etc. Bolder still yet no less true, every aspect of life particularly mentioned in the U.S. Bill of Rights are intrusively touched by government law, regulation, policy, license, permit, tax, tariff, ban, surveillance, etc.
Ironically, the historically assumed and quite stringently constitutional interpretation “whatever is not written, is not allowed” already began the slow, unnoticed digression in the late 18th century, until the tyrannical convenience “whatever is not written, is allowed” fully matured in the 20th and 21st centuries. To disagree is to ignore implications in and around Mr. Hamilton’s arguments against the Bill of Rights, to insist on disagreeing is to overlook U.S. history entirely."
Ironically, the historically assumed and quite stringently constitutional interpretation “whatever is not written, is not allowed” already began the slow, unnoticed digression in the late 18th century, until the tyrannical convenience “whatever is not written, is allowed” fully matured in the 20th and 21st centuries. To disagree is to ignore implications in and around Mr. Hamilton’s arguments against the Bill of Rights, to insist on disagreeing is to overlook U.S. history entirely."
Copyright © 2018 by D.C. Quillan Stone
Friday, May 11, 2018
Collectivist Doctrines Are Harbingers of Irreconcilable Hatred and War
Excerpt from Ludwig von Mises' Epistemological Problems of Economics (see link for free ebook), Chapter 1...
"The reproach of individualism is commonly leveled against economics on the basis of an alleged irreconcilable conflict between the interests of society and those of the individual. Classical and subjectivist economics, it is said, give an undue priority to the interests of the individual over those of society and generally contend, in conscious denial of the facts, that a harmony of interests prevails between them. It would be the task of genuine science to show that the whole is superior to the parts and that the individual has to subordinate himself to, and conduct himself for, the benefit of society and to sacrifice his selfish private interests to the common good.
In the eyes of those who hold this point of view society must appear as a means designed by Providence to attain ends that are hidden from us. The individual must bow to the will of Providence and must sacrifice his own interests so that its will may be done. His greatest duty is obedience. He must subordinate himself to the leaders and live just as they command.
But who, one must ask, is to be the leader? For many want to lead, and, of course, in different directions and toward different goals. The collectivists, who never cease to pour scorn and derision on the liberal theory of the harmony of interests, pass over in silence the fact that there are various forms of collectivism and that their interests are in irreconcilable conflict. They laud the Middle Ages and its culture of community and solidarity, and with romantic sentimentality they wax ecstatic over the communal associations "in which the individual was included, and in which he was kept warm and protected like fruit in its rind." But they forget that papacy and empire, for example, opposed each other for hundreds of years and that every individual could find himself at any time in the position of having to choose between them. Were the inhabitants of Milan also "kept warm and protected like fruit in its rind" when they had to hand over their city to Frederick Barbarossa? Are there not various factions fighting today on German soil with bitter anger, each of which claims to represent the only true collectivism? And do not the Marxian socialists, the national socialists, the church, and many other parties approach every individual with the demand: join us, for you belong in our ranks, and fight to the death the "false" forms of collectivism? A collectivist social philosophy that did not designate a definite form of collectivism as true and either treat all others as subordinate to it or condemn them as false would be meaningless and vain. It must always tell the individual: Here you have an unquestionably given goal, because an inner voice has revealed it to me; to it you must sacrifice everything else, yourself above all. Fight to victory or death under the banner of this ideal, and concern yourself with nothing else.
Collectivism, in fact, can be stated in no other way than as partisan dogma in which the commitment to a definite ideal and the condemnation of all others are equally necessary. Loyola did not preach just any faith, but that of the Church of Rome. Lagarde did not advocate nationalism, but what he regarded as German nationalism. Church, nation, state in abstracto are concepts of nominalistic science. The collectivists idolize only the one true church, only the "great" nation — the "chosen" people who have been entrusted by Providence with a special mission — only the true state; everything else they condemn.
For that reason all collectivist doctrines are harbingers of irreconcilable hatred and war to the death."
Note:
It is important to distinguish between forced Collectivism dictated by any form of Centralism as described in the above excerpt, versus the voluntary gathering of individuals perhaps led by one or a few for an array of nonviolent motives and/or objectives. Similarly and particularly, it is the distinction between politically compulsory versus privately voluntary attendances to church services or social meetings, thus forming and maintaining entire societies as well. The inherent unethical versus ethical dynamics as well the detrimental versus beneficial effects should be obvious; force (legal or not) versus nonviolence. At the very core is simply this; the regard for the Singular Human Right to Consent or Not Consent, inseparably the respect for the Peculiar Human Ability to Reason. And so, my newest book's inspiration and topic.
Come let us Reason. Peace is always a Choice.
"The reproach of individualism is commonly leveled against economics on the basis of an alleged irreconcilable conflict between the interests of society and those of the individual. Classical and subjectivist economics, it is said, give an undue priority to the interests of the individual over those of society and generally contend, in conscious denial of the facts, that a harmony of interests prevails between them. It would be the task of genuine science to show that the whole is superior to the parts and that the individual has to subordinate himself to, and conduct himself for, the benefit of society and to sacrifice his selfish private interests to the common good.
In the eyes of those who hold this point of view society must appear as a means designed by Providence to attain ends that are hidden from us. The individual must bow to the will of Providence and must sacrifice his own interests so that its will may be done. His greatest duty is obedience. He must subordinate himself to the leaders and live just as they command.
But who, one must ask, is to be the leader? For many want to lead, and, of course, in different directions and toward different goals. The collectivists, who never cease to pour scorn and derision on the liberal theory of the harmony of interests, pass over in silence the fact that there are various forms of collectivism and that their interests are in irreconcilable conflict. They laud the Middle Ages and its culture of community and solidarity, and with romantic sentimentality they wax ecstatic over the communal associations "in which the individual was included, and in which he was kept warm and protected like fruit in its rind." But they forget that papacy and empire, for example, opposed each other for hundreds of years and that every individual could find himself at any time in the position of having to choose between them. Were the inhabitants of Milan also "kept warm and protected like fruit in its rind" when they had to hand over their city to Frederick Barbarossa? Are there not various factions fighting today on German soil with bitter anger, each of which claims to represent the only true collectivism? And do not the Marxian socialists, the national socialists, the church, and many other parties approach every individual with the demand: join us, for you belong in our ranks, and fight to the death the "false" forms of collectivism? A collectivist social philosophy that did not designate a definite form of collectivism as true and either treat all others as subordinate to it or condemn them as false would be meaningless and vain. It must always tell the individual: Here you have an unquestionably given goal, because an inner voice has revealed it to me; to it you must sacrifice everything else, yourself above all. Fight to victory or death under the banner of this ideal, and concern yourself with nothing else.
Collectivism, in fact, can be stated in no other way than as partisan dogma in which the commitment to a definite ideal and the condemnation of all others are equally necessary. Loyola did not preach just any faith, but that of the Church of Rome. Lagarde did not advocate nationalism, but what he regarded as German nationalism. Church, nation, state in abstracto are concepts of nominalistic science. The collectivists idolize only the one true church, only the "great" nation — the "chosen" people who have been entrusted by Providence with a special mission — only the true state; everything else they condemn.
For that reason all collectivist doctrines are harbingers of irreconcilable hatred and war to the death."
Note:
It is important to distinguish between forced Collectivism dictated by any form of Centralism as described in the above excerpt, versus the voluntary gathering of individuals perhaps led by one or a few for an array of nonviolent motives and/or objectives. Similarly and particularly, it is the distinction between politically compulsory versus privately voluntary attendances to church services or social meetings, thus forming and maintaining entire societies as well. The inherent unethical versus ethical dynamics as well the detrimental versus beneficial effects should be obvious; force (legal or not) versus nonviolence. At the very core is simply this; the regard for the Singular Human Right to Consent or Not Consent, inseparably the respect for the Peculiar Human Ability to Reason. And so, my newest book's inspiration and topic.
Come let us Reason. Peace is always a Choice.
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