Economists and Weathermen

Posted on January 17, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me there are only a few jobs where you can always be wrong and never have to defend it. One is weather man and the other is economist. Although, of the two, weathermen are far more accurate in their predictions.

Economists are always astounded that they are wrong. No matter what the numbers come out. Like the latest unemployment figures. The “consensus” among economists was that the American economy would add around 4,000 jobs. In fact the economy shed over 80,000 jobs.

More to the point, during the Bush years and after the attacks on America on 911, economists under estimated the real economic numbers over and over. In hindsight we can see that real economic output as measured in GDP never actually declined during the Bush years. The US only saw real GDP growth go down in the year 2009. The year Obama took office and three years after the democrats took control of the House of Representatives. Since the new administration took office economists have over expected economic growth, over and over.

In this chart compiled from Bea.gov data we can see that even in the “recession” of 2001 real GDP grew.

chart 2

Note; 2010 figures are projected by economists.

We also have the ability to go back and see what economists were saying in the 2001 to 2008 period. Some stories can be read here  and here  and here.

Everyone wants to make a difference. Economists are no different. Under a command and control economy economists are gods. They have great say in people‘s lives, what we do for a living, where we live, how we live and even if we live (eugenics and population control). Economists have a vested interest in creating a command and control economy. This doesn’t necessarily mean they cannot be trusted… but it does mean that anything an economist says must be considered carefully.

The United States is well down the road to reestablishing a 1930’s style command and control economy. The progressive playbook rules the day as it did in the 1930’s. With such ideas as price controls the Roosevelt administration effectively castrated any economic growth before it could get started. The Obama administration seems to believe the same theories. They have nationalized the inefficient US car industry in all but name. They have effectively taken over CITI Corp. The government has nationalized (according to Barney Frank) Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.

This trend is very concerning because it portends much lower annual GDP growth for years to come. Lower GDP growth lowers the standard of living of everyone. But that is the price the Elite are willing, for us, to pay. They couldn’t care less about the standard of living in the US. Only if it threatens their power. Then the Elite will care. But not until.

Command and control is on the ascendancy in the US. Read and listen to the words of prominent Obama appointees. Of course the Elite like the ideas of John Maynard Keynes. He told them government spending is good. One thing the Elite love to do is tax and spend. If revenues are low it is a matter of too low a tax rate. If a temporary surplus should appear, it would be irresponsible to cut taxes, instead we should spend the money on ongoing programs that have no future funding and will make people dependant on government… (programs that will still have to be funded when the surplus runs out). The Elite can out argue Gorgias (The Sophist) till he is blue in the face. (And ashamed of his legacy).

The Elite like to echo the new catch phrase “capitalism is dead.” More a wish than reality. That is like saying gravity is dead or fire has ceased burning. Capitalism is a force of nature. It can be harnessed for good or it can be toyed with at one’s peril. Fire has been harnessed to improve the lives of everyone on the planet. But fire is dangerous. We safely use fire because we know it’s nature and we work within the framework of it’s attributes. We don’t try to enclose fire in paper because we know paper is ineffective at stopping fire. We use wings when we want to fly because we know it is futile to jump from a cliff expecting to fly. But we still think we can control the economy like electrons in a IC. Economists can be empirically proven wrong at every turn, yet they still love the idea, of a command and control economy.

Before I start a fire in my home I make sure the fire will be contained in a device capable of it. My couch is not sufficient to contain a warming fire.

An economist might disagree however… Fire extinguishers can be used quite effectively to keep a fire under control and using extinguishers in this way creates a demand for them… and sofas.

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Conscription or volunteer?

Posted on January 13, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the question of which system is most just, a volunteer army or a conscripted one is best answered by first asking what is an army for? To seek to find the answer to the first question without asking the second is like deciding what an airplane should be made of before you design it and determine the material attributes needed for it’s parts. Putting the cart before the horse.

Nations and countries have standing armies to protect themselves from other nations and countries. At one time it was city states but now it is nations and countries. A standing army is a drain on the resources of a country however. That drain must be tallied against the present and future need.

History shows us that city states, empires, and nations have fared best when they have had a professional standing army that is well trained, well disciplined and most of all well motivated. These traits are most likely to be found in a volunteer not a draftee.

Future need can only be guessed at with nothing but uncertainty. The Allies never envisioned the Wermacht outflanking the Marginot Line. The Romans never imagined the Huns would be so effective against their legions and the Arabs never believed Moshe Sharon’s offensive would be so devastating. Present need is manifestly obvious but is no indicator of future need.

Now the question of how on Earth are we to protect ourselves from such evils? The answer to that question can be found in history. The motivation of an army can never be underestimated. The history of Bonaparte (as related by Von Clausewitz) tells us all we need to know about motivation. Bonaparte always fought multiple armies with his one. The battle of Austerlitz is but one example. He got the upper hand by using weather, terrain, massed artillery and esprit de corps. Regardless that Napoleon was an aggressor his tactics are enlightening. Motivation like Bonaparte’s army had is only to be had in a volunteer army.

History also shows us that members of the army were the Elite in many cultures. All culture that practiced slavery were of this group. Even Roman armies were considered the upper class and was a path to being a citizen for non Romans. For Romans honorable service to Rome sometimes led to becoming a patriarch. It is only a recent phenomenon that the army is seen as a career path for lower classes. Basically, since the rise of nationalism, has the lower class been the cannon fodder of a nation.

History again teaches us something here. Nations that had professional standing armies of volunteers faired better in combat against conscripts every time. One of the reason’s the US has so few casualties in the war on terror is the professional nature of the army. Conscripted armies have always been shown (empirically) to suffer much higher casualty rates. High casualty rates lower the efficiency of an army. As General Patton said. “No one ever won a war by dieing for his country… he won the war by getting the poor bastard on the other side to die for his country.”

Conscription is always rife with deferments. During the Vietnam War the youths of the day would say, “I’m not a Senator’s son.” meaning they would be subject to the draft where a Senator’s son would not. That undermines any argument that conscription is more just. If the ends we seek are a just way to populate the military rather than defending the nation.

Conscription also denies the fundamental fact that people are ends in themselves. To force a person to fight for his country and possibly die while another is deferred is fundamentally unjust. Because to do so treats a person as a tool for the Elite to use. Conscription is only “Just” if it is absolutely universal (which it can never be).

Conscription also fosters political interference in the army. Political appointments are always a bad idea. History shows us that without uncertainty. Armies (to be efficient) must be meritocracies. They can be no other way. To do so would be to relive the Italian Campaign in the Balkans during WWII.

So if we want an army that is cost efficient, efficient on the battlefield, is able to adapt to new problems and is motivated to get the job done the answer is an all volunteer army. If we want to use the defense of the nation as a social laboratory then conscription is the answer.

But… that path leads to extinction…

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We Spent the Money But They Didn’t Come…

Posted on January 10, 2010 by john

Dear friends,

It seems to me that One reason the stimulus is working so poorly is that it was hastily crafted and inadequately thought out.

The stories about the abuses, fraud, and outright idiocy about the $787 billion dollar stimulus package are everywhere… except the big four unbiased outlets, i.e., CNN, CBS, NBC incarnates, and ABC.

Fictitious zip codes are turning up with that have received billions of dollars. One here for example;

There is a more fundamental reason the stimulus didn’t and will not work and that is, that government didn’t earn the money it gave away. Government will take the money, and the interest, at gun point, from us our children and our grand children. Even if the money had all been spent, as it supposedly should have, it would have a negative effect on the overall economy. Government is pulling future economic growth to the present and trying to have it today. But the interest is never factored in. No matter what if the money is not invested properly it will be exhausted by cost of the loan. But the point of a stimulus is to keep demand up until the private sector steps in to pick up the slack.

But if the private sector is denuded of capital it can never step back in. A sufficiently high stimulus will necessarily demand a very high tax burden from the people and business. Because government never earns money it can only takes it from the people and business. So as the private sector is deprived of capital by ever more punitive taxation it must lower it’s payroll and investment in infrastructure. This necessarily lowers demand for labor and wages. Making it ever more difficult for the private sector to step back in.

As demand is driven more and more by government supply will align itself to the demand. Suppliers will gear their business to government demands and requirements. Further diminishing the private sector’s ability to react to market opportunities. Demand shapes supply.

So now we have, if not outright corruption, incompetence in the writing and execution of the stimulus. Costing us and future taxpayers tens of billions of dollars… with interest. A stimulus that is fundamentally flawed in it’s very concept. Making the whole exercise a theater of the absurd. In an honest and sane world spot lights would be shining on government’s folly.

The biggest thing the administration has going for it is the slavish media. There are reports that some in the media are taking orders directly from the White House… while on the air. In fact NPR has editorialists calling for the unbiased media to toss out all semblance of fairness. The administration has at least that ace in it’s back pocket, to redirect anger about the results of it‘s policies, away from itself.

Empirically however… The economy is still shedding jobs. (But at a reduced rate…) economic figures are all over the board. The brains behind the curtains are trying to make people think they know what is going on but they are as clueless to it… as a coal miner to the weather. Otherwise, they know we are sliding into a depression, and want to hide the fact from the people. The currency markets are a good sign that no one knows what is happening to the economy. The dollar will slide to a decade low then back to a high. The Yen / Australian dollar ratio is diminishing in value and brainiacs are struggling to find something efficient to replace it. What about us?

We are still in the lurch. The government has thrown almost three trillion dollars down a rabbit hole. Money that we people have yet to earn. Government’s spending has indebted the citizens of the US to the world for generations. Government policies have dried up loans for small business. They ordered banks to channele to ACORN instead of SBA loans. All this proving… elections matter. Hopefully the American people will be a little more wise about who they put into office in the future.

Unfortunately it’s too late. WE are in a depression… of the government’s making.

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Depression Judo

Posted on January 6, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that depression is in large part a physiologic /psychological symptom of emotional distress. Mostly in the form of frustration.

I have read that depression is related to suppressed anger or anger turned inward. I agree to a point but I think this definition falls short. I would follow the causal chain from frustration to anger. (Which fosters anger and is therefore before anger in the causal line). Anger being the result of frustration.

I was shopping the other day and I heard a mother chastise her, 15 year old or so son, loudly in public. He was mortified at the public humiliation. In anger he slammed a freezer door shut. Which brought an immediate rebuke from his mother. I could see the frustration on his face and in his every move. He had all he could do to contain himself. But had no outlet for his frustration.

It is impossible to squeeze a balloon with your hands. Try it. It is impossible. There will always be a bulge that will appear between your fingers. Sometimes appearing where you least expect it. No matter how you try there will always be a point at which the balloon’s air forms a bulge instead of being compressed. It is impossible to form perfect containment so that the fabric of the balloon will give…

The kid in the store was compressing his ego balloon. No matter how strong the fabric of his balloon it must at some point give. Where the bulge will manifest itself no one knows. It may manifest itself as depression, acting out, drugs, etc… there are no end to the negative ways that held in frustration can reveal itself.

Sports and physical exercise are positive ways to vent frustration. They also foster team building in youth. Unfortunately athletics is such that only some percentage of youths shine at them. Video games are a new phenomenon and can help alleviate frustration. They also help with hand eye coordination as well as practicing the ability to wholly focus on one task. But there are some youths that find games to be a waste of time.

There is one way that is rarely used in our society today… Hard work with a reward. There is not one youth that cannot work hard at something. Hard work is a great vent for frustration. It also fosters a strong work ethic. The most important part of the fix however is the reward.

There must be an obvious, valuable reward that is scaled and tied to performance. That will be the carrot that entices youths to work hard. Lets face it, no one is born wanting to work hard, it is an acquired taste. If we teach our youths to work hard for a suitable reward we will soon have adults that work hard and expect a proper reward for their labors. Every economist sees the truth in a productive workforce raising the standard of living in a society. A strong work ethic in a society makes a productive workforce possible.

Government is in a special position to destroy the work ethic of our youth. Every time government tries to foster something governments action rots it from the inside. Government cannot be efficient (pragmatic) or set incentives. The incentives, with all government programs, are to play the system. Youths are not ignorant of this fact. Only liberals are.

A youth that gets a government fostered job will do as little as he or she can (playing the system). Government is nothing but red tape (making the system easy to play). Dots that need to be dotted and t‘s that need to be crossed, forms in triplicate, a signature from the highest level, all to provide a box on a check board for someone to check. If the system is shown to be flawed… Government being government will simply hire another person with another check board to check off that the person in front of him checked his board. (Because government, in it’s arrogance and hubris, cannot understand that a system it set up can be fatally flawed).

Regardless of how frustration is handled it must be handled. Else the problems we as a society have with violent crime will continue. Violent crime that could have been stemmed and reworked into a strong work ethic if the right measures had been taken at the right time. Measures that would not only help society but more to the point… the person.

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Christmas Attack

Posted on January 3, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that one thing about the Christmas terror attack on the US homeland is the stark way it illustrates the difference in the debate from the Bush administration. After September 11, 2001 until November 5, 2009, the citizens of the US suffered no terror attacks on American Soil. Now, on Christmas, we have a second, a near miss. It was only a near miss due to the grace of God. In stopping the explosives from going off.

But the debate I hear on ABC News is about a Republican’s campaign tactics. Fox News had some small debate about whether the tactics the Bush administration used to keep US citizens safe was more effective than those the Obama administration’s to date. That comes close but misses the mark.

We have two different policies;

The Bush policy was to use every method possible to stop any and all terrorist attacks on American Soil from happening. If the World community didn’t like it… OH well. While engaged in keeping the American people safe we will go after every threat to the American people no matter where it is. Eventually the terrorists will see the futility of their action’s and will die or be captured.

The Obama policy to date has been. We will put on a nice face to the world, so that, it will disarm those that seek to radicalize the masses by telling them that America is evil. With the radicals disarmed we will then round up the radicals. Then the threat will be eliminated once and for all. Pragmatically with this strategy we cannot protect all the people all the time.

The real debate is now framed as which strategy do you believe in? The premise of both are different. The one is based on the notion that not one person is an acceptable loss, the other that, to loose few to save the many is noble.

That my friends it seems to me should be the real debate. Instead, like a husband and wife who don’t want to discuss the real issue, our unbiased media dance around the subject. Needling and wheedling to distraction. Never quite getting on the same page. Until we argue the same argument we will never come to a logical conclusion.

Both arguments have merit. But We need to look into the premises of the two a little deeper to see which one is the more Human Hearted principle.

As we have been arguing for many blogs and BBS postings, we agree with Kant and believe that the individual must be considered to be… an and in and of himself. This is the fundamental yardstick that we put to every question at the International Capitalist Party.

Lets take an extreme example of when society must reason this principle. Lets say one person has an incurable virulent airborne illness. Further this person is the only one with it and the illness will die with this individual. Is it societies right, to execute this person, to protect itself from this disease that could potentially kill millions of other people?

To do so would invalidate that society’s moral power. The Human Hearted way would be to isolate the person, keep them comfortable as possible, while trying to procure a cure. To do so would be in both the person’s best interest and society’s. Because to eliminate the person and burning the body denies society’s ability to ascertain the cause of the disease and the cure. Incase such a disease should get into the general population in the future. The human hearted principle is the best for the individual, society and mankind‘s physical as well as moral health.

So to apply this principle to our situation would be to say that people are not expendable. Expediency is never the Human Hearted way. Think about your own life…

When has the easy way been the best way… Long term?

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Can We Count on Foundational Climate Data?

Posted on December 30, 2009 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the back story about the German 6th Army’s destruction at the battle of Stalingrad is an apt metaphor for how global warming is being inflated.

After thee Russian Guards Armor had encircled 6th Army under Field Marshal Von Paulos, OKH and OKW were keen to free them. 6th Army was the spearhead of the German Army and contained the most battle hardened units. A communiqué went out to Von Paulos asking how much reserve supplies were at hand for a breakout.

Paulos then sent a communiqué to his commanders who then sent them out to their subordinates. The subordinates knowing that whatever they reported, more would be asked of them than their reported supplies would allow, so they withheld some from the tally… as a buffer. The commanders then added the reported amounts, then subtracted some, to make up for the fact that more would be asked than the supplies would allow. Then Paulos did the same thing. By the time the supply report got back to OKW and OKH the amount of supplies reported was a fraction of what was available. Making the picture more grim than it in fact was. The total amount was under reported at every step of the way to the point that, a breakout was not ordered, and 6th Army perished as a result.

Global warming is similar in that all it takes is for the ground units to inflate or deflate their reports a little. In the aggregate the slight over reports add up to a great over report of temperature rise. Each person thinks he or she is helping by showing the crisis is urgent and so is buffering the data a little. Just as the subordinate officers of the German 6th Army under reported their supply situation to “help” by being able to do the impossible if asked, some modern weather data collectors might inflate their numbers a little. Inflating the foundational information and skewing the reported rise in global temperatures dramatically.

For example the National Weather Service reports the Heating Degree Days. The heating degree day is a scalar of how much the daily average temperature was above or below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

To illustrate, I have taken some days from December 2009 that were reported in the Burlington Free Press, the paper of record for the State of Vermont;

dec18 2009 wsscm 2

On December 18, 2009 the National weather service reported 48 heating degree days for December 17th 2009. The High was 9 degrees and the low was 1 degree. 9+1=10 10/2=5 The average temperature for December 17th 2009 was 5 degrees Fahrenheit in Burlington Vermont. Subtract 5 from 65 to get the heating degree days and you have 60. But the National Weather service reported only 48 heating degree days for that day. Under reporting the actual figure by 12 degrees. Last year that day the Weather Service reports that the high was 31 and the low was 30. So 31+30=61 61/2=30.5 round up and you have 31. The average temperature for December 17 2008 was 31 degrees. Subtract 31 from 65 and you have 34 heating degree days for December 17 2008. The Weather Service reports exactly 34. The averages for December 17 are 32 for a high and 17 for a low. 32+17=49 49/2=24.5 round up to 25. Subtract 25 from 65 and you have 40 heating degree days for December 17th on average and that is what the National Weather Service reports is normal.

The question I have is why is December 17 2009 so underreported for heating degree days? The heating degree days as I have show were actually 60 when the National Weather service reported only 48. That would have made the average temperature on that day 17 degrees. Double the highest temperature seen on that day. This skews the seasonal heating degree days by showing less than there really was.

I have included another day to compare. December 21 2009. They under reported the heating degree days for the year prior;

dec 22 2009 wsscm 2

What do you think about that? I have found that at least once a week the heating degree days are under reported or, in the summer, the cooling degree days are over reported The heating degree day figure is a foundational figure used in computing global climate change. As the heating degree days are under reported and the cooling degree days are over reported it skews the IPCC’s reported global temperature increases. In the aggregate, all the little over and under reporting adds up to a lot, due to errors in the “original” data. At least the data that hasn’t been destroyed.

Check it out yourself in your local news papers. The math isn’t hard. Maybe it’s time we started looking into things for ourselves… and stop trusting people who have shown themselves over and over to be untrustworthy. Under tyrannies, the people have no means, in the democratized countries we have the means. Until we give it up to the global warming panic mongers.

Lets hope and work so that the little buffers, don’t have the same result on us… as it did 6th Army.

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Opium of the People

Posted on December 28, 2009 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that government largess is the opium of the people. Once people get addicted to government spending they loathe giving it up. Even when it is in their personal best interest to do so.

When Medicare passed according to a congresswoman on Fox news, there was only 26% of the American people that supported it. Now when asked if they support medicare over 80% say yes. That is because in the premise of the question “do you support medicare?” is the assumption that if you do not, you want all the people who are now getting “free” medical care from the government to get thrown out and left in the cold with no coverage. Most people stop there logic here.

However if there was a better alternative for indigent people to get medical attention, when they need it and that doesn’t require government intervention, most would support the alternative. Other examples of government doling out “free” money are equally as enlightening.

Like the public dole. During the 1990’s there was a concerted effort made to move people from welfare to work. The effort had some success. Many people moved from one side of the equal sign to the other. They are now contributing to US National GDP. I believe that some of the economic growth seen in the 1990’s was due to this program. Without this concerted effort though the number of people on the dole would be much higher.

Fortunately, for the government pushers, we are now in a recession of the government’s making. So they hope to regain some of the lost addicts. They can now get as many people on welfare as possible. All the while telling them that they cannot make it. It is impossible. They are too stupid to ever be more than a welfare recipient.

From the perspective of the welfare recipient it seems a pretty good deal. Sleep in every day. No place you have to be… except the welfare office once a month. Your bills are paid and you have free health care. If you decide to go to work and add your productive labor to the collective GDP, then you loose free healthcare, free housing, free food, your bills are no longer paid and you have to worry about bills.

But when a person moves from the dole to fending for oneself they gain much more than they loose. All the things mentioned in the previous paragraph are just that… Things. Nothing more. What will be gained by working are many and profound.

Independence from others. We can never be totally independent it is our nature to socially interact and raise our collective lot thusly. But we as individuals can gain a level of freedom within the framework of society if we pay for our own things. This independence is more than just physical.

We become independent in our minds. Paying for your own way is empowering by giving our sense of justice a widget. The more widgets we give our personal sense of justice the better our self esteem, the better our sense of self and the better we hold ourselves. Today’s society doesn’t have much use for the way in which we hold ourselves. The inevitable depression is handled by antidepressant drugs. Not by fostering a better feeling of self worth. We seek to minimize the negative effects of our intemperance.

The dole destroys self worth just like drug addiction. When someone does something that is not in their nature, to get something that they feel they need, their sense of self worth is diminished. We are all diminished when this happens. When ever a person falls short of his or her potential, especially when it is government that provides the friction, society is diminished.

But just because something walks like a duck, squawks like a duck and looks like a duck…

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Machinery and Law

Posted on December 24, 2009 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that a well designed machine has as few parts as possible, is put together as simply as possible and performs it’s function very well. Law is no different. It should be simple, well written and perform it’s function well and with no unintended consequences.

During the Second World War the German army produced a tank that was considered to be, if not the best of the war, among the top two. It was the Panzer Kampf Wagon Mark 5… The Panther. It had a heavy gun from the start and was able to pierce the armor along the frontal arc of the Russian T32. (The tank for which it was designed to destroy). The tank was fast overland for it’s day and had wide tracks for better soft terrain maneuver. The Achilles heel of the PzKW Mark V was it was notoriously prone to breakdowns. Any unit equipped with the new tanks was sure to have at least a few down for maintenance at any time. Reducing the effectiveness of the unit. So despite it’s surface beauty and function it was flawed. That flaw made the tank that fought beautifully, destroyed in the motor pool, not on the battlefield. The machine was too complicated. The internal complexity undermined the outer function.

There are many examples of machines that don’t work because they were too complicated. Law that is too complicated only serves the interests of attorneys. Society is poorly served when the law that we are held to cannot be known to us. Especially when ignorance is no excuse under the law. When laws are so complicated a reasonably intelligent person with due diligence cannot perform functions that law requires of him… Law becomes tyranny. Tax law is only one example.

Regulation that is very complicated is also poorly thought out. Like a machine that is too complicated. Ask any engineer if it is harder to design a simply made machine that will work or a complicated machine to do the same job. They will answer the more simple a machine to do a function is, the harder it is to design, but the longer it will last, the easier it will be to work on, and the less it will break down. The simple machine is the function of a diligent engineer but a complicated machine is the work of a sloppy engineer. Complicated law and regulation is the work of sloppy legislators and is prone to unintended consequences, revision, running afoul of some other regulation or regulatory body and the more it will be despised.

Moreover complicated law increases the need for lawyers. Lawyers that make law that suits their needs, (not the needs of society). Law that sows more chaos than it quells. And law that makes the people fear their government.

But when you think about it isn’t that what complicated law is supposed to do. Make the people fear their government? When you never know when you are acting outside legality you are never safe from the law. If you don’t know the law pertaining to your every day business you don’t ever know if you are breaking the law. To know if you are breaking the law you must know what the law is. To assume that because you are acting morally is to be in utter ignorance of the purpose of law. That is, to protect the property of those in power and plunder the property of those not in power.

In the end, in machinery or law, you only get the product of the person who designs it. If engineering was a popularity contest instead of merit based I bet we would still be cutting with churt and lighting with flint.

Humanity has moved to a place where we have machines that do incredibly complex tasks and break down rarely. We have achieved the balance between function and complexity in our machines. Too bad our legislation hasn’t progressed a bit since Roman times.

Oh well… I hear Ballet With Baal has a new episode!

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Demand for Labor

Posted on December 20, 2009 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the best thing government can do for the working man is to make the demand for labor greater than the ability of the market to deliver. To do so resets the value of labor and allows the working man the ability to raise his lot.

The swamp of humanity that Malthus supposed has not come to fruition and can be tossed out. Population growth is slowed to the point in industrialized countries that the average age is going up fast. Problems of how the few youth will pay for the services of the many old are manifesting.

Market forces can never be ignored. When ever demand exceeds supply the aggregate price will rise. Labor is no exception. So whenever demand for labor exceeds the supply of labor the price goes up. But market forces are powerful. As the price of any commodity goes up more of the commodity is produced. So as the price of labor increases the supply will increase. By bringing in people who had little reason to work. (People who formerly had taken advantage of government largess). Most of the time the value of their labor is less than the value of government services they receive. Only when the value of their labor gets to the point where it makes economic sense to move into the labor force will people that receive government services do so.

As more people move into the workforce the ranks of the poor will necessarily go down. Poverty will necessarily become a thing of the past. But, more importantly, as almost everyone of working age in a society work, (add their productive labor to the aggregate), the wealth of all of that society grows… inevitably. The more people that work in a society, the more wealth there is in that society, the stronger the “foundation” of that society. The less people that work in a society the less wealth there is in that society.

How can government help drive up demand for labor in it’s territorial jurisdiction? By lowering friction to business… Regulation, taxes, licenses, and graft are friction to business. Another more pernicious source of friction are parasitic lawyers and legal system that creates chaos to enrich itself. Export and import tariffs and regulations continue to drive down the demand for labor in a country. Government largess is another insidious incentive that keeps the demand for labor low by creating a permanent underclass that has only the buying power, government, (societies roof), suffers it to have.

The roof cannot long support the foundation.

But by far the biggest drag on the demand for labor in a country is a lack of justice. Nothing else is as corrosive of the wealth of a nation. In a country that has no real justice, only the appearance of justice, poverty is always rampant. Starving people litter the streets and countryside.

Look at modern Kenya. There is a drought there. Starvation is gearing up to take the lives of thousands of people, and reset the epigenetics of the next two or three generations. Now what is the effective cause of the starvation in Kenya? Is it the drought or is there some root cause that is only made apparent by the drought?

The last elections in Kenya were marred by violence. Many were killed and the turmoil is only just under the surface. Justice is not to be found. People cannot be safe in their possessions. I submit, the lack of justice is the root cause, of the imminent starvation in Kenya and the drought is an aggravating factor.

Can you think of one country that has, or had, no justice and is/was wealthy? Not one exists in the history of man. Many were wealthy and lost their wealth when they became corrupt but not one has risen in corruption to wealth. The two are like matter and anti matter. They cannot exist together. Where there is injustice there cannot be general wealth. But where there is wealth, injustice will eat from the inside, that wealth, as surely as a nematode in a caterpillar.

Injustice lowers the demand for labor because of many factors one of which is the incentives that are set up. No one gets ahead by his or her own labor, they get ahead by stealing the possessions and labor (slavery), of others. Therefore, as possessions are used up and not replaced by the labor of the many, necessarily, the aggregate wealth of the county goes down. And, inevitably, as the wealth of a country goes down the demand for labor goes down as well… a nice feedback loop.

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Living Breathing Document

Posted on December 18, 2009 by john

Dear Friends,

I wrote this awhile ago and republished it in March. Given the expansion of government we are seeing it seems relevant.

The basis of Constitutionalism is that, if the maximum limits of a government were written down, adhered to strictly, and difficult to change. The government would be free, fair, stable, and weak. As long as the government was acting in a way that didn’t contradict the constitution, the people had no complaint. If the government acted extra constitutionally, the people did have a legitimate gripe.

History had shown that governments become corrupt, and tyrannical over time. The political innovation of Constitutionalism was to be the fix for this tendency. Livy’s history of Rome is a good example of the rise and decline of a civilization, and the rise of the next. There are many other examples of this tendency. Gilgamesh’s dynasty in Ur, The Spartan civilization, The Warring States Period of Classical China, and the Mongols. It was obvious that some form of muzzle must be placed on government. I am amazed that the politicians willingly applied the muzzle of Constitutionalism to themselves.

The very strength of a constitution is it’s great moment. The amount of force needed to change it. Without this immutability, a constitution is not worth the paper it is/was written on. If the constitution can be changed easily the powerful will change it to suit themselves. It will be changed first to keep the Elite in power. Then in the name of safety it will be paired back to nothing.

To say that the constitution is a ‘living breathing document’ and that it can be ‘reinterpreted’ to ‘grow with the times’ is really to say that “the dammed thing means whatever the hell I say it does.” The first way is more expedient, the second more accurate. The problem with this reasoning, is that, if you agree with the changes made today, you may not agree with the changes made tomorrow. ‘Rights’ and ‘Power to regulate’ that can be read into a constitution, outside it’s original intent, can be just as easily read out, or enlarged.

Saint Augustine said, in the city of man, that “People get the government they deserve.” When people let their rights slip away, and let their constitution be changed by an oligarchy of five, they will deserve the tyranny that they visit upon themselves and unfortunately, their children.

In fact, we are seeing these very gouges taken out of the US Constitution. The First Amendment is there specifically to protect POLITICAL speech. Not pornography. That pornography is also protected is a side effect. We see that political advertising is now illegal. Saying something bad about a person who is in office before an election is now illegal, unless you are a special organization, 527k or some such. This requires reams of paperwork, a roadblock to individual participation at that level.

The government was not to make laws respecting religion and not establish a state religion. It has been twisted so that we do now have an official state religion, Atheism.

The Second Amendment is, we are now told, was put their to protect the government’s right to keep and bear arms. This is absurd, even taken at face value. Why would the framers give the government the right to keep and bear arms in an addendum to the actual constitution. An addendum there specifically to protect the rights of the people. An amendment that is redundant, in that the power of the government to keep a standing army is in the main document. The Federalist Papers, Number 10 Madison mentions that the people regularly have guns in their homes. We shall see what the Lawyer oligarchy says about the Second Amendment pretty soon.

The most ignored Amendment is number 10. Every possible avenue of human endeavor has been interpreted as interstate commerce. Apparently if you pick your nose it can be regulated by the Federal Government, due to the possibly of it’s being sold across state lines.

We are on a slippery slope. Meddling with the constitution as much as has been done in the twentieth century is foolish. The slope is getting steeper, and we are moving faster. I don’t see a bottom in site, do you?

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