Category: MisesMonks

Mises Monks are a term we associate with those who worship Ludwig Von Mises … and his disciples. They think gold is money … and “sound money” to boot. They are clueless about money … but well funded and noisy … and dangerous.

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Cafe Hayek: No Monopsony in the Market for Low-Skilled Labor

MD: All economists confuse the “proper” Medium of Exchange” process with some kind of manipulation of the economy.  That’s just what they think their job is … their focus is … their expertise is … their destiny is. And they are all flat out wrong.

Money simply enables traders to effect their trading promises over time and space. Trading “is” the economy and trading over time and space is a huge part of trading (simple barter exchange in the here-and-now being the rest … unless you consider government counterfeiting) … and it is the only instance where money is created. Money is just the record of these in-process trading promises. It doesn’t exist before the promise nor after delivery for any instance of a trading promise spanning time and space. Thus, it cannot and will not inflate or deflate. And it is always in free supply. No economist needed!

If a trader (and we are all traders … with different levels of responsible behavior) can see clear to delivering on a promise over time and space, he does so of his own volition. He is free to create money to carry out his promise. If he fails (defaults), the orphaned money is reclaimed immediately by an interest collection of like amount.

Manipulation of the money process is “always” counterproductive. It should never be allowed … and with a “proper” MOE process, it cannot be accommodated … so “is” never allowed. Let’s see what kind of manipulation is being studied in this instance.

The article:

My Mercatus Center colleague Jayme Lemke (who earned her PhD in economics from George Mason University) published last year in the journal Public Choice a very nice piece of research titled “Interjurisdictional competition and the Married Women’s Property Acts.”  (This article won the 2017 Gordon Tullock Prize.)

MD: Georg Mason University is a “hotbed” for Mises Monkery. It is kind of the USA abby for the religion.

In this article, Jayme explains the timing during the 19th century of U.S. states modernizing their property law – specifically, modernizing this law to enable married women to own, use, and alienate property no differently than could men and unmarried women.  This timing, Jayme shows, is explained by the intensity with which state leaders wished to increase their states’ populations.  A state whose leaders could personally enjoy some significant gains if that state’s population increased was more likely to modernize its property law than a state whose leaders stood to gain less from a population increase.  (My summary here of Jayme’s thesis and of her principal finding do not do justice to her paper.  Do read it yourself.  It’s excellent.)

MD: The state (and the money changers that institute it) are notorious for co-opting the trading process … for their own self interest. In trading there is no gender. It is human specific in the animal kingdom, but other than that, all traders are equal (until the money changers … and the states … and the leaders they institute dictate otherwise).

One of the passages in Jayme’s paper that I found to be especially interesting and germane is the following on pages 302-303:

“[O]ne of the practices first implemented by [Massachusetts textile-mill owner Francis Cabot] Lowell and later copied by other industrialists was the active recruitment of young women.  Lowell would pay recruiters to go out into the rural areas of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont to find female workers….  The model developed by Lowell came to be copied by aspiring industrialists across the Northeast, and beyond.”

MD: And if he could have recruited dogs or pigs or horses to be productive in his mills he would have done that. When you need to expand your labor force, you pull out all the stops. When you have the luxury of picking and choosing your labor force, you impose all the stops you think are appropriate. And it seems to be a male/female thing. Women creating enterprises have a tendency to employ women over men. And it is a race thing. Proprietors from India operating convenience stores seem to exclusively use Indians to run their stores. This isn’t rocket science. It’s about ease and predictability of control.

More than 150 years ago – when transportation and communication were primitive by the standards of the early 21st century – competition nevertheless drove industrialists to spend significant resources to recruit, from distant places, low-skilled workers.  If profit-hungry industrialists went to such lengths in mid-19th-century America to locate and hire workers from jobs (then, mostly on farms) that paid those workers less than they could earn working for the recruiting industrialists, what sound reason is there to suppose that employers of low-skilled workers in America today generally possess anything that can, without laughing, be called “monopsony power” of such workers?  Answer: none.

MD: But that’s only half the story. Those workers left the farms because the industrialists offered them a better life than they had on the farm. But most of the industrial managers didn’t have to be scrupulous … so they were not scrupulous. Once they had control of those transplanted workers, they took advantage of them … because they could. That just seems to be human nature. The farmers did the same thing with their hired hands (in some cases making them total slaves).

Those who assert the existence of such monopsony power do so either because they mistakenly believe that such power exists whenever any employer faces a supply of labor that is less than perfectly elastic (that is, whenever an employer would quickly lose all of his workers of a given sort if that employer cut the pay of those workers by as little as one cent per hour), or because they ignore the active efforts of employers to find and recruit low-skilled workers.

MD: Well duh! That’s called a mature market. The grocery business has been running on razor thin margins for decades … as has the oil business.

Low-skilled worker Jones currently in job X need not himself have much gumption or stomach for actively searching out new and better employment if employers offering better-paying jobs Y and Z take steps actively to recruit Jones and other such workers.  And employers have every incentive to do such recruiting if and when there are pools of workers who are currently paid less than the value of those workers’ marginal products were those workers instead employed by the recruiting employers.

MD: When it comes to workers … and also to money, the HUL (Hour of Unskilled Labor) becomes the proper unit of measure. It never changes over time and space. It always trades for the same size hole in the ground.

And when it comes to labor, that’s as low as the scale goes … it doesn’t really ever become less than unskilled (unless you consider the case where they hire the handicapped … and supplement their lower than unskilled worth with government subsidies). Once you reach the HUL lower limit (or force it with something like a minimum wage adjustment), you move into the realm of the robot. Automation removes the need for human labor in that task altogether.

Economists seem to want to turn that which is natural into something they can manipulate … to make it rocket science. Interestingly, economists, like artists (excepting a tiny number of rock stars) work outside the domain of supply and demand. They cannot command the prices they charge for their services without government and corporate subsidies. They just aren’t needed in society. Unfortunately, when they are engaged, they become complete counterproductive and manipulative pests. They are all pulling in different directions at the same time … with greater and greater diligence and noise. Show any science that is pulling in all possible different directions as is the claimed science of economics … and politics for that matter. They are not science.

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Deviant Investor: Total Eclipse of Sense

The Deviant Investor

A Non-Traditional Perspective

MD: Hmmm. “A Non-Traditional Perspective” … this from the guy who will not let my posts pass his moderation … because they are “unorthodox”. Go figure.

My creation of this website and blog at least partially resulted from his (and other goldbugs and Mises Monks) defensive maneuvers.

Let’s see what pearls of wisdom his non-traditional perspective brings us. We certainly won’t expect to be disappointed when he links his wisdom to an event that is mathematically predictable over the whole span of time we have had the math … and into the foreseeable future.

Total Eclipse of Sense

The eclipse of the sun occurs today. The silver moon covers the golden sun, plunging a small portion of the United States into darkness for a few minutes. Perhaps it is time to do a sanity check.

Investors Business Daily: “U.S. Has 3.5 Million More Registered Voters Than Live Adults”

We blame the Russians but the election fraudsters are us.

Blame the Russians!

Zero Hedge: “Only in California…”

“According to a statement from Western United Dairymen CEO, Anja Raudabaugh, California’s Air Resources Board wants to regulate animal methane emissions even though it admits there is no known method for achieving the type of reduction sought by SB 1383.”

(Legislation to regulate cow and sheep flatulence – how charming!)

MD: We need to regulate those people’s exhaling. After all, it is CO2 … that deadly greenhouse gas. It can be done by inhibiting their inhaling. Enter SB 1383A stage left.

A new proposal: SB-219 blasts a deeper hole into common sense regarding the use of pronouns, gender choice, gender identity, bathrooms, transgender and more. What will be considered “normal” in five years on the left coast?

MD: Hopefully it will be sovereignty. But that’s much too much to even dream for.

Now in California! Perhaps coming to your state soon?

MD: If we’re talking about secession, I sure hope so.

Thanks to the Federal Reserve policies, commercial fractional reserve banking and U.S. government spending, prices have risen for decades.

MD: Fractional reserve banking hasn’t cause that. That’s just enabled the money changers to leverage their self given privilege by 10x … making them become capitalists in just two years and allowing them to then take “their” money off the table … and in 30 years, multiply what they let ride by 12,000 times. No … the price changes caused by the unbalance between supply and demand for the money itself comes straight from the government … their continual rollovers which are defaults not met by interest collections of like amount. It’s called counterfeiting. All the taxes go to the money changers in the form of tribute (interest) they demand … for doing absolutely nothing! But then, they instituted the government didn’t they. What should we expect?

However we are assured there is almost no consumer price inflation.

MD: There can’t be if you’re going to have COLA’s in your pension formulas. That’s suicide when you can’t stop the counterfeiting. The only thing you can resort to is the “thumb on the scale” trick .. and that’s exactly what they’re doing. Based on my SS check year over year, inflation has been 0.27%. Based on the cost of my rib eye steaks, it’s been about 27%.

One of the mandates of the Fed is “stable prices.” Hmmmm!

MD: And of course we here at MD know that  a “proper” MOE process employees cares nothing about prices, employment, balance of trade, or anything else. It has no monetary policy. It has no reserves. It functions just like the over-speed governor on your lawnmower … through negative feedback correction (mitigated defaults immediately with interest collections of like amount). It is totally objective and can’t be manipulated at all.

Socialism:

Global warming: Do you think the politicians would have supported the global warming story if they could not tax greenhouse gases? The worry in the 1970s was global cooling. That story died because there is no way to tax the global cooling story or make a profit from it.

MD: No. That’s also why marijuana will soon become the national flower.

 

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The reality that is worth understanding:

Time for a sanity check. Gold or paper? Results or promises? Face reality or blame Russia?

Gary Christenson

MD: Actually, a pretty good effort this time by the clueless Gary Christenson.

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Cafe Hayek: Assumptions of Right

Quotation of the Day…

by Don Boudreaux on August 21, 2017

… is from page 359 of the late Paul Heyne‘s insightful 1981 article “Measures of Wealth and Assumptions of Right: An Inquiry” as it is reprinted in the 2008 collection of Heyne’s writings, “Are Economists Basically Immoral?” and Other Essays on Economics, Ethics, and Religion (Geoffrey Brennan and A.M.C. Waterman, eds.) (footnote deleted):

MD: Notice how the Mises Monks never just cite an article and not its author. As in this case, there is always hyperbole … e.g. Paul Hayne’s “insightful” article. This is a Mises Monk marker.

 

Marxists have long complained that conventional economic analysis takes for granted the existing system of property rights.  The charge is fundamentally correct.

MD: Let’s see if he exposes the alternative to this? Hint: No he doesn’t.

Am I likely to paint a house that isn’t mine? Am I likely to build a house on property that isn’t mine?

 

Offers to supply goods and efforts to purchase goods always depend upon people’s expectations of what they can and may do under specific contemplated circumstances.  What a person may do expresses, in the broadest sense, that person’s property rights.

MD: Remember … a right is a defended claim. Here we have an implicit claim and no defense suggested. Do we really think we have a right being talked about here?

In order to predict, explain, or even talk intelligibly about those patterns and instances of social interaction that we call “the economy,” we must begin with people’s expectations, that is, their property rights.

MD: Why do they see the economy as a “social” interaction? If everything was an automat, would it still be a social economy? An economy is about trade. There is nothing social about trade in most cases. The purpose of advertising is to socialize it … but that’s not an attribute … it’s just a tactic

 

DBx: To avoid possible misunderstanding, I would have slightly reworded the final sentence of this quotation to read: “In order to predict, explain, or even talk intelligibly about those patterns and instances of social interaction that we call “the economy,” we must begin with people’s legitimate expectations – namely, those expectations that are widely shared and agreed to throughout the community – that is, their property rights.”

MD: Ah … now you talk about a great Misesian improvement. Add more words and say even less.

Heyne’s point is profound and important.  Obviously, we cannot possibly distinguish illegitimate coercion against others from the legitimate exercise or defense of one’s rights until we know in sufficient detail the property-rights arrangement.

MD: Which will be found in a spaghetti of conflicting laws, rather than a simple statement of principle … like the golden rule.

If I break the window of a house at 123 Elm St. and then enter, you cannot know from this physical act if I am burgling the house (and hence, violating someone’s property right) or entering the house with the permission of the homeowner (namely, in this example, myself who locked myself out of this house that I own).

What is less obvious, but no less important, is the fact that property rights boil down to shared expectations.

MD: And of course “principles” are shared expectations. Laws are not.

In modern America (as in most modern societies) ownership of a house includes the widely shared expectation that in all but extreme circumstances – for example, when the house is engulfed in fire – the right to decide who may enter the house is reserved to the homeowner.  Ultimately, this right rests on widely shared expectations.  If I, a modern American, move to some community in which the widely shared expectation is that anyone who wishes may enter unannounced into any house in that community, with or without the permission of the owner or occupants, and by whatever means, then no right of mine is violated if some stranger breaks into my house.

MD: And can we picture any collection of people who would see this behavior as adhering to the golden rule? Actually we can. Most utopian societal communal failures see things this way.

Expectations, being what they are, can be affected by the formal legal and legislative codes, but expectations can also diverge from these codes.

MD: Which makes those codes pretty worthless, doesn’t it … especially when we get 40,000+ new ones every year.

(An example of such a divergence is the fact that in some U.S. states – I think, for instance, in Massachusetts – it remains an ‘on-the-books’ criminal offense for two adults who aren’t married to each other to have consensual sex with each other.  Yet community expectations now no longer regard such activities to be unlawful.)  Expectations change more frequently (especially in open societies) than does the formal law and the legislative codes, and expectations are always more nuanced and ‘granular’ than articulated legal rules or legislative commands can possibly be.

MD: But if were about principles rather than laws, the golden rule principle would easily address this … i.e. it’s only the business of the two people involved.

At bottom, a society’s laws are its widely shared expectations about how individuals may and may not act toward each others’ persons and toward the material things, as well as the symbols and markers, that individuals possess and use as they conduct their affairs both individually and in groups.

MD: A misstatement. Its principles, not its laws, are the widely shared expectations. Its laws are a hopelessly flawed attempt to nail down the jello which is those principles. As I’ve stated before, it would take an unlimited number of laws to nail down the principle of the golden rule.

(By the way, do watch the 1997 movie, The Castle.)

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Cafe Hayek: Political scope?

MD: Anyone who has read Ludwig von Mises has found him to just largely be a double talker. He goes on and on and on bouncing off the walls, losing sight of his subject, and just rambling. And when he does assert something, it makes no sense at all. It’s like a fractel … or pealing an onion. You can keep dissecting it, but as you do you just keep seeing the same thing … and if your fortunate it ends like an onion pealing exercise … with nothing. If you’re not fortunate it goes on without end … and becomes the Mises Monks’ religion

This is particularly evident when his subject is (or is thought to be) money. He goes into all kinds of nonsense about prices and what motivates people to trade … and then to trade again (the margins). And none of it has anything to do with money … what it is … why it is … and how it is.

As I read this “comment of the day” I’m left with the same feeling … but this time the subject is politics … whatever that is.  What do you think?

by Don Boudreaux on August 20, 2017

in Other People’s Money, Politics

 

… is from page 75 of my late Nobel laureate colleague James Buchanan’s 1986 paper “Notes on Politics as Process,” as this paper is reprinted in James M. Buchanan, Politics as Public Choice (2000), which is volume 13 of the Collected Works of James M. Buchanan:

Politics that is confined to a few and well-defined tasks cannot be seriously predatory.

The American founders seemed to recognize this simple truth.  Modern political scholars do not.

MD: I read it over and over and over … and it says nothing … absolutely nothing! Maybe we need more context. In the case of Mises, we never do. More context never helps.

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Cafe Hayek: Jeff Miron on Statues

MD: We here at Money Delusions have strong opinions on government (it is an admission of failure of principles and cooperation). The responsibility for a thing called Monetary Policy is immediately claimed by governments once they are instituted by the money changers to have just that power … to manipulate money and thus control trade … to enable their farming operation which they call the “business cycle”.

As a tactic, governments have on-going propaganda campaigns. They are like religions in that respect. They just last as long as religions … and are more numerous. Part of that propaganda campaign is to elevate their operatives to super-human status. This is almost always done posthumously.  And we see the technique on a daily basis at Cafe Hayek as these Mises Monks try to protect the sainthood of their operatives.  Boudreaux is in the process currently of securing sainthood for an operative named Jim Baldwin (whose confusions Boudreaux shares and wants to have immortalized).

Let’s review this article to see if they can see the delusions involved … and what the principle should be.

Jeff Miron on Statues

by Don Boudreaux on August 19, 2017

in Current Affairs

I post in full – and I agree in full:

Why should a city, state, or federal government put statues in public parks?

MD: Consider the principle of “all” government. Government is the last resort for dealing with issues that no level of cooperation above it can deal with itself … at the top being the individual. Government is stark evidence of cooperation’s failure to deal with the issue … i.e. problem still looking for a proper solution.

Take something as simple as recording of deeds and other legal documents. This is the role of the county clerk. With their green eye shades they maintain the books of indexes into boxes on top of boxes full of contract documents retained for public inspection. It is the process they have for facilitating  “transparency” to protect claims. The principle here is that if everyone can see the claim at any time … and for all time, then that in and of itself with defend the claim. And this is largely true. Unfortunately government has been an inept way of addressing this need. Countless such records have predictably been destroyed with the inevitable fire and water destruction of courthouses.

The government solution has failed from the get-go. In the particular case of “real property”, a private solution is found in the invention of “title insurance”. Here, a private industry has relegated the role of the county clerk as the first step (a public step) in a private process (title company real property record search). And in that process, the “transparency” principle is not even obtained. The title company’s records are not open to the public. It’s not a very cooperative solution is it!

When you see a government solution addressing any issue, you know implicitly that the issue is still not being addressed properly. On inspection you will find that “all” government involvement can be eliminated by resorting to principles rather than laws. Laws are just an attempt to nail down the jello of misunderstood issues that are easily handled with principles and transparency … the most obvious one being the golden rule. As a thought experiment, think of the number of laws you need to nail down the principle of the golden rule. Hint: Infinite … and with 40,000+ new laws every year, they are crowding that the estimate … and that is a trait of all valid principles … the number of laws required to nail them down approaches infinity.

So back to the question: “Why should a city, state, or federal government put statues in public parks? “.

What’s the principle? First comes “what is it a statue of?”. If it’s of a duck or an elk, it’s no big deal. But in most cases it is of a person. And the purpose of that statue is for the memory of that person to live after their death. And it almost never works. In less than a generation, the significance of the person depicted in the statue is forgotten totally … all that is left, as a crutch, is the plaque.

The “real” purpose is give credibility to the people who share that person’s belief. It is to get people working for (or members of the same club as)  the statue builder to think that if they behave, work for less than they’re worth, exhibit blind loyalty, etc., they too will be immortalized in marble or bronze. It is an attempt by the organization building the statue to gain “stature” for that organization. It’s just that simple. It’s a tactic.

Most statues are of government workers. Most government buildings are named after government workers. Many streets are named after government workers. And who are the least capable workers among us … and make the biggest messes of the biggest things? Right … government workers. So go figure.

Doing so addresses no plausible market failure, while using taxpayers funds and, as demonstrated tragically over the past few weeks, generates controversy, polarization, and violence. Thus governments should take down all statues, regardless of their political implications.

MD:  First, most of these statues are not constructed with taxpayers funds. But they are placed on “so-called” public property. Now that we know the principle involved … giving recognition to one to garner loyalty and discipline of many, we see that the statues should never have gone up as a public symbol at all … and they are just one form of recognition and sainthood that is unprincipled … it is a tactic of a faction.

But taking them down makes a larger public statement than the statues themselves. That statement is that in an instant of time, one cooperative collection of people can disassemble what another cooperative collection of people constructed years, decades, even centuries before. For sure, they shouldn’t be able to do that more capriciously than the original initiative was done.

And what do you do when the statue was constructed privately on private property and then given over to the public? A principle should be adopted going forward that self recognition has no place in government and should not be tolerated moving forward. Of course, not tolerating government at all going forward nips that issue in the bud doesn’t it.

This is not “erasing” history but instead leaving it where it belongs, in the hands of private actors and mechanisms.

MD: Putting up statues is the first step in “distorting” history. It is a tactic … just like writing a biography … or worse, an auto-biography. The principle is that such self-aggrandizement requires no public support and should not get public support.

Historians, textbook authors, universities, learned societies, the History Channel, and many other individuals and organizations can all present their own views of history and battle for the hearts and minds of the public.

MD: All those sources just enumerated are instances of “historic revision”. It is an expected principle and by the golden rule should not be inhibited … but it should not be publicly purveyed either! In most cases it is a symbol of one government prevailing over another government … when neither government should have been allowed to exist in the first place.

Government statues are government putting its thumb on the scale, which is one step down the slippery slope of thought control.

MD: It is a tactic … and one that should be eschewed … as should be government. Look for another solution when government is proposed to deal with a cooperative issue. Such proposals should be viewed as “dead on arrival”

Brilliant, and wise.

MD: Obvious!

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Cafe Hayek: in Economics, Politics, Seen and Unseen

MD: Here at MD we are aware of far more delusions that cripple society than just the money delusion. Some are related. Some are not. Other delusions are about democracy … and about the rule of law. In commenting here, I think I’m going to be getting into delusions about law. Let’s see.

by Don Boudreaux on August 17, 2017

in Economics, Politics, Seen and Unseen

… is from page 110 of my late Nobel laureate colleague Jim Buchanan‘s 1980 paper “Rent Seeking and Profit Seeking,” as it is reprinted in volume 1 of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan: The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty:

MD: Laws just plain don’t work … witness the 40,000+ new ones we get every single year. Further, take a gander at how those laws are made. To further show the falacy of laws, consider how many you must write just to embrace the simple “principle” of the golden rule. Hint: There are fewer grains of sand on all the worlds beaches. When we deal with things in a societal manner, we should deal in principles and not laws. And we shouldn’t bring things to a societal forum that can be handled in a more constrained forum. The individual is the ideal forum for addressing issues … most can be dealt with right there when you are guided by principles …. not laws.

But economists have concentrated far too much attention on efficiency and far too little on the political role of markets.

MD: Any discovery of political role reveals a flawed process. Politics has no place in trading … no place in economics. All issues in trading and economics are easily handled by the traders involved … and adherence to principles … starting with the golden rule. When you tolerate cheating, you’re going to be dealing with lots of cheating. When you classify cheating as gamesmanship you are deluding yourself.

To the extent that markets are allowed to allocated resources among uses, political allocation is not required.

MD: Bingo … even without the “allowed” qualification.

Markets minimize resort to politics.  Once markets are not allowed to work, however, or once they are interfered with in their allocative functioning, politics must enter.  And political allocation, like market allocation, involves profit seeking as a dynamic activating force.

MD: I’m perplexed how we can be in violent agreement here … and how Cafe Hayek can be so clueless about trade, traders, and money.

DBx: Many opponents of markets find the open quest for profits in market economies to be unethical or unaesthetic, and they blame markets.

MD: There is no substitute for “markets”. To attempt a substitute is just to impose another market … i.e. another playing field … with a set of rules that favors one set of traders over another. Let the traders be free to choose their own playing field … and others who claim they should not be allowed to do that can just go pound sand.

What these opponents miss is the fact that the self-interest that is typically – and even the greed that is sometimes – on display in markets is not created by commercial markets.

MD: Self interest is personal and totally natural. Anyone who claims they are not first in every question of pecking order is deluding themselves. Greed, in the final analysis, is a person’s confusion about what their self interest really is. In the end it accomplishes a goal they don’t want to attain. There is very little of use in the bible … but at least they  there tell of a guy named Ecclesiastes as “getting this concept” … in the end

Commercial markets are merely a forum in which individuals act on these motivations.

MD: Why the “commercial” qualification?

One of most profound errors committed by market opponents is to suppose that when activities are transferred from commercial markets into the realm of politics human imperfections and self-interest are replaced by superhuman perfection and altruism.

MD: Pretty peculiar isn’t it, when you stand back and observe “all” politics is sub-human, not close to perfection, and arises out of advanced selfishness … in violation of the golden rule for those practicing and imposing it. In fact, they openly oppose and refuse to comply with their own rules and those they impose on others.

But as Buchanan argues, it’s naive to suppose that the mere shifting of activities from one resource-allocation forum to another changes the underlying human motivations.  (And such shifting certainly does not change the underlying human cognitive limitations.)

MD: It changes the playing field. That’s it. But worse, it disallows others from leaving the field … just taking their ball and going home. The USA Constitution does not have the “obligatory” buy/sell agreement. You “will not” secede.

So profit seeking occurs in political settings no less than in market settings.  But the kinds of information and constraints in political settings differ greatly from those in market settings.

MD: Remember, democracy only works with less than 50 people involved. And the political setting being addressed in the case of the USA has 500,000 involved … in the “most representative” case. Ridiculous! We are tolerating a process that was DOA … and the writers of the Anti-Federalist Papers were totally aware of it. But the money changers, as always, prevailed. They’re the ones who called the meeting in the first place.

Therefore, the kinds of actions taken in one setting, and the consequences of those actions, differ from the actions and consequences in the other setting.

MD: That’s not a “therefore” qualification. You see those differences and consequences between just two traders on the same playing field negotiating the same issues … just at a different point in time. That’s called trading. It has, at most, three steps: (1) Negotiation; (2) Promise to Deliver; (3) Delivery. In many cases it doesn’t pass the first step. In the case of simple barter exchange in the here and now, steps (2) and (3) happen simultaneously on the spot. Under political influences, step (3) happens under manipulated time and space and step (2) never is used at all! It is just lied about.

One important difference is that in markets, profits are earned only through voluntary payments while in politics profits are typically extracted by forcibly transferring property from the politically weak to the politically strong.  The fact that such transfers are not overtly called “profit seeking” – and the fact that political activities are camouflaged with public-interest rhetoric – doesn’t change the underlying reality.

MD: But it’s worse. The money changers control the “improper” MOE process we all use. That is really where the problems begin and end. Allowing a “proper” MOE process to compete makes all these issues go away. There is “no political economy” in such a case.

In summary, in the market Smith profits only by building a better mousetrap or by devising a process that reduces the amount of resources used to build a familiar mousetrap.

MD: Wrong. The process allows one trader to convince another that that is the case. More trades take place under delusions than under rational choice. If that wasn’t the case, advertising would be very much different.

(Smith might do so directly, as a mousetrap producer, or indirectly, as someone who secures the financing for a mousetrap producer.)

MD: With a “proper” MOE process, the “financing” qualification is totally unnecessary. Any responsible trader can make a promise spanning time and space and create the money to carry it out in the domain of a “proper” MOE process. Deadbeat traders can too, but the more irresponsible they prove to be, the more interest load they must bear in reclaiming the defaults the make. At the limit, they preclude “themselves” from money creation privileges in the domain. They can use all the money they want … anonymously. They just can’t effectively  create it. What they create immediately is taken back by interest collections. There is nothing left to do anything with.

In politics, Jones typically profits by confiscating mousetraps from Smith or from Smith’s customers, or by confiscating the inputs that Smith would otherwise use to make mousetraps.

MD: This also happens in normal trade without politics. If Jones can manipulate Smith’s perception in the (1) Negotiation phase, Smith is putty in Jones’ hands. And if you don’t allow the (1) Negotiation phase, you have different issues entirely. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.

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Cafe Hayek: In Economics, Virginia Political Economy

Quotation of the Day…

by Don Boudreaux on August 16, 2017

in Economics, Virginia Political Economy

… is from pages 48-49 of my late Nobel-laureate colleague Jim Buchanan’s 1996 paper “Economics as a Public Science,” as this paper is reprinted in Economic Inquiry and Its Logic (2000), which is volume 12 of the Collected Works of James M. Buchanan (footnote deleted):

MB: Again, I call attentions to all Mises Monks trait of genuflecting to their Saints. They can’t just say “the late economist Jim Buchanan”. They say “Nobel-laureate colleague Jim Buchanan.” They put their Saint on his pedestal and then link themselves to it … like any loyal acolyte is want to do..

Economists often complain about the observed fact that “everyone is his own economist,” in an expression of the view that scientific counsel fails to command the deference it seems to warrant.

MD: Economics is not a science. In fact, it is an open insult to science. And show me any real science where its scholars don’t agree with each other at all … where they all have there own pet theories … and where there are no natural principles and facts … only disputed ones. There are lots of examples out there (e.g. cosmology, psychiatry, numerology, politics) … but they just expose themselves as junk science. Yet they command high salaries … and if they can concoct the right stories, they influence things … usually in a really bad way.

In the absence of an effective exit option, however, everyone will continue to be, and should be, his own economist, at least to the extent of participating in the selection of constraints that are to be imposed collectively, constraints that affect the actions of everyone simultaneously.

MD: The only “real” economists are the traders. And we are all traders. Some traders, in addition to trading, analyze the trading process to death … yet somehow escape an obvious definition of money … and then failing to embrace  this obvious and provable definition, spread absolute nonsense!

The effective scientific community in economics is, therefore, necessarily inclusive in a sense that is not applicable in natural science.

MD: There is no “scientific” community in “economics” … effective or otherwise. There isn’t even common sense! What does this statement say? Economics is “not” natural science (which all “real” science is by the way), and therefore the oxymoron “scientific community in economics” is “inclusive”. Well, I guess if I have properly parsed the assertion … all economists are “not” scientists. Here’s one saying it directly while pretending to be a scientist.

“Doing economics,” as the specialized activity of economists, should reflect a different emphasis on the transmission of basic knowledge relative to the discovery of new knowledge at the scientific frontiers.

MD: Do we ever hear of someone “doing” chemistry … or physics … or geology? It’s not something you do. And “transmission of basic knowledge”? Economics has no such “basic knowledge” … but every economist is a transmitter just the same. And they’re not going to discover new knowledge by ignoring the obvious … beginning with what money obviously and provably is.

Because of the public features of economics noted, the activity of “doing economics” must be more akin to that observed in the behaviour of the ordinary scientist who rarely makes discoveries.

MD: … unless they are “real” scientists … who make discoveries in a very disciplined fashion … using what they call a scientific method. If economists had any similar discipline, they would know what money is by now. And when told, and given the proof, they would not respond “that is unorthodox”. Remember, a flat Earth was once orthodox. And the Earth being the center of everything was dispelled by a scientist … using the scientific method. And it still took over 200 years for the pretend scientists (religious orthodoxy) to get it! In fact they never did. They just changed their stories to reflect that they never said it was the center of everything in the first place. That’s what took 200 years! In the process, Bruno lost his head … because they were still in the process of rewriting and re-endoctrinating … i.e. re-deluding.

In modern practice, too much talented intellectual capital is used up in searches for the solutions to stylized puzzles with little or no relevance for the ongoing, necessarily receptive and sometimes boring, activity of “teaching” the long-accepted principles of the science.

MD: “The intellect” is not capital … especially when it is in an economist’s skull. Capital is the thing that can be exchanged for labor to achieve a certain productive goal. But what is properly being described here is Ludwig von Mises’ books. They are of no relevance to the extreme. He spends tome after tome after tome trying to explain why traders trade … but is totally clueless about what money is … as are his disciples, the Mises Monks.

DBx: Yes. Buchanan here – as in countless other parts of his vast writings – explicitly rejects the rule of experts.

MD: But clothed and fed himself with his so-called expertise. It takes a very advanced society indeed to tolerate such nonsense.

He explicitly affirms the moral and political right of everyone to participate equally in the making of collective decisions.

MD: There’s another universally misunderstood term … a “right”. A “right” is just a “defended claim”. Make no claim, you have no right. Make a claim and fail to defend it, you have no right. Throwing the word around in every conceivable context does not change that.

No technocracy, plutocracy, or autocracy for Buchanan. Democracy. Whether Buchanan was correct or incorrect in the details of his assessment of the workability of democracy is a separate question.

MD: … he says … without elaboration. Those of us here at MD know, democracy involving more than 50 people does not work. It can’t. With larger numbers, it just becomes a propaganda exercise and an “ugly” contest.

But either way, for someone such as Nancy MacLean to interpret Buchanan as being an enemy of democracy reveals that she (1) did not read Buchanan’s works carefully, or (2) hasn’t the mental acuity to understand Buchanan’s writings, or (3) intentionally misrepresents Buchanan.

MD: How long has Boudreaux been thrashing this MacLean horse? And look at him take her apart. No facts. No illustrations. Simple name calling. The Mises Monk Saints must command respect at all cost. It is truly straight out religion.

(I strongly suspect that it’s a combination of (1) and (2), for the stunning ignorance on display throughout Democracy in Chains – and in MacLean’s subsequent ad homimen-filled “defenses” of her work – seems to be both sincere and deeply rooted.)

MD: Kettle … you are black. Live with it! … said the pot.

Note also Buchanan’s plea that we professional economists spend less time solving clever puzzles and more time teaching the eternal verities of our discipline.

MD: Note: “professional economists” is “not” an oxymoron … but “economic scientist” obviously  is. There is no science in the way economics is done. But it is a profession. These people are paid … and paid handsomely … for this nonsense … and it’s pay that makes someone a professional.

He’s wise to issue this plea. Again and again and again and again conveying to students and the general public the basics of economics – for example, the reality of unintended consequences,

MD: What we have is the reality of “intended” consequences. “Inflation” is the intended consequence of the money changers … most of whom profess to be economists. With a “proper” MOE process, there “is” no inflation. It’s not an “intended” consequence. It’s a result of simple addition, subtraction, and objective discipline.

the universality of the law of demand,

MD: Which of course doesn’t apply to any economic thinking … both the Mises Monks and the Keynesians completely ignore the requirement that money maintain perpetual and perfect supply/demand balance … it’s the nature of every trade, so for sure it is the nature of a trade spanning time and space.

and the importance of the fact that nearly all decisions are made ‘at the margin’

MD: If that’s the same as saying … at the next “instance”, this is just stating the obvious … and is totally immaterial. Economists love to put out this drivel.

– is not sexy and it carries with it almost no professional rewards.

MD: Nor does eating an apple. Both are equally complicated.

Yet performing this duty successfully is the highest and finest service that a good economist can perform for humanity.

MD: What a joke! Economists performing a service for humanity? You call “improper” MOE process manipulation performing a service. You call ignorance of the obvious performing a service?

 

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Deviant Investor: Debt, Dollars, DOW, War, Silver and Shirts

MD: The Deviant Investor is a gold salesman. He will do whatever it takes to make a market for his gold. It is easy to find the delusions in his articles. In fact, he “knows” the truth … he just has too big a stake in the delusion to admit it. He won’t pass my comments through his moderation. That was one of my principal motivations for creating this site. It gives me a chance of mitigating the blocks “all” the Mises Monks throw up against me. If you’re dealing in the truth, you don’t have to block anything. The truth always prevails.

Let’s see what kind of delusions … and propaganda … this article contains. It’s always fun.

Debt, Dollars, DOW, War, Silver and Shirts

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Yes, they are connected.

Dollars are created as debt. More dollars in circulation = more debt.

MD: He gets it right. Notice, he hasn’t said dollars are money. They obviously “are” money … but from an “improper” MOE process. They obviously do represent “in-process promises to complete trades over time and space”. And all of them created by government promises are counterfeit … and indistinguishable from all others in circulation. That’s why we have inflation … 4% per year compounding.

More debt means consumption is “pulled forward” from the future so consumption can occur now. This usually ends badly.

MD: Fallacy number 1: A trading promise spanning time and space says nothing about consumption. If I create money to build a house and engage a contractor, I cannot consume that house until the contractor completes it. The contract can be written so I give him a certain amount of money when the contract is agreed to; a certain amount along the way; a certain amount when he delivers the house; a certain amount sometime after that when I confirm he has met the terms of the contract in his delivery … none of which assumes consumption. And it hardly ever ends badly.

But he says consumption “can” occur now. That too does not end badly. Most people buy a house that already exists. They move in and make monthly payments. It is far and away the minority that default on this trading promise spanning time.

Commercial banks and central banks have created trillions of new dollars. Each new dollar devalues every other dollar currently in circulation, in savings, and in pension accounts. Prices rise!

MD: No bank of any kind has “ever” created money. In “all” case, it is a trader who creates the money. The banks have just reserved for themselves the privilege of certifying that money … and the privilege of collecting tribute on that certification … to the tune of 10x the amount of their “so-called” stake in the creation … which after two years is provably zero.

Wars are costly, kill people and produce little. Governments like wars because they create demand for production of war materials.

MD: Governments do not profit from production of war materials … only the money changers do. Governments are instituted by the money changers … not by the people. They “protect” the money changers privileges … first by laws … then by force. They also use this force to expand the money changers privileges … by empire-building wars. The money changers retain hold on the reins at all times All but two of the central banks in the world are controlled by a single family … the Rothschields.

Further, governments are sustained by inflation. “All” taxes collected go directly to the money changers in the form of tribute. Neither governments nor money changers can function without inflation. They need their cherished (1+i)^n to give them a value greater than the 1.00000 a proper MOE process guarantees. They call it the “time value of money”. And they get away with it.

More production means a higher GDP (even if the concept means little). Politicians point to higher GDP and claim it is good. More production creates employment. Everyone wins, unless the bomb fell on you. Unless the drone targeted you. Unless you live on a fixed income and prices continue to rise. Unless you are a soldier and were injured or killed.

MD: GDP is unmeasurable … as is inflation. A “proper” MOE process cares nothing about GDP … and it “guarantees” zero inflation of the exchange media itself … it doesn’t have to measure it.  It cares nothing about employment. It cares nothing about prices but the zero inflation guarantee assures any price changes are strictly associated with the supply/demand balance of the object of the exchange … not the supply/demand of the money itself … which is always perfect at 1.0000.

As dollars are devalued, prices rise for most goods and services. Yes, televisions are less expensive, but have you checked the price of beer, medical care, cigarettes, cars, Whisky, college tuition, food, and 101 other items we need?

MD: Irrelevant to a proper MOE process. Further, a proper MOE media would ideally be in units of HULs (Hours of Unskilled Labor). The value of a HUL has never changed. Today it trades for the same size hole in the ground as it ever did or ever will. And we have all been HULs at one point in our lives, so we can all identify with them and hold them in perpetual perspective. This certainly isn’t true of an ounce of anything.

As dollars are devalued, the price of silver rises. Each dollar buys a smaller piece of silver. Wars burn many dollars, many ounces of silver, and consume other commodities, which rise in price. Demand for silver increases, dollars buy less, and supply increases slowly, if at all. Prices for silver rise because of supply, demand, and devaluation.

MD: Which is a straw man red herring argument when it comes to a “proper” MOE process … and “real” money.

The DOW is higher because each dollar buys less. Central bank “printing” of many extra dollars supports the DOW. Wall Street hype helps also. Regardless of the hype, a good crash occurs every decade or so, and after the crash the stock market rises again. Most people buy high, watch it crash, and sell low. How many people will take profits near the top in this market? BUY SILVER!

MD: When you take measurements with a rubber band … that constantly stretches like our inflating money … or constantly contracts like gold and its foolish copier Bitcoin, you add a degree of freedom that just makes life difficult for traders. But we have always seen this variable added … because it enables the “controllers” to take their pound of flesh from the traders. DI wants that pound of flesh … and so do the money changers. But then again, DI is just a money changer. It just needs to stir the pot.

As prices rise, shirts cost more.

MD: Ok. For what follows, DI is going to describe what to it is “rocket science”. To we here at MD, we know it is just the obvious result of “improper” MOE process practices … and thus irrelevant to a “proper” MOE process. Read it and smirk. Scan down to my next comment if you don’t need a dose of this levity.

Debt, dollars, DOW, war, silver, and shirts are connected. They rise and will continue to rise, two steps higher and one lower, as long as we use debt based fiat dollars.

Examples:

Money supply and debt increase. Look at official national debt since 1913. Can you think of a single reason why it will reverse a century-long exponential trend (debt doubles every 8 to 9 years) and turn lower?

Wars will continue and prices will rise. The helmet for an F-35 will cost $400,000. The price for a World War II P-51 aircraft was $52,000.

Silver prices have increased for 90 years and will continue to increase.

The price for shirts is higher, much higher. Dollar devaluation increases prices.

This dress shirt is currently available from Nordstrom for $175.00

Debt, dollars, DOW, war, silver, and shirts are connected.

MD: Ok, I’ll break back in here. One thing I failed to note was another obvious attribute that a “proper” MOE process cares nothing about … that being the “money supply” … and that being the associated manipulation they call “monetary policy”. Everyone here already knows that nonsense for what it is … irrelevant nonsense. “All” money in circulation (created by traders … not supplied) represents “in-process trading promises”. It doesn’t exist before the trading promise is made nor after delivery is achieved as promised … unless there is defaulting and counterfeiting not mitigated immediately by interest collections of like amount. The “unless” results in INFLATION … and that’s what little Gary is describing. It need not exist. But if he has his way we will have DEFLATION (with his gold-is-money by edict nonsense). And that will strangle trade. You’re not going to part with any of your money today when tomorrow it will trade for much more stuff. Zero is obviously the only right value for inflation … and gold can never deliver that value, let alone perpetually guarantee it.

Option One:

Reduce Federal government expenditures, declare peace, balance the budget, let it crash … and DREAM ON!

MD: Institute a “competitive and proper MOE process” in competition with the current money changer instituted “improper” process … and watch money changers and governments wilt. No dreaming and no legislation required. The process is totally transparent so no regulation is required. The process is totally decentralized and can have any number of participants … just like Mutual Casualty Insurance Companies. The most competitive ones giving the best service to traders prevail.

Option Two:

More of the same. More debt, dollars in circulation, continuing wars, and higher silver prices. Shirts will cost $500 instead of $1.00 in 1934 and $175.00 today.

Option Two – so what?

Taxes increase as dollar devaluation continues. Can you afford higher taxes? Will your income rise enough to meet your increased expenses and higher taxes? Will Social Security and your pension pay you in mini-dollars, or micro-dollars? Can you live on pension payments denominated in micro-dollars?

MD: Did you ever stop to think that 3/4ths of the fruits of your labor already go to taxes … and that of the 1/4th that remains, most goes to money changer tribute and insurance companies.

You retain almost none of the fruits of your labor … right now! It goes like this: You start with things like 8% sales tax; then add federal tax … then state tax … then taxes and fees on things like gasoline and your phone and your beer and the lottery (if you’re stupid enough to play it) and everything else you touch. It is not a difficult exercise at all to see that you pay 50% in these “sort of” overt taxes.

But then look at every product and service you buy. The entity producing it is paying over 50% too … and they’re passing that on to you. So of the 50% you have left after paying your taxes, you’re buying products that have 50% taxes in their price. That takes you to 75% (i.e. 3/4ths).

And remember that 100% of these taxes go to the money changers in the form of tribute (they call it interest). “All” the services you think these taxes are buying are actually coming from INFLATION (a designed in leak which the money changers feign targeted at 2% and deliver at 4%).

That’s what “all” government lives off of … inflation. They make trading promises (create money) just like you and I. But they never deliver. They just roll them over. That is counterfeiting. And all money, defaults or counterfeits, that is not reclaimed by “legitimate interest collections” … not by money changer tribute … causes inflation by the operative relation: INFLATION = DEFAULT – INTEREST.

DI cannot dispute anything I have just presented … so they don’t even try. My comments don’t even make it through their moderation.

CONCLUSIONS:

 

  • Debt, dollars, DOW, war, silver, and shirts are connected.
  • Prices for food, housing, transportation, clothing and most other items will increase. Believe the “low” consumer price inflation myth at your own peril.
  • The future may look like the 1930s – where debt killed. Or, more likely, it will look like the 1970s – continual price increases, stagflation, weak economy, rapidly rising gold and silver prices, and increased global stress.
  • My bet is 1970s inflation and worse. Do you own due diligence but remember dollars will be devalued further and higher prices are inevitable.

  • Do you own enough silver?

MD: If you own any gold and silver and you’re not a jeweler or dentist or electronics manufacturer, you are a fool. And “I” admit to being a fool. I drank the coolade and bought quite a bit of the stuff before I realized the truth. I can’t sell it because it’s doesn’t even trade for the dollars I gave up for it … let alone the dollars I need to cover the inflation. Luckily, I also bought land in a low tax, low services county in Texas, which gives me a sustainable retirement.

What I really hope we achieve is “iterative secession”. But it’s not going to happen in my lifetime … and it’s not going to happen with people like Gary Christenson spreading confusion and delusion like this.

Gary Christenson

The Deviant Investor

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Cafe Hayek: Who’d a Thunk

Who’d a-Thunk It?

by Don Boudreaux on August 14, 2017

in Reality Is Not Optional, Seen and Unseen, Work

We study the effect of minimum wage increases on employment in automatable jobs – jobs in which employers may find it easier to substitute machines for people – focusing on low-skilled workers from whom such substitution may be spurred by minimum wage increases.

MD: If we had a “proper” MOE process, those engaged in conducting these studies would be out of work. Thus, we probably can’t expect them to be supportive of a proper MOE process … and zero inflation … can we!

Based on CPS data from 1980-2015, we find that increasing the minimum wage decreases significantly the share of automatable employment held by low-skilled workers, and increases the likelihood that low-skilled workers in automatable jobs become unemployed.

MD: Those who are engaged in compiling CPS data and pondering it would be out of work with a zero inflation proper MOE process. Increasing the minimum wage does not decrease the share of automatable employment … it increases it (but that’s really what he meant to say). Instituting a “proper” MOE process will eliminate a huge number of government jobs … and financial and economics jobs in industry as well. Rather than automating away what they do (which computers continuously do), it eliminates the necessity of their work all together. When inflation is guaranteed to be zero, what is a CPS analyst to do? (1+i)^n is perpetually 1.00000. In that case, it’s not about replacement, it’s about wasted counterproductive effort in the first place. But then what are the scholars of articles like this … who haven’t been able to “get it” in the face of the “obvious” … what are they going to do?

The average effects mask significant heterogeneity by industry and demographic group, including substantive adverse effects for older, low-skilled workers in manufacturing.

MD: Automation has in fact helped “older” low skilled workers. Where they would normally become physically incapable of doing the work, they can continue to do it with hydraulic and electrical assistance … just by pushing buttons. Without the automation, they would have “taken themselves” out of the game earlier. Automation is really a boon for older unskilled … and skilled … workers. But that’s really what he meant to say … right?

The findings imply that groups often ignored in the minimum wage literature are in fact quite vulnerable to employment changes and job loss because of automation following a minimum wage increase.

MD: Well duh!

That’s the abstract of a new paper by Grace Lordan and David Neumark, titled “People Versus Machines: The Impact of Minimum Wages on Automatable Jobs.”  (emphasis added)

Reality is not optional and the law of demand holds for low-skilled labor no less than it holds for kumquats, for yoga instruction, and for high-quality jewelry.

MD: But the mechanism is sticky and has a dead band. Eliminate the relative motion (i.e. inflation) and then the effects of the  coefficient of static friction and deadband don’t come into play at all. The static forces remain constant … they don’t build up to a point of violent release!

Indeed, the law of demand is universal.  Therefore, government diktats requiring all workers to insist on being paid at least some minimum hourly wage from employers will cause the quantities of any given kind of low-skilled labor demanded by employers to be fewer than these quantities would be in the absence of such diktats.

MD: Government cannot survive with zero inflation. That “is” what sustains all government. And that inflation is also what lets the money changers maintain their illusion of the “time value of money” and thus their demand for tribute (for their claim of being the creators of the money). With zero inflation, both money changers and the governments they institute are “high, dry, and looking for a ball player” … i.e. they’re out of business.

Minimum-wage proponents fancy themselves to be champions of the poor, but these fancies are belied by the reality that minimum wages reduce the employment prospects of the very people that well-meaning minimum-wage proponents intend to help.

MD: But when you have a 4% leak in the money, how in the world are you going to keep from grinding the unskilled labor right into the dirt? Remember, we were all unskilled labor at one point in our lives.

(HT Frank Stephenson)

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Cafe Hayek: politics differs categorically from markets

Cafe Hayek: politics differs categorically from markets

MD: DBx has been working very hard on helping Jim Buchanan to become a Mises Monk saint. Lets see what pearls he brings us today.

 

… is from page 56 of my late Nobel laureate colleague Jim Buchanan‘s 1979 article “Politics Without Romance,” as it is reprinted in volume 1 of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan: The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty:

But politics differs categorically from markets in that, in political competition, there are mutually exclusive sets of losers and winners.  

MD: Yeh … like with the Harlem Globe Trotters and the Washington Generals are in basketball competition.

Only one candidate or party wins; all others lose.  Only one party is the governing party.  One way of stating the basic difference here is to say that, in economic exchange, decisions are made at the margin, in terms of more or less, whereas in politics, decisions are made among mutually exclusive alternatives, in terms of all-or-none prospects.

MD: I vote that Buchanan disqualifies himself for sainthood with that quote. He didn’t know theater when it was bashing him across his nose.

DBx: In markets, consumers who don’t like, say, the service or style of Trump hotels can avoid those hotels and instead stay at the Four Seasons, Hyatt, Holiday Inn, or wherever – or not stay at hotels at all – even while other consumers continue to stay in Trump hotels.  In politics, every U.S. citizen must live under a Trump presidency if Trump convinces a significant sub-set of U.S. citizens to vote for him.

MD: That’s what you’re going to get when you employ democracy in a fashion in which it has no hope of working … i.e. with more than 50 people involved.

And unlike with hotels (and other goods and services supplied by the market), no two presidents or prime ministers or senators or governors actually perform in competition with each other side by side, at the same time, under the same circumstances.  It’s much more difficult to judge the performance of a politician than it is to judge the performance of a private business.

MD: Iterative secession. The more spaces we have, the chance we have of finding a space that is corrigible to us as individuals. Globalism is the exact wrong way to go.