by Smitty

Cultural references, alas.

Before it ends YOU!

by Smitty

For most of the past four or five years, I have spent the majority of my time studying the dominant forces that fuel the power structure that exists in these Unites States today, and indeed throughout the world.  My education began quite suddenly and unexpectedly in the middle of the last decade when I started understanding fiat money, Central Banking and the global monetary system.  Since then, I have expanded my understanding to mainstream media brainwashing, the military-industrial complex, the role of the political oligarchs in Washington D.C., the corruption of the food industry under the complicity of the FDA itself and much more.  The more I peered under the curtain, no matter what the industry, the clearer it became that the system had no chance of survival under its current form.  What’s worse, it became obvious that the very small 0.01% of the population that I call oligarchs (financial and political), who are actively gaming the system for their own pleasure, are well aware of the system’s terminal nature.  That’s why they are rapidly putting in place the police state grid.

That said, this article is not about the implementation of the surveillance state.  I cover that pretty much daily these days.  This post is more of a philosophical stream of consciousness; a guilty pleasure that I have not engaged in as of late.

Read the whole thing. I don’t disagree with the big picture being offered here. I also don’t thing the surveillance state is going to prove feasible. Walter Russell Mead, via Instapundit, enumerates seven trolls working for “the oligarchs” that the Middle Class must vanquish, and then he concludes:

Add to that the worries about federal deficits and debts (Troll 6) and the palpable unease about the financial system (Troll 7), and it’s easy to see why the middle class feels harassed and defensive.
These problems are real and they are serious; people are not wrong to worry. But attempts to perpetuate the blue model don’t help. Many of the seven trolls are the results of the high cost blue model approach to governance, the health system and higher education, and in any case the forces ripping the blue model apart are too strong and too deeply rooted in the way our economy works to be stopped.
Yet if the worries are real, the pessimism is excessive. The information revolution destroys jobs, but it also creates them, and we are already in the early stages of a jobs explosion. And as it proceeds, the information revolution is likely to propel the rise of a middle class that is more productive, better educated, more autonomous and more interested in and capable of civic leadership than the Fordist middle class of the late industrial age.

We need to distinguish between, say, entertainment industry jobs created because so many people can do their own media, as distinguished from economic activity pertaining to over-regulation.

I more or less agree with Mead’s assessment, but I don’t think he’s a big enough nerd to grasp some key points. Information is a fluid. Power (in both economic and political phases) is derived from controlling that information. Thus, we se an unholy alliance of a permanent political class using legislation to milk the stock market, and by extension, the people.

As I was noting earlier today, Senator Coburn is doing yeoman work identifying just the easy overlaps in our beloved Federal government. The amount of churn, legal action, and re-work triggered by

• sheer bureaucratic bloody-mindedness,
• obstructive conformity*, and
• malicious compliance

is astounding.

Actual reform will arrive in waves of decentralization. Sadly, I’m no longer sure that a purely political expression of the voter’s will at the ballot box is going to get it done. That information technology Mead touts has not overcome the human capacity to avoid paying attention.

No, I think that this lousy opening January to 2013 is only going to worsen as we celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Woodrow “Effing” Wilson. It’s going to be a long eleven months getting through the rest of this lousy year, I reckon. God grant this country peace due to all the firepower out there.

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*You ever start up a blog to test out a piece of software, write one post, forget about it, and then discover it 6.5 years later as the top return on a Google search? Scratch that. Too far-fetched. Never happens. No one would believe it.

by Smitty

Essentially, there are four preconditions in Modern Monetary Theory:

1. Money enters the economy through government spending, as the total amount of money is constrained not by gold but by the total output of the national economy;
2. Government spending is speculative as it prints as much money as it needs to control production and, as a byproduct, employment, and spending beyond productive capacity leads to inflation;
3. Taxes do not pay for expenditures but are instead a way to throttle private sector demand; and
4. The government is the issuer of the currency, sovereign governments that issue their own currency are never insolvent, so debts essentially don’t matter.

I would submit we now meet those preconditions. With the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program, beginning with Quantitative Easing “QE1? in November 2008, the US government is the de facto issuer of currency, as the Fed can, for the most part, purchase Treasury Bonds at will. The Federal Reserve is currently purchasing 61% of Bonds at auction, quickly approaching its 70% self-imposed limit, which was relaxed from 35% in 2010.

I would submit that the economic wreckage before you kinda shows that the capitalist/monetary theorist approaches are kinda like before/after chrystal meth pics.

Thus, until somebody articulates reform for the Federal Reserve, stand by for a steady stream of Hegelism. The private sector economy is the horse, the government is the cart. This Modern Monetary Theorist foolishness isn’t going to end well. But, hey, we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, aren’t we?

via Mataconis

by Smitty

The New York Sun:

“Bernanke warns congress to butt out of interest-rate policy discussions . . .” is the headline up on the Drudge Report following the speech today by the Federal Reserve’s chairman at Indiana. It sounds to us like the chairman is warning Congress against passing Congressman Ron Paul’s audit-the-Fed legislation and Congressman Kevin Brady’s Sound Dollar Act, both of which would open up Fed policies to inspection. The chairman’s speech marks another step in the Fed and the Congress moving into what might be called open, if polite, confrontation.
It’s an important story. The fear the Fed chairman is trying to instill is that by conducting an audit of the Fed that includes its interest rate policy discussions, the Congress would open the Fed up to political interference. It strikes us as an illogical reach. The Fed, after all, is running one of the most radical interest rate programs in the history of the central bank. It’s been many an election since we’ve seen the Fed so close to the center of the presidential campaign.

“Zimbabwe” Ben Bernanke is #2, after #OccupyResoluteDesk, on the list of people who Have. Got. To. Go. in my opinion.

And Ben himself may not be a bad guy; maybe it’s the office. But the Federal Reserve has been for too long the bi-partisan vehicle for funding federal irresponsibility. The madness will stop. The question is whether the sudden deceleration is going to snuff the economy with it.

by Smitty

Good news via Freedom Works: the Audit the Fed bill passed. And now it goes to the Senate, where Dingius Maximus (Harry Reid), remains mostly paralyzed by a head-shaped object in an unlikely location (emphasis mine):

“Ron Paul’s ‘Audit The Fed’ bill is a reminder of his tireless efforts to promote sound money and a more transparent Federal Reserve,” Romney posted on Twitter.
The bill, of course, is not without critics. Democrats say the Act could “politicize” the Federal Reserve’s decisions–what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has called a “nightmare scenario.”
“This bill would … jeopardize the Fed’s independence by subjecting its decisions on interest rates and monetary policy to GAO audit,” said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland. “I agree with Chairman Bernanke that congressional review of the Fed’s monetary policy decisions would be a ‘nightmare scenario,’ especially judging by the track record of this Congress when it comes to governing effectively.”
While Wednesday’s passage in the lower chamber is a victory for Paul and his supporters, the bill is considered dead on arrival in the Senate. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader and Nevada Democrat, has vowed not to put it to a vote.

Now, why would you put it to a vote, Harry? That would be like doing your job, or engaging in reasonable stewardship while in office. Which would be totally out of character for you, sad clown.

Props to Jim Moran, my Congressman, for getting it right.

by Smitty

The post title is meant to connect Ben Bernanke with ruinous monetary policy in another country, not as a derogation of the fine people of Zimbabwe, who certainly deserve better than a Bernanke riff.

Financial Times reports that, while the Federal Reserve isn’t addicted to the cocaine of currency inflation, the Fed does seem to think it smells kinda purdy:

The recent slowdown in US economic growth is forcing the Federal Reserve to consider something for which it has always set the bar very high: a third round of quantitative easing.
A decision on whether to launch another round of asset purchases remains in the balance as the central bank wrestles with a complicated economic outlook and uncertainty about the costs and benefits of its easing tools.
In an interview with the Financial Times, John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, said that the weak outlook and the extent of downside risks “would argue for further action” but the counter-argument was doubts about tools such as QE3.

Read the whole thing.

In defense of ‘Zimbabwe’ Ben, when you put a junkie on guard at the police evidence vault, you can’t be surprised if there is a lot of nosing about going on. The problem really isn’t Bernanke himself, but rather the system, and the fact that there is bi-partisan reward for playing along.

Via Mataconis

Update: more at Ace of Spades.

by Smitty

First Principles was taking me to task in the comments over on the Norquist post. This is the kind of back-and-forth that can be highly educational, if one can dodge the temptation toward ad hominem.
FP:

When it comes to political hot points in conservative political circles in Nevada, the Grover Norquist/Americans for Tax Reform “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” may be the most singularly significant. It has become, for some, THE litmus test for who a “real” conservative is and isn’t. But is that fair? Does the pledge make sense politically, policy-wise, or philosophically?
This blog was conceived specifically to answer questions like that, and now – with several Republican primary races pitting Pledge-signers against non-Pledge signers (both arguing over who the “true conservative” is) – is as good a time as any to explore this issue.
This is often painted as a “pragmatist vs. purist” argument – but I think that is too glib, especially for something as complicated as tax policy. And it lets both signers and non-signers off the hook when it comes to truly understanding – and explaining to their constituents! – the complex budget bills they’re considering.
I’m going to explore this on multiple fronts and in multiple posts to follow, but the bottom line is this – the Pledge is an un-serious document, poorly tailored to promote sound, conservative economic policy.

Read the whole thing, including the outline for the series.

Reacting to that outline, what seems strange is the tacit acceptance that DC has eminent domain over the individual citizen wallet. While I stood chided for calling Norquist’s tax pledge “necessary but insufficient” (I guess the contention lies in the use of “necessary”), what I hope to see from FP is some discussion of the 1913 Wilsonian debacle of Amendments 16, 17, & the Federal Reserve Act.

It’s my contention that the Federalist chain of command, (local, state, and federal government entities) was short-circuited in 1913. When DC gave itself the power to inflate the currency, senators became beholden to voters and not their sending state governments, and your very wallet became a wholly owned subsidiary of the IRS, the course was laid in for our current crisis. States balance their books somewhat regularly, mainly because “Federal dollars” can be caused to appear when desirable to paper over the worst of the  embarrassments.

And I’m not a huge Norquist apologist. The commenters on the last post featuring him pointed out some border security questions. And his Pledge might be more honored in the breech than effectual. In a postmodern world, we have an Administration trying to argue that ObamaCare is a tax when you stand here, and a penalty when you stand there. So our government rapes us and refers to it as “intense massage” where taxes are concerned. Hence my sub-loyal approach to thinking about the GOP Establishment.

The argument that Norquist’s Pledge is worse than nothing seems over-stated. Efforts have to start somewhere. You can contend that the Pledge is sub-optimal. Fine. But some credit where due is in Order. Grover has helped call attention and trigger public involvement. That’s why the Left goes after him. That’s why he offers closing speeches at CPAC. Pretending that Norquist isn’t swinging a mean bat and isn’t contributing a hefty amount to the effort to recover liberty seems a trifle peevish, in my book.

Thus, I’m interested in seeing if FP is going to accept the cancer that is federal over-reach on taxation. Admittedly, any radical operation to remove the tumor by repealing Amendments 16, 17 & the Federal Reserve isn’t going to happen. But the historical evidence is that our current course is disastrous, and that DC has handled money and power like teenage boys with whiskey and car keys. I’d personally delegate tax collection back to the states, and let them compete economically. Let DC return to its enumerated powers, handling multi-state and international affairs, and checking the power of the states over individuals. Because I’m retro like that. Sure, we’re engineering in some inefficiency. Yes, it’s much harder for the aggregate muscle of the U.S. to be brought to bear internationally. The price of freedom and tyranny avoidance is both individual involvement and a measure of inefficiency.

by Smitty

Julie Borowski at the mighty Freedom Works:

Last week, the audit the Fed movement received good news that House Republican leaders plan to hold a vote on a full audit bill in July. Introduced by none other than Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would require frequent thorough audits of the Fed and has already garnered 227 cosponsors ranging from Justin Amash to Dennis Kucinich.

Of course, Harry “Wait, if that’s my thumb, what have I been sucking for three years–OMG! A budget!” Reid probably will be as obstructive as ever to doing his job. If Reid was any less effective, he’d be the Prime Minister of Greece. Or do I mean more effective? Relative effectiveness measures are tricky down around the limit as effectiveness goes to absolute, total, cretinous zero.

Nevertheless, this vote could be an important marker in the overall effort to reveal the depths of the corruption of our system. So it’s well worth supporting in the face of the lack of immediate result.