FSK's Guide to Reality

The Abortion Fnord

2009-07-06T12:00:00.002-04:00

Abortion is a wonderful political issue that pro-State trolls focus on. A lot of time and energy is spent debating abortion, instead of issues that actually matter.

A typical brainwashed slave says "I have an opinion about important political issues! I care about abortion!"

What is the real free market answer to abortion? Without a government, it's impossible to prevent someone from getting an abortion, if they want one. I'm not interested in debating "Abortion is murder!" My response is "Why should I care if a complete stranger wants to murder her unborn child? If someone else chooses to get an abortion, how does that injure me?" If I have no relationship with someone, then why should I care what they do?

The argument for "Abortion should be illegal!" derives from "People are the property of the State!" The mother is government property. Therefore, her child is also government property. If a woman gets an abortion, she is guilty of destroying State property. Government insiders ban abortion to protect their property.

Ironically, the abortion issue can evoke some anti-State sentiment on both sides. A pro-life advocate says "The State should not spend tax money subsidizing abortions." A pro-choice advocate says "The State should not tell me what I can and cannot do with my own body." However, neither goes to the full conclusion "Who needs a government anyway?"

Most women get abortions for economic reasons. State restriction of the market artificially raises the cost of children. Most children don't enter the workforce until age 22+. In agricultural societies, children are productive workers at age 13 or younger. Before the State was so powerful, a 13 year old child was an economic asset; they performed more work than the food they ate. In the present, the State artificially increases the cost of children, which makes abortion economically attractive.

The abortion issue is used as a substitute for genuine political debate. When there's a new Supreme Court nominee, their opinion on abortion is always viewed with the utmost importance. Nobody ever bothers asking "How do you feel about the increasing power of the State?" Almost every Supreme Court judge and politician will make the decision that increases the power of the government, and hence their own power.

That's the evil of the Roe vs. Wade decision. Before that ruling, each individual state had the right decide if abortion is illegal or not. The real victory in Roe vs. Wade is "Abortion is an issue that is the Federal government's business." This decision allowed a lot of political energy to be spent on abortion, instead of issues of importance.

All the mainstream discussion of the abortion issue is an evil fnord. People think that they have an opinion about meaningful political issues, when they're really just wasting time. People have heated debates about abortion, instead of discussing important issues like "Taxation is theft!"

The Fallacy of Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS)

2009-07-05T12:00:00.001-04:00

I was watching the Communism Channel, and the comedians said "If you are concerned about inflation, you should buy Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS)!"

A TIPS bond contains an adjustment, based on CPI-inflation. The interest paid increases at the rate of CPI-inflation. Similarly, the principal due at maturity increases.

The problem is that the CPI is a biased measure of inflation. It severely understates the true inflation rate.

Further, the expected return on a TIPS bond is *EXACTLY THE SAME* as the expected return on a regular Treasury bond. If the expected yield were different, then traders at a bank or hedge fund would buy one and short sell the other!

Investing in a TIPS bond, you have the illusion of protection from inflation, while the State steals your savings.

The Myth of $1 CEO Pay

2009-07-04T12:00:00.003-04:00

A lot of times, I hear the following story on the Communism Channel. A CEO of a struggling corporation agrees to work for a salary of $1. Isn't he such an awesome guy!

What the story neglects to mention is that the CEO is getting paid in the form of options and restricted stock (usually options).

A pro-State troll says "So what? Options are only valuable if the corporation's stock price increases!" The fallacy is that, due to inflation, all stocks rise over time.

Suppose that the CEO does a bad job, but the overall stock market doubles in 2 years. Suppose that corporation's stock price rises by "only" 80%. The CEO still gets a huge windfall when he cashes out his options, even though his corporation's stock underperformed the rest of the market.

Recently, CEO option grants are charged as an expense, according to the Black-Scholes price. The fallacy is that the true value of the option is greater than the Black-Scholes price, because the expected gain in the stock market is much greater than the risk-free interest rate. The cost of option grants are paid by other shareholders, as their ownership is diluted.

Another fallacy of option-based CEO compensation is that the CEO is not really taking any risk at all. If the share price rises, then the CEO gets a windfall. This is true even if the increase in share price is due to inflation and overall market movement, rather than anything the CEO does. If the share price falls, then the CEO gets his options repriced with a lower strike. As long as the stock price changes, the CEO benefits.

Sometimes, a profitable corporation will spend money repurchasing shares. If the CEO grants himself 1M shares of options, the corporation may repurchase 1.5M shares. The fallacy is that the money spent on share repurchases is otherwise unavailable for dividends or reinvesting for future growth. The corporation may decide to repurchase shares at the same time that the CEO is cashing out his options!

When the CEO is paid via equity grants, the other shareholders pay for it. The ownership interests of other shareholders are diluted. Just like your slave points lose their value when new money is printed, shares of stock lose their value when the CEO prints new shares and gives them to himself. This is one big reason why the stock market underperforms true inflation over time.

The "CEO working for $1!" story is a common evil fnord. It makes the CEO seem like a swell guy working for free, rather than someone lining his pockets at the expense of shareholders. Even though the CEO is working for only $1 cash, the CEO is still getting paid via option and equity grants.

Celebrity Death Fnord

2009-07-03T12:00:00.003-04:00

I noticed another new type of fnord. It's the media hype that surrounds the death of a celebrity. As a practical matter, unless you personally knew the celebrity, it doesn't really affect you personally.

The reason this hype is important is that it replaces discussion of other issues. People think "I care about current events! I know that Michael Jackson died!" More important stories, such as the collapse of the economy, are not mentioned.

I also noticed that the news cycle follows a predictable pattern. There's intense coverage for about a week. Then, people move on to other things.

I noticed something else interesting. It's been a couple of weeks since I last heard a mainstream media outlet mention the swine flu! If "OMFG! Swine flu!" were a real serious problem a few weeks ago, I don't see why it would be hardly mentioned at all now.

Do you remember how people were rushing out to buy high-grade surgical masks, to prevent themselves from the swine flu? In the local drugstore, they bought a huge stockpile of surgical masks. Now, they can't sell them and they're just sitting there. I found that hilarious.

The cycle of swine flu hype illustrates how these media scares are entirely fabricated. They are designed to keep the cattle scared, rather than giving genuinely useful information. The media hype regarding Michael Jackson's death follows a similar cycle.

I noticed this new fnord type, because it totally affected my mother. She never was interested in Michael Jackson at all. Now, she's interested in every tidbit of information regarding his death. It was interesting to notice the effectiveness of the State propaganda engine.

People have a genuine need for useful news. Information like "Taxation is theft!" is never publicly discussed in a mainstream media outlet. Irrelevant stories are hyped instead.

Gold Outperformed the S&P 500 in the First Half of 2009

2009-07-02T12:00:00.002-04:00

For those of you keeping score at home, gold continued to trounce the S&P 500 in the first half of 2009.

I'm using Vanguard's S&P 500 index fund, with reinvested dividends, as my source (via Yahoo Finance). At the end of December, the closing price was $82.51. At the end of June, the closing price was $84.72, for a gain of 2.67%.

I use this page as my source for the price of gold. At the end of December, gold was at $869.75/ounce. At the end of June, gold was at $938.25/ounce. The gain was 7.88%. This corresponds to an annual inflation rate of 16%.

Gold outperformed the S&P 500 by 5.2% in the first half of 2009. This is an annualized rate of 10.5%, which is very close to the average difference of 12.2% from 1998-2008.

The return on the stock market is less than true inflation. If you believe "Gold is money!", then the price of gold is a fair measure of inflation. When the stock market underperforms gold, that really means that the stock market underperforms true inflation.

On the Communism Channel, the comedians say "Hooray! The stock market is rising!" A lot of new money has been printed to bail out the banksters and other insiders. New money continues to be created. When you print new money, prices go up! Professional comedians can't tell the difference between gains due to economic growth, and gains that are merely inadequate compensation for true inflation. The CPI is a biased measure of inflation. It is far less than the true inflation rate.

On the Communism Channel, the comedians also frequently say "Gold investors are idiots!" The fact that gold has trounced the stock market over the past 10 years, and continues to do so, is an indication of the desirability of a gold investment.

The advantage of gold is that it can't be counterfeited like paper investments. If you invest in a money market account or Treasury bonds or other bonds, your savings are stolen via inflation. If you invest in shares of stock, you can't prevent the CEO from dilution your ownership by printing new shares and giving them to himself and his friends. As a small shareholder, you can't prevent the CEO from squandering the corporation's resources. There are "fiduciary responsibility" laws, but those only are invoked for the most egregious theft.

If you own gold and take physical delivery, then parasites with a printing press can't steal your savings. For this reason, the State propaganda engine always promotes other investments over gold. For this reason, State enforcers make it very hard for people to invest in gold. Gold dealers are heavily regulated, increasing transaction costs. Operating a gold warehouse receipt bank is illegal or regulated to the extent that it's unprofitable. This gives small gold investors no safe place to store their metal, except keeping it concealed in your home.

It is possible that in a 6-24 month period, the stock market may outperform gold. The price of gold is manipulated, which means that there may be short-term periods where gold performs poorly compared to other assets. Over an extended period of time, the price of gold should track true inflation closely. There should be another inflationary bubble forming soon, and it may be in the stock market. However, the long-term trend is that gold should continue to outperform the stock market by a wide margin. As the collapse of the State gets closer, the disparity should increase.

Gold outperforms the stock market because with a gold investment, you get full allodial title. A stock pays a dividend and earns profits due to the State-backed monopoly/oligopoly. A pro-State troll says "Don't buy gold! You don't get a dividend and you have to pay storage costs." However, a stock also has friction costs. The insiders who control the corporation line their pockets at the expense of shareholders. This is an inevitable consequence of the Principal-Agent problem, when someone controls resources that they don't technically own.

State enforcers make it hard for people to invest in gold, because the bad guys don't want people to be able to protect their savings from theft via inflation. The State propaganda engine criticizes gold investors at every opportunity. This is strong evidence of the value of a gold investment.

Is Ben Bernanke Being Scapegoated and Replaced?

2009-07-01T12:00:00.001-04:00

I noticed an interesting shift in mainstream media coverage of Ben Bernanke. Instead of saying "He's a brilliant leader managing the economy!", they're now saying "Maybe he isn't doing such a great job."

I saw some coverage of Congress grilling Ben Bernanke on the Bank of America buyout of Merill Lynch. Instead of the usual ****job, Congress asked relatively hard questions, regarding the Federal Reserve pressuring Bank of America to buyout Merill Lynch. It's still frustrating, because they don't ask any questions of real substance like "Is having a central bank credit monopoly a good idea? Isn't the Federal Reserve just a huge price fixing cartel?"

Is Ben Bernanke being set up as a scapegoat for the current recession/depression? His 4 year term as Federal Reserve chairman expires soon, and Obama will probably nominate someone else.

Is Ben Bernanke consciously aware that the Federal Reserve is one huge scam? Or, is he a fool who is doing the best he can to manage a fundamentally corrupt system? When the Federal Reserve was first created, the insiders who controlled it knew that their true purpose was to loot and pillage the American people. In the present, the people who publicly control the State are not consciously aware that their actions are evil. If you sincerely believe you're trying to do a good job, then you're a more effective liar in public.

Either way, it's irrelevant if Ben Bernanke knows if the Federal Reserve is a scam or not. Adults are responsible for what they do, even if they were tricked or are just plain stupid. The Federal Reserve is immoral and needs to be eliminated. The correct solution is to boycott the Federal Reserve and income tax, and to use real money instead of slave points.

Replacing Ben Bernanke with another figurehead accomplishes nothing. One politically connected insider will be replaced with another politically connected insider. One brainwashed pro-State troll is replaced with another brainwashed pro-State troll.

That is one key evil of the State. Whenever there is a problem, a different figurehead is chosen to lead things. The fundamental flaws of a corrupt system are never addressed. "Changing the leaders solves the problem! A corrupt system has no flaws!" is a common evil fnord.

"Fire Ben Bernanke and replace him with someone else!" is an evil fnord. It provides the illusion of change, while changing nothing. The correct solution is to fire the entire Federal Reserve and financial industry.

You should not wait for Congress to initiate reform. The banksters receive massive State subsidies, and can always profitably lobby to block reform. If you want freedom, you should grab it directly yourself. As an individual, the best way to do this is via agorism.

Bernard Madoff Sentencing Fnord

2009-06-30T12:00:00.005-04:00

I was watching the comedians on the Communism Channel, and they said "Hooray! Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail!"

The fnord is "Bernard Madoff did something wrong and was punished. Therefore, everyone who does something wrong gets caught and punished. Therefore, there are no structural flaws in the economic system."

The mainstream media also focuses on punishment-based justice instead of compensation-based justice. "Bernard Madoff spends the rest of his life in jail!" is completely separate from "Restitution must be paid to the victims!" In the criminal trial, it's "State vs. Madoff" and not "victims vs. Madoff".

Who should be responsible for reimbursing the victims?

the accountants who worked for Bernard Madoff (Some of them did get arrested and charged with fraud.)
all the people who worked for Bernard Madoff
all the brokers and hedge fund managers who invested in Madoff's fund, or advised people to invest in Madoff's fund
all the people working at the SEC, who are responsible for overseeing security industry fraud
Madoff's relatives; Madoff gave them property over the course of his life, and allegedly he sent them a bunch of property just before he turned himself in (That's a tough calculation. If you're one of Bernard Madoff's children, then how much of your personal property was directly received from your father?)

If all of the above people had their personal assets confiscated, and were required to work the rest of their lives to repay the loss, then the victims would receive much greater compensation. In the present, there is no incentive for a financial advisor to notice a fraud, collecting huge commissions in the meantime.

People can claim "I was just working for Bernard Madoff! I was tricked also! I shouldn't be responsible!" That is false. Whether a broker knew (or should have suspected) that Madoff's fund was a fraud, or if he was just plain stupid, he should be responsible either way. If "I was stupid!" is a valid defense, then what incentive is there for anyone to behave intelligently?

There are simple precautions that would have uncovered the fraud. A statistical analysis of returns would have shown very high returns with very low volatility, which is a fraud tip-off. An SEC investigor could have requesting trading records, and would have noticed the fraud.

The SEC and Federal government have a monopoly for enforcing the security industry. Whenever the State fails, via "Problem! Reaction! Solution!", the end result usually is that State bureaucrats are given more power and more resources. Via SIPC insurance, some victims are being partially repaid. However, the SIPC money comes from other tax revenue collected. Due to this huge payout, SIPC insurance fees were raised. Anyone with a brokerage account or mutual fund or 401(k) pays higher commissions and fees to pay for the reimbursement to Madoff's victims.

There is no requirement that the SEC investigators personally reimburse the victims. They get to keep their cushy jobs and high salaries, even though they failed miserably. They can say "I was tricked!" as a valid defense.

Based on what I read, Bernard Madoff had the parasitic personality type, and was very skilled. I can't prove it, since I'm not a parasite, but skilled parasites usually are consciously aware of what they're doing. Very skilled parasites are usually aware of their manipulations. It's too well coordinated for it to be an accident. Most likely, Bernard Madoff isn't sorry that he did something wrong; he's only sorry that he got caught.

Bernard Madoff was a skilled parasite. If an SEC investigator started asking tough questions, then Madoff could have used his evil jedi mind tricks and said "There's nothing to see here!", and it would have worked. If necessary, Madoff could have used his political connections at the SEC to get an honest investigator fired. The SEC investigators were consciously or subconsciously aware of this, and refrained from asking tough questions.

Whenever an investor started asking Madoff tough questions, he merely gave them their money and forced them out of the fund. A skilled parasite refuses to deal with people who can see through his manipulations. Many people thought that they were lucky to be allowed to invest with a genius like Madoff, and eagerly handed over their money. If you have the abused productive personality type, it's easy to be manipulated by someone like Madoff. If you have the parasitic personality type, you'll just read Madoff's emotional state, which said "I am super-awesome!"

Politicians and banksters and CEOs and hedge fund managers are criminals as much as Bernard Madoff. They just aren't as flagrant as Bernard Madoff. The key point is the Principal-Agent problem or the "other people's money" problem. Whenever you control resources that you don't own, the incentive is to line your pockets at the expense of the people who are trusting you with their property. Bernard Madoff went too far and crossed the line. Most members of the parasite class only loot a couple of percent a year. Bernard Madoff had a 100% looting rate. When a CEO grants himself and his friends equity in the corporation, diluting shareholders, he's stealing as much as Bernard Madoff; the only difference is the rate of the theft.

In a true free market, it'd be unlikely for someone to build up a huge $50B+ investment fund. There would be no barriers to entry, and there would be many small funds. If someone was running a dishonest fund, then the incentive would be for their competition to say "That guy is running a fraudulent business!" A private police agency would probably pay a fee to someone who uncovered a fraud, for helping to protect their customers' property. In the present, libel laws prevented anyone who suspected Madoff from publicly criticizing him. If I wrote a "Madoff is running a dishonest fund!" post before his fraud was uncovered, then I probably would have been sued for libel. Also in a true free market, all of Madoff's accountants and employees and brokers would be personally liable. There would be no incentive for them to look the other way and ignore the fraud. If Madoff's books were backed by the reputation of an accounting association, then *EVERY* member of the accounting association would be personally liable. A private police agency would probably also sell insurance in the event of investment fraud; they would have an incentive to notice problems.

In the present, it's impossible to buy insurance against the possibility that you will be ****ed over by your investments. I bought shares of Citigroup and Bank of America, and suffered a huge loss. I'm the victim of fraud as much as Bernard Madoff's victims. Now I know better. In the future, I'm planning to invest more of my savings in physical gold and silver. For *ANY* State-licensed paper investment, you will lose your savings to theft/fees/fraud/waste/inflation.

Whenever an insider is caught doing something wrong, there's an evil fnord. "This person did something wrong and got caught. There are no structural flaws in the economic system that need to be addressed!" A common evil fnord is "Blame the evildoer, and not the corrupt system that enabled him." Whenever there's a big disaster, blame is deflected from the corrupt system and focused on the individual who was exploiting a corrupt system for his personal benefit.

Inflation vs. Reflation

2009-06-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

When I watch the comedians on the Communism Channel, they like to talk about efforts by the Federal Reserve to "reflate the economy".

A pro-State troll says "New money must be printed to replace money that was destroyed during the recession!" The reality is that a massive amount of new money has been printed. Look at objective inflation measures like M2, reconstructed M3, or the price of gold. By those measures, the rate of inflation is high.

The new money is used to bail out the banksters and insiders. They are profiting at the expense of everyone else. Printing and spending brand new money is a very valuable perk.

By saying "reflation" instead of "inflation", the comedians are spreading an evil fnord. When they say "We're merely replacing money that was destroyed!", then it sounds like they're doing something heroic. The reality is that, by any objective inflation measure, there is massive inflation.

An Example Tax Resister Insurance Calculation

2009-06-28T12:00:00.001-04:00

In this post on Check Your Premises, Francois Tremblay says "Tax resistance is easy. The odds of caught are getting low. Everyone should be doing it! You're a coward if you don't attempt income tax resistance."

I commented "If Francois Tremblay believes that income tax resistance is so easy, then he should put his freedom where his mouth is and start a 'tax resister insurance' business. That's on my list of things to do."

Francois Tremblay then commented:

Okay, how do I do that? Tell me how, because I have no capital, I don’t know any tax resisters in real life, and I don’t know how insurance works. But yea, I would definitely be interested in being involved.

I already wrote a post on tax resister insurance. (I should go back and update all my "classic" posts. I'm a better writer now, and I've learned more.)

I quote prices in gold instead of USD, because I use real money. Suppose that you believe a tax resister has a 1% chance of getting caught in a year. Suppose the tax resister profits by 50 ounces of gold per year from his resistance. Suppose the cost of getting busted by the State is 500 ounces of gold (this includes lost income while spent in jail, cost of trial, etc.).

Suppose you had a lot of capital. You could sell 500 ounces of tax resister insurance for 20 ounces of gold. This is a net profit, because your expected loss is only 5 ounces of gold. The tax resister profits, because he's purchasing insurance for 20 ounces of gold, but he's gaining 50 ounces of gold from his tax resistance.

Further, to qualify for your insurance, your customer must follow tax resistance best practices as taught by you. If the customer doesn't follow "FSK's tax resister guide", then he forfeits his coverage (appealing to a suitable impartial arbiter specified in the contract). The tax resistance insurer isn't just selling insurance. He's also selling training in "tax resistance best practices".

Suppose you have limited capital. You could sell 5 ounces of tax resister insurance for 0.2 ounces of gold. If other people also want to sell tax resister insurance, you can pool the risk and write larger policies. Effectively, you'd now be operating a free market time deposit bank, to raise capital to sell insurance. You can offer an interest rate of 5%-10% on a gold-denominated deposit, because writing this insurance policy is *SO LUCRATIVE*.

In a free market, trust is very important. If you're starting a tax resister insurance business, I'd focus on writing many small policies rather than a few big ones. Customers won't buy a big policy until you have an established reputation. Also, your risk is less if you write many small policies. If I sell 10 ounces of coverage plus tax resistance education for 1 ounce of gold, that's still profitable. I'm not risking a default if I mis-estimate the risk.

Suppose I'm selling tax resistance insurance for 10 years. I have 100 customers and none of them have been assaulted by the State. By selling many small policies, I develop best practices and establish a reputation. Now, I can validly claim "The risk of tax resistance is probably less than 1%-2%, if you're smart about it." (I haven't done the full statistical analysis; that's an estimate.) In the present, nobody has any idea about the true risk of intelligent tax resistance. You can't go by State-published statistics, because they're obviously biased, and don't illustrate the extent to which an intelligent person can reduce their risk.

Suppose I want to offer larger policies, but lack the capital myself. A customer might be reluctant to purchase a 500 ounce policy for 10-20 ounces, because he wants proof that I can pay. Suppose I've already established a reputation as being extremely trustworthy. How would a financing agreement work?

Suppose I determine that the risk is 1% or less. I'm able to selling 100 policies for 500 ounces of gold of coverage for 20 ounces of gold each. I determine that I need a reserve of 1000 ounces of gold in capital, in case I mis-estimated the risk. Here's how you can structure the agreement.

I'm going to charge the investment pool a fee of 100 ounces of gold (1 ounce per policy), plus 25% of the surplus profit if it turns out that I get less than 1% claims.
Each investor shares in the profits equally. For example, if I choose to invest 100 ounces of my own money in the pool, it's on the same terms as the others.
If claims are less than expected, I get 25% of the extra profits and the investors get the remaining 75%.
If claims are more than expected, I give up my fee first, and then the investors get the remaining capital.
If claims completely exhaust the investment pool, then policyholders are only paid on a pro-rata basis. For example, the pool has 1000 ounces of gold (invested), plus 2000 ounces of gold (insurance premium paid). If there are more than 6 claims, then claimants only get paid at a fraction of the amount. Notice that "limited liability" incorporation is not needed. I have to explicitly include this clause, so I'm not SOL if everyone gets raided by the State.

Suppose there is 1 claim, exactly as a I predicted. (I'm assuming a 1% chance of getting caught by the State, and I sold 100 policies.) I collected 2000 ounces of gold in premiums. I paid out 500 ounces of gold in claims. I collect 100 ounces of gold as my fee. I pay out 1900/500 ounces of gold for each ounce invested in the fund.

Suppose there are 2 claims, more than predicted. I collected 2000 ounces in premiums. I paid out 1000 in claims. I give up my fee. I pay out 1000/500 ounces of gold to investors.

Suppose there are zero claims. There's an extra profit of 500 ounces of gold. I take 25% of this (125) as a fee, and return an extra 375 ounces to investors.

Raising capital was helpful, because I can support 6 claims without exhausting my capital. If I were funding payments solely via premiums, then I could only pay out 4 claims.

As a drawback, the "statute of limitations" for State tax raids is 7 years. I'd have to keep the investment pool running for 7 years, so that insurance buyers can be sure they escaped a State raid (for that year). Of course, the State may always change the "statute of limitations" law, but the State isn't going to be around much longer anyway.

I'd need a sound agorist warehouse receipt or time-deposit banking system, so I can store the money. I can't keep 3000 ounces of gold in my apartment, lest the State raid me. Also, the money in the investment pool probably should be profitably invested, rather than merely sitting in a safe. A sound agorist time-deposit banking system would allow the insurance capital to be invested, for further profit.

It's straight arithmetic and probability. State-issued insurance is much more complicated, due to all the accounting laws and actuarial laws that must be followed.

There's one obvious risk of selling tax resister insurance. The State could raid you and steal your customer list. For this reason, agorists should keep almost no written records. To be safe, you should only conduct sales in person. I probably wouldn't sell someone tax resister insurance unless I had another agorist business relationship with them.

A lack of free market trading partners is precisely the problem I'm facing right now. In order to get a free market economy started, I can't do it alone. For this reason, I'm focusing on "raise awareness of anarchism/agorism" more than "actual practical agorism" right now. I hope to make the transition in the next few years, and "tax resister insurance" is one of my agorist business ideas.

Mark Sanford's Fnord

2009-06-27T12:00:00.006-04:00

South Carolina's governor disappeared for a few days. He reappeared. Allegedly, the reason for his disappearance is that he was meeting with a mistress.

Very frequently, it seems that politicians are discredited via a sex scandal.

For once, someone involved in such a scandal should come out and explicitly say "Having an exclusive sexual partner is unnatural. It's more desirable to have several partners. Monogamy is stupid."

Whenever a politician is busted for a sex scandal, there's a secret hidden fnord of "Monogamy and sexual exclusivity are desirable."

This is a key aspect of productive/parasite relationships and the Matrix. The parasite keeps the "abused productive" person as their property. The parasite may cheat and successfully lie about it to their partner. The productive person almost never will.

If people weren't pro-State brainwashed "Monogamy is desirable!", then two abused productive people would experiment with pairing with each other. Instead, an abused productive person is paired with a parasite, and brainwashed to believe that it's a desirable bond.

The Washington D.C. Train Crash

2009-06-26T12:00:00.004-04:00

There was a commuter train crash in Washington D.C. recently.

As usual, the people overseeing the train system are protected by sovereign immunity. There will probably be damages paid to the victims of the accident. However, this will come from the Washington D.C. government's budget. People will pay the cost via higher taxes or higher train fares. The officials responsible for the accident get to keep their cushy jobs. They have no personal liability for their negligence.

Train systems are designed to prevent crashes. The train is supposed to automatically stop if they get too close. The D.C. system had 100% electronic signals and was computer-driven. As a backup, there was also a human operator. The operator pressed the emergency brake button, but there's no evidence of whether he pressed it before or after the accident. That's faulty design, because there should be automatic logging of the train's speed at regular intervals. For a computer-driven train, I'd expect the train's speed and location to be recorded once a second.

The system is supposed to be designed so that even if one component fails, there is no accident. That's a relatively straightforward engineering problem.

There also was a report that the type of train cars were susceptible to an accident. The transit officials in Washington D.C. said that they didn't have the budget to replace the trains. Of course, a serious accident is also expensive. Via sovereign immunity, the transit officials don't have to suffer any negative consequences after the accident.

Even if there was someone responsible for conducting safety inspections, you can't prove he was negligent. There may have been an equipment failure after the last safety inspection. Some low-ranking State bureaucrat might be scapegoated for the accident. The rest of the parasites controlling the transit monopoly will keep their cushy jobs.

The train system has a State-licensed monopoly. Even if there is a problem, the cost is passed on to customers as higher prices. Via sovereign immunity, the officials running the train system are protected, even when their negligence causes an accident.

I saw a comedian say "Federal government inspectors are trying to determine the true cause of the accident." The true cause of the accident is the State transportation monopoly, combined with a system where people are protected from negative consequences of failure. If you suffer no negative consequences when there's an accident, then why bother taking proper safety precautions? Accidents are inevitable. However, due to State monopolies, accidents happen far more often than they should.

You'll never hear a mainstream media outlet say "Is having a State transportation monopoly a good idea?"

Reader Mail #101

2009-06-25T12:00:00.005-04:00

This post on BradSpangler.com was amusing. Statists justify torturing as a means of extracting information. The problem is "How do you know if the witness has enough knowledge to justify torturing him?" If you already know that the witness has valuable information, then why is it necessary to torture him?

When you torture someone, they'll agree to anything. If the torturer wants the victim to say "I know someone who tried to purchase uranium.", then the victim will say he knows someone. Then, the torturer can say "See! It was justified!"

In this post on the Picket Line (and a few others), David Gross was arguing with a pro-State troll about tax evasion/resistance. Arguing with idiots is usually a waste of time.

This is a common false debating tactic. Just because an idiot makes a bunch of stupid points, you don't have to address all of them.

The bottom line for tax evasion/resistance is:

Taxation is theft! Any tax or law is backed by violence. Once you understand this, it's obvious that government is just a massive extortion racket.
If you voluntarily pay taxes, you're partially responsible for all the bad things that government employees do. Of course, you should use effective tactics when you resist evil. You should try to get the most benefit for the least effort.
If you resist taxes, you increase your personal wealth, even if the State doesn't collapse during your lifetime. This is the reason agorists can achieve freedom one person at a time.

"Taxation is theft!" is sufficient argument to justify tax resistance. More complicated arguments are not needed.

David Gross seemed to be describing a stupid form of tax resistance. You calculate your tax bill, but then only pay part of it. This is a stupid form of tax resistance. For example, in protest of the Iraq war, you don't pay the portion of your taxes in the same percentage as the Federal military budget.

This is stupid. You can't "purchase" government a la carte. Once a State bureaucrat has your money/wealth, he may spend it as he pleases. Plus, reporting all your income and then paying a fraction of the tax is a particularly stupid form of tax resistance.

Don't forget the Free Rider Fallacy, when discussing tax resistance. A pro-State troll says "If you don't pay taxes, you're stealing police/roads/schools/etc. from people who do pay taxes." The fallacy is that, via taxes, I am a forced rider. I have no option to fire the State and purchase from someone else. I'm willing to pay the fair free market price for police/roads/schools/etc. I object to being forced at gunpoint to pay the extortionate rates that the State charges.

It is better to focus on generating wealth that is not reported to the bad guys at all.

This post on the Picket Line seemed wrong. It's a list of "What percentage of US households owe no income tax at all?"

The fallacy is that, if you work in a wage slave job, you still pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, even if your income isn't otherwise high enough for you to owe 1040 income taxes.

I liked this post on the Picket Line. Some comedians on the Fox Comedy Channel were suggesting that tax resistance might be a good idea.

This post on no third solution had some interesting bits.

When new cars are designed, it is not via a true free market process. A bunch of bureaucrats decide what type of cars to build, and then marketing tries to sell them. When a customer visits a car dealership, he's offered a bunch of choices on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

It's very hard to get firm quotes and compare prices. This is a symptom of a non-free market. Could you imagine purchasing a hamburger like purchasing a car? (I should write a sketch for this.) "If you buy the hamburger right now, we'll throw in ketchup for free! Lettuce is $5 extra!"

A bunch of small car manufacturing businesses would be much more responsive to the needs of customers. With a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly, it makes no difference if car manufacturers are efficient or inefficient. With a State-backed monopoly and the principle of "too big to fail", the incentive actually favors inefficiency.

The reason there are no small car manufacturing businesses is that the auto industry is heavily regulated. Contrast that with software, where the overhead for starting a web-based business is very low.

I was searching around on sui juris representation and found an interesting Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court ruled that it is possible for a defendant to be ruled competent enough to stand trial, yet incompetent enough to represent themselves. That ruling makes no sense to me. It sounds like a loophole to deny people the right to represent themselves in court.

This article was interesting. According to that article, the "Adoption and Safe Families Act" provides a payment of $4000 to state welfare agencies every time they take a child away from its parents and then place it up for adoption. This provides an economic incentive for bureaucrats to seize children from their parents.

That's very interesting. Taking children away from their parents is a for-profit business! This theft is paid via taxes.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":

Here are my articles
http://cheapogroovo.vox.com/library/post/google-tools-cost-the-entrepreneur-more-than-they-make.html

http://cheapogroovo.vox.com/library/post/google-checkout-and-paypal-limit-entrepreneurial-opportunities.html

There was a lot of debate regarding my decision to use AdSense back in January.

The summary was:

My blog is already hosted on Blogger, which is owned by Google. Google already knows the IP address of everyone who reads my blog. I don't give Google extra information when I add an AdSense widget.
It's easy enough to block AdSense or use Tor, if you're concerned about privacy.
I'm planning to switch to self-hosted WordPress, once I generate enough ad revenue to justify the expense.
It isn't immoral for me to profit from my blog.

I was banned from AdSense due to "invalid clicks". There is no way to appeal or reverse Google's decision. I switched to AdBrite. My page eCPM is lower, but at least AdBrite aren't defaulting deadbeats.

Google has a near-monopoly position in the online advertising market. When I switched from AdSense to AdBrite, my rates decreased a lot. Of course, my actual AdSense earnings were $0, because Google defaulted.

On Blogger, there's an "edit raw html" feature, so I was able to add the Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools tracking code. I'm going to stick with Blogger for now, and my next hosting vendor will be one I completely control. I don't know why you're using a hosting vendor that doesn't allow you to directly edit your raw html.

Buying a Google AdWords campaign seems silly now. Click fraud seems to be a genuine problem. I don't spend money on advertising. "Organic" search results and people citing my blog seems to be good enough.

Regarding PayPal and Google checkout, for awhile E-Gold was a viable method for buying and selling on the Internet. For awhile, eBay even allowed gold-denominated auctions. However, there was a crackdown by the FBI and IRS, and E-Gold is no longer viable. It was regulated out of existence. Under pressure from the IRS, eBay stopped accepting gold-denominated auctions.

Barry B. has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":

For the record I get around 18,000 hits per month and make over $600 per month on google adsense. I think I'm above average. I think some of the problem is your website and some of the problem is adbrite since it doesn't read your posts and place ads based on the content. The key to making money is traffic. The more traffic the more money. But also producing content that helps people solve problems that exist in their lives is a driving factor for my site...

That's pretty good. That's an eCPM of $33, which seems really high. How many pageviews are there per hit? I was making about $2-$3 eCPM when I was using AdSense. My actual earnings were $0, because Google banned me. There's no appeal, so I'm SOL and trying other vendors. Google has a near-monopoly position in the online advertising market, so other vendors necessarily have cheaper rates.

I've considered experimenting with other advertising vendors. I'm sticking with AdBrite for now. I probably will revisit this issue later. I've considered "Yahoo Publisher Network". I don't have enough readers for it to be worth my time optimizing more. For now, I'll focus on "write good content".

AdBrite is non-keyword-targeted, so there's no point in doing anything other than "attract more readers".

I always thought that blogging to target specific keywords was a pathetic way to make money. I prefer to focus on writing good content, rather than target specific keywords. The only conscious optimization I use is my choice of post titles, which seems to matter for SEO/SERP.

I've seem spam blogs that are obviously designed to generate search traffic for a specific keyword. I'm not interested in doing that.

I need about 4x-6x more readers to make $20/month so I can buy hosting. I probably need 1000x-2000x more readers before I could seriously consider doing this as a job.

My most likely "profit from blog" ideas involve using it to bootstrap other businesses.

I've considered "promote agorism via standup comedy"; blogging has been a way to refine my material. At this point, I should be able to do a live improv performance. If a pro-State troll in the audience decides to heckle me, I already know how to ridicule the most common pro-State troll stupid arguments.

I've also considered starting actual agorist businesses, and using my blog to attract customers. "Write AgoristBay software!" is one of my ideas. To minimize the risk of a State raid, I'd necessarily have to open-source it.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":

I made money before, but the trick with adsense/adbrite/whatever is to actually have targeted traffic for terms that advertisers actually pay for.
For example
go to
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
type in a keyword.
Now click the dropdown and "show estimated PPC"
Now change broad match to exact match...
Now CPC*monthly volume=estimated revenue going to google.
Now google will share that revenue with you. Google doesn't share that much.
The key is to leave one on a few months, then put the other on a few months and test because some niches just don't have advertisers for smaller networks.
If you're number 1 you don't get all the search volume, and if you get a click, you don't get all of that reveune...
but it's a starting point...
Then you just have to learn good seo, figure out how to find a keyword that is attainable in your niche, and go after it.

AdBrite is not keyword targeted. That advice is irrelevant.

I actually rank pretty well in Google for some common search phrases. "Hunt brothers silver", "Ruby on Rails sucks", and "monetizing the debt" are all good for 1-2+ new visitors per day. Via Google Analytics, I don't know how many of them are converted to regular returning readers.

I could do so much more with full server logs than with the pittance that Google Analytics provides. I'm looking forward to getting my own domain and own hosting. That will have to wait at least a few months.

Jack c has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":

The ads are completely irrelevant so that's going to hinder making much money. That said, I can't think of what would be better. I normally match my sites to high paying affiliate programs and other things, but it's not like there is an affiliate program for an "agorist kit" or something. Maybe if you found something reputable in investing, books, I don't know.

AdBrite is not targeted, so the ads are never going to relevant. I've considered experimenting with other ad networks. AdBrite is good enough for now. Besides AdSense, there don't seem to be any good content-targeted ad networks. My content probably is not of interest to many advertisers. Most of the people that advertise online seem to have spammy/scammy content. It'd be nice if I could find an ad network where all the ads were relevant an on-topic.

AdBrite actually gives me a summary of what ads were published, unlike AdSense. There's the occasional non-spammy ad. I've seen ads for AT&T and Toyota published via AdBrite.

I probably have to sell ads directly myself to get good rates and quality ads. That probably won't be viable until I have a *LOT* more regular readers.

"FSK should write content that will be attractive to advertisers!" is missing the point. My goal from blogging is to write about things I find interesting. The ad revenue is a side benefit.

Bootstrapping a web-based business seem *VERY* hard. With a page eCPM of less than $0.50, I need *LOTS* of traffic before I can do this as a full-time job, much less hire other people. If I raised VC to implement my ideas, that'd be missing the point. When you raise VC, the terms make the VC the effective owner. I'd become an employee in my own business.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":

with regards to investments not beating inflation, why not just short the dollar. That should equal the exact rate of return of inflation. If you put $100 in a short dollar position and the dollar goes down 20%, you then buy it back at $80. Sure, you can't protect ALL of your money this way, and you have to have extra cash to manage the price fluctuations, but at least some of that money will be protected.
Afterall, if the price of gold is being supressed anyways, shorting the dollar if not a better option will at least be a decent option.

You're confused about the way currency markets work. You can't merely "short the dollar". In order to short the dollar, you have to go long another currency. Going short the US dollar and long Euros won't work as a true inflation hedge. The European central bank is inflating just like the Federal Reserve. Over the next few years, there is no guarantee that one will inflate faster than the other.

Other countries try to inflate in lockstep with the Federal Reserve. First, the USA is a lucrative export market, although I never understood the point of exporting to the USA in exchange for a piece of paper. Second, if all countries inflate in lockstep, that keeps the illusion that inflation is low.

Also, it isn't going to lead to much profits unless you use leverage.

One way to short the dollar is to buy a gold future. There are flaws in that strategy, if you maximize your leverage. The long-term trend for the price of gold is increasing. However, there may be an occasional decrease of 30%-50%+ during a deflationary recession/depression. If you maximize your leverage while investing in gold, you'll be wiped out during the next bust.

As a non-insider who isn't "too big to fail", your only recourse is to invest in gold or silver, pay the full price, and take physical delivery. That will yield a 0% return on investment. I don't see how a non-insider can do better than that.

My blog is a type of investment, because it's generating income now. However, I need to keep writing good new posts to keep my regular readers. Presumably, my regular readers will keep coming back as long as I keep writing good content.

If I become a standup comedian, then my reputation as a performer is a type of investment. Unfortunately, without a mainstream media outlet promoting me, it's very hard to build a large audience. I'm doing decent progress with 5%-10% monthly growth via blogging and self-publishing. That's still a long way away from a decent-sized audience.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":

http://www.scribd.com/doc/10479221/Amanita-2009-Forecast-49-p

Once I saw the section on the correlation between astrology and financial markets, I decided "This is nonsense".

All you need to know regarding boom/bust cycles is:

The Compound Interest Paradox is a fundamental structural flaw in fiat debt-based money.
Insiders cannot resist the temptation to print and spend new money. This leads to inflation over time.
A historic back-test is invalid. The conditions of the market are changing. The rate of looting and pillaging is increasing.
As the final collapse of the State draws near, inflation should accelerate.
As a non-insider, you shouldn't try to time the market. You aren't "too big to fail", and you don't know what decisions State bureaucrats are going to make.
Gold and silver (real money) should be the best long-term buy-and-hold investment. You don't need to try and time your purchase. All State paper investments lose their value over time. If you're concerned about buying at the worst time, then buy a few ounces every few months or whatever your investment budget allows.

cyberTrebuchet has left a new comment on your post "The Myth of Job Creation":

Well hello again FSK. I have a couple of thoughts I want to share quickly with you and your other readers.

1) I'm pretty much ready to concede the Liberty Dollar vs. Plain Old Silver debate. It does make more sense just to buy the silver with FRNs and try to trade it at spot price. My continued appreciation goes out to Mr. von NotHaus, though: I still don't think the Liberty Dollar is a scam, and at the very least it led me to find the simple solution of agorism.

If I had to rank monetary systems in order of evil, I would rank them:

Federal Reserve Notes (pure evil)
Liberty Dollar (mostly evil)
gold and silver rounds, with no State regulation of banking or money (free market money, not evil)

The Liberty Dollar does help raise awareness for "The Federal Reserve is evil." I don't like the way that the Liberty Dollar looks sort of like State-issued money, which is probably the reason they got into legal trouble. Someone who's an idiot could get confused. Also, the Liberty Dollar is structured like a multi-level marketing scam. There are several prices for Liberty Dollars. NORFED pays spot silver when it mints them. Some associates can buy for $40 or $45, and the general public buys for $50 (the face amount).

Given the free choice, I'd use generic silver rounds instead of Liberty Dollars. If someone tried to buy something from me with a Liberty Dollar, I'd only give them credit for the spot price of silver, and not the face amount. I wouldn't accept paper or electronic Liberty Dollars.

Federal Reserve Notes are nearly 100% seignorage. A 100-point Federal Reserve Note costs only a couple of cents to print. The difference is pure seignorage profit for financial industry insiders, who print and spend the new money in collusion with the Federal Reserve. A Liberty Dollar is approximately 67% seignorage; it varies based on the spot price of silver.

If you use silver rounds, there is 0% seignorage. When you buy generic silver rounds, you pay the spot price plus a minting fee plus a transaction fee.

2) I'm currently working two wage-slave jobs - both of them in food service because I'm a starving actor - and there is a (sort of complicated) way out of the false "get a wage-slave job supporting criminals or be unemployed" dilemma. All we have to do, for now, is dissociate ourselves from all contracts with the US Government to which we have inadvertently heretofore been bound. I've been plodding through the meticulous legal research found on http://sedm.org and http://sedm.org/Forms/FormIndex.htm, and they outline how to get free of all contractual obligations to the parasites. Read their stuff; it's very good and very important. Tomorrow I think I'll email you one or two of the most important huge pdfs they have on their massive form index page. Goodnight!

One nice thing about food service is that there's opportunities to work off-the-books and get paid in cash. It depends on your employer.

You're missing the reason that most actors are underemployed/unemployed. It's the Screen Actor's Guild! The minimum scale wage for an actor is something like $150k+ per year. This means that unionized actors spend most of their time unemployed, but then get paid a lot when they do find work. If someone wanted to hire an actor full-time, but pay them only $30k-$50/year, that's illegal according to the union contract. This means that actors on the low-end of the market are continually unemployed/underemployed, because their labor isn't worth $150k+ per year.

I answered your E-Mail, regarding stupid tax resistance arguments. I'll include my comments but not yours. (Some people get offended when I publish their E-Mails. You didn't say anything interesting anyway.)

I already addressed this point several times, regarding stupid tax resistance arguments. For example, consider this post.

Getting freedom is more effort than filing certain bureaucratic paperwork. If there were a legal loophole, then Congress and the Supreme Court would close it.

I don't know of anyone successfully using such tactics when defending themselves from State harassment. It is possible that the State bureaucrats may have merely decided that the tax protester isn't big enough to bother cracking down on, and pursue softer targets elsewhere.

If I become a high-profile advocate for blatant-in-public agorism, then I almost definitely *WILL* get assaulted by State enforcers.

These legal arguments are missing the correct point, which is that the income tax is immoral. If you make legal arguments against the income tax, then you are fighting the bad guys on their turf. The rules and procedures for the legal system were written by Statists. They are designed to prevent fairness, rather than encourage fairness, especially in the area of taxation.

If you are assaulted for income tax evasion (i.e., working without permission from the State), then you don't recover the time and expense of a trial, even if acquitted.

I'd advise an agorist to focus on stealth first. If you get assaulted, then rely on other tactics, including a sui juris "jury nullification" defense. If you file such paperwork with the IRS/State, it's like filing a tax return with "**** you IRS!!" written on it. I'd focus on generating wealth that is not reported to the IRS, rather than such legal paperwork. I advise agorists to file a tax return that includes all on-the-books income, and not mention any free market income.

If you work in a wage slave job for a corporation, you probably have no choice but to pay income taxes. You should focus on building an agorist counter-economy, if you're really interested in freedom.

If there were some easy legal loophole to avoid taxes, then everyone would be doing it.

You still were persistent promoting your stupid ideas. I then added:

You're still missing the point. I disagree with all those arguments as pro-State trolling.

I use government roads. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
I accept mail with a zip code on it. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
I once got a social security card or birth certificate. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
I have a State ID card or passport. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
I use slave points as money. Therefore, I owe income taxes.

All of those are obviously silly.

There is no simple bureaucratic process for acquiring freedom. Freedom is more work than that. You're still thinking in terms of fighting the bad guys on their turf. If you're using the legal system in *ANY WAY*, you're fighting the bad guys on their turf. All of the legal loopholes have been closed by the Supreme Court.

There's a fallacy of saying to the IRS agent "I have no contract with you. Go away!" The IRS agent will promptly call the police and they will raid your home.

Arguing with a judge is pointless, because he is a brainwashed pro-State troll.

I doubt the tactics you suggest actually work. If they did, then everyone would be doing them.

What probably happens is that the tax resister is judged by the State bureaucrat to be small fry, and they pursue softer targets elsewhere. That's not the same as those tactics actually working.

One advantage is that, if a lot of people simultaneously resist taxes, then it becomes hard for the bad guys to crack down on all of them at the same time. They'll only go after the biggest offenders. If I become a high-profile advocate for agorism, then I *WILL* become a target.

I've also heard stories of such people being arrested/assaulted for "Promoting false tax evasion schemes."

If you are serious about freedom, just try agorism. Don't file any belligerent paperwork with the State. That just draws attention to yourself. File an "honest" tax return, with all your on-the-books income, while working on the side as an agorist. Don't report your agorist income on the tax return. If any State agent ever discovers your agorist activity, your defense is "I thought that wasn't taxable." If necessary, represent yourself sui juris, but if you're a skilled agorist it won't come to that.

You also mentioned buying gold and silver, I decided that I'm going to try APMEX for my first purchase. One way to minimize your risk is to buy a couple of ounces at a time. Then, you know if the vendor is trustworthy. All of the widely-cited online dealers are probably good enough. When I did my evaluation, APMEX has a well-designed website and good prices. Kitco is another vendor I'd seriously consider.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":

RE: Ron PAul

I would love to jump to a complete free market system w/o any government, but your blog misses the psychology of getting there.

We can only get there incrementally, not all at once.

Going back to a limited government with increasing individual freedom is simply the path to agorism.

The State using incrementalism all the time in taking away our God given rights!

No. The path to agorism is that the power of government increases until there's a complete collapse. The larger the government grows, the more people can profit by saying "**** this!" and start working as an agorist.

Paradoxically, it's best if the government gets as big and inefficient as possible. That accelerates the collapse. That increases profit opportunities for agorists.

The way to achieve agorism is for a handful of people to start working as agorists. As they are successful, they should bring in more people.

"Achieve reform by voting" is a proven failure. You're wasting your time thinking in that direction. If there's a good true libertarian candidate on the ballot, I might vote for him. I'm not waiting for that to happen.

Greg has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":

Re: my comments about Ron Paul and his business partners. Well, I was mostly referring to the guys who have made a living for the last 30+ years because they were paid staffers and then partners in the newsletters,etc. The newsletters were million dollar business and you had the usual guys involved in that. You had Blumert publishing, Rockwell writing, campaign workers and so on. If his claims are true that he didn't write certain newsletters and that someone ( his very close associates actually) was using his name to make money, they did so because there was money in publishing a "Ron Paul" newsletter. And that was back when he was just ex-Congress, ex-Libertarian candidate. Some of his 2008 POTUS staff were well compensated in relation to their actual accomplishments. A lot of people got paid off that fundraising. Ron Paul is a cottage industry for loyal yet ineffective campaign workers, writers,etc. I'm not saying a bunch of people got rich, but he had wealthy backers as well as people who have made a living at least partially due to their Ron Paul connection/stamp of approval.

That's very interesting. A lot of the money that a candidate raises winds up in the pockets of his campaign managers and handlers. For example, a job working in the Ron Paul campaign for $50k-$100k per year is a cushy setup. All that money that Ron Paul raised in 2008 wound up in someone's pocket.

I'm surprised that a Ron Paul newsletter was a profitable business. The cost of printing and mailing a physical newsletter are high.

It's very hard to find out who the true backers of a candidate are. If Ron Paul didn't exist, then the bad guys would need to invent someone like him. He's attractive to foolish (L)libertarians, as an intellectual distraction from "Who needs a government anyway?"

Greg has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":

I disagree with the first comment. I don't see any kind of incrementalism ushering in agorism.

You're missing the point of agorism. Via agorism, you can achieve freedom one person at a time, as people start working as agorists. Via agorism, you can keep a wage slave job and work part-time as an agorist on the side. Via agorism, you increase your personal freedom even if the State doesn't collapse during your lifetime. Based on the trends I'm seeing, the final collapse is approximately 20 years away.

Any State-sanctioned reform method requires 50%+ of the people to care strongly about your issue, and even then you might not succeed. The bad guys receive massive State subsidies. They can then use this stolen property to profitably block reform.

Probably the opposite. I think if we have some superficial appearance of "limited government" it will probably make people more complacent. And I don't even see that happening. We have gone too far. It's going to take bad bad things to turn the tide towards agorism IMHO.

In case you aren't paying attention, things in the USA are getting very bad. The trend is for further decay, rather than recovery.

I'm not saying I want it that way, but I think people have to get to the point of being fed up and mad as hell and ready to throw away the government. Incremental "limited government/constitutionalism" is a way for pro-state trolls to calm everyone down and encourage statism.

If you evaluate the Libertarian party as a for-profit business, with the goal of reducing the size of government, then the Libertarian party is a miserable failure.

"Work within the system to achieve reform" is pro-State trolling. The system is completely broken. It is impossible to work within the rules of a corrupt system and do good things.

Sometimes, it's necessary to say "This isn't working. It's time to try something completely different."

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":

Saying anything "is" is objective. We can know how things currently seem, how they seemed to have been, and how they seem they will be. But even if you could say that someone has done evil, and intends to do it again, does that mean they are an evil person?
whats to say they arent faced with a choice at this moment and see it in a new light, and therefore take the "good" action.
Even that assumes that there are good and evil as tangible definable things rather than objective opinions that cannot be defined unless you give them a set or rules, words, or description.

I disagree. There is an objective standard of good and evil. There is an objective standard of truth.

Pro-State trolls say "Good and evil are relative. You should never say 'X is evil!'" This belief prevents people from explicitly calling out evil as evil.

Consider a psychiatrist. No matter how hard I try, I am unable to convince a State-licensed psychiatrist that "Anti-psychotic drugs are harmful." The psychiatrist has too big of a financial and emotional investment in their career. Every day, the psychiatrist murders his patients, while sincerely believing he's doing good. That makes the psychiatrist evil. The psychiatrist might otherwise be a good parent or do good things in other situations. As a psychiatrist, he is pure evil.

Consider the Rails Advocate or Idiot New Manager at my job last summer. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't able to convince them to change their ways. If someone is a skilled parasite, they will not change their behavior. Evil is working for them, so why should they change? If a large number of "abused productive" people became resistant to their manipulations, then they might learn to change their tactics. Until then, an evil person will stick with what's been working for them.

If you believe "Truth is relative!", then the psychiatrist, Rails Advocate, and Idiot New Manager are good. In their version of reality, they are heroes. They all are responsible for the destruction of property and squandering of wealth. They are evil. The parasites are the ones most loudly advocating for "Truth is relative!", because they don't want people to discover their scam.

Some people are just evil. There's a common misconception promoted by evil people. "People aren't evil. They're just confused and need to learn." That's wrong. Some people are skilled manipulators and outright evil. You can't convince them, because evil tactics have been working for them their whole life.

A Federal judge isn't going to say "Maybe the income tax really is immoral!" after you explain it to him. He's been brainwashed to think in a certain way. That corrupt behavior has been working for his whole life. He isn't going to change. He'll get offended when you challenge his brainwashing. The judge has the power to rule you are in "contempt of court" and jail you indefinitely. Such evil should be avoided.

Due to the nature of the State and the Matrix, half of the people have the parasitic personality type and half the people have the "abused productive" personality type. A productive person is almost always paired with a parasitic person. This guarantees a 50/50 split. Some people are in the middle, and take the productive role in some contexts and the parasitic role in other contexts. The most skilled parasites play the evil role almost all the time. Based on my experience, only 1%-3% of the population are true psychopaths. However, those are usually the people in a position of State-backed authority!

That is the evil of government. The most evil people gain control of the government. Then, their theft is cloaked in the illusion of legitimacy. People like Obama are figureheads. Obama has sincere good intentions, which makes him an effective liar and pro-State troll in public. Behind the scenes, Obama's parasitic advisers are making the real decisions. Obama doesn't recognize which of his advisers are parasites, or would even consider the possibility that some people are that evil.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":

Ahmadinejad isn't our president we vote Mr Mousavi but fake election's result show us Ahmadinjead your President!!

All elections are fixed, even those where the votes are counted honestly.

Another defect of an election is that, when the outcome is close, you need to wait 4 years or whenever until the next election. Even then, you're presented with a fake choice of candidates that were pre-screened by the Supreme Leader.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":

you said:
I'm thinking of ways to become a mainstream advocate for agorism and real free markets. My best idea is "Promote agorism via standup comedy."

I think this would work great.

It's on my list of things to do.

I read that, even if you're good, it takes several years to build a reputation and start getting paying gigs. There's no harm in waiting a few months.

That's the nice thing about living in NYC. There's lots of nightclubs with "open mike" nights. I'll go as an audience member before going to perform. My guess is that I'll be way better than the others, but I won't know for sure until I try it in front of an audience.

I read that you don't know how good an act or sketch will be, until you try performing it in front of an audience.

When I gave Math-based talks in college and grad school, people said that I was a good public speaker.

I read that, in NYC, there are more nightclubs than there are standup comics who don't suck. That's good if I'm going to try to make a career out of it.

Remember that my goal isn't "Make millions of dollars!". My goal really is "Make as much as I would as a slave software engineer!"

The nice thing about standup comedy is that, like agorism, I can start for a few hours a week until I get a reasonable rate of income. There's enough competing nightclubs that it's a reasonably free market.

I read that the most important asset for an aspiring standup comic is "stage time". It might pay for me to rent space in a nightclub in an off-peak time. It'd be nice to tape the performances and publish them on the Internet. If I could get 10-20 people attending, that'd be a good start.

Also, you could try to contact various famous stand up performers. Carlos Mencia for example is known for "stealing material" but because he's such a great performer, and more famous, he gets more laughs. He has often dried up on material and had to do rewrites of other people's stuff. I think there are plenty of stand up artists looking for material. If you can give them all variations of the same material they can perform.
Drawback is lck of control, if the people you provide content to are pro state trolls, or if the major networks are going to edit and limit what they can say, it might not work. What's more, if they take the materil and spin it to instead attack agorism, it could be bad.
But The bennefits I feel outweigh the cons.. Why?
First of all a better performer who's already created the market and found the popularity already sells out and already has the attention is going to command a lot more people's attention. A lot more reward for less effort. Working smarter, not harder.
2nd, if you submit material to multiple people, you can command more attention to what a scam taxation is, and possibly get more aspiring commedians to continue to spread that message.

If any professional comedian or journalist wants to read my blog, then here it is.

I tried contacting mainstream media personalities before. I didn't get a response. The problem is that they get a *HUGE* volume of mail. Many of them don't read it themselves.

I'm sure that mainstream media personalities get pitched all the time for "Here's an awesome idea!" It's actually risky to accept ideas from strangers. If they later do something that's similar to my suggestion, they could get sued for violating copyright law.

If I wrote a mainstream media personality, I'd probably just seem like some random fruitcake. They get so many garbage letters that mine would be lost in the noise.

As you pointed out, if I work as a writer for someone else, then I give up creative control. I'd be an employee, rather than someone promoting their own ideas. If I landed a gig writing for someplace like the Daily Show, I'd probably be most interested in writing and performing my own material.

As I mentioned before, I'm planning on performing as The Supreme Leader of Humanity. I don't know of anyone else currently performing under that name! I've mentioned it here first, so someone can't steal it from me. (Intellectual property isn't a valid form of property. However, I don't want someone else claiming ownership and then suing me!) I don't think that someone else could portray the character as effectively as me. Someone who didn't understand the evils of government, the State, and the Matrix would not be able to portray the character well.

Also, I'd be able to improv free market arguments. Other mainstream media personalities are only funny when reading from a teleprompter. One criticism of Jon Stewart is that he isn't funny without his writers. He can't ad-lib or improv well.

Also, you could be subtle, using good fnords, or point out how stupid the bad fnords are...
"I was watching wheel of fortune and someone got bankrupt and he said "it's okay"... Hello! I just went bankrupt you moron! If you think it's okay, I got an idea... go to the bankrupcy courts where real people have lost everything because the entire system is made up of lies and you tell them "it's okay"... Acttually Pat Sajack, if you think bankrupcty is okay I got a great deal for you. You give me your money, and I'll give you the opportunity to declare bankruptcy!... don't worry Pat... it's okay"

That is an interesting fnord. Financial success or failure is a random event.

Another point I'd ridicule on Wheel of Fortune is their "politically correct" choice of puzzles. If I were a video editing expert, I'd make a clip where the puzzle is "Taxation is theft!" or "War is the health of the State!" You'll never see such phrases as the puzzle on Wheel of Fortune.

If I did have my own comedy show, then pointing out fnords would be one of the regular features.

Some pro-State trolls say "Fnords can't exist. Otherwise, someone would go around pointing them out to people." The problem is the mainstream media information monopoly. Even though I can see the fnords pretty clearly now, I can only reach 200 people via blogging.

(repeat same joke with deal or no deal)

I like Deal or No Deal. It's a game show that has some interesting math and game theory content. It's interesting to study "bankers' offer" as a percentage of "theoretical value" (the average of the remaining cases.

One of my sketch ideas was "Bailout or No Bailout". It's the reverse of usual. The banker is the player, and the taxpayer is forced at gunpoint to play and make an offer. "There are 26 cases, each containing an amount from $100,000,000 up to $10,000,000,000." When the banker accepts the bailout, instead of ending, the game keeps going. "Congratulations! You just accepted a bailout of $500,000,000! In the next round, you have to open 5 cases."

One evil fnord on "Deal or No Deal" is when they go rabbit-hunting after the player accepts the deal. After the player accepts the deal, they keep opening cases and show "What the offer would have been." When actually playing, the offer is almost *ALWAYS* less than the average of the remaining cases; otherwise, it'd be a no-brainer decision to accept the deal. When showing "What the offer would have been.", the theoretical offer is almost always *HIGHER* than the average of the remaining cases. This helps provide the illusion that the player did the wrong thing by accepting the deal.

That's an evil fnord. "What's actually in your case affects whether you made a good deal or not." Since the case locations are random, "Did you make a good deal?" is independent of "What was actually in your case?" That's an example of a mainstream media show promoting innumeracy and the inability to make proper risk calculations. "Did you make a good deal?" only depends on the deal accepted and the value of the remaining cases. Based on my observations, any offer greater than 80% of the theoretical value is pretty good; when you open one of the big-valued cases, the banker drops both the offer and the percentage.

If I had my own show, I'd do a combination of sketch comedy, along with talk/news. There really aren't any good sketch comedy shows on TV right now.

When I watched Saturday Night Live, my favorite sketches were the game show parodies. Lately, Saturday Night Live seems intolerable to watch. It's a combination of "the quality deteriorated" and "FSK's awareness has increased."

I think the great stand-up comedy performers would be able to not only take that as is and make it funny, but provide some of their own ideas on the situation, mixed with timing, funny voices, etc. But giving them these type of things, even if they're not neccesarily funny will get their mind thinking...
I think it's probably easier to contact these performers than people probably think. there's a lot of fakes out there, but celebs often do have myspaces, and twitter accounts, and blogs, and they actually do use them.

The easiest way to attract the interest a "name" performer is to perform my material myself. If I'm good, then I'll get invited as a guest on other shows. For example, some of the people who organize "open mike" shows in NYC also work as writers for the Daily Show, Colbert Report, or David Letterman.

This comes down to "If you want something done right, do it yourself!" I don't have any contacts. The best approach is to perform the material myself, and hope to attract interest. I'm more interested in writing my own bits, rather than working as a writer for someone else.

I am concerned about mainstream media censorship. They way to bypass that is via live performances, and by self-publishing on the Internet.

At this point, "promote agorism and real free markets" is more important than being an actual agorist myself. If I get a contract with a mainstream media corporation, I should take it and pay tax on the income. I'll still try starting agorist businesses, or help other people start agorist businesses. It depends on how much interest I get.

Another advantage of "promote agorism via standup comedy" is that a group of people interested in freedom would be in the same place. They could trade goods and services before and after the performance. That would facilitate the growth of a free market economy.

johnny moss has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":

economic solution... in some sense that might work, but read what this post says in response to those about ron paul. if the government is reformed, it might be better than maintaining the status quo, but working towards government based solutions won't help.

Real reform, via State-sanctioned means, is virtually impossible. The bad guys make too much money off of government, and can always profitably lobby to block reform.

It would be nice if the size and power of government could be reduced. I'm not waiting for that to happen. If you want freedom, you should start working as an agorist and grab it yourself.

The size and power of government are decreasing as the economy collapses. As the economy shrinks, there is less wealth available for the parasites to leech, and less wealth available to spend enforcing stupid laws.

fritz has left a new comment on your post "Who Owes the National Debt?":

Our children don't owe crap.

Imagine if your parents took out a loan to work on their house while you were in high school.And they told you that when you graduated you had to help them pay back that loan.Because they fixed the house for you.

Or imagine if your slave master went bankrupt. And the person who purchased the plantation told you you owed money because the last master went broke.

no one asked me if they could barrow on our future. There was no referendum . I tell all people that you are not responsible for any of it.

Our slave master is bankrupt. And when our master is forced to give up the farm. We can pummel our ex-master with the bags of fiat money we were forced to use.

Don't be fooled by those who control you.They took out a loan to keep the slave farm operating. The slaves on the farm are not responsible for their masters folly.

The way to default on the national debt is to boycott the Federal Reserve and income tax. You support parasites when you let your savings be stolen via inflation. The wealth stolen via the income tax is then used for interest payments on the national debt and to pay for other parasitic activity.

Economic Solution? has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":

You're commenting on the wrong post.

The government should

-buy out the federal reserve permenently

-form a new currency that doesn't require exponential creation of money to keep the system going (such as a 0% interest loan that must be secured by the value of the asset they are buying)

-Create a fixed amount of dollars that is constantly monitored like the population is monitored via a census... as nanotechnology will eventually allow counterfeit money and paper currency in it's current system won't last for much longer anyways.

-Have the currency/dollar expire every 4 years, to prevent hoarding of wealth and power, and promote exchange and value creation. Interestingly enough, as more and more is created the value of a dollar actually should go up naturally but much more gradually. If there was only 1 house in the world it would be worth a lot, but if there was enough houses for everyone to have 3 of them, they're is no scarcity factor, there's much more houses available, and with the same amount of dollars in existence, it only makes sense that people wouldn't give up as many dollars to get a house, nor would they need to, and wealth would go up.. In addition, this would create more economic activity as more stuff is created because things would become more and more affordable.

-Have the dollars be a certain color, size, shape, or with the current presidents face on it, so people know that when the next dollar is issued, the old one is no longer acceped.

-An economy that runs like this will not require inflation to keep it running, it will only require that we maintain our productive capacity. Unfortunately we won't be able to inflate away our current debts to other countries anymore, but eventually we will get to that point if not by diplomacy, by force. It would be much less costly to start producing and creating.

Although it would seem that the governmnt would lose it's ability to provide pension and such, in fact, retirement would occur faster, because if the money supply remains constant, but more and more is produced, provided the population doesn't grow out of control, the cost of living will gradually go down.

If there is excess economic activity, without excess creation and production, there is likely to be counterfeit money held somewhere. However, with a design of a new form of dollar every 4 years, the money would have to quickly flow into actual economic activity, so the counterfeiters couldn't really debase the currency for very long, and if they did, it would have to create economic activity to do so.

Your dollars must be exchanged if you want this new currency, although there should be a 1-2 year overlap of currencies, in which the old dollar actually would inflate but safely without hurting the economy as replacement dollars could be obtained. The more counterfeit there actually is, the less that money will be worth during this 2 year period. If people are holding money or laundering it and refuse to turn it in, there money "expires" worthless. There could be multiple currencies at once some backed by various things, others just backed by debt like the current dollar if there are concerns.

Some might think that under this system no one could ever afford a home without a mortgage, but the truth is, the prices of housing would become affordible under a currency like this, it is only because so much debt is allowed, and people need shelter that homes have become something that we're willing to pay and slave away, 30 years worth of our lives of work to have. The housing industry has grown plenty, so costs to create new ones won't be an issue, even if they are, the production that normally is used to go towards a home will instead go into the rest of the economy, and other areas will grow, allowingmore value that workers get from their jobs, and as a result people will have the money to pay for the production of a new house without requiring them to mortgage away their lives.

You're entirely pro-State trolling.

A corrupt system cannot be reformed. It must be discarded and replaced.

There are plenty of reasonable proposals for reforming the State and the Federal Reserve. Do you know why none of them have been implemented yet? Insiders make a fortune lobbying the State for favors. They aren't going to give up their gravy train. They can always profitably lobby to block reform.

This gets back to "Some people are just plain evil. Evil people won't change their ways. Evil has been working for them their whole life!" Necessarily, some State enforcers have the productive personality type; otherwise, the bad guys wouldn't be able to accomplish anything at all! However, they are blissfully unaware that they are participants in a massive crime.

If you desire reform, you shouldn't wait for politicians to get their heads out of their ***es. They and their backers are collecting huge paychecks from their theft. If you want freedom, grab it yourself via agorism.

Some people just are evil. They won't give up their perks unless they're forcibly taken away from them.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Are you a Slave?":

I don't know though, because if you are homeless, does that somehow make you more free? You cannot live life to it's fullest, so in my view you are a greater slave without a home even though technically no one owns you.
I am in my 20s, but I live at home with my parents. Because I don't have a home am I less of a slave? Or am I move of one because I not only do not have a home, but I have parents with rules that I have to live by. Technically I am not required to do so though, I could say 'screw you' and go out on my own.

I wasn't advocating for homelessness. What gave you that impression?

Some homeless people have a reasonable amount of mental freedom. However, they lack material resources. I like my computer, Internet connection, running water, shelter, and regular food source. I'm not giving those things up!

I'd have more freedom with my own apartment, than living with my parents. I'm looking to get my own apartment again. I lived on my own many years before I was involuntarily hospitalized and abused.

For now, I'm accepting being stuck with my parents. The economy sucks right now, making it hard for me to get a new wage slave job. At least I'm saving the rent expense.

I need to acquire physical freedom in the form of my own apartment, before I work on other types of freedom. Regrettable, a wage slave job is necessary as an intermediate step.

m has left a new comment on your post "Stupid Equals Evil":

I think intentions make all the difference in the world.

I disagree. That allows an evil person to escape by saying "My intentions were good." Then, all sorts of evil can be justified.

This also comes back to Christianity and the religion of Absolute Unopposable Evil. If you do evil things, but believe in God, you are forgiven. What kind of lousy stupid policy is that?

It doesn't matter if your intentions are good. It's results that matter.

Of course, if someone has sincerely good intentions, they will change their behavior when they see. One important aspect of evil is that evil people don't learn. When a skilled parasite fails, he doesn't think "How can I stop being a parasite?" Instead, he thinks "How can I be a more effective parasite? How can I prevent people from discovering my scam?"

By demonstrating true leadership, I'm actually educating the parasites. They copy my behavior and body language, but not my actual thinking ability. They're pretending to be leaders, but they seem like obvious fakes to me.

For example, when discussing a software issue, I act like I'm sure because I really know my stuff. When a parasite is discussing a software issue, he acts like he's right, even though he's spouting incoherent gibberish. In software, there's an objective standard of truth. Either your software behaves as desired and is bug-free, or it's lousy.

If you say "the result is the same" you are being results oriented. Under a different circumstance the stupid person would realize the evils of their actions, and they would no longer do it. But they need to have a eureka moment. We all have had mental lapses, and usually it's the really simple things that we miss. Maybe we look everywhere for our glasses when they're on our heads. Then we have a good laugh and it never happens again. But people who have not thought about what's obvious and right in front of them can still be smart, yet ignorant.

No. This is an excuse that parasites make to distract productive workers.

There are some people who have sincere good intentions. They have the abused productive personality type but are frustrated by the parasites around them. I'm actively trying to help these people.

There are some people who are on the fence. They will just follow the majority. I can help these people, but my time is better spent on the true Remnant. In the present, parasitism is held as the role model, so these people try to be parasitic.

Then, there are the skilled parasites. They are just plain evil. These people are true psychopaths. Once there is nobody left to play the "abused productive" role, then these people might change their ways. Until then, these people will continue to use the evil tactics that have been working for them their whole life. These people cannot be convinced by logic or other arguments. Force is the only thing they will understand. The way you force them to change is by educating the people they exploit to stop being victims.

The fact is if someone is stupid and doing evil or doing something both stupid and evil, it doesn't make them evil. If they awake to the fact of what they are doing, they would quickly stop. Is it not until that moment that they "become good" or were they always good but they just did evil things?

If that is the case, these people are merely "useful idiots" who have been used to do something stupidly and evil. They don't realize what they are doing. Knowledge and intellegince are different. There are sometimes brilliant people who know very little.
There are also other forms of intelligence

This is the Nuremburg defense. If you're doing something evil, but were conned by someone else, then you're still evil. Everyone is individually responsible for what they do. "I was following orders!" or "I was tricked!" is not a justification for doing something bad.

Consider a mother whose son died as a US soldier in the Iraq war. On the one hand, I am sympathetic because she and her son were clueless brainwashed slaves. On the other hand, I say "You got what you deserved! You didn't teach your son that war is one big scam! You're personally responsible for your son's death!"

It's irrelevant that psychiatrists have been brainwashed to believe "These drugs are beneficial!" The reality is that they're hurting their patients. Once you're brainwashed to be evil, it's very hard to change. By its very nature, the psychiatry industry attracts evil people.

People don't realize it, but an NFL wide receiver actually can have a very high intelligence. It takes a high opperating brain capacity to be able to move through the air, catch the ball gracefully, and keep both feet in bounds. It's not what people are programmed to think of as "intelligence" but it is one form of intelligence.

I never said that professional athletes are stupid. Actually, most professional athletes have the "abused productive" personality type, based on what I've seen. I haven't spent time hanging out with professional athletes; I'm judging based on interview clips.

For example, is Terrell Owens (NFL wide receiver) a jerk? Or, is he reacting naturally when his coach makes stupid decisions? It's hard for me to judge his personality type, unless I spend a few minutes seeing him in person. Is Terroll Ownes chided for not playing the "abused productive" role well. In contrast, most coaches have the parasitic personality type.

There are many forms of intelligence. Someone who is uncordinated is not intelligence in that form... That does not make them evil.

Being uncoordinated is not evil, unless you're injuring other people. If would be evil if someone with bad coordination got a job as a surgeon and injured his patients.

Besides, evil is just a perspective, right? Is a baby born evil? Yet he throws tantrums selfishly because he has no other means of communications because he is unintelligent.

Babies are brainwashed to follow the model set by their parents. If your mother has the parasitic personality type, then a baby girl will also be a parasite. If your mother has the "abused productive" personality type, then a baby girl will also be a productive worker.

However, once you're an adult, you're responsible for what you do.

Generalizations like "evil" and "genius" are just a point of view.

Your point of view is stupid. By your logic, it's acceptable for me to say that, because it's just one point of view!

If you believe "Truth is relative!", then you shouldn't offended when I say "You are an idiot!" If truth is relative, then my viewpoint that you're a fool is just as valid as all others.

Do cats think humans are geniuses? probably they don't even understand beethoven or mozart, they think humans are only good for getting them food.

I don't know. I don't speak fluent cat.

When I see a dog behind a fence barking, it now seems like he's saying "Help! Help! Help! I'm trapped here!" As another analogy, the singing of wild birds is friendly. The singing of caged birds usually has a lot of tension. It's something I didn't notice before, but now stands out as obvious.

Is the human race evil? when compared to other animals yes, no other animals have genocide. yet we engage in MUCH more sophisticated behavior.
Maybe your stupid=evil is some attempt at a good fnord, but from my perspective it's just not true.

Your perspective is a stupid one. I shouldn't waste time debating idiots.

Humans are not intrinsically evil. The nature of the Matrix means that a lot of humans are engaged in evil acts, even while they think they're doing good.

Most people, even skilled parasites, don't think "Hooray for me! I'm evil!" The reason it's possible to do evil is that the criminal thinks he's really the hero.

There are math geniuses that can't interract socially, or there are idiot savants and they can play the piano like no other, but can't perform basic functions. In certain areas they may be a genius, or perhaps they are a genius who has not acquired the right knowledge, or a genius under hypnosis.
Either way, you can't label people as smart, dumb, evil, and good, because there is a dualism, a thirst to quench physical and biological needs, emotions of fear, and reactions triggered by our surroundings, and also a desire to help other people once those needs are met, and there is an understanding of how the other people feel.

I'm labeling you as an idiot. This isn't bias. It's my objective conclusion based on your comment.

The reason there are people who are technical geniuses but awkward socially is the Matrix. When everyone is insane, the most intelligent people are made to be very socially awkward. Consider the cumulative effect of a lifetime of manipulation by parasites. This makes intelligent "abused productive" people very unsure of themselves in social situations.

I used to think that it was random if I got along with someone else or not. Now, I see that parasites are jerks and I can't please them no matter what. People with the "abused productive" personality type are easy to get along with. When a parasite rejects me, he doesn't say "It's because I'm an ***hole parasite!" The parasite makes up a superficial unrelated reason, seemingly random to me. Over a lifetime, the cumulative effect is that I became very awkward in social situations. This leads to me making a list of "social interaction rules", a list of seemingly random contradictory advice.

I finally cracked the code, which is "Some people are just plain jerks. They'll automatically look for ways to discredit people who are resistant to their manipulations. You can't logically convince them to behave honestly, because evil has been working for them their whole life." Regrettably, in most corporations, a parasitic person is pulling the strings. Even if your boss has the "abused productive" personality type, then his boss will usually be a parasite.

This seems to be a common point by pro-State trolls. "There is no objective standard of truth. There is no objective standard of good and evil." I disagree. There is an objective universal standard of truth and goodness. If you disagree with my viewpoint, then what kind of pathetic loser are you for wasting time reading and commenting?

There is a universal standard of truth. Determining the truth exactly is tricky. That's why I use Bayesian Reasoning instead of binary logic. I write "I'm sure that ..." instead of "I'm 99%+ sure that ...", because that isn't the way people normally write.

Pro-State trolls don't want people to think that there's an objective standard of truth. "Truth is relative" allows all sorts of evil acts to be disguised.

I really shouldn't waste time debating idiots.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Attention Deficit Order Explained":

I was diagnosed with ADD my senior year in high school. Funny because it wasn't until then that I really started to be more of what they'd consider a "rebel". My grades were better than ever though, but my parents were worried that when I went to college things will change.

I remember coming back from the doctor, and people asked me why I was at the doctor. I joked "I don't know, I think it was something about A.D.D. but aparently I wasn't paying any attention. One of my friends got it, some slave of the matrix girl had a blank stare.

Were you forced to take drugs? I hope not.

I've noticed that the most independent thinkers tend to be the ones labeled as "defective". That's what happens when nearly everyone in the world is nearly completely insane.

m has left a new comment on your post "Is Real Estate a Good Investment?":

Real estate can be a good investment. The thing about investments is, if you're betting on the price going up, it's not a true asset, it's a speculative bet. It's a investment of "hope" which is only a step up from despari because you're living in an illusion wishing for a better reality and admitting your reality isn't good.

That's not exactly true. If you use leverage and buy, you're speculating on a rise in price. If the price declines, you get wiped out. An eventual deflationary recession/depression is guaranteed. You're guaranteed to eventually get wiped out if you continually maximize your leverage. For example, during the housing boom, some people kept refinancing for bigger and bigger mortgages. Then, during the bust, they lost everything. The mortgage on their house became bigger than what they could sell it for.

If you make an unleveraged purchase, then you're buying it to use or hold onto.

As another example, buying a gold future and making the minimum margin payment is speculation. If the price of gold declines, you lose; if the price of gold increases, you get a windfall. If you buy gold and pay the full purchase price, then that is not speculating.

The Federal Reserve credit monopoly and negative real interest rates encourage speculation over investing.

If you bet on it beating inflation, it's even more speculative. Banks in some sense are being sligthly speculative because they're speculating that things won't get so bad that the fed limits new money printing so much that they can no longer print money, or that it will be worth the costs to play the game.
If you buy a rental property, and secure cashflow, you technically have people playing musical chairs for you. If the music stops and a tennent loses his job and can't pay, then someone else has to fill in his place, but if you can't find anyone, you face the dangers of being forced into the musical chairs game.

Fortunately, you can also find a new player, who was previously playing a game of musical chairs. When their music stopped and they lost their houses and got demoted, they suddenly decide to move into your game of musical chairs and play for you. If eventually things get bad and the amount of money in circulation slows down enough, then you yourself have to play a game of musical chairs with other apartement owners, a reasonable amount of the people actually understand the game.

Now you're describing how a free market would work.

In a free market, when someone loses their job, there's always someone else looking to hire. In the present, there are State overheads that add an extra cost when hiring or firing an employee.

In a free market, if you decide to move, you should be able to find another apartment for a comparable rent. Similarly, if a tenant leaves, you should be able to find a tenant who pays a comparable rent.

Even in a free market, there are some friction costs. A skilled employer can find good employees at a bargain. A skilled landlord can do a better job screeing tenants. A skilled landlord can do repairs/enhancements that increase rental income by more than the cost of repair.

In the present, there is not a free market. Where I live in NYC, there are rent control laws. At any time, the law could be changed. It would suck to buy an unregulated apartment building, only to see the regulation be changed so that I'm not allowed to charge the free market rent. If you buy real estate, you're subject to the risk that the laws can be changed. As a non-insider, law changes can be unfavorable to you.

For example, I can buy a house. Nearby, someone gets a zoning variance and builds a big condo apartment building. The extra traffic now decreases the value of my house. "Get a zoning variance" isn't an option for me, because I don't have political connections. Plus, the new construction might get a property tax exemption; I pay the cost in the form of higher property taxes.

This is the state of the economy we're in. Unemployment has shot up, people have been forced into early retirement, forced out of homes and into rentals, home owners lose their homes, and now it is the apartement owners who must play their game. Many of the banks get to stay one step ahead, but as all these apartment owners start to default, the banks will play in a massive game of musical chairs at an epic level. The next step is governments as they try to bailout the banks, and keep people/corperations playing for them, because they know if they do no, they will play musical chairs.

Unemployment is a consequence of the status of Federal Reserve Notes as slave work permission points. When the money supply crashes in a depression/recession, people literally don't have permission to work.

Countries will go to war and take over each other, and eventually all countries will be in trouble...Soon their country is soon 100% owned by the federal reserve, rather then just a partnership where the secretary of treasury actually has a say in the economy.
When this game stops, the federal reserves around the world play musical chairs, and when that game stops, the master of humanity can choose who he wants to keep.

If nothing else, real estate is a good investment because you can stay one step ahead of the rest of the world. But getting into real estate is like getting into a car. It doesn't matter the safty rating of the vehicle, if the driver is bad and inexperienced.

If you're a stupid investor, you'll get ripped off no matter what you do.

If you're a skilled landlord, then real estate might be a good investment. There still is a cost paid via property taxes, zoning regulations, and rent control laws. Also remember that State law makes it hard for a landlord to evict a tenant that refuses to pay rent.

I don't know enough about real estate investing, and I'm not interested in investing the time on being an active landlord. At some point, it may be profitable for me to buy a rental property and rent to other agorists. In the meantime, gold and silver are probably my best investment choices.

I'm seriously considering cashing in all my State paper investments and buying physical gold and silver. When you consider that the State and financial system will collapse within 20 years, then I should even cash out my IRAs and 401(k)s. I'm not 100% sure that the State will collapse by then, so I can keep my State paper investments as a hedge.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Real Estate a Good Investment?":

actually chapo groovo, china's problems not much better. they continue to lose millions of jobs that are outsourced just like us. They don't owe 60% of their debt to another country like we do, but if you think inflation is coming, oweing people money at least temporarily is a good thing, because you can pay them back with dollars that aren't worth nearly as much. China could sell all of their treasuries, and this would just cause HUGE inflation.

The problem of China is that they're inflating their own money, to keep stable exchange rates with the US dollar.

China's huge dollar reserves are an interesting bargaining chip. If China dumped its dollars, this probably would cause other countries to follow suit. This would lead to massive crippling inflation n the USA.

The insiders who control China won't try to change the status quo. China's leaders like their ability to exploit the slaves in China just as much as the parasite class in the USA.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Video Game Evil vs. Real World Evil":

There is another point of view in this fnord. I think that the message is "start on easy and build yourself up" "attack the smaller issues" "avoid going after the tough guys" "avoid going after the control...
In reality the "bosses" are probably the most vulnerable, that's why they must start with the "difficulty set on hard" for you. Because they need you to think that if you cant take down a level 1 police raid against protesters and you have them outnumbered, how can you ever take on a level 99 ill, loomed, and naughty matrix architect?

The way to attack the boss directly is via agorism. If you are a successful agorist, then the parasite class is no longer able to leech off you.

An agorist is directly challenging the State's core economic monopoly, which sustains the violence monopoly.

It's funny there's so much propaganda for "start at the bottom, build a base. Look at your computer. I'll bet you your "start" button is on the BOTTOM...

State-licensed reform methods have a serious drawback. You need to convince 50%+ of the population of the merits of your cause. Even then you might not succeed, because there are all sorts of ways to rig an election. A candidate might make promises of reform, and then default after getting elected.

I say start at the TOP of the pyramid, whether it's going after starting a big company, or going after a search term in SEO, the competition is actually the LEAST up at the top. It's easier to get the 10star girl at the library then it is to try to hit on the 6s, 7s, and 8s. Why? Because people assume they have to "build up experience points" or "start on easy" or "start at the bottom" in reality there is no greater competition then for a job, where there are 8 billion people in the world, and 7 billion of them have, had, or are seeking or were seeking a job.

That is the way an agorist proceeds. An agorist directly attacks the State's core monopolies. It'd be much easier to join an established agorist counter-economy. Starting a new agorist free market economy is much more work.

Regarding meeting attractive women, I noticed an interesting thing. "Attractive" and "intelligent" are highly correlated, at least by FSK standards. A really intelligent and attractive woman is almost guaranteed to be surrounded by parasites who make her feel unsure of herself. It's important to go by "FSK standards" rather than "what FSK thinks that other people want him to do". It took awhile for me to learn to trust my own judgement, rather than what I think other people wanted me to do. By having high emotional intelligence and logical intelligence, I should be able to present myself as more attractive than an abusive parasite.

I haven't put my theory into practice yet. It's tricky, because someone with the "abused productive" personality type always travels accompanied by a parasite. Even if it isn't a guy, it's a female friend playing the parasite role. The female "friend" will think "Oh no! FSK is trying to steal my friend/property!" instead of "This guy is a suitable partner for my friend. I will make helpful encouragement for her." The problem is that the "abused productive" person lets the paired parasite make all emotional decisions for them. If I'm strong enough at both emotional intelligence and logical intelligence, then I should be able to overcome this obstacle.

"You can't judge a book by its cover" is false. There are important cues both from body language and physical appearance. I'm getting very good at identifying such things consciously. Your brain is a massively parallel computer, and can make such judgements nearly instantly. People have been pro-State brainwashed to ignore their brain's own intuition.

Recently, I was on a job interview waiting for the interviewer to enter his office. (I had already met with some other people.) I had a feeling of "OMFG! This guy is a parasite!", just by looking at the the guy's office, even though I hadn't met him yet. It was a very weird experience.

BTW, I was watching TV and noticed another thing I hadn't seen before. I saw a news anchorwoman and thought "OMFG! She had a nosejob!" Her nose seemed obviously mutilated to me, in a way that most people wouldn't notice.

The US national soccer team upset Spain. Who cares about soccer?

Soccer isn't a good for-TV sport. Football is the ideal made-for-TV sport. Baseball and basketball also are presented well on TV. Hockey is very hard to follow on TV, unless you're a die-hard hockey fan.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Pay Attention When You Talk!":

I'm pretty sure you're probably right that if you published questions such as "aren't taxes stealing that they wouldn't publish it, but I'm actually not entirely convinced.

If I attempt "promote agorism via standup comedy", then one big goal would be to get invited as a guest on a mainstream media show. There are so many shows and a lack of quality guests. I should be able to get invited on something. My character will be so outlandish that it would be interesting!

However, censorship is a rampant problem. If an interview is pre-taped, then clever editing tricks can be used to make me seem like an idiot. It depends on the agenda of the show's producers. If I went on a mainstream media show, I'd make "FSK mentions his own website" a precondition. This way, if I'm unfairly presented, then viewers can go to my website.

For example, being a guest on the Colbert Report can lead to 1M+ visits to a website. Given that, it'd be profitable for me to *PAY* for the opportunity to appear as a guest on that show. I read that, for many shows, the host does not have "editorial control" over who is actually invited as a guest.

As an unknown amateur, any publicity is good publicity. It's worth my time to go on a mainstream media program, even if all they're doing is saying "Look at that FSK. He's such a fruitcake."

There are people that tend to succeed in things when they actually seek out proof, they run tests and case studies. It's easy to be convinced of something and be completely wrong.

The only test that will prove "Agorism is good!" is an actual experiment. I plan to conduct that eventually. It is possible to do thought experiments beforehand. Agorism makes logical sense. Once you realize "Taxation is theft!", you can't support any form of government that demands taxation power and a violence monopoly.

To think something is a good fnord when it's evil, or vise versa. Wor to think that we are making money off our blogs and maxximizing revenue when it's not even close to being true. It's only under intense studies when we actually have to go through failure that we learn. We have been conditioned against testing in this manner. We're taught that a test is only for people to test skills they already have, not fail repeatedly on the same test in a short amount of time, figure out which test got an "A" and continue to use that model of behavior so success is destined to occur.

I'm trained as a scientist and know how to do a proper experiment. If you look at FDA research, there are obvious flaws. For example, anti-psychotic drugsstudies are conducted for only 6-12 weeks when patients will be taking the drug for years or decades. The comparison with placebo is not performed properly. Patients under withdrawal from another drug will react favorably to a new drug.

Public schooling and school testing is an invalid model for evaluating learning. Suppose that one person can learn calculus, albeit at a rate 2x slower than most. In the present, that person is barred from learning calculus, because the class will proceed too quickly from him. If the class were taught 2x slower, then the smarter students would be bored.

Another problem is that the test affects the material taught. Frequently, the material for the test requires the entire school term to teach. This leaves the teacher no discretion to add their own material. If I were a public school teacher, I wouldn't have discretion to teach what I think is right.

I think you MAY* be surprised to find that they do publish it... However, I think that they will certainly put some spin on it, and probably bash you for even considering that statement. They will use it to Fnord ythe rest of the public "if you ask questions like that, you will pay", or the metaphor which is more effective fnord. "stick out like a nail, and you get hammered"
I see tons of internet videos pointing out the fnords, and questioning taxation. It is very rare for them to get removed, and even if they do, it's usually only after it cracks 100,000 views.
The point is, I don't think spreading a message that the system is broken is as forbidden as you think, and I don't think asking questions will be resulted in a negative outcome. It's rare, and is a case of fnord like john kerry speach and the don't taze me bro.

I'm going to try to get a mainstream media outlet to carry my content. I'm also going to self-publish on the Internet, like I'm doing now.

That is a risk I face. If I become a high-profile advocate for agorism, then I'm likely to wind up the victim of State violence. For example, Irwin Schiff and the author of "The Debt Virus" both went to jail for income tax evasion. As another example, Wesley Snipes was an example of someone trying to resist taxes and paying a huge penalty.

At this point, it'd be immoral for me to know the truth and not try to spread it as best I can. I'm going to be tactically intelligent in my approach. If I get a contract with a mainstream media outlet, I'll do that and work on-the-books; I'd accept the evil of taxation in exchange for the opportunity to enlighten many people. Otherwise, I'd work as an agorist. For example, a nightclub might hire me to perform and pay me in cash.

If you take a literal interpretation of the law, saying "The State is evil!" is not a crime in the USA. However, if you attempt to put your freedom where your mouth is, then you risk being busted for criminal activity.

m has left a new comment on your post "Fnords Setting up the Next Recession":

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's possible to write a book about whatever and get on CNN.
Just follow Tim Frerriss's 4 hour work week (google 4 hour work week filetype:pdf)
Then again, if you started getting on CNN and they were expecting you to tell one story and you started giving another, they would get angry and attack you most likely...
but the news is always in need of new materials to mix in so the propaganda doesn't look too obvious. If enough of us learned to use the right resources and get on the news, we could start FNORDing the opposite message.

You only get invited on such a show if your book is published by a mainstream publishing house.

Freedomain and Kevin Carson have published some books. I don't hear of them getting invited as a guest on CNN.

Bas has left a new comment on your post "Agorist Toolkit - Guns":

Responding to your reader mail comment to my post:

You are exactly wrong. Quoting that page:

An application to make a machine gun will not be approved unless documentation is submitted showing that the firearm is being made for a Federal or State agency.

It's illegal for me to make my own automatic weapon. Plus, I have to get permission from the government when I make my own weapon.

Where I live in NYC, I believe it's illegal for anyone other than a policeman to possess a gun. I haven't researched the exact law.

I'm not exactly wrong, partly at most! You're right, you can't just build any 'ol firearm you want. The reason why someone would want to make their own firearm, is because there is no paper trail. You do not need government permission (background check) to buy an 80% finished receiver and an AK-47 parts kit and put it together. You do have to make sure the design of your gun follows the rules and that you're allowed to possess the firearm in your area without permit. So yes, you cannot build a fully automatic rifle, but you can build a semi-automatic version of an AK-47 which makes a perfectly fine defensive weapon and cheap ammo, parts and magazines are widely available.

My point is that you need permission from the State to own a gun, even if you assemble it yourself. There are restrictions on what type of gun you can build or purchase.

"Assemble it yourself" is not a loophole you can use to get around State regulation of gun ownership.

A proper agorist gun dealer would not have this problem. Of course, there's a risk if a State enforcer finds out what you're doing. Unless you live in a remote area, it's hard to assemble your own gun and test it without anyone else finding out.

"Agorist gun manufacturer" probably won't be a viable business until the collapse of the State draws near.

I saw an interesting story in the local newspaper. Concerned about crime, a group of residents were planning on hiring off-duty policemen to patrol a park. Naturally, the city government quashed that plan.

The key evil of the State is its violence monopoly. Private police forces are not allowed to develop. Similarly, "vigilante" groups of unlicensed police are roundly decried as criminals.

The State does just barely a good enough job preventing crime, so that people don't feel motivated to form competing police forces. In this story, more official State police were assigned to patrol the park.

I've noticed that my blogging energy has increased a lot recently. According to Google Analytics, my readership trend is increasing again. It seems that it definitely takes at least a couple of months to fully recover after being involuntarily hospitalized. Some aspects of recovery might take longer than 1-1.5 years.

Do Vampires Exist?

2009-06-24T12:00:00.001-04:00

Vampire movies are surprisingly popular. A vampire survives only by sucking the life out of others. A vampire dies if exposed to sunlight. A vampire survives via stealth and his ability to psychologically dominate people.

Is this nonfiction?

Members of the parasite class survive only by leeching the wealth of others. Just like a vampire sucks blood, a parasite literally steals your life. A productive worker must spend time generating wealth, which the parasites then leech. It's almost exactly as if your life was stolen.

The rules of government force almost everyone to do business with parasites. If you start your own on-the-books business, you still have to deal with the hassle of lawyers/incorporating, accounting, taxes, and all the other State-mandated overhead. The people working in these areas usually have the parasitic personality type (but not always).

Skilled members of the parasite class are also experts at psychological manipulation. They have the ability to silence or ridicule critics. They have the ability to alter other people's memories about what happened.

One expert parasite tactic that was used on me repeatedly is that they tell me I'm doing a good job, while telling everyone else I'm an unqualified idiot. By the time I figure out what's going on, it's too late for me to do anything about it. The victims don't get together and compare notes, so they don't see the evil. The victims don't have the ability to protect their memories from being altered, so they always see the parasite as a good guy.

The parasites survive, because they take advantage of other people's good intentions. If you're a productive worker, you're always trying to do the right thing. You assume that other people also are always trying to do the right thing. The parasites turn this against you, because you'll never suspect someone of being that evil and manipulative. Even if caught, the parasites say "Give me another chance! I'll do better next time!", and the productive workers fall for it. It's almost impossible to catch a parasite in a lie, due to his ability to alter other people's memories.

Most people believe "The President and Congress are doing their best to look out for the interests of everyone." They don't realize that government is one big scam. Even if the President and most members of Congress have good intentions, you cannot achieve good by using evil means. Any law or tax is ultimately backed by violence. You cannot achieve good via violence and threats of violence, no matter how good your intentions.

Most people also believe "If there was a serious problem with government, then the mainstream media would have said something." Most people don't know that a handful of people control all mainstream media corporations. The mainstream media is merely a shill for the establishment, and not an independent auditor of the truth.

Government is the mechanism by which the parasites/vampires have cemented their leeching. Legally, there is no way to avoid having your life/productivity stolen by parasites.

A vampire dies if exposed to sunlight. Similarly, the tactics of parasites won't work if the truth is widely circulated. If enough people know "Taxation is theft!", then that will lead to the elimination of government. If enough people understand how parasites control them, then they will be able to defend themselves.

There are two aspects of the State. First, there is government, which is the means whereby the leeching of parasites is backed by violence. Second, there is the corrupt nature of productive/parasitic relationships. If you have the "abused productive" personality type, then you're almost always paired with a parasite. Most people don't have the ability to protect themselves from the manipulations of others. This is not natural human behavior; it's an aspect of the State and the Matrix.

Are vampire movies so popular because they reflect a deeper hidden truth? Are vampires merely an analogy for the productive/parasitic nature of most human relationships? I've noticed that, in many movies, the bad guys tend to get the lines that most accurately tell the hidden truth.

I Got My First AdBrite Check!

2009-06-23T12:00:00.005-04:00

I got my first AdBrite check in early June, for $11.21. I only made around $5-$6 in April and May. For June, I'm not on pace to make the $5 minimum payout threshold.

My number of pageviews was about the same. The problem was that my eCPM decreased a lot. I read that online advertising rates have been crashing. My page eCPM was $1.06 in March, $0.58 in April, $0.65 in May, and only $0.40 so far in June!

According to Google Analytics, I had 4481 Absolute Unique Visitors in April and 4147 in May. That's down from 6602 in March, but I was recovering from my involuntary hospitalization. I'm on pace for a slight increase in June compared to May.

The overall long-term trend for my blog traffic is increasing, so I shouldn't get discouraged by short-term fluctuations.

It looks like I need about 4x-6x more traffic to earn enough to justify purchasing webhosting. That's attainable. Plus, once the recession/depression ends, online advertising rates will increase again.

Overall, AdBrite seems like a "good enough" ad engine. I don't have enough traffic for it to be worth shopping around for a better rate.

Reader Mail #100

2009-06-22T12:00:00.002-04:00

I thought I should do something special for "Reader Mail #100". My blog is more than 2 years old now. I can't think of anything other than the usual "try to write good content".

Besides, the timing of the "Reader Mail" posts is arbitrary. Lately, I've been trying to do 2 per week, but the rate has been inconsistent. I've been falling behind on responding to reader comments. It's good that the volume of comments has increased!

fritz has left a new comment on your post "Video Game Evil vs. Real World Evil":

The concept of good or evil is just a concept. They are perceptions of the observer. Just a demonstration of perspective and believing ones own labels. The state is a false reality created in order to distract people and place them in a false paradigm.

I disagree. There is an objective standard of evil.

When a policeman forces me at gunpoint to pay taxes/tribute, then that is evil. From the point of view of a policeman or a State enforcer, taxes are good.

However, society as a whole loses from the wealth squandered by the State. Most State bureaucrats would be better off in a real free market system. They would lose a lot of their power and influence, but their material wealth would increase substantially.

Evil is stupid and inefficient.

"There is no objective universal standard of truth" is propaganda spread by pro-State trolls. By keeping people confused about morality, all sorts of evils can be justified.

But in the end the state is neither good or evil, it just is. Only someone who believes their own labels searches for demons and villains.

I disagree. Government is evil because I am forced at gunpoint to pay tribute to a handful of people. If you believe "Stealing is not evil!", then you have a very messed up morality. If people aren't able to protect their property from theft, then there's no point doing anything.

Imagine if the state creates the conditions for its own destruction. And from its ashes arises a stateless free market society.Would you not argue then that the state had been good. Because it acted as a host during the transition towards a new and better form of a stateless world community.

This is another form of moral relativism. "It is acceptable to do evil things, if your goal is good." I disagree. Once you believe "It's acceptable to do evil if your goal is good.", then it's possible to justify all sorts of horrible things.

All of the positive things in our civilization were invented while the State existed. "Computers and the Internet were invented while the State existed. Therefore, the State is not evil." That is false reasoning. The rate of technological progress may have been much greater, if not for State interference. One reason for rapid growth in computers and software is that field is relatively unregulated by the State.

Suppose a man rapes a woman, and that woman gets pregnant. Her child later turns out to be a great inventor. Does that mean that the rape was morally acceptable? That is what you argue when you say "Good things were invented while government existed. Therefore, the State is not evil."

James has left a new comment on your post "Stanford Bank Fraud":

I realize that you are getting your "facts" from a third party source but your information is almost completely inaccurate! Get the facts straight please or don't claim to know the truth. You should know that you can't depend on media outlets to do anything but report the sensational. Sometimes (read as often) they don't bother to cross check for accuracty.

In this case, I used the mainstream media for my source information. The financial industry is one big scam. Stanford bank was a particularly blatant scam. However, all the banksters are criminals, and not just those at Stanford bank. They just crossed the line of running a scam that was blatantly too obvious.

I was a short term employee but I was there long enough to know the facts.

If you were working there, then aren't you partially responsible for the fraud?

"They were selling CDs with very high above-market yields. For example, they were selling 1 year CD of around 8% when current yields are 2%-3%."
When local banks were paying 3.5% for a 1 yr CD, SIB was paying 5%. SIB rates did not move as often up or down as local or national banks but they were typically only 2.5-3%better than FDIC insured bank rates, when comparing like terms and amounts. Larger amounts of money certainly got better rates but you can get better yields than the published rates at local banks also in a larger CD.

Shouldn't this have raised a red flag in your mind? If Standford Bank is offering yields that are a lot higher than the competition, then shouldn't that be suspicious?

"These CDs had very high sales commissions. For example, suppose the CD yielded 8%. The broker would get a commission of 3% (!)"
NOT EVEN CLOSE!
The 3% was paid to Stanford Group Company as a referral fee but the broker received only 50-100 bps (0.50-1.0%) depending on level of production. This was not an upfront commission but was instead paid out monthly over one year. As long as the CD stayed in the bank you continued to receive the "trailing commision"
(50-100 bps)based on the level of production for the past quarter. Some time ago, there was also a 1% upfront bonus for reps that were higher producers but most reps seldom achieved this level. This certainly provided an incentive to recommend the CD's, but bonuses are used in many parts of the financial services industry (sales of annuities, for example).

I don't see how this makes it "not a scam". Any nonzero sales commission on fraudulent advice is too high. It makes no difference if 1% went to the sales agent and 2% to executives at Stanford bank, or 3% all to the sales agent.

If Stanford Bank's sales commissions were higher than normal, then the sales agents have an incentive to push their CDs and turn a blind eye to potential fraud.

If you're collecting a fee on a transaction, you have an incentive to ignore fraud. A sales agent is usually protected by the State via sovereign immunity. Those who lost money on the fraud cannot typically sue their investment adviser and recover the lost savings.

" . . . CDs that pay 6% more than their competition are suspicious. The brokers who sold those CDs should have known that fraud was occurring."
If there had been a difference of 6%, the brokers probably would have smelled a rat. But we had nearly 20 years of "audited" financial statements (there were audit letters included with each semi-annual statement)that showed SIB was solvent, liquid, and very well reserved. What about this would have made YOU suspicious?

I know that audited financial statements are easily forged. I don't bother reading the annual reports of stocks I own anymore. (I really should sell them and buy gold.) That financial data provides practically no useful information. It isn't worth my time spending a day or two combing through the details, because I'm not investing that much money.

I am suspicious of all CDs, even "legitimate" FDIC-insured CDs. If you invest in a bank or in CDs or Treasury bonds, then you are guaranteed to get ripped off by inflation over time.

I am not sure about the issue of relatives of Allen Stanford being in executive positions. My only knowledge of a relative was his Father being on the BOD. But maybe there were others also.

Even if they were not relatives, the incentive is for an executive to look the other way and ignore problems. The goal of an executive is to not risk his job and keep his lucrative paycheck. An executive does not normally want to take any kind of risk. Exposing a fraud or exposing problems is a risk.

Why are you so eager to defend Stanford bank?

The financial industry is one big scam. There is no essential difference between the scam run by Stanford bank and that run by the other large banks. Stanford bank crossed the line and were too blatant about their looting and pillaging.

This is a common evil fnord. "Executives at Stanford Bank got caught committing fraud. Therefore, everyone who commits fraud gets caught. Everyone working in the financial industry is a saint who religiously follows the rules and always does the right thing." The reality is that financial industry insiders are very good at lobbying the State for favors. Once you have the ability to print and spend money, you can buy up all the Congressmen you want!

Steven Shaw has left a new comment on your post "Are you a Slave?":

Molyneux has a great metaphor - free range chicken farming

I've seen him make that analogy before, but not in that video. I watched the video before that in that series.

In a pure chattel slavery system, the workers aren't very efficient. They will only do the minimum amount of work required to avoid being beaten. By giving workers the illusion of freedom, they are more productive. Suppose I double my income in an on-the-books job, either by finding a job where my skills are used better or by starting my own business. By doubling my income, I more than double the amount of wealth available to the bad guys. I pay 50% in tribute directly via income taxes. I pay more in tribute via indirect hidden taxes.

That is the "miracle" of the US economic system, compared to the rest of the world. In the USA, workers have a certain illusion of freedom. This generates more wealth that can then be stolen by the State. People are still bound by tax/debt slavery, even though the chains aren't explicitly visible. You only see the chains when you get assaulted for tax evasion or using forms of money other than slave points.

The vast majority of people obey and are clueless. This allows the bad guys to spend vast amounts of resources tracking down and assaulting freedom seekers. If 99%+ of the population pay taxes without resisting, then it's profitable for the bad guys to spend a lot of resources tracking down the remainder. Even with this handicap, if you're careful, agorism should be profitable. "State enforcers are omnipotent/omniscient!" is an illusion created to keep the cattle in line.

Freedomain is rather longwided, so I only watch a video if someone recommends it or if I'm particularly interested. Freedomain has a large volume of mediocre material, although it would be useful to someone who's a complete beginner to the freedom movement.

I prefer written resources to videos. I can read faster than someone in a video can talk. "Start a vlog." is on my list of things to do. I prefer written resources, but maybe I can attract a greater audience with video. Also, if I attempt "Promote agorism via standup comedy!", I can use online videos to promote myself.

Freedomain talks about "practical anarchy", which seems like theoretical anarchy to me. Unless you're talking about the details of starting to work as an agorist, you're talking about theoretical freedom instead of practical freedom. That's another point I don't like about Freedomain. He doesn't emphasize agorism as a strategy for defeating the State. Freedomain correctly says "Government is evil! Taxation is theft!" He fails to answer "What are you going to do about it?"

I liked his bit on the "cycle of freedom".

Workers are given some measure of freedom.
This partial freedom leads to economic growth.
This leads to an increase in the size and power of the government.
Over time, the government leeches a greater and greater percentage of productive work.
This leads to the inevitable fall. This leads to a decrease in the power of government. This enables a group of people somewhere to start over at stage 1.

This difference is that, after the coming fall, there will be a shift to a free market system instead of the creation of a new government.

In the USA, the people initially enjoyed tremendous freedom. They were free from the restrictions on their freedom that were present in Europe. However, the people still believed "Having a government is necessary. We just have to keep it small." This inevitably led to an increase in the size of government over time. Once you give a handful of people a violence monopoly, they will consolidate and expand their power over time. With a violence monopoly, there are no checks on their attempt to expand their power. Democracy and voting only provide people with the illusion that they control their government.

I read an interesting conspiracy theory. In the mid/late 19th century, insiders in Europe felt threatened by the growth of freedom in the USA. They were concerned that their best workers/slaves would leave Europe for the USA. They intentionally sent spies/lobbyists/businessmen to the USA. The USA had an "open immigration" policy, so it was easy to send a spy as a businessman who wanted to invest in the USA. These spies then lobbied for laws that restricted freedom. They lobbied for State regulation of the banking industry. They lobbied for limited liability incorporation to be legalized; the Supreme Court decision in the late 19th century that legalized limited liability incorporation was the result of decades of lobbying and bribing. They got their final victory with the creation of the Federal Reserve and income tax in 1913, which placed control of the economy firmly in the hands of a group of insiders.

Was the corruption of the US government a deliberate conspiracy? Or, is it the natural progression as government power increases over time? Either way, the current economic and political system is immoral and should be replaced.

Freedomain had another error. "Computers assist with certain bureaucratic requirements." The problem is that the burden of bureaucracy increases as computers allow this efficiency.

I liked the bit "Large-scale war is only possible due to economic productivity gains." I also liked the bit on how people pay for the cost of their own enslavement

One thing I don't like about Freedomain is that he doesn't fully understand the corrupt nature of the US monetary system and the Compound Interest Paradox. He understands "Taxation is theft!", but he doesn't talk about a corrupt monetary system enough, except to say "Inflation is theft!". The US monetary system is more evil than mere inflation.

I liked his previous video, as "The State has its origins in chattel slavery." Government is the formal codification of chattel slavery.

Ineffabelle has left a new comment on your post "Parasites Colonized the Software Industry":

The parasites colonized as part of a larger plan.
The Fed started opening the floodgates in 1995 precisely to cause this to happen, so they could control the IT industry, before it created a large amount of capital outside of their control.

You're off by nearly 100 years. The Federal Reserve and income tax were created in 1913. One of the main goals was to prevent pools of capital from developing outside the control of insiders.

The income tax steals from you as you work. The inflation tax steals your savings. Combined, these make it very hard to raise capital to start a business. This gives the banksters a veto over what businesses succeed and which fail.

Amazon.com was not the first online bookstore and eBay was not the first online auction site. These succeeded while others failed, primarily due to their backing by VCs and banksters. The State protects incumbent businesses, making it hard to start a new competing business.

The banksters use their money-printing power to buy up or control new businesses. Then, State restriction of the market prevents new competitors from emerging.

I'm very frustrated looking at the job market now compared with 1999 when I first started. At that time, employers just said "We'll hire someone smart and let them learn!" Now, employers have a laundry list of keywords they expect on your resume.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Parasites Colonized the Software Industry":

You're close. It's a better generalization to say that one cofounder is needed to deal with all the parasite stuff (funding, hr, legal, pr) and one to do the product work.

It's not just that. It's also that many people with the "abused productive" personality type don't have the confidence to start a business on their own. The government-imposed costs further encourage this perception.

Greg has left a new comment on your post "Parasites Colonized the Software Industry":

Interesting. I often see one founder as a more introverted productive worker ( substance) and the other as more of the public "face" or superficial bullshit person who deals the public ( style). I guess this more outgoing salesman-type is the parasite.

That's true for successful businesses.

The norm is to have one "abused productive" person writing the software or doing the real work, and to have a parasitic person taking the ownership and credit. The parasitic person also deals with all the State bureaucratic overhead, such as meeting with VCs/investors/customers/lawyers/accountants/etc.

I've seen startups where the tech guy has the parasitic personality type and the marketing/business guy has the productive personality type! Those businesses are doomed.

For example, at my job last summer, the Rails Advocate and the Idiot New Manager both had the parasitic personality type. The marketing owners for the most part had the productive personality type. That guaranteed that they got ****ed over by hiring parasites to manage their software for them. I still feel bad for them, because they seemed like decent people. I see now that it's guaranteed by the rules of the Matrix that a productive person with no tech knowledge will hire a parasitic person to manage their software for him.

Even if you bring together a group of people with the "abused productive" personality type, one of them will assume the parasite role. It isn't natural human behavior. If you have the "abused productive" personality, you psychologically *NEED* a parasite around!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Ruby on Rails Sucks!":

I tried to implement an intranet in Rails and while I was able to quickly get something up and running I found it extremely limiting when I had to start doing interop with the desktop, etc, etc. After awhile I scratched the whole thing and started from scratch with a less exciting but stable framework, namely, Java EE. Works great, run on Linux with no problems, I get to write SQL -- and best of all I got to solidify in my mind why most Rails hackers are tools. Mostly Mac fan boys with no real programming chops, just able to scaffold some things and say "I'm an engineer!" I didnt beat my brains in getting a Masters in Comp Sci to write dinky, non-scalable web apps with a framework written by a foppish douche bag from Denmark.

I've had a much easier time getting stuff done in PHP than my experience with Rails. If you hired me to do a web-based project and told me I could use whatever I want, I'd probably pick PHP.

If you're DHH (the guy who wrote Rails) or one of his associates, it makes sense to use Rails. He wrote it because it exactly matched what he needed at the time. DHH did a good job promoting Rails and himself. Rails is a definite example of "Hype over substance!" Rails is a programming language/framework that's attractive to people with the parasitic personality type.

Have you ever gone to the NYC Ruby meetup group? They all have Mac laptops! That should be their new slogan "Apple McIntosh - A computer so easy to use that even an evil person can use it."

If you look at the "Mac vs. PC" commercials, it's backwards. The actor portraying the Mac has the parasitic personality type. The standup comedian portraying the PC has the "abused productive" personality type. That makes the commercial seem like an endorsement for Windows.

This article on MSN was amusing. A company wants to sell gold in vending machines. They are seeking legal approval. The problem is that the banksters and politicians do *NOT* want to make it easy for people to invest in gold. Insiders love the fact that they can steal people's saving via inflation.

This article saying "buy platinum instead of gold" was interesting. That's the only time I saw a comparison of gold/silver/platinum on the same chart. I draw a different conclusion from his chart.

My interpretation of that chart is that gold, silver, and platinum are very tightly correlated. Money supply inflation is the primary factor in the dollar-denominated price of gold, silver, and platinum.

eagledove9 has left a new comment on your post ""Green Shoots" Fnord":

Since the official, first 'dotcom bubble' in the early 2000s, they've still been doing big, expensive websites based on borrowed money, making no profit at all, which then go bankrupt a few years later. In other words, they're still making the same mistakes over and over again, just like the dotcom bubble, and it isn't even anything new. People are still doing the dotcom bubble.

There are huge web-based businesses based on borrowed money. The banksters literally print new money and spend it on web-based businesses. This makes it harder for non-insiders to bootstrap a web-based business without VC and bankster money.

If your investment capital is money you printed out of thin air, then it makes no difference if the businesses you invest in are profitable or not. Even when you're wrong, you qualify for a government bailout.

I am wondering how long it will be before the big social networking sites go down, because they're based on advertising revenue, which is unreliable at best. That seems their only source of income.

The problem with the big social networking sites is that there's almost no barrier to entry for a web-based business. FaceBook is popular now. They are large and complacent. That makes it likely that a competitor will steal their market share in a few years.

I've noticed that lots of web-based businesses are built on "get lots of users", with no strategy for profiting. I'm making only a couple of hundredths of a penny per pageview via AdBrite. I'd need a *LOT* more traffic to justify this as a job, much less hire other people.

For a lot of these websites, it seems like it's virtually impossible that they'll ever get enough revenue to justify the investment.

Frequently, the goal is "cash out and sell to a bigger business". YouTube could not have survived as an independent company. Now, it's owned by Google. Most of Google's stock is owned by hedge funds (i.e. the banksters). Effectively, YouTube indirectly cashed out by selling to the banksters. Google bought YouTube with newly printed stock. This stock was then bought by hedge funds with newly printed money.

There will probably be more housing bubbles, and when they happen, people will still go along with it the way they did the first time, saying 'Yay! The price of my house went up! I'm going to sell it and buy another house and make a profit!' It doesn't even really have to be something new and unexpected. People don't mind doing the same things over and over.

Asset bubbles are a direct consequence of the Compound Interest Paradox. It isn't simple human greed. The rules of the monetary system are defective, which makes it very hard to make investment decisions.

For example, negative real interest rates made it attractive to borrow money and build/buy houses. The bubble inflated. New money was printed and spent on houses. The inevitable pop occurred.

The next bubble will probably not be in housing, because that's the one that just popped. The part of the economy that's inflating rotates each time.

It's not human greed. It's greed combined with a corrupt monetary system. The banksters lobbied for a corrupt monetary system, and can always profitably lobby to block reform. Greed combined with using violence to impose your will on others is evil. Greed without violence is good.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post ""Green Shoots" Fnord":

http://blog.rebeltraders.net/2009/06/17/rail-freight-traffic-green-shoots-turn-to-weeds/

http://ibankcoin.com/cronkite/?p=6310

Those were interesting examples of the phrase"green shoots".

I liked the first comment on that second article:

why do people all of a sudden out of nowhere start referring to this as “green shoots”…. wtf propaganda is this?

That was interesting. Was that your comment?

It's interesting to notice new fnord phrases appear all of a sudden. The bad guys have to keep making up new jargon for the same evil ideas, lest people become aware of the scam. For example, consider all the different phrases for "layoffs".

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post ""Green Shoots" Fnord":

Do we know for certain the next big bubble? No, but that doesn't mean we can't make bets that are more likely than not to be right.

You know for certain that there will be another big bubble. The rules of the monetary system guarantee it.

I don't know where the next bubble will occur exactly. I'm not an insider and I don't control the mainstream media. If I could arrange for all the comedians on the Communism Channel to start saying "Buy XYZ!!", then I could make a fortune buying XYZ before everyone else and selling at the top of the bubble.

As a non-insider, the stock market is a losing game.

I tend to think that solar energy is big propaganda that has been running. "save the earth, invest in alternative energy" type of fnord that has been being pushed for a long time. Meanwhile the big oil companies are moving towards solar and wind as if some tiny indurstry is going to be enough for hundreds of billions of dollars of assets that oil companies have.

Alternative energy is interesting. If you have the ability to lobby the State for favors, you will make a ton of money in alternative energy. As a non-insider, this is not an option.

Yet despite this industry being very small, Government is about to pump 200 billion if obama continues his promises to spend on it, which doesn't seem out of line from what he has been doing.
However, this is HUGE compared to the size of this industry, and that alone has reason why it goes up.

As a non-insider, you don't know exactly where this money will be spent.

Also, there seems to have always been a trend towards food shortages after the government mismanages money. GOld is a hedge against this mismanagement, as food/agriculture is a hedge against extreme mismanagement because the government's actions results in civil unrest. If you beleive there will be some kind of revolt, or these protests will continue, or if you believe that the credits will freeze and contract so rapidly that food cannot be paid for, or shipping and transportation will go under, or if you believe massive inflation will raise cost of living significantly and civil unrest and tax protests will result as people will demand food since the most important things in life for our own survival are food, water, and oxygen. There's also potential for greater wars if things really get extreme, so if you are okay with providing money and funding wars, which I am not, that is another potential bubble in the future.

I've repeatedly said that gold is a good investment. In an extreme SHTF scenario, you won't be able to spend your gold unless you've also made other preparations.

There also will most likely need to be a collapse of commercial real estate as there is just too much debt, too may foreclosures and tax credits promoting mocving out of a rental and into a bank foreclosure, lowered cashflow resulting in lower prices and so on.
Commercial real estate lags residential, but after the banks seize properties and sell them for 20% below value until that lowers the other properties, puts people in negative equity position resulting in foreclosure, sold for 20% below, and the cycle continues as housing values are lowered and the banks continue to make quick money.The problem is that if the credit consolidates enough, these foreclosures will be so massive that eventually the banks themselves become victem to there not being enough money to go around. The fed simply continues to hike the rates and soon it's the banks "in foreclosure" starts with the smaller banks, and progressing. Of course if one of the larger bank goes under it the US government says "don't worry, we'll pay for it, and the US takes care of the outstanding debt owed to the federal reserve.... of course mostly the tax payer, or through inflation we take care of it.

You're missing the point. The Federal Reserve, financial industry, and Federal government have printed a lot of brand new money recently. Eventually, this will cause housing prices and stock market prices to rise. The nominal price of the stock market will increase. However, the return almost definitely won't outpace true inflation.

As an individual, if you speculate in real estate and are wrong, you lose everything. As an insider, if you speculate and are wrong you get a bailout.

If you own an unleveraged real estate investment, then your return probably won't outperform true inflation. If you maximize your leverage by refinancing whenever property values rise, then you will be wiped out during the next recession. As a non-insider, it's a losing proposition either way.

psychology imprint has left a new comment on your post ""Green Shoots" Fnord":

I look at Fnords a little bit different, I look at it more of not so much brainwashing people into believing the system works and to obey and things like that, but to actually use them to help create the future, rather than maintain the status quo.

There are both evil fnords and good fnords. Some are used for evil purposes. Some are hints that allow someone to figure out what's going on, such as the movie "The Matrix".

I think that the Fnords are actually programmed to get our minds thinking a certain way. Through Quantom physics string theory, law of attraction, or the "fnord" term for it is "collective unconscious" (yes the public is collectively unconscious), whatever you call it actually causes people to take actions that result in the creation of a certain reality. If you aren't conscious of what message is being put out there, you can't consciously deny the messages you are being sent. It's like when you fold up the dollar bills you can see the twin towers... this is "magik". The use of physical to imprint on our minds to create reality in the future.

I don't get the quantum physics analogy.

Do humans have a collective intelligence/stupidity that is greater/less than individual intelligence?

So what is "green shoots"...
I see it as a call to war...
The green men... the army, shoots, as in ready aim shoot... Now we will all get excited about war, because we associated stock market gains and financial gain, and joy and positive emotions with this "I get to be a 'green shoot'!" essentially our psychee will think. Then combined with the right war propaganda and being nobel and defending your country, it's an "easy in".

Of course I don't rule out that it might be some other propaganda to get people to start thinking they need to buy green shoots, and stock up on agriculture, or perhaps it's a warning for those that know to start buying agriculture, as these "enlightened ones" will see the signs and make a fortune off of it. I think last year at this time, I was starting to notice some fnords about oil collapsing, but I didn't know what they were and didn't understand them. I was however paying more attention to what kind of messages were being sent, but at the time I didn't know if it was a sign to help or hurt or if it was just a "synchronicity" or what.

I don't get that bit at all.

Oil is going to rise in price a lot, due to massive money supply inflation.

Via Google Analytics, I noticed this thread discussing the Compound Interest Paradox. I was astonished by the low level of pro-State trolling in the thread. Most of the commenters seemed to understand the corrupt nature of fiat debt-based money.

Via Google Analytics, I noticed that user "Dionysusal" has been citing my blog a lot on mlb.com forums. I didn't bother saying anything there. I'm not interested in debating pro-State trolls right now.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Global Warming Scam":

Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". He thinks GW is real BUT what % of total GW is caused by CO2 is in question. But the most important thing is that he doesn't agree that GW is all bad. He points out the same thing you mentioned, that historically warming has been good for mankind. He is big into cost-benefit analysis, and says that even if GW is caused by CO2, carbon taxes are a very very expensive way to address CO2 emissions, and that there are much more cost effective ways to address it, AND there are also bigger issues than GW.

2nd, there is a scientist named Svensmark who came up with a theory of sun-caused GW which actually FITS the historical temperature data than the CO2 theory. His theory is that the sun's heliosphere (magnetic field) fluctuates and thus modulates the cosmic ray flux reaching the earth. These particles seed low level clouds (like in a cloud chamber). When the heliosphere is strong, fewer particles reach the earth and we get less low level clouds and we get warming. His theory is so compelling that CERN in Switzerland is conducting a series of experiments over the next few years to test one of the central tenets of his theory.

There is a strong correlation between sunspots and the heliosphere. No sunspots = weak heliosphere = cooling. The past few years we have had no sunspots, and this explains the past couple of unusually cold winters.

That's the same viewpoint as the arguments I made. I don't have time to read their books/papers.

Summarizing the key points:

Does carbon dioxide actually cause global warming? As mentioned above, there may be a longer cyclical trend of increasing/decreasing solar output. There was another article (I forget the source), that said "Maximum heat absorption of heat by carbon dioxide occurs at around 50-100 feet. Beyond that, additional carbon dioxide makes no difference."
Is global warming good or bad? Global warming leads to longer growing seasons and bigger crops in temperate regions. It sucks if you live at or below sea level.
Even if you believe "Carbon dioxide causes global warming." and "Global warming is bad.", I disagree with "The solution is to give the State more power." Most of the "carbon dioxide emission reduction" laws are thinly veiled corporate welfare. Old businesses are grandfathered, but a new business that uses energy is outlawed or heavily taxed.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Is Ron Paul Good or Evil?":

Right now, Ron Paul is all we have.

In raising awareness, we need people in high places speaking out, so overall Ron Paul is good.

Hopefully Rand Paul and Peter Schiff will also enter the political arena and win

You're missing the point.

If supporting Ron Paul comes at the expense of other tactics more likely to succeed, then Ron Paul is evil. I'd much rather have people saying "Government is terrorism! Let's try agorism!" Instead, people are saying "Government can be reformed! Elect Ron Paul!"

It isn't possible to reform the State by voting. Even if they did somehow get elected, they'd still be working within the confines of a corrupt system.

It is good that Ron Paul is raising awareness. I'm thinking of ways to become a mainstream advocate for agorism and real free markets. My best idea is "Promote agorism via standup comedy." However, Ron Paul is promoting the usual (L)libertarian intellectual trap of "It's possible to reform the State!" instead of "This system is completely broken and needs to be replaced. Any government with a violence monopoly will ultimately degenerate to evil, no matter how much good intentions people have."

The bottom line is that true freedom requires more work than "Vote for X". (L)libertarian/minarchist politicians provide the illusion of an effortless way to acquire freedom.

Piquant Tactics has left a new comment on your post "Is Ron Paul Good or Evil?":

Anyone who identifies themselves on the basis of a nation-state, ie., "I'm an American", is not taking aim at the real problem: the system of nation-states. I'm not an American. How does Ron Paul's obsession with 'The Constitution' help me? He is taking aim at the bird's feathers, not the heart. The desire for liberty should be universal, and the movement would be much stronger if it was not divided up into regional fiefdoms. These divisions play directly into the hands of the statists. It would be illegal for me to send money to Ron Paul. The system has to be subverted, outside of the existing political processes. Consent for the legitimacy of all states has to be withdrawn. Just tinkering, as Ron Paul advocates, is a false solution. Let's say he became President. His successor would just go back to the conventional statist ways. In a term or two, it would be like he had never existed. The followers of Alexander Hamilton will always continue to work tirelessly. The mechanism by which they commit their evil deeds has to be dismantled, not simply adjusted.

If you live outside of the USA, you can also work towards freedom via agorism. If you live in someplace like China, in may be risky to publicly write about agorism.

I usually write from a USA viewpoint, because that's where I live! I don't get much information on events in other countries. All "modern" industrialized countries have a corrupt economic and political system, just like the USA. My writing applies to other countries as well, although I only write about specific evils I notice.

It's illegal for people living outside the USA to directly lobby US politicians. What happened is that money is invested on US businesses, and those executives then lobby politicians. The European banksters spent a lot of money starting banking businesses in the USA. These businesses then lobbied the US government for favorable regulations. Functionally, it's the same as if the European banksters directly lobbied the US government.

Allegedly, Alexander Hamilton was a spy for the banksters. One of the first things he did as the first Treasury Secretary was set up a central bank. At the time, politicians weren't total idiots and tools. They realized that the central bank was a risky idea, gave it a limited 20 year charter, and then didn't renew it.

"All government is terrorism." is the correct answer to the evil of the State.

Greg has left a new comment on your post "Is Ron Paul Good or Evil?":

Ron Paul is good at raising awareness. But I think his fundraising prowess ( which is nothing new, as he's been generating millions for his business partners for decades)and relative political success is probably bad for freedom.

I didn't know that Ron Paul had wealthy business partners. Where did you hear about that?

You have a couple million ( I guess?) people who really believe that politics and voting are worthwhile who are also willing to donate millions of dollars to a political candidate with no chance of success. Not to mention those who support pro-state "libertarian" think-tanks and other "educational" organizations.

Imagine if these people embraced agorism on any level.

Some people have discovered agorism and my blog on the Ron Paul forums. Before I had a decent number of readers, I posted on the Ron Paul forums to raise awareness and get posting ideas.

I'm noticing a much greater level of discussion of agorism and "Who needs a government anyway?", compared to two years ago when I first discovered agorism. Progress is being made in raising awareness. I don't know of any advanced agorist trading groups yet.

When I first started researching Ron Paul, I was very interested at first. Then, I realized, "There's no way Ron Paul will get elected. The election system is rigged." Then, I researched some more and discovered agorism.

Hopefully, the most intelligent Ron Paul supporters will get disgusted and discover agorism.

If someone like Ron Paul didn't exist, the bad guys would have to invent him! Ron Paul is an intellectual trap for those who desire freedom, but are unwilling to do anything more than "Vote for Ron Paul!" By presenting a weak criticism of the State, he seems to be endorsing the State. Ron Paul says "The Federal government should strictly follow the Constitution!", instead of "Who needs a government anyway?"

Kyle has left a new comment on your post "Is Ron Paul Good or Evil?":

Obviously you can't run for office AND say you want no government. Paul never said he's against the State, he's for the Constitution.

If you're a politician, you're a pro-State troll.

But in my standards, anybody who doesn't believe the government should face violence can be categorized as pro-State based on the 'silence is consent' doctrine.

I disagree with "Violence should be used against State agents." The correct solution is to boycott the State, ignoring all the laws and taxes that restrict your productivity.

The fallacy with direct violence against State agents is that most of them are not consciously aware that government is a massive scam. If you initiate violence against State agents, you're making them seem like the good guys.

There's also the numbers issue. Freedom seekers are badly outnumbered right now. You should not expect to win a direct violent confrontation with State police. By the time it's possible to win a violent confrontation with State police, the State will have already lost anyway.

You can't fight immoral violence with more violence. After all, the bad guys specialize in violence! Other tactics, such as freedom through stealth, are needed.

I wonder if that's the reason a policeman won't arrest me based on my blog? When being interrogated, I'd explain to him (and the judge, during a trial), the corrupt nature of government. That might lead to them beginning to think. It's better to just ignore me.

But hey, talk is cheap, might makes right, at least I admit it.

I plan to someday make the transition from "theoretical freedom" to "practical freedom". For now, "raise awareness" seems more important to me than "start actual agorism". I'm looking for ways to start with practical agorism, but that will have to wait a few years. If you can do better, go ahead!

Romare has left a new comment on your post "Is Ron Paul Good or Evil?":

Put it like this, if Ron Paul was to openly say "who needs a government" he wouldn't be able to raise awareness from the get because media everywhere would label him as "nuts, crazy, secessionist etc.". He has to play by their rules to get this message out the best way that he can.

Actually, Ron Paul is censored by being hardly mentioned at all. If the mainstream media broadcast a consistent clear message, "Ron Paul is a fruitcake!", then some people would think "I should look into this Ron Paul guy."

In the 2008 Republican election "news", Ron Paul was almost never mentioned. Saying "That Ron Paul is such a nutjob!" would promote Ron Paul. Not mentioning a person or idea is the most effective censorship tactic.

That is the corrupt bargain most politicians and mainstream "journalists" make. You adopt a culture of self-censorship, in order to be able to publicly say anything at all.

Does Ron Paul know that government is one big scam? Does he really believe that a return to the US Constitution is good or possible? Most politicians sincerely believe their own lies, because that makes them more effective shills for the State.

He can't just come outright and say the constitution is a load of shit. I can imagine that he understands that (as most politicians do but don't say outright).

That's one issue that I'm continually debating. Are members of the parasite class consciously aware of the scam? Or, do they not qualify as intelligent life, merely operating on autopilot? Either way, it's immoral, and their leeching needs to stop.

At the same time I don't think you can honestly call any politician good. They're all evil conceited liars and manipulators (parasites) as far as i'm concerned.

Being one of the least evil politicians still is somewhat interesting.

If you wear the colors, you're part of the gang. Even though Ron Paul votes "no" for many bad laws, he's still responsible for all the bad things that Congress does.

Look at what happened to Peter Schiff's Dad, He's f*cked pretty badly right now. When your locked in prison you can't get any message out.

You mean Irwin Schiff?

Peter Schiff sometimes gets invited on mainstream media shows. However, he says "Current government policies are stupid." rather than "Who needs a government anyway?"

I read somewhere that most people who are publicly critical of the Federal Reserve, go to jail for income tax evasion. Being publicly critical of the Federal Reserve, you place yourself under greater scrutiny.

Once you understand that the Federal Reserve and income tax are one big scam, you realize that it's immoral to pay income taxes. I'm planning to be more strategic about my tax resistance, when I start that. If I get invited as a guest on a mainstream media show, I'll necessarily have to report that as on-the-books income.

Romare has left a new comment on your post "The Global Warming Scam":

I don't know if its just me, but whenever I hear "going green" the only thing that comes up in my head is "more unnecessary new taxes". FSK, being a fellow new yorker i'm sure you've seen all of these new green buildings that are starting pop up all over the place. They're basically overpriced boxes with astroturf on their roofs, another day another sham.

I hadn't heard of "green buildings". It definitely sounds like marketing hype more than something tangible.

The cost of all these "global warming" regulations will be passed on to customers as higher prices. Regulations are a hidden tax.

Toronto Real Estate has left a new comment on your post "The Global Warming Scam":

Very nicely said, finally a reasonable article about the global warming. I'm so sick of reading all the articles about the catastrophic events this "global warming" will produce. I just wish I could see all the faces of the activists and especially Mr. Gore's face when they find out that this cooling trend will continue and that we're headed into a new Ice Age, just like you said Fritz.

Take care, Elli

I'm surprised that I didn't get more hate mail for saying "Is 'Global Warming' one big scam?" Usually, I get lots of pro-State trolling whenever I write something that contradicts official propaganda. I'm surprised that nobody wrote "FSK, you're a jerk for suggesting that global warming isn't a huge problem, and that the solution isn't to give government more power."

Here in NYC, it has been surprisingly cool in May and so far in June. My parents haven't used their air conditioner yet! They're usually pretty aggressive about using them.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Key Arguments":

I always get the argument that the STATE needs to help the less fortunate - like the handicapped or the mentally ill.

I tell them family first. If that doesn't work, the STATE has sanctioned tax benefits to churches and non-profits. So they should fulfill their missions.

Folks still don't get it!

Before the growth of government and the welfare state, private charities did a fine job. In the present, people pay a large percentage of their income to parasites.

Government isn't needed to fight poverty. Government is the cause of poverty, due to laws that restrict productive economic activity. Most people obey stupid regulations without questioning them, or don't even bother starting a business at all.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Anarcho-capitalism vs. Agorism":

I never liked labels because they put you into a box.

I prefer to debate ideas instead of labels. "Anarcho-capitalism" seems to be a badly-defined label. Some people claiming to be "anarcho-capitalists" are pro-State trolls, and others are advocating for real free markets.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Stages of Agorism":

I hope you and your readers get to stage 3 soon!

Keep up your great posts!

I don't know of any working agorists. I'm working on "promote agorism" for now.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "How is the CPI Calculated?":

Another good site is Shadow Government Statistics

Do you mean this page? Even the pre-Clinton CPI seems too low to me.

I just take the simple approach, and use gold as my index of inflation.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Is Real Estate a Good Investment?":

I just bought a Chinese Real Estate Fund - TAO.

Don't know if it will outperform oil or shorting treasuries, but it should outperform USA real estate.

A real estate fund has the same problem as stocks. You don't get full allodial title. You pay a management fee to the fund operator. You can't prevent the fund operator from paying himself a salary.

A real estate fund will underperform actually owning real estate yourself. If you're a good landlord, you can do well with a real estate investment. I still think that gold is better.

For example, suppose own a rental property. The tenant refuses to pay rent. There is State-induced overhead for evicting a delinquent tenant. There are some "professional delinquent tenants" who abuse the State regulations regarding tenant eviction; they can stay in an apartment for years without paying rent. If you own a rental property and get one or two bad tenants, they can suck up all your profits.

Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Stupid Equals Evil":

When I post to various message boards, I hear "we have a right to be stupid and lazy as Americans"

That's why we keep seeing the same fake left-right arguments over and over again.

It's more complicated than that.

Schools brainwash children to not think critically about key issues of politics and economics. I don't know of any public school textbook that mentions "Taxation is theft!"

I gave up on message boards. It's too easy for a handful of pro-State trolls to shout down one reasonable person.

Thomas Blair has left a new comment on your post "The Fluoride Conspiracy Theory":

Anon (NaF POISON commenter),

NaF is not what's used to fluoridate the water at municipal water plants. It once was used, but no longer.

You're right about NaF as a poison in large doses. The LD50 for humans is 70-140 mg/kg.

Hexafluorosilicic acid is what's commonly used to fluoridate water. The chemical reacts with NaOH (used to make slight adjustments to pH to control pipe corrosion) to make a fluorosilicate salt, which is what actually delivers the fluoride.

H2SiF6 + 2 NaOH → Na2SiF6 + 2 H2O

I think water fluoridation is unnecessary, but like FSK, I am not convinced either way about the negative health effects.

I read that the chemical version of fluroide used in drinking water isn't exactly the same as the industrial by-product or poison. I don't know much chemistry.

Anything is lethal in high enough doses. If the fluoride dose in water were lethal, doctors would quickly notice. The level of fluoride in drinking water is, at worst, slightly harmful.

I question most ideas of mainstream science and medicine. There are too many people who have an interest in promoting fake medicine, making a profit. A non-free market denies customers free choice, and protects people from negative consequences of their dishonesty.

I'm still falling further behind on answering reader comments. I'm working on catching up.

The Myth of Job Creation

2009-06-21T12:00:00.003-04:00

On the Communism Channel, the comedians like to talk about "President Obama is creating jobs!" Nobody ever bothers to ask "Since when is it the government's responsibility to create jobs?" or "If all these people are working for the government, then what other work is left undone?"

It's the usual "seen vs. unseen" fallacy. You see people working for the government building roads or digging ditches or whatever. You don't see the work that otherwise goes undone.

Everyone can't work for the government! Someone has to actually create the wealth that is then stolen via taxes!

When the government "creates jobs", a greater amount of work in the private sector must go undone. Someone gets a lucrative pork contract building a road. Someone else can't buy a new TV or car or house, because he lost his savings due to inflation or taxes. The net effect is that the parasite class benefits at the expense of productive workers.

When a politician spends a lot of money and hires people, it provides the illusion that he is doing something noble and wonderful. The reality is that the politician is spending stolen property. For every dollar of work performed by a government employee, more than a dollar of work in the free market goes unperformed.

Pro-State trolls always justify government spending as "creating jobs" or "creating wealth". They forget that the free market would *ALWAYS* allocate resources more efficiently. They say "See! The government spent $200B and bailed out GM! Look at all the jobs that were saved!" They don't see the many small car manufacturing businesses that would exist in a true free market. The economic system in the USA has deteriorated to the point where lobbying the State for favors is usually more profitable than building something useful. This leads to an accelerating rate of collapse.

The government always pays an above-market price when it performs work. A pro-State troll says "We need the government to build roads!" The fallacy is that the government pays a much higher cost than the true free-market price. When politicians build a road, a lot of the cost disappears as pork in the pockets of insiders. The State monopolisticially provides many "key" services. These services come at a cost much greater than the true free market price. This includes road-building, schools, police/defense, justice, money creation/regulation, electricity, water, and health care (Medicare/Medicaid, State licensing for doctors, and Obama's new "national health insurance" proposal). The State does not "create jobs" when it provides these services; wealth is destroyed whenever the State does something.

In a Communist society like the USA, there is typically a fixed pool of jobs. With a non-free market, it's hard for unemployed workers to start new businesses. This provides the illusion that government must hire the displaced workers. Increasing the size of the government displaces even more workers. The correct solution is never mentioned in the mainstream media, which is to remove all State restriction of the market.

In a true free market, whenever someone loses a job, they can easily find a comparable new job. Any pay cuts would be more than offset by cheaper prices, as resources are more efficiently allocated. In a true free market, a skilled worker is never unemployed for long; there's always work to be done. In a non-free market, there are barriers to starting new businesses. There are State-imposed extra costs on a business that seeks to hire or fire workers.

For example, I'm a very skilled software engineer, but am having a hard time finding a new wage slave job. The reason I can't find a job isn't "FSK is a loser!" The real problem is that in a non-free market, it's hard to match the work that needs to be done, with the people qualified to do it. Finding and keeping a wage slave job is more a bureaucracy exercise, rather than being able to do useful work. I always thought that by writing good software, I could help a lot of people. The right software can be simultaneously used by many people. In retrospect, all the work I've performed at wage slave jobs had zero or negative real economic value. The only work I do that has positive economic value is blogging, and for that I'm making only $0.10-$0.30 per day via AdBrite.

When President Obama "stimulates the economy" by spending money, he paradoxically makes it harder for me to find a job writing software in the productive sector of the economy. There are less resources available for employers who do actual useful work. Money and wealth are funneled from the private sector to the State, and wealth is destroyed in the process.

A lot of my relatives are saying "FSK should work for the State! That's a safe and secure job!" The fallacy is that, in a State job, it makes almost no difference if you do brilliant work or barely qualified work. As a really skilled worker, I'm guaranteed to be under-utilized if I work directly for the State. (This argument is unrelated to "FSK knows that government is terrorism." I'm supporting the bad guys if I work in *ANY* on-the-books job, whether it's directly for the government or in the "free market".) The State has a monopoly, and any cost can be passed on to taxpayers. In fact, if you do a good job, then your coworkers feel threatened by you. A large corporation is a branch of the State. This makes a wage slave job have almost the same drawbacks as working directly for the government.

Unfortunately, working in a corporate wage slave job is almost exactly the same as working directly for the government. Most corporate middle managers are concerned with protecting their turf, rather than doing great work. This is the Principal-Agent problem. A middle manager in a corporation controls resources, but isn't the owner. This naturally leads to bad decision-making, even if people have good intentions. The nature of the State means that people with the parasitic personality type are usually making the decisions. The last type of employee someone with the parasitic personality type wants is a productive worker who can see through his scam. I'm not interesting in pretending to be a fool just so I can get another wage slave job. Besides, I'd do a bad job of pretending to be stupid. I'm looking around to see if I can find a business where someone other than a parasite is making the decisions; I haven't had success.

Lately, when I go on interviews, it's depressing to see the truth. If the interviewer has the parasitic personality type, then it's obvious to me that he's an ***hole, but I try to be polite. Some "high functioning autisim" people develop a list of "social interaction rules", adding to the list whenever a parasite rejects them and gives a reason. I've discovered the real truth, which is that ***holes will always make up arbitrary reasons for rejecting you, unrelated to "It's because I'm an ***hole!" This behavior causes intelligent people to be continually unsure of themselves, placing blame on themselves rather than realizing that a lot of people in positions of authority are jerks. If the interviewer has the "abused productive" personality type, then I feel bad seeing him to be such a pathetic wretch. I can usually get along well with the people who are "abused productive", but one of the interviewers *ALWAYS* has the parasitic personality type.

Based on my experiences working as a slave software engineer, I can definitely say "The USA has a non-free market." Stupid hiring practices, such as "We demand 10 years of .NET experience!", wouldn't dominate in a free market. A group of skilled software engineers can't get together and run circles around the competition, due to State restriction of the market. In a true free market, good software is really valuable. The reality is that a large corporation has a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly. Any cost due to lousy software can merely be passed onto customers as higher prices.

Why would a large "too big to fail" bank need good software, when they can always lobby the State for a bailout? All the software written at large banks is merely a fnord. The real source of bank profits is their massive State subsidy, coming from the perk of printing and spending new money. That's the reason that the financial industry is controlled by people with "Type A" personalities (i.e. abusive jerks). The financial industry is completely divorced from actual useful goods and services, so the abusive people are in firm control.

The free market is always blamed for economic problems. The reality is that a non-free market is made less free by increasing regulation. Pre-existing regulations are always the cause, but the free market is blamed. Via "Problem! Reaction! Solution!", more regulations are created. The worse things get, the more power that politicians claim. The more politicians loot, the more the productive sector shrinks. The parasites must keep increasing their looting percentage, just to earn the same size booty. This is the virtuous positive feedback cycle of complete economic collapse.

Who Owes the National Debt?

2009-06-20T12:00:00.001-04:00

I saw President Obama give a speech, and noticed another new evil fnord. President Obama said "Our children will have a huge burden of repaying the national debt."

With fiat debt-based money, the national debt is an accounting fiction. Congress could, if they wanted, print enough new money to pay off the national debt. Congress can always roll over the national debt by printing more and more Treasury Bonds.

Financial industry insiders will always buy Treasury debt. The banksters borrow at the Fed Funds Rate and buy Treasury debt, profiting from the spread. For example, the Fed Funds Rate is currently 0%-0.25%, and the yield on longer-term Treasury debt is around 3%-4%. The spread is riskless arbitrage profit for the banksters. This trade is only available to insiders who may borrow at the Fed Funds Rate. A bank may use leverage of 100x or more when buying Treasury debt, making this trade very profitable.

The money/wealth collected in income taxes and spent on "interest payments on the national debt" doesn't vanish into thin air. It winds up in the pockets of the banksters. The banksters profit from their highly leveraged investment in Treasury debt. The banksters profit from their perk of printing and spending brand new money. Foreign central banks, such as China, are not the beneficiary of these interest payments. They earn a negative real interest rate on their unleveraged investment in Treasury debt. Foreign central banks that hold Treasury debt lose their purchasing power due to inflation.

"Our children will be forced to repay the national debt." is an evil fnord. When faced with this statement, many people will think "HAHAHA!! **** our children!! We're getting stuff now and they're getting the bill! It sucks to be them!"

The reality is that the cost of deficit spending is immediately paid as new money is issued. Everyone experiences immediate inflation to compensate for deficit spending. If there is $1T of deficit spending, then everyone currently holding dollars immediately experiences $1T of inflation. The loss of purchasing power by people currently holding dollars matches the amount of deficit spending by the Federal government. People don't notice, because money supply inflation does not lead to uniform and immediate price inflation. Biased economic statistics like the CPI provide the illusion that inflation is lower than it really is.

The cost of the national debt is not deferred to the future. It is paid immediately as inflation.

The national debt is greater than the amount of money in circulation. According to this page, M2 is currently $8.4T. The national debt is over $11T. No mainstream economist/comedian points out the obvious contradiction. The Federal government is in debt by more money than actually exists! Even if the income tax were raised to 100% and all circulating dollars were collected as taxes, then the national debt still cannot be repaid.

The reason for this contradiction is the Compound Interest Paradox. When the Federal Reserve "monetizes the debt", it only creates the principal and not the interest payments. This practically guarantees that, over time, the national debt will be greater than the money supply. The scam doesn't collapse, because the Federal government can keep issuing new Treasury debt to refinance and roll over the debt. The financial industry can keep issuing more and more loans, to ensure that previous borrowers can repay their loans. The financial industry reaps seignorage profit, as they print and spend brand new money.

That's the reason it was necessary to bail out the financial industry. Suppose all the "too big to fail" banks go bankrupt, and they no longer issue new loans. All currently existing loans would still be due, but no new money would be printed. This would cause the dollar to collapse in hyperdeflation. The true solution, "Reform a corrupt monetary system!", is never discussed in the mainstream media. Instead, bailouts to insiders keep the scam going.

The scam will continue until the cattle say "**** this! I'm not using slave points as money anymore! I'm using gold and silver!" Remember that in order to boycott the Federal Reserve you must also boycott the income tax, because the IRS demands that the income tax be paid in the form of Federal Reserve Notes. According to the IRS bureaucrats, all economic activity in the USA is subject to the income tax.

Private debt is estimated to be $50T or more, which is *MUCH* greater than the money supply. Again, this is due to the Compound Interest Paradox. The total amount of debt is far greater than the total money supply. This makes everyone the slaves of the banksters. New money is only created when a bank issues a loan. New loans must continually be issued so that old loans can be repaid.

(Under certain circumstances the national debt can decrease. This only occurs if the private sector takes out a lot of new debt. This new money can then be collected as income taxes. The national debt can be partially repaid, but only if people other than the government take on a lot of new debt. During a recession/depression, deficit spending by the Federal government is needed to keep the money supply up. This guarantees that the national debt will increase over time. Also, politicians cannot resist the temptation to print and spend new money. The Federal government is the only entity that can have unlimited dollar-denominated debt without being bankrupted. The Federal government is the issuer for dollars, and cannot be bankrupted as long as all of its debts are dollar-denominated and people are forced at gunpoint to use Federal Reserve Notes as money.)

When a comedian says "Our children will be stuck paying the national debt!", that is an evil fnord. The cost of Federal deficit spending is not deferred to the future. Everyone pays the cost immediately in the form of money supply inflation.

Donating Stolen Property Makes you a Hero!

2009-06-19T12:00:00.005-04:00

I don't normally waste my time on such things, but I was watching the Fox Comedy Show and this bit made me say "ROFLMAO!"

Allegedly, a woman stole some money from a school. She was supposed to be running a fundraising event for the school, but kept the money for herself instead.

The former CEO of Bear Stearns was watching the original comedy sketch, and he made a donation to the school equal to the amount the woman had stolen. The comedian pointed out that the former CEO was such a super-awesome guy for donating money to the school.

If you steal a couple thousand dollars, you're a criminal who goes to jail. If you steal billions of dollars, and then donate a couple thousand to a school, then you're a hero!

The obvious contradiction was really funny! I guess I should watch more comedy shows.

Insiders use the State to steal billions of dollars. They spend some of this money on charitable causes and other propaganda to boost their reputation. This helps provide the illusion of legitimacy to the theft.

Iran's Fake Election

2009-06-18T12:00:00.002-04:00

I saw an amusing comment in a newspaper. They said "Iran's elections are obviously rigged. All of the candidates, even the 'reform' candidate, were chosen by the insiders who control Iran." My reaction was "Duh! That's exactly the same as elections in the USA!"

It's amusing to see interviews with US politicians. Instead of them saying "Iran's election was rigged! Iran's government is illegitimate!", they say "We should respect Iran's political process." Any politician seems reluctant to say "Iran's elections were unfair!", because that can lead to "Elections in the USA are unfair!" After the disputed 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections, Gore and Kerry didn't go around saying "This President is illegitimate!" Instead, they quietly went back to other cushy jobs. A politician won't risk ending the gravy train that insiders enjoy.

Even though the election was pre-rigged by the selection of the candidates, it appears that the vote counting was also rigged. This has triggered some riots and protests.

Riots and protests accomplish nothing. As long as people keep paying their taxes/tribute, a protest accomplishes nothing. Some token concessions will be made to the protesters, and things will continue as usual.

This is a common evil fnord. "If you are unsatisfied with the State, your only recourse is to riot or protest!" That is false. A better solution is to avoid paying taxes, which fuel the evil of the State. This solution is never publicly discussed.

Riots and protests serve several useful functions.

Pro-State trolls say "People who don't like the government do stupid violent things. Hooray for the State!"
The police can keep track of who the protesters are.
The police can use violence and display their power. A group of amateurs against para-military police is no contest, even when the amateurs outnumber the police.
The violence is an excuse to raise the budget for the State police.
People can vent their frustration, while accomplishing nothing.
People think that their only recourse, if unsatisfied with the State, is to riot or protest.

Elections merely provide the slaves with the illusion that they control the government. Insiders control the candidates presented for elections. If there is a controversy, it may be intentionally staged. Perhaps the leaders who control Iran want to reform a little, but they want it to make it seem like they're making huge concessions. Rioting or protesting is a waste of time. If you really are unsatisfied with the State, agorism is your best option.

Pay Attention When You Talk!

2009-06-17T12:00:00.001-04:00

I noticed another interesting aspect of pro-State brainwashing. A lot of people, when they talk, don't bother to pay attention to their listeners. For example, when my parents talk to me, they say the same things over and over again. I don't bother listening. They don't even notice that I'm not listening to them. I can't say "I'm not interested in what you're saying.", because then they get offended.

The origin of this behavior comes from three locations:

school
TV
wage slave jobs

In school, the teacher talks and the students listen. It normally isn't interactive. Even if it is somewhat interactive, the teacher can only pay attention to one student at a time. All other students are expected to act interested, even if the lesson is boring.

State teachers don't bother to pay attention if their students are listening. They assume that the students have an obligation to be interested, no matter what the content.

For most people, TV is the vast majority of their interpersonal relationships. TV is completely non-interactive. The TV speaks, and you just listen. When speaking to other people, you follow the model set by TV. You speak, without paying attention to whether the other person is listening.

In a wage slave job, a lot of time is spent in boring meetings. The employees have an obligation to act as if the meeting is interesting, even if it's a waste of time.

When a State-licensed authority figure speaks, his audience is obligated to pay attention. It is completely one-way communication. The audience is expected to act interested, even if it is boring.

Contrast that with a good standup comedian. A good standup comedian is expected to notice if his audience is laughing or paying attention. If you're really bad, the audience will heckle you.

Contrast that with the Internet. I specifically choose which sites to read. On my blog, it's semi-interactive. I answer questions from readers, but I still exercise some editorial control over the content. If I were a comedian writing for the NY Times, I'd get practically zero feedback from readers. A newspaper publishes "letters to the editor" but that is a fnord. Letters are carefully screened before being published. If I wrote the NY Times asking "Aren't taxes and stealing the same thing? Who needs a government anyway?", I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be published. If I wrote a journalist directly, I probably would not get a response; the letter probably would get filtered out by a receptionist. On a blog, I get direct feedback from readers.

As a public speaker, you should pay attention to your audience. If I attempted "promote agorism via standup comedy", I might have an explicit "questions from the audience" segment. Most mainstream media shows don't have such a segment, because they are only providing an illusion of openness. Most "call-in" shows screen the calls. Most mainstream media personalities can't think on their feet, and need a pre-scripted conversation.

This is an interesting aspect of pro-State brainwashing. A speaker with State-backed authority assumes, by default, that his audience is interested. The audience has an obligation to pay attention or pretend to pay attention. The State-licensed authority figure has no obligation to say anything interesting.

"Green Shoots" Fnord

2009-06-16T12:00:00.002-04:00

I noticed a new fnord phrase circulating. It's called "green shoots". On the Communism Channel, the comedians say "There are now some green shoots, the initial stages of an economic recovery."

It's amusing to notice how new fnord phrases originate. It seems coordinated. They are introduced somewhere, and then all of a sudden everyone is using them. I've seen "green shoots" used in several places recently.

As I mentioned before, the economic recovery is an illusion. Money supply inflation is misreported as economic growth. If true inflation is 20%, the CPI is 5%, and the noninflation-adjusted GDP "grows" by 10%, then a pro-State troll economist will say "There was 5% economic growth!", when the economy really shrunk by another 10% if you count inflation correctly.

For the past few months, banks have been profitable again. What a surprise! After trillions of dollars of direct and indirect bailout money, combined with a Fed Funds Rate of 0%-0.25%, large banks are profitable again.

Money supply inflation is misreported as economic growth. An economic recovery is merely huge profits for insiders, at the expense of everyone else. During the second half of the Great Depression, the banksters made huge profits while the everyone else was still suffering from the depression. Similarly, this will probably be another fake recovery, where insiders profit immensely while the average person is worse off.

"The USA is dependent on continuous economic growth to survive." is false. There must be continuous money supply inflation, due to the Compound Interest Paradox. Due to biased inflation measures like the CPI, money supply inflation is confused with the creation of useful goods and services.

All the abuses of the housing boom are forgotten and forgiven. Insiders at large banks may start loading up on leverage again and start paying themselves huge bonuses again. There will be another 1-3 years of inflationary boom, followed by another unexpected recession.

It isn't obvious what sector of the economy is going to enter the next inflationary boom. It is guaranteed that there will be another bubble. As a non-insider, you won't know until it's too late. Even though I am aware of the corrupt economic system and the inevitable business cycles, I can't profit as a non-insider. I don't know when the boom will start and the crash will occur. I'm not "too big to fail", so I don't qualify for a bailout if I'm wrong. If I hold cash to invest during a recession, then I will get ripped off by inflation during the boom. If I maximize my leverage during the boom, then I will be wiped out during the next bust.

The cycles of propaganda are matched in lockstep with State-induced business cycles. Now, we're in the "inflate next bubble" phase of the business cycle. Pretty soon, the Federal Reserve will start raising interest rates to set up the next recession/depression.

It's amusing to see new fnord phrases like "green shoots" get introduced. It's also amusing to see money supply inflation misreported as economic growth.

Video Game Evil vs. Real World Evil

2009-06-15T12:00:00.003-04:00

In a video game, your character fights very weak enemies initially. You character fights stronger and stronger enemies, gaining experience along the way. The enemies are even nice enough to carry items that your character can use! The strongest enemy is saved for the end.

Similarly, in movies, the hero may fight weak enemies initially. The hero progresses to stronger and stronger enemies as he gains power and confidence. For example, in "Bleach", the main character fights stronger and stronger enemies.

If you had to fight the strongest enemy at the beginning, then you would have no chance at all!

Fighting real world evil is not the same as fighting video game evil. In the real world, you face the strongest enemies initially, right away.

For example, if State police decide to raid someone's house, they don't first send a weak officer, and then if this fails a team of 3-5 people, and later a full assault team. The State police send a full military-style raid right away.

If someone starts seeing the Matrix, they don't see the whole thing right away. Initially, you only see bits and pieces. Their first belief is "I must be defective. It can't possibly be true that everyone around me is completely insane!" They are then referred to the mental health/murder industry. A State therapist might try to re-pro-State brainwash them. If necessary, the victim will be forcibly drugged, interrupting their body's natural healing process. The Matrix uses its strongest tactics right away, to silence those who start seeing the truth.

If you start realizing "Taxation is theft!", "The USA has a corrupt monetary system!", or "Government is one massive scam!", you might try to tell your ideas to the people around you. However, 99.9%+ of the population are clueless. They will get offended when you question their false beliefs, and they will try to silence you. None of the people around you will agree with you, so you'll stop questioning the State. Unless you're really persistent and sure of yourself, you'll let the pro-State trolls around you re-brainwash you, when you start sensing the truth.

In this manner, the Internet has been very useful. Even though 99.9%+ of the population are clueless, the Internet allows the Remnant to share information. Even though none of my friends or co-workers or relatives understand the truth, I've been able to meet some people who understand through the Internet.

I've made a lot of progress training my ability to think properly. I'm able to think logically about economics and politics, seeing it as a massive scam. I'm also more consciously aware of my emotions, and the attempts of others to manipulate me. I can see the fnords pretty clearly now.

The State isn't just about government. It's also about the corrupt nature of productive/parasitic relationships. I didn't just have false conscious beliefs, such as "Government protects individual freedom!" or "The President and Congress do the best they can to 'manage the economy'." I also had false emotional beliefs, about the proper way to think and feel and act. Parasites were usually able to emotionally manipulate me, making me think and feel how they wanted me to feel. I'm mostly resistant to the manipulations of parasites now. That is a problem when interviewing for a wage slave job, because there's always a parasite on the hiring committee!

I haven't yet achieved physical freedom. Mental freedom is an important first step. For now, I probably will get another wage slave software engineer job, while working towards promoting agorism in my spare time. I need to help other people achieve mental freedom first. I can't achieve physical freedom by myself.

When fighting real-world evil, you face the strongest enemies first! The strongest enemies are your own false beliefs, and the fact that everyone around you is completely insane. I had false conscious/logical beliefs. I also had false emotional beliefs that I didn't consciously notice. Have I already defeated my strongest enemies, in my search for truth and freedom?

Are you a Slave?

2009-06-14T12:00:00.001-04:00

A lot of pro-State trolls say "Taxation is not theft. You are merely paying government employees for services rendered."

Taxation is not a voluntary exchange.

How do I tell the State, "You're fired! I'm purchasing police and justice and defense from someone else!"

This is illegal/impractical. Therefore, taxation is not voluntary and I'm really the personal property of the tax collector.

I don't own my labor, because I must pay tax on it.

I don't own my land, because I must pay property taxes.

Doesn't that make me a slave? If I don't own my labor and I don't own land, what else could I be but a slave?

Parasites Colonized the Software Industry

2009-06-13T12:00:00.002-04:00

My first wage slave software engineer job was unusual. My direct boss and most of my coworkers had the "productive" personality type. Almost nobody had the "parasitic" personality type. That's an interesting anomaly.

That job ended due to State violence. A larger corporation bought them out and they shut down the office I was working it. At the time, I thought it was a huge waste, because it was a really talented group. Now, I see it's irrelevant. It was a cellular phone company. The only valuable asset was the State license to operate, the broadcast spectrum. The rest of the assets were irrelevant.

When the FCC sold a bunch of broadcast spectrum for cell phones in the 1990s, there were incentives for small businesses to bid. A bunch of insiders bought spectrum cheaply, via capital borrowed from the banksters. They then sold a few years later for a huge profit. The net result was still a handful of large telecommunications corporations. The only difference is that a bunch of insiders made a tidy profit. The mandate for "small businesses buy spectrum" allowed the pork to be spread over a larger group of politically-connected insiders.

At all my jobs since then, at least one of my managers had the parasitic personality type. In retrospect, the best work environments were the ones where my boss had the productive personality type, and the worst jobs were the ones where my boss had the parasitic personality type. That's a bigger factor than *ANY* other issue. Regrettably, in most businesses, the parasites are pulling the strings.

In the late 1990s, the software industry started booming. The people who initially flocked to the software industry were the productive workers. They were happy for an environment where they could use their abilities without the drag of parasites.

Once the software industry was obviously here to stay, the parasites started colonizing the software industry. They could raise capital from the banksters and profitably buy out any business controlled by productive workers.

In the present, almost every business has a parasite pulling the strings.

"Two people are needed to start a business" is itself an evil fnord. The reason you need two co-founders is that one has the productive personality type and one has the parasitic personality type. The productive person does all the real work. The parasitic person takes most of the booty. From the productive workers' point of view, the parasite co-founder is protecting him from the other parasites in the Matrix. The productive worker doesn't have the interest or ability to deal with parasites.

Consider a typical job listing on Craigslist. The request may be "5 years PHP experience, 3 years Drupal experience, and 2 years of experience in three other specific development languages or frameworks."

I have the productive personality type. I submit my resume, and hope the hiring manager has a clue.

What would a parasite do? He edits his resume. He lies and says that he has 5 years of PHP experience or whatever else the job description demands.

All those requirements are silly anyway. Someone competent could learn as needed anyway.

In this manner, the wags slave job recruitment process selects in favor of dishonest people. Someone who lies about his experience gets plenty of interviews. An honest person is lost in the shuffle, because there's a ton of people submitting forged resumes that are perfect keyword matches for the job! I've considered lying on my resume, but why should I seek to work for an idiot?

It's obvious to anyone with half a clue that I'd be a very productive software engineer, even if I haven't worked much in the language before. Most wage slave employers are unwilling to make an investment of even a few weeks, in waiting for someone to learn a language. In my experience, other issues are harder to learn than a programming language. Understanding the business logic is usually the hardest part.

I'm wondering if that's the main reason the software industry is going downhill (along with the rest of the economy). In nearly every business, parasites are pulling the strings.

A productive worker doesn't just pay taxes to the government. A productive worker pays tax to the parasites who are his bosses at work or his business partners. The State isn't just government. The State is the way parasites control almost everyone. Having mostly cracked my pro-State brainwashing, it's hard for me to fit in, because parasites know they can't push me around.

Is Ron Paul Good or Evil?

2009-06-12T12:00:00.002-04:00

Ron Paul is interesting. In some ways, Ron Paul is an advocate for freedom. In some ways, Ron Paul is a pro-State troll.

Ron Paul is the only mainstream politician that explicitly criticizes the Federal Reserve and income tax. However, Ron Paul says "The Federal Reserve and income tax are unconstitutional!", which is a weak criticism. Ron Paul does not explicitly say "The Federal Reserve and income tax are immoral!"

Ron Paul has done a good job of raising awareness for the evils of the Federal Reserve and income tax. Before I started researching Ron Paul, I had a vague sense that something was really wrong but wasn't sure where to focus. When I saw a debate clip of Ron Paul criticizing the Federal Reserve and IRS, I decided to focus on that. I wrote some articles on the Ron Paul wiki and became active on the Ron Paul Forum. I very rapidly realized "There's no way Ron Paul will get elected. Elections are fixed. The system is broken." I also got very frustrated with pro-State trolls on the Ron Paul Forum, and I had a problem with wiki vandals. I decided it would be easier to get my own blog, so I wouldn't be repeating the same arguments over and over again. Plus, on my own blog, I wouldn't have the "get shouted down by pro-State trolls" problem.

There is a "debate ceiling". Ideas more radical than those of the "debate ceiling" are not publicly discussed. Ron Paul represents the limit of (L)libertarian/minarchist thinking. Ron Paul does not explicitly say "Who needs a government anyway?" Ron Paul holds out the false hope that the system can be reformed. In this manner, Ron Paul is a shill for the establishment. Ron Paul is advocating for the usual libertarian/minarchist intellectual trap, rather than advocating for true free markets.

Via the Internet, Ron Paul has successfully led some people to the philosophy of true free markets. For example, some people found my blog via posts on the Ron Paul forums. Once you realize that Ron Paul is a promising candidate with no chance of getting elected, you realize "The system is completely broken!" and that leads to "Who needs a government anyway?" The Ron Paul Internet forums are still active. However, only a minority of Ron Paul supporters have been converted to agorism.

Ron Paul is good, because he helps raise awareness for "The Federal Reserve is evil!", "The income tax is evil!", and "Big government is evil!" However, he is part of the problem because he does not say "Who needs a government anyway?" By giving a weak criticism of the State, Ron Paul can seem to be endorsing the State.