The Mises Community

Metal prices fall further than during Great Depression

ryanpatgray — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:35:53 GMT

I just thought many of your might find this piece of news interesting:

"The price of key industrial metals has fallen further over the last four months than occurred during the worst years of Great Depression between 1929 and 1933, according to research by Barclays Capital. "

The whole article is at the link below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/mining/3543370/Metal-prices-fall-further-than-during-Great-Depression.html

on children and pregnancy and abortion

katja328 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:04:34 GMT

We've discussed abortion at great lengths. This is a new scenario.

A woman, know to carry a genetic disorder that will give her a 50/50 chance of having a child that is severly physically disabled gets pregnant. The doctors tell her, during the first trimester that her child is affected by the genetic disorder and will be disabled. Regardless of the doctors' recommendation, the woman has the child. In addition to the physical disability, the child is also mentally disabled.

I have been debating this in my mind for four days now as I have encountered such a case this past weekend. Is it fair to the child to bring it into this world full well knowing that it will be disabled?

On the one hand, I can understand the mother wanting to have the child, on the other hand, shouldn't the life of the child be considered as well and how it will be able to function in society?

What are your thoughts on this?

How do we get the message across?

Panarchy — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:24:19 GMT

Yes, I've asked the question.

How do we educate the Masses?

How do we teach people that government isn't the only way?

How do we inform them of the advantages of the free market?

How do we teach them that government is inherently corrupt?

How do we 'get rid' of the government? (90% sure it doesn't have to be done violently)

Basically, how do we get the message accross, and 'enlighten' the masses?

Panarchy

PS: I am an Anarchist, as I believe Panarchy will 'prosper'.

God Proven to Exist According to Mainline Physics

James Redford — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:30:10 GMT

God has been proven to exist based upon the most reserved view of the known laws of physics. For much more on that, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler's below paper, which among other things demonstrates that the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in the Omega Point (the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God):

F. J. Tipler, "The structure of the world from pure numbers," Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (April 2005), pp. 897-964. http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/theoryofeverything.pdf Also released as "Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything," arXiv:0704.3276, April 24, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3276

Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler's above paper was selected as one of 12 for the "Highlights of 2005" accolade as "the very best articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005 [Vol. 68]. Articles were selected by the Editorial Board for their outstanding reviews of the field. They all received the highest praise from our international referees and a high number of downloads from the journal Website." (See Richard Palmer, Publisher, "Highlights of 2005," Reports on Progress in Physics. http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.highlights/0034-4885 ) Reports on Progress in Physics is the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain's main professional body for physicists.

Further, Reports on Progress in Physics has a higher impact factor (according to Journal Citation Reports) than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal (one, incidently, which Prof. Tipler has been published in more than once). A journal's impact factor reflects the importance the science community places in that journal in the sense of actually citing its papers in their own papers. (And just to point out, Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper could not have been published in Physical Review Letters since said paper is nearly book-length, and hence not a "letter" as defined by the latter journal.)

See also the below resources for further information on the Omega Point Theory:

Theophysics http://geocities.com/theophysics/

"Omega Point (Tipler)," Wikipedia, April 16, 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Omega_Point_%28Tipler%29&oldid=206077125

"Frank J. Tipler," Wikipedia, April 16, 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frank_J._Tipler&oldid=205920802

Tipler is Professor of Mathematics and Physics (joint appointment) at Tulane University. His Ph.D. is in the field of global general relativity (the same rarefied field that Profs. Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking developed), and he is also an expert in particle physics and computer science. His Omega Point Theory has been published in a number of prestigious peer-reviewed physics and science journals in addition to Reports on Progress in Physics, such as Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (one of the world's leading astrophysics journals), Physics Letters B, the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, etc.

Prof. John A. Wheeler (the father of most relativity research in the U.S.) wrote that "Frank Tipler is widely known for important concepts and theorems in general relativity and gravitation physics" on pg. viii in the "Foreword" to The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986) by cosmologist Prof. John D. Barrow and Tipler, which was the first book wherein Tipler's Omega Point Theory was described. On pg. ix of said book, Prof. Wheeler wrote that Chapter 10 of the book, which concerns the Omega Point Theory, "rivals in thought-provoking power any of the [other chapters]."

The leading quantum physicist in the world, Prof. David Deutsch (inventor of the quantum computer, being the first person to mathematically describe the workings of such a device, and winner of the Institute of Physics' 1998 Paul Dirac Medal and Prize for his work), endorses the physics of the Omega Point Theory in his book The Fabric of Reality (1997). For that, see:

David Deutsch, extracts from Chapter 14: "The Ends of the Universe" of The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997), ISBN: 0713990619; with additional comments by Frank J. Tipler. http://geocities.com/theophysics/deutsch-ends-of-the-universe.html

The only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to invent tenuous physical theories which have no experimental support and which violate the known laws of physics, such as with Prof. Stephen Hawking's paper on the black hole information issue which is dependent on the conjectured string theory-based anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence). See S. W. Hawking, "Information loss in black holes," Physical Review D, Vol. 72, No. 8, 084013 (October 2005); also at arXiv:hep-th/0507171, July 18, 2005. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171

That is, Prof. Hawking's paper is based upon proposed, unconfirmed physics. It's an impressive testament to the Omega Point Theory's correctness, as Hawking implicitly confirms that the known laws of physics require the universe to collapse in finite time. Hawking realizes that the black hole information issue must be resolved without violating unitarity, yet he's forced to abandon the known laws of physics in order to avoid unitarity violation without the universe collapsing.

Some have suggested that the universe's current acceleration of its expansion obviates the universe collapsing (and therefore obviates the Omega Point). But as Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner point out in "Geometry and Destiny" (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020 ), there is no set of cosmological observations which can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.

There's a very good reason for that, because that is dependant on the actions of intelligent life. The known laws of physics provide the mechanism for the universe's collapse. As required by the Standard Model, the net baryon number was created in the early universe by baryogenesis via electroweak quantum tunneling. This necessarily forces the Higgs field to be in a vacuum state that is not its absolute vacuum, which is the cause of the positive cosmological constant. But if the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by the inverse of baryogenesis, again via electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model, as B - L is conserved), then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant and thereby forcing the universe to collapse. Moreover, this process would provide the ideal form of energy resource and rocket propulsion during the colonization phase of the universe.

Prof. Tipler's above 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper also demonstrates that the correct quantum gravity theory has existed since 1962, first discovered by Richard Feynman in that year, and independently discovered by Steven Weinberg and Bryce DeWitt, among others. But because these physicists were looking for equations with a finite number of terms (i.e., derivatives no higher than second order), they abandoned this qualitatively unique quantum gravity theory since in order for it to be consistent it requires an arbitrarily higher number of terms. Further, they didn't realize that this proper theory of quantum gravity is consistent only with a certain set of boundary conditions imposed (which includes the initial Big Bang, and the final Omega Point, cosmological singularities). The equations for this theory of quantum gravity are term-by-term finite, but the same mechanism that forces each term in the series to be finite also forces the entire series to be infinite (i.e., infinities that would otherwise occur in spacetime, consequently destabilizing it, are transferred to the cosmological singularities, thereby preventing the universe from immediately collapsing into nonexistence). As Tipler notes in his 2007 book The Physics of Christianity (pp. 49 and 279), "It is a fundamental mathematical fact that this [infinite series] is the best that we can do. ... This is somewhat analogous to Liouville's theorem in complex analysis, which says that all analytic functions other than constants have singularities either a finite distance from the origin of coordinates or at infinity."

When combined with the Standard Model, the result is the Theory of Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in physics.

Objectivist Party

Mark B. — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:05:52 GMT

For all you Randians out there. Came across this while examine the finalized Florida general election ballot. Amongs the staggering list of 13 tickets, plus one write in, that will be on our ballot, is the Objectivist Party consisting of Tom Stevens and Alden Link.

http://www.objectivistparty.us/

Their platform seems to consist solely of excerpts from Ayn Rand's books.

While I reject Objectivsm in favor of Subjectivism, I know there are those here that are Randians that might be interested.

The party is only on the ballot in Colorado and Florida, which does not say much, because almost EVERY party is on the ballot in those two states. :)

Responding to Criticisms of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory

Brutus 2.0 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:35:02 GMT

One interesting objection raised by Bryan Caplan and numerous other economists to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABC) is that business men should be able to anticipate future changes in the interest rate. I quote at length one argument given from http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/whats_wrong_wit_6.html "What I deny is that the artificially stimulated investments have any tendency to become malinvestments. Supposedly, since the central bank's inflation cannot continue indefinitely, it is eventually necessary to let interest rates rise back to the natural rate, which then reveals the underlying unprofitability of the artificially stimulated investments. The objection is simple: Given that interest rates are artificially and unsustainably low, why would any businessman make his profitability calculations based on the assumption that the low interest rates will prevail indefinitely? No, what would happen is that entrepreneurs would realize that interest rates are only temporarily low, and take this into account. Why does Rothbard think businessmen are so incompetent at forecasting government policy? He credits them with entrepreneurial foresight about all market-generated conditions, but curiously finds them unable to forecast government policy, or even to avoid falling prey to simple accounting illusions generated by inflation and deflation... Particularly in interventionist economies, it would seem that natural selection would weed out businesspeople with such a gigantic blind spot." How is this response to be countered? I have heard it a lot and it would be useful to know...

Schiff: Is he right?

Austroglide — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:49:23 GMT

As a non-expert in the matter, I don't know how finally to determine how correct Peter Schiff is when he predicts calamity for the U.S. economy due to a future collapse of the dollar.

The argument he posits about the fundamentals of the U.S. economy - namely, those described in the "six Asians and an American are stranded on an island" analogy - strikes me as quite persuasive.

At bottom, the accuracy of Mr. Schiff's prediction seems to hinge on the likelihood that foreign debtors will change their minds about further lending to the United States.

Thus, how likely is it that, sometime in the relatively near term, foreign lenders will stop lending to the U.S.?

[For those who haven't heard this analogy: Six Asians and an American are stranded on an island. The first day, they divide up responsibilities. The American is assigned to eating. One of the Asians is assigned to fishing, another to foraging, yet another to hunting, etc. At the end of each day, they gather on the beach, where the American eats the food produced by all the Asians, leaving enough crumbs for the Asians to eat and be able to go back out the next day for more food.

Economists (ahem, NON-AUSTRIAN economists) would look at this situation and conclude "Hey, without the American, the island economy would surely collapse, because without his demand for food, none of the Asians would have a job." Of course, in reality, the island economy would in no way collapse, Indeed, the standard of living for each Asian would immediately increase dramatically if they were to boot the American from the island.]

Why is capitalism thought of as slavery/satism?

eliotn — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:14:39 GMT

I don't get it. Why do people thing that capitalism is somehow equivelent to slavery/satism?

What is to be done?

ryanpatgray — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:06:46 GMT

I think this period in history is a perfect opportunity to spread the ideas of the Austrian School. I would like to make this thread one to invite members to share ideas on how best to seize this opportunity and educate the public about the dangers of allowing government to manipulate the economy.

I have recently gone to OfficeMax and had made a rubber stamp that reads "What has government done to our money?" and "http://mises.org" underneath. I have been stamping FRNs with this stamp. It is a tactic used by many, many groups including the Free State Project, local Libertarian Parties, gay activists and people who support the decriminalization of marijuana. The advantage of this sort of advertising is that because money has value (with or without a stamp) people are not likely to throw it away even if they disagree with the message. Money also reaches people of all demographic groups.

So, what are your ideas? What have you done? What do you think people should be doing more of (or, less of)?. What works? What doesn't? Are there things we Austrians can learn from other groups?

Что делать?

A mises.com email address and a desparate plea to Jeffery Tucker.

Jackson — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:01:45 GMT

My first question is how does one acquire a mises.com email address? I recently heard that if one has a mises.org community account and posts in the forums, they can somehow acquire a nifty @mises.com attached to their name.

Also...

Dear Jeffery Tucker,

As you have the best music as introductions to your youtube videos, I assume you are the de facto artistic director of the LvMI. As such, I believe this request should be directed towards you. Make LvMI cufflinks and sell them to me.

Sincerely,

Jackson

Louis Spadaro's Ph. D. Dissertation on social credit?

Aragon — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:42:38 GMT

Does anyone know whether Louis Sparado's dissertation on the social credit theory is available online or possible to order somewhere? I think it is very rare and the only time I've heard it mentioned has been in the book "Salvation through inflation" by Gary North.

It would be helpful if someone knows other good articles to help to demolish the theories of these monetary cranks who advocate such odd theorists as C.H. Douglas and Richard C. Cook.

Thanks for all information in advance.

Resolved yet? The immigration debate

Sage — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:51:14 GMT

I think this article conclusively refutes the closed border position in the immigration debate:

Root Causes and the Libertarian Immigration Debate

Pirates in Somalia

xSFx — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:05:23 GMT

The biggest tanker ever hijacked, Sirius Star is carrying a cargo of two million barrels of oil - a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output - worth more than $100m (£67m).

Analysts say the pattern of other hijackings suggests a ransom request is likely to follow. Given the value of the tanker and its cargo, that is expected to be a sizeable demand.

Two of the captive crew are British. The UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said the Royal Navy was co-ordinating the European response to the incident.

"The problem of piracy around Somalia is a grave danger to the stability in the region," he told the BBC.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991 and has suffered continuing civil strife.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7736885.stm

One almost hears cries begging "if only Somalia was statist". Well let me ask you a question - who did more victims - the US invasion of AfghanIraq or Somali pirates?

money for rescue

Mikhail Svetlov — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:18:32 GMT

Where excatly will the 8 trillions for the rescue come from?

Anarcho-Socialists

fezwhatley — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:16:03 GMT

Here is what a self-proclaimed anarcho socialist said in another forum..to me.

"i would rather have a tax and spend government than a low tax, fuck the poor government...

no government and no businesses would be best..."

lol? It amazes me how many self-described anarchists (of the socialist flavor), say they would prefer an interventionist government. I also run into a lot of these so called anarchists, trolling conservative forums, and defending Barack Obama

New Guy-Rothbard Confusion in "America's Great Depression"

BlackNumero — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:00:13 GMT

In the past two or three months I have been reading Austrian economics as a past time. My latest book in "America's Great Depression", buy Murray Rothbard. While reading his first chapter, I was greatly confused about how he talked concerning the Supply and Demand of money. (If someone could provide a detailed explanation of the "Demand" for money, I will be greatly appreciated.

Anyways, on page 7 (2000 ed), he speaks "The demand for money is, in the final analysis, the willingness of people to hold cash balances, and this can be expressed as eagerness to acquire money in exchange, and as eagerness to retain money in cash balance....Demand for money will tend to be lower when the purchasing power of the money-unit is higher, for then each dollar is more effective in cash balance."

In what has government done with our money (45) he says

"Now suppose, for whatever reason, perhaps growing apprehensively, people's demand for cash balances increase....with people valuing cash balances more highly, the demand for money increases, and prices fall. "

I understand that an increase/decrease in the supply of money is simply the stock, but the demand has me confused. Either I am misunderstanding something, or Rothbard is contradicting himself in saying demand for cash balances creates lower prices, and a lower demand for money exists in low prices? Is a demand for cash balances and a demand for money the same thing? I'm terribly perplexed by Rothbard's quotes, and the overall money demand thing. An explanation/graphs would be extremely appreciated.

Finally on page 27 of Great Depression, Rothbard says

"Professor Mises, while recognizing the superiror economic merits of 100 percent gold money to free banking, prefers the latter because 100 percent reserves would conceded to the government control over banking, and government could easily change these requirements to conform its inflationalist bias".

However, I read somewhere in Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, that Mises considered free banking "second best". Which is it? Did Mises honestly not support 100% reserves because he thought that government control over property rights was too much?

I'm a little worried about these contradictions (if they really are, or my mind is just screwing with me). Any help would be grealty appreciated. Thanks alot.

Government employment during the Great Depression

meambobbo — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:14:31 GMT

Does anyone have statistics on government employment, particularly during the 20's-30's? I can't find anything easily on google. I would like to know % of workforce employed by government at any level vs. % of workforce hired by private industry.

Thanks

So-called legitimacy of government courts

Jon Irenicus — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:40:40 GMT

Here's something that just came to my mind. A lot of the time people whine about how private arbitrators are only legitimate insofar as parties agree beforehand to be bound by their ruling. Well, if the government's "justification" rests on the so-called social contract, how is its legitimacy any less contractual? That means its own courts are also only binding upon individuals that have a contract with it. It does no good to simply assert that it is uniquely situated by being the only possible court in the land, because again this is predicated on acquiring prior agreement of its subject-citizens and this is, logically, revocable at will. So essentially, when a statist complains that private courts rest solely on agreement, how does this differ from government courts, except in that the contract here is a real one? Incidentally this is a problem with Hobbes's social contract theory, that if promises will not be kept in a "state of nature" (a premise of his), how exactly does he expect this "contract" to get off the ground in the first place? If promises are kept, the whole matter is trivialized.

Confused about current money supply and deflation

Stratomaster — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:25:25 GMT

Okay, I'm a bit confused about all this recent talk of deflation. I have read several articles about it on Mises.org and recently read Hulsmann's "Deflation and Liberty." I understand that deflation does not really refer to falling prices, but to a decrease in the money supply, thereby leading to an increase in the purchasing power of each dollar. My question is, what is really going on with the money supply today? Lew Rockwell's article, "The Force is With Us" claims that "depite the Fed's effort to expand, the money supply today is actually shrinking." I understand that with banks not lending to their fullest potential, the money supply is actually shrinking, but what about this huge pool of reserves that has recently been injected into the banks? Yes, they may not be lending it all right now, but once confidence is restored they will presumably begin lending those funds, which could potentially lead to massive inflation. Is it possible that this increase in reserves can counteract the shrinking money supply without leading to massive inflation, or is the money supply not shrinking quickly in contrast to the huge amount of new reserves? I assume that the monetary base has greatly increased while at the same time loans are being contracted/paid back, thereby shrinking the effective money supply. So are we really experiencing deflation at the moment? Thanks a lot!

Anarchy is not this society

PeterWellington — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:40:59 GMT

One of the challenges in talking about anarchy with statists is trying to get them to put aside their notions of how certain problems must be dealt with, because that's all they've been exposed to. They think anarchy is lawlessness, violence, no roads, etc. but that's because they're thinking of today's society minus the existing government. But that's not really the anarchy we're talking about. We're talking about a society where new structures emerge that take on the roles government once had, in a fundamentally different way of course. And most anarchists will try to explain this in detail.

But this post isn't about the statists not understanding anarchy, it's the anarchists. Take the subject of intellectual property as an example. Some anarchists believe they'll be able to freely copy movies, music, software, etc. but I'd say they're falling into the same trap as the statists. That is, not understanding how a free society might handle such an issue because it's handled a different way now.

Let's assume that private defense agencies and courts would not protect IP. The IP owners would still have a tremendous incentive to protect their creations, and they wouldn't have to depend on the legal system to do it. Some anarchists only look at the IP and patent laws that exist today, but neglect the anti-trust and anti-competitive laws that restrict the ways in which owners can protect their IP through non-violent means. Even in today's restrictive environment we see companies creating their own solutions that are independent of government. These include end-user contracts, digital rights management, software licensing and activation, watermarking, personalization, and others. In a free market, companies would have even more options in working with suppliers and each other. We constantly argue that government does everything wrong and that private industry can do it better. Why do you think protecting IP would be any different in a free market?

This post isn't just about IP. It's about all the little assumptions about anarchy that are made without really thinking about the dynamics of such a society. Illegal drugs is another example. Sure, you can do coke, crack, meth, but maybe you're health insurance rates go through the roof (as with smoking now). Just because there's no law doesn't mean there's no consequence under anarchy. Personal privacy is another example. It's possible that your phone, internet, etc. will be tapped in a free market, if that's what the market demands. If private defense agencies see it as a worthwhile expense, they'll contract with communication providers to do it. And if consumers prefer the lower prices over privacy, then that's what you'll generally have.

The point is listen to yourself. You know anarchy will be different so start thinking more about what that really means.

A Rothbardian critique of Cuzán and Ostrowski and a Typology of Anarchy

Sage — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:40:28 GMT

My paper "A Rothbardian critique of Cuzán and Ostrowski and a Typology of Anarchy", has been posted in the Mises Institute Working Papers.

Here’s the abstract:

With his 1979 article "Do we really ever get out of anarchy?" Alfred Cuzán provides us with a wonderful insight: "Anarchy, like matter, never disappears - it only changes form." Cuzán argues that anarchy, defined as the absence of a third party territorial monopolist of ultimate jurisdiction, is omnipresent: Regardless of what political system we live under, there will always be anarchic relationships, namely those between the actual members of government. James Ostrowski, in his article "The Myth of Democratic Peace", extends this argument to show that there are four more anarchic relationships in current society. The omnipresence of anarchy is undeniable. However, there are problems with this analysis. It is not compatible with the root word definition of anarchy as "no rulers", nor does it incorporate such governmental (non-anarchic) relationships as taxation and regulation. Happily, the analysis can be repaired by applying Murray Rothbard's "typology of intervention" and creating a corresponding "typology of anarchy".

My plan is to have this published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Academia, here I come!

Austrian Economics in London

Retrolives — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:26:36 GMT

Hi all, are there any events, seminars, associations or institutes in London UK that would be of interest to a Misesian? I know of the Adam Smith Institute but I get the impression they are pretty close to Cato in their outlook.

Thanks!

Is gold one giant bubble?

Morbo — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:23:24 GMT

Hi, this is my first post here.

I was listening to Peter Schiff in 2006 predicting the collapse of the US housing market with outstanding accuracy. Similarly, he described the bursting of the dot-com bubble. In both cases assets were bid up by speculators with no regard for their underlying value as determined by rents or dividends.

I respect Schiff immensely, but I can't help but wonder why he has such faith in gold. After all, gold produces no returns at all. Of course it has some intrinsic value, but its value for industrial use and use in jewelry is well bellow the high prices it now sells for.

Is there a reason why gold should be distinguished from these other assets? Presently, I can't see how its any different from tulips.

Second thoughts on Greenspan...

JCFolsom — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:00:31 GMT

I, like many here, have seen Alan Greenspan as a wicked man, under whose leadership the Fed led us to the ledge the world now scrambles pathetically to keep a hold of. However, a thought just occured to me that may shed light on Greenspan's motives and reasoning.

Alan Greenspan was a disciple of Ayn Rand, and was part of her inner circle during the writing of Atlas Shrugged. He has since said he was wrong in his views, and his actions would appear to confirm his denials, but it is possible that they never changed, and that his actions were deliberately in line with bringing a true free market about.

Greenspan inherited, when he became President of the Federal Reserve, a financial system which had already long been broken, one rife with injustice and inefficiency. Fascism Lite, if you will. So, let's return to the previous background: what was Atlas Shrugged about? Was it about the preservation of an unjust system? No, it was about its DELIBERATE destruction.

Now, the world is less vulnerable to the refusal of great men to contribute than it is made out to be in that book, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. One could hardly have planned a better way to make possible the destruction of world financial and political systems than deliberately building up the largest and most leveraged bubbles in history. As any student of history could tell you, such bubbles ALWAYS burst, and the bigger they are, the more devastating is their detonation.

Maybe my cynicism muscle just needs more of a workout. Maybe Greenspan is every bit the moronic scuzzbucket he appears to be. But some of the heroes of Rand's work appeared to be traitors to their own principles, too, before the fullness of their plans were revealed. We may never know. But it's an interesting possibility.

Russian Prof. of Econ. Igor Panarin: "There Will Be Civil War In the US in 2009"

Nitroadict — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:43:11 GMT

Came across this via Reddit... view here:

Russia Today interviews Igor Panarin, a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian foreign affairs ministry, who believes the economic crisis in the US has confirmed his long-held belief that the country is heading for extinction in its present form.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVkjCQCTOEI

*Edit: I will update this post with more sources of Professor Panarin's theory. Here are the links:

Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a3sayDZz.QKc&refer=us
* [includes comment on how the elections & hope towards Obama are delaying dissatisfaction temporarily,
and that comes March it will be apparent Obama cannot work miracles]

Drudge Report: http://www.drudgereport.com/flashrur.htm
* [includes the following detail: "The paper [daily IZVESTIA]said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events. " ]

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts. Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse." The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events. When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator." When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia." Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles." He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions." He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

Thoughts?