October 29, 2008
This is a clutch article from Mike Whitney at Counterpunch:
“The Bush administration has called for an economic summit to be held by the 20 largest economies sometime after the presidential elections. US and EU officials are hoping to stitch together another Bretton Woods wherein control of the global economic system was delivered to those same nations. It’s likely, however, that the outcome will turn out considerably different than anticipated. Already, under China’s leadership, 12 Asian nations have agreed to set up an 80-billion-dollar fund to protect their economies from currency-runs, capital flight or other financial disruptions. China has the world’s largest reserves at $1.9 trillion followed by Japan at more than $1 trillion. Clearly the two richest nations will set the agenda and play a central role in deciding how best to deal with the global recession.
The November summit in Washington could produce some unwelcome surprises which were hinted at by Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Olarn Chaipravat, who told Bloomberg News:
“The message of this initiative is for China to consider whether or not China would open up its banking system and allow the strongest currency in the world, which is the Chinese yuan, to be the rightful and anointed convertible currency of the world.”
October 28, 2008
This article at the Telegraph.co.uk by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (who I believe is versed in Austrian economics) paints a bleak economic picture on the international scene.
“The International Monetary Fund may soon lack the money to bail out an ever growing list of countries crumbling across Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, raising concerns that it will have to tap taxpayers in Western countries for a capital infusion or resort to the nuclear option of printing its own money.
…
The nuclear option is to print money by issuing Special Drawing Rights, in effect acting as if it were the world’s central bank. This was done briefly after the fall of the Soviet Union but has never been used as systematic tool of policy to head off a global financial crisis.
“The IMF can in theory create liquidity like a central bank,” said an informed source. “There are a lot of ideas kicking around.”"
October 27, 2008
I’m not fond of Global Research’s articles during the economic crisis – too many of them are dishonest socialist rants. A few months ago I would have said (and did say!) that Global Research was the premier alternative news site, but their editorial choices have revealed a clear socialist ideological bent. Chossudovsky’s work is still exceptional, in my view, but I cannot look past the publishing of Richard C. Cook’s statist agenda, among others.
But here is an exceptionally intelligent and inspiring article: Psychological Control: States of Mental Disempowerment, by Dr. Judith H. Young. From Part II: Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite:
“As stated in a famous quote from Henry David Thoreau, the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation, marked by a state of resignation which is confirmed desperation.
…
Dr. Estés observes that the disorder of normalizing the abnormal is rampant across cultures. When there are formidable punishments for breaking silence, for pointing out wrongs, for demanding change, we cut away our rightful rage and become used to not being able to intervene in shocking events. Despair, fatigue and resignation follow.3
Normalization of the abnormal has been achieved in large part through the power elite’s control of the news media and entertainment. This dominance has permitted not only deciding the “information” the public is allowed to receive, but also the molding of public opinion and behavior. One example is sponsorship of the TV show 24, carefully designed to desensitize the viewers to the use of torture. Another is the use of TV commercials showing stars cheerfully endorsing invasive personal identification technology, as part of a carefully designed program for grooming us to accept Big Brother surveillance and control, including the eventual implantation of microchips under our skin.
The power elite goes to any lengths to keep the public misled, distracted, fearful, and ultimately imprisoned in a matrix of disinformation, rampant consumerism and the lowest common denominators of human nature, including raw violence and mindless sexuality.”
…
The technocrats would have us believe we are helpless to join battle. We are not. I support this optimistic claim with a comment on Part I of my deconstruction of the power of the global elite, which serves as a powerful ending to end Part ll:
“I for one have been subjected to much of this torture as being part of a marginalized class of society. The criminal global elites like to practice their abuse experiments on the less fortunate that cannot defend themselves and offer any resistance, but as the author so rightly observed, the human spirit is indominitable and will not go quietly into the night. Excellent job in exposing these psychological crimes for what they are. When people start realizing they were once human beings and hate what the behavioural criminals are doing, we can stop this learned helplessness and say with Patrick Henry, ‘Give me Liberty or give me death.’ “
October 24, 2008
“Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone.”
-Zhuangzi (369 BC – 286 BC)
The Ron Paul campaign has advanced the ideas of individual liberty and a society free from central control and planning. In the absence of government administration, free individuals acting in self-interest will organize into spontaneous order, otherwise known as emergent behavior or natural order.
The concept of spontaneous order has a rather long history, as evidenced by the above quote from Zhuangzi dating back to ~300 BC. The idea is central to the libertarian philosophy, the classic free-market economic theories of Adam Smith, and the present-day Austrian School of economics.
For individuals who have lived an entire lifetime within a centrally organized society, the intellectual leap toward the idea can be a long one. However, and wonderfully so, a perfect example of spontaneous order has emerged alongside the Ron Paul campaign itself. To wit,
“There is something about this campaign that is drawing large spontaneous crowds of people eager to hear the message of freedom.” -Powder Blue Report
“…individuals in the campaign forge forward in the name of the message, not personal credit. Others might take something away from the example: the movement’s spontaneous leadership.” -San Angelo LIVE
“Ron Paul Supporters Spontaneous Rally in Manchester” video, -Metacafe
“Benton [Paul's national campaign organizer] and his boss have chosen to ride along with the spontaneous wave of activity. Unlike many campaigns, which try to impose some order on their support…” -Statesman.com
This type of behavior within the grassroots Ron Paul campaign is observed with inspiring frequency. In Meetup groups, web blogs, internet forums, and local community organizations across the country, free individuals are organizing spontaneously, acting in their own self interest, and moving toward a common goal: FREEDOM.
October 23, 2008
If I had a lot of time and very little shame, I would re-post the entire Mises.org website onto this blog. The content is that good.
I won’t do that, however I will post a link and a paragraph from today’s Daily Article, Is Laissez Faire Responsible for the Financial Crisis?:
“The myth that laissez faire exists in the present-day United States and is responsible for our current economic crisis is promulgated by people who know practically nothing whatever of sound, rational economic theory or the actual nature of laissez-faire capitalism. They espouse it despite, or rather because of, their education at the leading colleges and universities of the country. When it comes to matters of economics, their education has steeped them entirely in the thoroughly wrong and pernicious doctrines of Marx and Keynes. In claiming to see the existence of laissez faire in the midst of such massive government interference as to constitute the very opposite of laissez faire, they are attempting to rewrite reality in order to make it conform with their Marxist preconceptions and view of the world.”
Read Mises.org…every day!
October 22, 2008
Mises.org is the digital home for the Ludwig von Mises Institute of the Austrian School of economics. The Austrian school is the champion of a truly free market economic system.
The current economic crisis is being blamed on the ‘free market’, but we know that this is false. With the Federal Reserve fixing interest rates and fudging the numbers for ‘prices’ (i.e. – the CPI does not include the costs of food and energy), our economy is anything but free or honest. Additionally, the subsidized housing boom, conducted mostly by Fannie and Freddie have created this centrally planned economic bubble.
The Austrian theory rings true for two reasons. The first is that it espouses true freedom for the individual to participate in a fair and honest economy – prices and interest rates are determined by the market, and the currency is backed by wealth. Freedom is always right.
The second is that it opposes centrally planned and managed economies. We know that no ‘expert’ or group of experts is smart enough to effectively and accurately plan an entire economy or an entire society. The world is too complex, and the temptation for corruption in such a powerful position is too strong.
Revolutionary is still learning economics according to the Austrian school, but because of their emphasis on personal freedom and their opposition to centrally planned societies, we feel that they are most definitely on our side. They are also our neighbors – their offices in Auburn, Alabama are not far from Revolutionary’s home in Atlanta, Georgia. They have our full support, and we leave you with a quote from their About page.
“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders,” wrote Ludwig von Mises, “no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle.”
October 14, 2008
The current economic crisis in the Unites States and around the world is the failure of Keynesian and Marxist economic systems.
That is to say, deficit spending by the government to ’stimulate’ economic activity and, more importantly, a centrally managed economy via the Federal Reserve.
The United States’ central bank, the unconstitutional Federal Reserve System, has set critical banking interest rates artificially low for many years – to the tune of 1-2%. This is the primary cause of the excessive lending, debt, and credit in the market! Both the government’s and the banking industry’s excessive debts are the primary causes of inflation and the mal-investment that has poisoned our economy.
Because the Federal Reserve currency, the U.S. Dollar, has no wealth to back it up (the gold standard was abandoned in the 1930’s), there is nothing to prevent money from being ‘created out of thin air’.
WHEN MONEY IS CREATED VIA DEBT, INFLATION OCCURS. INFLATION STRIPS ALL DOLLAR HOLDERS OF THEIR WEALTH AND SAVINGS.
These are the ultimate totalitarian economic mechanisms.
So the presented solution to these failed Socialist/Marxist systems is what? More government debt and more government intervention in markets; throwing taxpayer liability at failed banks, creating more debt and more inflation; nationalizing banks and centralizing economic power on top of our already totalitarian and criminal Federal Reserve System.
The level of ignorance displayed in the media, the Congress, and the Executive branch can hardly be believed. I can only come to one logical conclusion:
We are being taken for fools. And it’s working.
October 14, 2008
From the outstanding NaturalNews.com:
This legislation introduced by Congressman Ron Paul in June, 2007 would kill the Federal Reserve Act and would then phase out the Federal Reserve altogether one year after the bill becomes law.
That link actually takes you to their generic legislation page. Here is the link to Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act, H.R. 2755. The article continues:
What the Federal Reserve is all about
The Federal Reserve is called that to fool you. It is actually a private corporation run by bankers dedicated to controlling the nation’s money supply for the benefit of themselves and other wealthy and powerful people. Its mandate is to control the rest of the people by controlling their access to money and credit.
Since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the American middle and working classes have been victimized by boom and bust monetary policy. Most Americans have suffered steady erosion of purchasing power at the hands of the Fed’s inflationary policies. The result of these policies represents an insidious and onerous tax imposed on the people on top of their already burdensome overt taxation.
The heavy hand of the Fed can be seen by any student of the Great Depression, the torturous stagflation of the 1970’s, the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble, and today’s financial panic and collapse. Its hand print is on every economic downturn that has robbed American’s of their money for the past 80 years, as the Fed has followed a policy of flooding the economy with their easy money and credit. When everyone is in debt up to their eyeballs, the bubble bursts and is followed by a painful recession or depression. To save us from the total devastation they have created, the Fed then rides to our rescue with its printing press causing excessive inflation and the erosion of the purchasing power of the dollar. These policies have made slaves of us all with the exception of the power elite.
A dollar created during the birth of the Fed in 1913 is now worth about a penny thanks to the policies of the Fed.
