Tag Archives: Anarchy

Robert D. Kaplan’s Clairvoyance on Emerging Anarchy

2/6/2014 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Robert D. Kaplan, Stratfor’s Chief Geopolitical Analyst, published in interesting report yesterday recounting his clairvoyance in predicting the rise of anarchic rule in certain African states (predictions that came to pass) and the general erosion of state governance throughout the world.

Anarchy as an Ultimate GivenKaplan’s observations are of particular interest to us, as we hold the belief that Anarchy is an Ultimate Given, meaning that groups of people tend to search for a coordinated approach to their inherently anarchic surroundings, the most recent of which has been the democratic nation state.

While Kaplan’s analysis appears to paint a picture of chaos and lawlessness, which indeed are the hallmarks of regime change, we see democratic nation states and their attendant monetary regimes as things that the world is currently shedding for its ultimate betterment, as they now serve to restrict trade instead of facilitating it as once was their chief contribution to the livelihood of the governed.

The continued adoption of communication via the internet is moving toward a state of maturity from which the natural progression towards internet facilitated trade amongst parties is causing the world to eschew the label of their respective nation state and replace it with one of religion or other shared affinities which are readily accessible given the pace of mobile communication expansion.

Kaplan also makes a clear distinction between the need for strong governance of urban societies whereas rural/agrarian societies tend to govern themselves, a point that is lost on most observers, not the least of which are the political classes in the current nation state, which tend to focus on national borders as the only limitations to their sphere of influence.

While Kaplan’s analysis is interesting and serves to explain what is likely to continue to occur for the next 5 to 20 years in terms of the erosion of central governments, he appears unable to speculate as to what form the governing body of a large geographical area would take.

As such, we will speculate for him.  The world is in the process of segregating itself into phyles, or groups of people aligned in terms of ideologies, be they religious or otherwise, independent of geographic location.  These phyles will tend to unite, geographically where possible, but primarily through trade relationships.  Once these trade relationships are established, the increased division of labor will resume within the phyles, giving rise to a true increase in the Monetary premium of items that up until now have not been identified as money.

Bitcoin is one example of what is essentially a pure monetary premium transmitter.  As the nation states continue to crumble, the foundations for new societies united by ideology and/or trade relations are already being laid, and we hope and pray for a peaceful transition onto them for all, as the failed model of the democratic nation state based on mere borders must be laid to rest peacefully for humankind to truly prosper.

Without further ado, Robert D. Kaplan…

Why So Much Anarchy?

By Robert D. Kaplan

Twenty years ago, in February 1994, I published a lengthy cover story in The Atlantic Monthly, “The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet.” I argued that the combination of resource depletion (like water), demographic youth bulges and the proliferation of shanty towns throughout the developing world would enflame ethnic and sectarian divides, creating the conditions for domestic political breakdown and the transformation of war into increasingly irregular forms — making it often indistinguishable from terrorism. I wrote about the erosion of national borders and the rise of the environment as the principal security issues of the 21st century. I accurately predicted the collapse of certain African states in the late 1990s and the rise of political Islam in Turkey and other places. Islam, I wrote, was a religion ideally suited for the badly urbanized poor who were willing to fight. I also got things wrong, such as the probable intensification of racial divisions in the United States; in fact, such divisions have been impressively ameliorated.

However, what is not in dispute is that significant portions of the earth, rather than follow the dictates of Progress and Rationalism, are simply harder and harder to govern, even as there is insufficient evidence of an emerging and widespread civil society. Civil society in significant swaths of the earth is still the province of a relatively elite few in capital cities — the very people Western journalists feel most comfortable befriending and interviewing, so that the size and influence of such a class is exaggerated by the media.

The anarchy unleashed in the Arab world, in particular, has other roots, though — roots not adequately dealt with in my original article:

The End of Imperialism. That’s right. Imperialism provided much of Africa, Asia and Latin America with security and administrative order. The Europeans divided the planet into a gridwork of entities — both artificial and not — and governed. It may not have been fair, and it may not have been altogether civil, but it provided order. Imperialism, the mainstay of stability for human populations for thousands of years, is now gone.

The End of Post-Colonial Strongmen. Colonialism did not end completely with the departure of European colonialists. It continued for decades in the guise of strong dictators, who had inherited state systems from the colonialists. Because these strongmen often saw themselves as anti-Western freedom fighters, they believed that they now had the moral justification to govern as they pleased. The Europeans had not been democratic in the Middle East, and neither was this new class of rulers. Hafez al Assad, Saddam Hussein, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Moammar Gadhafi and the Nasserite pharaohs in Egypt right up through Hosni Mubarak all belonged to this category, which, like that of the imperialists, has been quickly retreating from the scene (despite a comeback in Egypt).

No Institutions. Here we come to the key element. The post-colonial Arab dictators ran moukhabarat states: states whose order depended on the secret police and the other, related security services. But beyond that, institutional and bureaucratic development was weak and unresponsive to the needs of the population — a population that, because it was increasingly urbanized, required social services and complex infrastructure. (Alas, urban societies are more demanding on central governments than agricultural ones, and the world is rapidly urbanizing.) It is institutions that fill the gap between the ruler at the top and the extended family or tribe at the bottom. Thus, with insufficient institutional development, the chances for either dictatorship or anarchy proliferate. Civil society occupies the middle ground between those extremes, but it cannot prosper without the requisite institutions and bureaucracies.

Feeble Identities. With feeble institutions, such post-colonial states have feeble identities. If the state only means oppression, then its population consists of subjects, not citizens. Subjects of despotisms know only fear, not loyalty. If the state has only fear to offer, then, if the pillars of the dictatorship crumble or are brought low, it is non-state identities that fill the subsequent void. And in a state configured by long-standing legal borders, however artificially drawn they may have been, the triumph of non-state identities can mean anarchy.

Doctrinal Battles. Religion occupies a place in daily life in the Islamic world that the West has not known since the days — a millennium ago — when the West was called “Christendom.” Thus, non-state identity in the 21st-century Middle East generally means religious identity. And because there are variations of belief even within a great world religion like Islam, the rise of religious identity and the consequent decline of state identity means the inflammation of doctrinal disputes, which can take on an irregular, military form. In the early medieval era, the Byzantine Empire — whose whole identity was infused with Christianity — had violent, doctrinal disputes between iconoclasts (those opposed to graven images like icons) and iconodules (those who venerated them). As the Roman Empire collapsed and Christianity rose as a replacement identity, the upshot was not tranquility but violent, doctrinal disputes between Donatists, Monotheletes and other Christian sects and heresies. So, too, in the Muslim world today, as state identities weaken and sectarian and other differences within Islam come to the fore, often violently.

Information Technology. Various forms of electronic communication, often transmitted by smartphones, can empower the crowd against a hated regime, as protesters who do not know each other personally can find each other through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. But while such technology can help topple governments, it cannot provide a coherent and organized replacement pole of bureaucratic power to maintain political stability afterwards. This is how technology encourages anarchy. The Industrial Age was about bigness: big tanks, aircraft carriers, railway networks and so forth, which magnified the power of big centralized states. But the post-industrial age is about smallness, which can empower small and oppressed groups, allowing them to challenge the state — with anarchy sometimes the result.

Because we are talking here about long-term processes rather than specific events, anarchy in one form or another will be with us for some time, until new political formations arise that provide for the requisite order. And these new political formations need not be necessarily democratic.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, societies in Central and Eastern Europe that had sizable middle classes and reasonable bureaucratic traditions prior to World War II were able to transform themselves into relatively stable democracies. But the Middle East and much of Africa lack such bourgeoisie traditions, and so the fall of strongmen has left a void. West African countries that fell into anarchy in the late 1990s — a few years after my article was published — like Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, still have not really recovered, but are wards of the international community through foreign peacekeeping forces or advisers, even as they struggle to develop a middle class and a manufacturing base. For, the development of efficient and responsive bureaucracies requires literate functionaries, which, in turn, requires a middle class.

The real question marks are Russia and China. The possible weakening of authoritarian rule in those sprawling states may usher in less democracy than chronic instability and ethnic separatism that would dwarf in scale the current instability in the Middle East. Indeed, what follows Vladimir Putin could be worse, not better. The same holds true for a weakening of autocracy in China.

The future of world politics will be about which societies can develop responsive institutions to govern vast geographical space and which cannot. That is the question toward which the present season of anarchy leads.

Why So Much Anarchy? is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Read more: Why So Much Anarchy? | Stratfor

Follow Stratfor: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook

Why What We Use as Money Matters, Our Economic and Philosophical Treatise, is Now Available

Our long awaited Treatise on Economy and Philosophy, Why What We Use as Money Matters, is now available in various digital formats at Smashwords.com and on Kindle at Amazon.com.  With any luck, we will have a print version available before we leave for the Southern Hemisphere.

Why What We Use as Money MattersWhat kind of book is this?  It is largely up to the reader to decide.  For us, it is the fruit of two years of wrestling with some of life’s deeper questions with regards to Economics, Politics, and Philosophy.  It has answered many of them and, in turn, has raised other issues, for in our exploration, as you will see, the current state of affairs is laid bare for all to examine, and our recommended courses of action may be unpalatable for many.

Nevertheless, there it is, altogether thick and challenging, yet refreshingly simple, the key to reversing the effects of climate change.Why What We Use as Money Matters

In a sense, it culminates the first phase of what we set out to do here at The Mint.  There will be more to come, but for the time being, we leave you to ponder the following brief excerpt:

“The natural world strives daily to achieve a perfect state of balance. Events and occurrences that, taken by themselves, appear chaotic and devoid of meaning are together part of a constant rebalancing of the earth’s delicate state. Each event is a splash of color across an oppressive gray sky that hints at a rainbow that will soon appear. “

 

The Primary Reason for the Superiority of Anarchy as a System

Dissent is information:  Anarchy ensures system resilience
Dissent is information: Anarchy ensures system resilience

Here at The Mint, we have learned to embrace the anarchy in which we live as an ultimate given.  Anarchy is the primary state of being for all humans, whether we recognize it or not.  The sooner one realizes that they live in a state of Anarchy, the better able they will be to operate within it.

We also recognize that centralized control, when exercised without consent, is bad.  Fortunately, anarchic systems have a way of dealing with centralized control by forcing the disbandment of any form of control that is not obtained by assent.  Not by assent of the majority, as democratic thought would have us believe, but assent by each individual.  As such, if one is involuntarily subject to a form of centralized control, there is an easy escape for those who are not physically detained.  The escape hatch is in the mind, as all centralized control mechanisms can be escaped by changing one’s mind about the power it wields over them.

As both anarchy and its antithesis, centralized control, coexist to some extent all around us in various forms of ultimately voluntary capitalist and socialist systems which are constantly interacting with each other,  it is often difficult, if not impossible, to understand why Anarchy is superior to centralized control.

We recently came across a post on Zerohedge.com, Why Centralization Leads to Collapse, which articulates what we believe to be the primary reason the for the superiority of Anarchy:

Dissent is information

The author of the post, in a concise, well written fashion, recognizes that centralized control, which is an natural outgrowth of the desire for efficiency, leads to the rejection and ultimate termination of viewpoints that do not agree with the ideology or methods of the central authority.  Dissent is ignored, hindered, or terminated.

However, is terminating dissent, the centralized authority has removed perhaps the most important means by which a system can transmit information from the margins.

This information is important as well as the activities that dissenters carry out, for the diverse and seemingly contrary activities serve to make the entire system in which people live “anti-fragile.”  This means, for practical purposes, that an anarchic system is better prepared to deal with changes in data and the natural environment because it is constantly dealing with it by default, while a centralized system labors under the delusion that’s contingency plans are adequate to stave off any event that would threaten the supposedly superior system.

The rejection of dissent, then, ensures the collapse of the centralized system, while the toleration of the Anarchic system ensures its resilience.  It may be said that the chief virtue of Anarchy, then, is that it prevents centralized control by definition.

God recognized this and intervened famously on the Tower of Babel to ensure the earth which had rejected Him would remain resilient.  Mankind is dangerously close to constructing any number of similar towers today.

Will we recognize the error in time?

A Tale of Two Responses to Anarchy

4/22/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

The world keeps turning and has become quite unpredictable.  Check that, it has always been unpredictable, the realization of one’s inability to predict what will happen comes with age.

On one hand, money supply measures around the globe are going through the roof, as is indebtedness.  On the other had, the underlying economy, which had barely picked itself off of the canvas, appears to be up again, ready to be pile driven once again.  What is one to make of it?

The Bitcoin is once again racing ahead in USD terms, while Gold and Silver peel themselves off of the pavement after encountering a steamroller in their path (as an aside, it will be interesting just how much $1,350 gold and $23.50 silver can be delivered, our guess is, not much.)

Karl Marx
Will Karl Marx dance with Rand?

Our upcoming eBook, Natural Law and Economic System Fluidity – Marx and Rand together in perfect harmony, wrestles with unexplained economic phenomena such as the seeming impossibly of Capitalism and Socialism coexisting in harmony with one another, which are rapidly becoming important.

The following is a brief excerpt of our latest offering, scheduled to release late this month.  Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Responses to Anarchy

In the current economic debate that rages between the productive virtues of what is referred to as Capitalism and the humanistic virtues of the Socialist ideal, it has become fashionable to assume that the virtues of one system, were its guiding principles put into action at once by all of the members of society, would eventually bring about the virtues promised by the other system in a peaceful manner.

This narrow, apologetic view taken by Capitalists and Socialists alike ignores the fact that the systems are wholly incompatible.  It also ignores the fact that mankind is in a constant struggle to bring order to surroundings that are inherently anarchic in nature.  The only laws that must be adhered to are natural laws, which are explored in section II of this volume.

For purists on either side of the ideological fence, compromise on any point is a slippery slope, and in the sense that the two systems are wholly incompatible, the view is technically correct.  However, most economists miss the fact that it is perfectly normal and beneficial for each system to operate side by side.  In fact, it is the only way in which mankind can reap the benefits of both systems at once.

All humans live and operate in both systems to some extent.  The Capitalistic system is best equipped to organize resources on a grand scale and provide material goods for the greatest number of people, the Socialist system is the system that offers refuge from the rigid and unrelenting demands of the Capitalistic system’s incessant response to anarchy and the demands of natural law.

This refuge is commonly referred to as the family, and it can be observed operating the world over in all shapes and sizes.

The inescapable fact that Capitalism and Socialism are at once incompatible and completely reliant upon one another is the basis for the Theory of Economic System Fluidity.

More to come as we hack and slash our way through the draft.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for April 22, 2013

Copper Price per Lb: $3.14
Oil Price per Barrel:  $89.36
Corn Price per Bushel:  $6.46
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.70%
Mt Gox Bitcoin price in US:  $126.75
FED Target Rate:  0.15%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,424 THE GOLD RUSH IS STILL ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  7.6%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  -0.2%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  14,567
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,437,900,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,645,600,000,000

What is Truth?

3/15/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Our latest E-book in the “Why what we use as Money Matters” series: What is Truth?  On the Nature of Empire, has now shipped and will soon arrive on digital shelves across the Internet.

What is Truth?  On the Nature of EmpireIn the twenty first century, it has become clear to most that there is no divine right or imperative for the existence of an Empire on the earth. As such, an ever-increasing number of peoples have thrown off the yoke of Empire in favor of what has become known as a democratic model of collective governance. Yet simply changing the rules of governance has not put an end to the core ideals of Empire, and governments today that are elected democratically have largely retained the hallmarks of Imperial rule, namely the tendencies toward a central monopoly on the use of force and the right to demand tribute. How can this be?

The purpose of this volume is to gain an understanding of the true nature of Empire and, to convince the reader that Empire, and by extension large scale government, is not only unnecessary, but a great hindrance to human progress. This volume also explores why the Imperial model virtually ensures that the worst elements of humanity will rise to power, where they will ultimately impose their will on their fellow humans by violence. For the violent outcomes that Empires invariably produce are not exceptions to the rule, nor are they merely the norm.

They are literally guaranteed by design.

Once we have grasped the true nature of Empire, we will then will explore the only known antidote to Empire and the only possible means for mankind to rid itself of the lethal effects of Empire on the earth. And it is probably like anything you have imagined.

It is now available and can be enjoyed on SmashwordsAmazon’s Kindle, and Google Books.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for March 15, 2013

Copper Price per Lb: $3.51
Oil Price per Barrel: $93.21
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.16
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 2.01%
FED Target Rate: 0.14% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,596 THE GOLD RUSH IS STILL ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.7%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 14,481
M1 Monetary Base: $2,466,100,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,499,300,000,000

What the World Needs Now is Anarchy

We send you into the weekend here at The Mint with a brutal rendition of a sixties classic. Enjoy!
To the tune of “What the World Needs Now is Love

What the World Needs Now is Anarchy

(With apologies to the Dionne Warwick and the more than 100 other artists who have previously crooned this wonderful tune)

What the world needs now is an-ar-chy,
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.
What the world needs now is an-ar-chy,
no not just for some but for everyone.

Lord we don’t need another government,
There are governments and governors enough to rule,
There are rules and regulations enough to obey
Enough to make us all look like fools

What the world needs now is an-ar-chy ,
it’s the only thing that theres just too little of,
what the world needs now is an-ar-chy ,
no not just for some but for everyone

Lord, we dont need another lawman,
there is justice and kindness enough to give,
there is honor and duty in every heart,
If only we’d be left alone, to live and let live

What the world needs now is an-ar-chy ,
its the only thing that theres just too little of.
what the world needs now is an-ar-chy,
no not just for some, oh but just for every every everyone.

what the world (whoa whoa) needs now,
is an-ar-chy
what the world ( oh oh) needs now
is an-ar-chy
what the world (whoa whoa) needs now
is an-ar-chy

Anarchy is an Ultimate Given

2/7/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

We are taking a brief break from Old Jules and our “To Build up the Land” series to present the introduction to our soon to be released e-book, the latest volume in the Why what we use as Money Matters series.  Enjoy!

Anarchy is an Ultimate Given

An∙ar∙chy – noun – ‘anərkē

The definition of anarchy, according to the Merriam-webster Dictionary:

1.a:  absence of government

  b:  a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority

  c:  a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government

2.a:  absence or denial of any authority or established order

  b:  absence of order

Disarming the State is as simple as changing and then using one's mind
Disarming the State is as simple as changing and then using one’s mind

Anarchy.  The word strikes fear in the hearts general public, who have been trained to conjure images from fraternity house shenanigans to rioting and looting on the streets of important cities at its mention.  For most civilized persons, with these mental images close at hand, anarchy is something to be avoided at all costs.  How can civilized society carry on with the threat of bombs and looting effectively slamming the brakes on human progress?

In this volume, we seek to free the concept of anarchy from these negative connotations.  For anarchy, far from being the greater evil in the choice amongst evils when it comes to man’s state in this world, is really not a choice at all.  Rather, anarchy is something that every human being and animal on the planet is born into.  It is the basic state of man in this world.  It is an ultimate given.

As an ultimate given, it is futile, nay, self-destructive for men and women to live their lives fretting about falling from a state of order into one of anarchy.  The line of thinking is debilitating and counterproductive to what must be mankind’s highest and most urgent calling in the physical realm:  How best to respond to the state of anarchy in which they live.

For it is not anarchy itself that causes disorder and the other maladies which the mere mention of the word bring to mind, but mankind’s failed responses to this ultimate given under which they labor and cause others to labor on their behalf.  The only thing more dangerous than confusing anarchy for the disorder which arises from the collapse of a failed response to it, is to spend ones life’s toils aiding another person’s failed response to his or her inherently anarchic surroundings.

Further, this volume seeks to give the reader a sufficient level of awareness to step back, if even for a moment, to evaluate the response to anarchy under which they are currently laboring and make a sober evaluation as to whether they are truly laboring in alignment with their own best interests.

Too many lives have been wasted laboring under a mistaken fear and avoidance of anarchy, and we hope this volume will steer the reader away from this fate.  It may not change the way you think or what you do at all, and that is good.  For to personally validate ones own course in life with a firmer grasp of the facts has caused harm to no one.  In fact, it should cause one to carry on with a renewed sense of pride and purpose.  We only encourage you, then, to offer others the chance to give their own lives a sober evaluation, and respect their decision to change once they truly understand the wonderful anarchy into which we are all born.

The book is now available on Kindle and will be available on Smashwords in early May.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for February 7, 2013

Copper Price per Lb: $3.73
Oil Price per Barrel:  $96.11
Corn Price per Bushel:  $7.11
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.95%
FED Target Rate:  0.13%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,671 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  7.9%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.0%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  13,944
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,522,600,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,334,600,000,000

Free Banking – The Ultimate Solution

11/2/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

In our recent open letter to Evo Morales, we brought up three principles which must operate together in a society for the greatest amount of material good to come to the greatest possible amount of people.  While most assume that the principles, Liberty, Private Property, and Equality before the law, can only operate via the apparatus of government, we argue that the exact opposite is the case.  By necessity, the operations of government, an ultimate sovereign, would necessarily hinder the operation of these essential principles.

The reasoning is this:  These principles are so important that they must be learned and respected by every member of society.  At the same time, they are so basic to human nature that they are most effectively learned by simply living amongst one’s fellow human beings.  As such, the more a person is exposed to the anarchic environment in which we all ultimately live, the more quickly they will master these essentials.

Free Banking - The key to Liberty
Free Banking – The key to Liberty

The apparatus of Government can only retard the most effective teacher:  Hands on experience.

The recognition of the vacuum of power called Anarchy, which all systems great and small operate under, is extremely important when trying to understand the world as we know it.  However, it is not the focus of today’s Mint.

Today’s Mint is focused on Free banking.  Within our three great principles, Free banking generally fits under the principle of Liberty.  However, as banking and currency circulation, circa 2012 is perhaps the least free area of enterprise, it deserves special consideration as we examine what true freedom consists of.

Important as it is, the concept of Free banking may seem foreign to you, fellow taxpayer, as it is to nearly every other person, great and small, on our beloved earth.

However, the concept of Free Banking is perhaps the most important thing that men today can dedicate themselves to, for it is the lack of Freedom when it comes to currency and credit which has lead to stripping of the earth’s resources and the resulting environmental problems which a number of developing nations suffer from in a disproportionate manner.

Specifically, the suppression of Free Banking has caused the activities of man to create what is an unsustainable imbalance with the demands of the earth’s natural systems.

So what is Free banking?  As the name may suggest to many in the developed world, it is not a lack of monthly charges on a bank account, rather, it is the freedom for banks to compete as issuers of credit and safe keepers of currency in any form.

The Free Lakota Bank - Free Banking in action
The Free Lakota Bank – Free Banking in action

The current slave banking system’s fatal flaw is that it is obligated to issue credit and accept deposits in currencies which are nothing more than debt issued by a Central Bank.  This constraint causes the currency created by the Central Bank to be the basis of all of man’s activities out of a necessity to pay a tax to the government in said currency.

To compound this fatal flaw, the issuing Central Banks actively manipulate the interest rates, which affect the price of the flawed currency and credit, making the value of both the credit and savings of everyone completely subject to the whims of the Central Bank.

If the currency which everyone was working for had been created legitimately by the labor of another man and its price, via the interest rate mechanism, allowed to respond to real supply and demand signals, a natural balance would be struck between credit and savings in society.  This balance would express itself as conservation and eventual increase of the earth’s resources.

However, the currency which everyone is working for is nothing more than a piece of data created by a computer and printed onto a piece of paper and, via the active suppression of the interest rate mechanism, is not allowed to be properly discounted.  As such, all of the labors of man are set towards destroying the earth, turning it into more pieces of paper, and depositing them into a bank in order to close out the credit account created by the computer.

We observed the zeal with which Evo Morales and other revolutionary leaders have implemented reforms by closing down a majority of the ministries of the government almost immediately upon gaining the power to do so.  It is a swift move in which they attempt to consolidate their power.  However, as one studies these cases, they will see that often there was one notable exception that was allowed to continue operating:  The Central Bank.

The Central Bank is often seen as a sacred cow, even by those who vehemently opposite it, on the grounds that the currency and interest rates are too important to day to day life to be to the incapable hands of the people, which is what the concept of Free banking is all about.

However, it is for this very reason, the indispensible role of currency and credit in society, that currency and interest rates CANNOT be left in the hands of any one entity, no matter how much clairvoyance is attributed to them.

No one would argue that grains and fuel are important to everyday life in nearly all the earth.  However, even hard core Marxists would be hard pressed to admit that all peoples would be better off were only one entity given the ability to produce and set the price for either.  As such, it has been proven over and over again that the expansion of the ability to produce such indispensible items not only provides them in sufficient quantities to satisfy demand, it will do so at a price that is more or less tolerable for all (this argument, of course, is null if the price is controlled by a single entity).

While free market proponents are quick to recognize the benefits of the freedom to produce grains, fuels, and healthcare, for example, they become hardcore Marxists when it comes to currency and credit.  What those who fall into this trap fail to realize is that all of the virtues of free markets are worthless if the most basic economic common denominators of currency and credit are not allowed to operate in as nature intended.

Free banking would allow free markets to solve all the problem of scarcity in currency and credit in the most efficient way possible.  Why, then, is Free banking seen as the ultimate boogeyman by those in authority?  It is for one reason and one reason only:

Control of currency and credit represents the ultimate authority in the material world.

While free market reforms can go a long way towards liberating the peoples of the world, the task and to close down the Central Bank and allow both the banks and the people to choose in what currency they will issue credit and maintain their savings.  Far from leading to anarchic chaos, the basic need for exchange and the issuance of credit amongst humans would cause all of society who wished to trade with one another to arrive at a tacit decision as to what is best suited to serve as currency.

While in most cases, this tacit decision has arrived on Gold and Silver, the British and American empires, the most recent examples of empire, grew so wealthy that lesser metals, such as copper, were thrust into use as currency.

As a practical matter, it must be admitted that closing down the Central Bank would be a shock.  For this reason, we look to solutions such as those seen in the actions of Canupa Gluha Mani, the Ithanchan of the Free Lakota Bank, as a path to free banking and the ultimate freedom of the peoples of the world.

The Lakota people declared their freedom from the sovereignty from the Government of the United States government in 2007.  As an important part of this process, they knew that it would be necessary to establish their own monetary system.  Further, they recognized that to simply choose another currency would again make them slaves to the creators of that currency.

To solve this problem, they opened the Free Lakota Bank and adopted what is known as the American Open Currency Standard, which is attempt to return to a balanced system of metallic weights and measures to use as currency which is recognized and traded internationally.

While this may seem now like an impossible step to take, the Peoples of the earth must enjoy free banking if they are to enjoy Liberty, Private Property, and Equality before the law in any meaningful way.  For the lack of options in currencies in favor of the Central Bank’s monopoly on the issue of credit will keep the Peoples of the earth and their governments in the bonds of financial slavery until the Freedom of Banking is restored.

Free banking, by its very nature, does not obligate a people to adopt a currency standard, as the native Lakota people have.  While the most likely outcome of the liberation of the currency and credit markets is for all involved to quickly settle on a new currency standard, it is necessary to guarantee that all Peoples the right to choose which currency they want to hold and to bank in.  This is the only way that man can live in harmony with one another and with the natural world.  This freedom is the spirit of the principle of Free Banking.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for November 2, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.48
Oil Price per Barrel:  $84.86
Corn Price per Bushel:  $7.39
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.73%
FED Target Rate:  0.17%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,677 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  7.9%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.6%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  13,093
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,394,100,000,000
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,168,900,000,000

Our Theory of Economic System Fluidity: Marx and Rand together in perfect harmony

10/22/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

In the realm of economic thought, there are two extremes.  On one end of the spectrum sits the economic equivalent of Karl Marx’s workers’ paradise, known as Socialism.  On the other end sits the economic expression of Ayn Rand’s rugged individualism, known as Capitalism.  As anyone who has studied these philosophical extremes can tell you, the operation of real world seems to constantly fall somewhere in the space between the two, making strict adherence to either an indefensible position.

While apologists for these extreme positions do a wonderful job of explaining why complete adherence to their ideals by all would lead to an utopia on earth, a careful examination of the arguments, along with a quick glance at how things operate in the real world, lead one to conclude thatevidence of both Socialist and Capitalist ideals can be found in nearly any system.

How can this be?  If the extremes are both correct in their reasoning, they msut be mutually exclusive of each other.  However, we look around at the world around us, as well as into the depths of our own souls, and we invariabley find an uncomfortable coexistence of ideals that is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile.

That is, until today.

Our aim today is to reconcile this age old dilemna.  Fret no more, fellow taxpayer, for the answer is simple:  Socialism works for local systems, while large scale systems are best served by embracing Capitalist ideals.

How can this be?  The answer is simple.

Socialism, with its embrace of community property and centralized decision making, is a superior policy for systems until they reach a critical mass.  Socialism unwittingly provides the framework in which society cares for its economically weaker members.  It is a system which is entered into with the understanding that at least a portion of one’s actions will take the form of altruism, that is, they will work for the benefit of others without the expectation of material compensation.  In fact, socialism is the basis for the family unit into which a great deal of humanity enters the world.

Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Given the barbarities which are justified in the name of profit, it can be said that the basis for morality and human decency most frequently occurs in a Socialist setting.  Given the inherent requirement of altruism, Socialism is the system which asks the individual to look beyond themselves.  However, as we touch on later, Socialism on a large scale tends to bring out the worst in human beings, as the inevitable onset of poverty quickly diminishes any moral advantage that small scale Socialism may enjoy.

We digress on the question of morality for a moment and instead submit to you an insightwith regards to the corporate structure.  It is the revelation that Corporations, entities which are held out as the champions of Capitalism, are, in fact, Socialist institutions (the stunned silence is deafening, please do read on, fellow taxpayer, it will make sense, trust us.)

It is for this reason that wages do not fit well into free market pricing mechanism and instead lend themselves to the “Labour theory of value” which is a base concept of Socialist philosophy.

The logical proof is the following:  The employer, employee relationship is based on a set rate per time period of work.  Once it has been agreed upon, the wage rate ceases to adhere to free market theory and bcomes a component of the Labour theory of value.  The top level managers in corporations that employ persons in an employee capacity become the centralized authorities in what is a socialist realm.

Another proof of this can be found in that property, which is held in the name of the Corporation, is cared for and used by employees.  As such, corporate property, as its name would imply, is held in common by subjects who themselves have no property rights in said property.  They may be offered shares in the corporation themselves, but this does not directly effect their day to day use of the Corporation’s (their employer’s) real and personal property.

A majority of human beings today find themselves as part of a Socialist entity of some sort, be it a family, household, corporation, or governmental employer (which, for purposes of analysis, behaves in a similar fashion to a corporation).  It is within these systems that we have most of our day to day interactions.  It is understandable, then, that most people would see a form of Socialism as the basis for a utopian ideal.

However, the members of these same Socialist organizations, the heads of household, CEOs, heads of government, members of Boards of Directors, salespeople, security personnel, customer service agents, and a host of others, well know that the “esprit de corps” which may exist in their organization is thrown aside in their dealings with the outside world.  The outside world, where individual corporations collide, is marked by brutal self interest and the protection of private property rights which are the hallmarks of Capitalism.

What gives?

Capitalism, the system which honors private property rights and glorifies the pursuit of self interest, must be embraced and allowed to operate in an unhindered state as the basis for the interactions between the small scale Socialist systems (families, corporations with employees, and those brave individuals who choose to face the Anarchic system of the world alone.)

Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand

The reason that Capitalism must be embraced by the smaller systems is that its principles, namely the laws of supply and demand and the Golden Rule, must be allowed dictate their day to day activities so that the smaller systems can better adapt and survive in a harsh, unforgiving environment.  To put it another way, Capitalism is a superior response to the Anarchy in which we all find ourselves, whether we are willing to admit it or not.

However, apart from its invaluable contributions to understanding the material world, even hard core Capitalists would agree that blind adherence to the Capitalist creed would not only lead to a trampling of those less fortunate in society, but the potential isolation of the individual from human warmth, feeling, and dare we say, loss of the ability to love.

For all of the virtues of Capitalism, its potential frigidness at the individual level and lack of a clear moral compass make it unpalatable to the majority as an absolute ideal.

So the answer is simple.  Socialism operates on a small scale, Capitalism on a large scale.  Marx asks Rand to dance, she accepts, and the world makes sense.  As the theory of biologos attempts to bring harmony to the polarization of two views of the world’s origins, our theory of economic system fluidity allows the economist and politician to embrace both the virtues of the Socialist ideal as well as the Capitalist economic imperative.

The final question which begs to be asked is the following:  In terms of size, at what point is it appropriate for a system to stop being guided by Socialist principles and to break up into units better able to cope with the Anarchic surroundings, meaning a leap to the Capitalist model, which naturally defines the size limitation of what may be called a functional Socialist system?

While there is no firm answer, it is clear that a Socialist system has reached its limit when it is corporately bankrupt and unable to fulfill its commitments, either morally or financially, to its members.

In the case of the corporation, it must adjust its productive activities and/or release either property or employees into the capitalist system until it finds equilibrium.  The released Employees then find themselves, albeit for a moment, in what may be called the free market for labor.  In it, they will either learn to compete perpetually in the capitalist environment and form their own small scale socialist entity, or link up quickly with another socialist entity, be it another corporation, state welfare, or the generosity of a family unit.

The fact that both families and corporations can accumulate wealth are proof that socialist entities can and do compete and thrive in a world where capitalist thinking and political structures are an imperative.  It is the ability of each unit to adapt to changes and to seize opportunities which makes the difference.

There is much more to say about this but it will have to wait for another day.  We leave you with what should now be obvious.  When Socialism is employed on large scales, it looses both its ability to compete as well as any moral superiority which it may have enjoyed.  When persons are thrust headlong into poverty, which is the logical economic end of large scale Socialism, what were once moral imperatives are tossed aside in pursuit of purely Capitalistic aims in a desperate attempt to eat.

Anyone who has lived such an event will attest that it is in these unfortunate circumstances that the rotten core of humanity is laid bare for all to see.  While unbridled Capitalism has its own faults, which are daily brought to light in the media as a reminder of when it has been allowed to run too far.  It is this consciousness, and the human desire for mercy, which work to keep the evils of Capitalism in check.

The beauty of the theory is that the normal operation of each system keeps the proliferation other in check, any attempts by government or sovereigns to impose or preserve one system over the other will end in disaster.

Rushing to extremes is for fools, for the Kingdom of God is one of perfect balance.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for October 22, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.64
Oil Price per Barrel:  $89.16
Corn Price per Bushel:  $7.61 
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.80%
FED Target Rate:  0.15%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,729 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  7.8%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.6%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  13,345  
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,334,000,000,000
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,199,400,000,000

A Passionate Appeal for a Sidewalk

With the election cycle in full swing, we turn our attention not to the national scene, where two people we will refer to only as BO and MR are bombarding the nation with empty promises in hopes that the dangling chads in November will fall their way, but to more pressing local matters.

Here at The Mint, we recognize that the natural operation of anarchy renders much of what happens at the highest levels of government, which in the US means those seated at the State and Federal levels increasingly irrelevant.  While they have the potential to do great harm, government on a large-scale generally suffers from a form of paralysis which makes their decisions increasingly meaningless to the average Joe.  They have grown to the point where they are nothing more than an amoeba, which at best should be ignored and at worst, actively avoided.

As such, we consider it a great waste of time to obsess over them.

Government at the local level, meaning the City and, more importantly, the County level, has a much greater direct impact on the lives of its constituents.  As such, we see government at the City and County level as absolutely necessary to the smooth functioning of society.  We also present, for your consideration, that participation in government at a local level is not only time well spent, it can be profitable.

A great opportunity to guide public policy at a local level is presented frequently at events that are generally referred to as requests for public comment.  While in some cases, these events are held to give an air of legitimacy to an already planned action, some of them present a grand opportunity to sway local policy and public resource investment decisions.  Given this grand opportunity, it may come as a surprise that these events are often overlooked, even by those who would be directly affected by the action being considered.

For your perusal and enjoyment, we present the following example of yours truly taking advantage of such an opportunity presented by our County’s Minor Betterment Project Committee.

Each year, the committee is presented with a list of potential minor public works projects which have been vetted by overpaid consultants and assigned a ranking based on a point system which is theoretically designed by the consultant to capture potential public benefit of a project in a tidy little number.

This is like the BCS for your tax dollars, and, as any NCAA coach knows, it never hurts to lobby your case, especially when the voting is tight.

We recently found out that a much-needed improvement project, one that could modestly increase our property value, had made the “Top 20” of the latest version of the public works BCS.

Pompeii Sidewalk by Paul Vlaar
The ancients had sidewalks, why can’t we? photo of sidewalks in Pompeii by Paul Vlaar

Like any good coach, we picked up our digital writing implement and began to lobby for our own, local, pet project.  The result of this activity is what we call “A Passionate Appeal for a Sidewalk,” a transcript of which follows:

As both a property owner and frequent pedestrian of this stretch of Madison Road, I can attest to the large-scale safety hazard that the lack of a pedestrian walkway on this stretch of road presents daily.  Not only to the school children who wait for the bus on the thoroughfare during the morning, but all manner of pedestrians, bicyclists, school bus drivers, and vehicle operators who daily traverse it.  Were it not for the vigilance of the drivers on this stretch of road, this perilous route would no doubt be the site of a lamentable tally of traffic fatalities.

For those who have not seen it, Madison road is narrow and increasingly relied upon by all manner of commuters (pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists) during rush hours.  During these peak times, it is commonplace to see cars nearly miss a head on collision with each other as they make a noble attempt to give way for pedestrians (a majority of which are school children) who literally have no choice but to walk along the 12 inch border of the existing roadway alloted to them.  Alternative routes for this pedestrian trail are far enough away to that they are not viable options, and, as we mentioned before, pedestrian traffic on this stretch of road continues to increase.

While the sidewalk project proposed to remedy this dangerous situation is the most expensive on the list, and can hardly be considered minor, the money spent will likely spare a tragedy involving the dangerous mix of vehicles and school children which is present every day of the school year.  If the goal of these projects is to increase the safety of the community, this project has perhaps the greatest potential to do just that.  In a sense, it is long overdue.

We, your neighbors along this deceptively dangerous stretch of Madison road, appreciate the committee’s attention to this matter.

What do you think, will our impassioned plea sway the committee to divert funds into our pet project?  We should know by late October whether or not ours comes out on top.  Either way, civic involvement, on a local level, is necessary given the proximity of the governing body.  While the body and budget itself is small, its potential to wreak havoc on your everyday life is too big to ignore, just ask anyone who has found themselves on the wrong end of a dispute with an activist home owners association board.

As for the State and Federal versions of Government, in their late, degenerate, bankrupt form they can do little more than create the illusion of watching your every move and controlling the details of your life.  Despite their large-scale propaganda and their presence at the airport gate, they are mostly harmless.  Your impassioned pleas and time spent informing yourself on issues are best spent at the local level.

Who knows?  You may even save a life or make the world a better place, all while increasing your property value at the government’s expense.

It is the closest thing to Nirvana that the governed can experience.

 

The anarchic, feminine genius of Mary Kay’s sales structure

8/24/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

We recently attended a Mary Kay event for the first time with our better half and were astounded by the simple genius of this amazing organization.  For starters, the products are terrific and, by most counts sell themselves.  From Satin Hands to the revolutionary TimeWise Repair, there is simply no better way to keep one’s skin soft, smooth, and younger looking.

Yet the true genius of this world class organization lies in what we call its anarchic, open source sales structure.  It is a structure that not only appeals to feminine tastes, but ensures an optimum sales force which manages and promotes itself.

How do they achieve this?

First and foremost, when the founder Mary Kay Ash set out to create her dream company, She consulted Accounting firms, Management consultants, Human resource experts, and MBAs of the day with business plan.  As legend has it, every one of them told her it would not work.  Mary Kay had simply examined what she liked about her direct sales experience with other companies as well as her needs as a woman and mother and created a place where literally anyone has the opportunity to succeed and advance in the sales structure.

It is the sort of thing that is difficult for those with advanced degrees and professional credentials to grasp.

As we now know, Mary Kay Ash didn’t listen to them.  As a result, working for the company can be a woman’s dream.  It emphasizes, relationships, beauty, goal setting, self improvement, and recognition.  It is literally a sisterhood of like minded individuals driving the vehicle (the sales structure) that Mary Kay Ash gave them to achieve their dreams and help encourage others to do so along the way.

Mary Kay offers the chance for all those who are interested to become a retailer of their world class product offering.  For a nominal fee, which amounts to the production cost of the products included in the starter kit, anyone who is interested can become a Mary Kay Consultant.  Establishing this relationship gives the consultant the right to order products at the wholesale price, which is 50% of the suggested retail price of the products.  This is in line with what one would expect a small scale retail markup to be in any line of business.

In order to maintain the right to order products at wholesale pricing, the consultant must maintain a minimum order volume over the course of each three month period.

The next part of the structure which we will explore is the tiered referral commission structure.  This is the part of the structure where those consultants who have actively recruited other consultants can naturally move up the ladder and begin collecting a portion of the sales of those whom they have recruited.

The structure is simple and works in the following way.  The consultant who is responsible for signing on a new Mary Kay consultant has the right to receive a commission of up to 26% on the new consultant’s sales.  This 26% may be shared amongst three tiers of consultants depending upon the receiving consultant’s level.

It is important to note that this commission does not impact the selling consultant’s 50% take on sales, rather, it is paid by the company (technically, the customers via the company).  We can imply, then, that the Mary Kay Corporation, who is the manufacturer, must produce their products and cover their overhead for 24% of the suggested retail price in order to break even.

Selling Mary Kay cosmetics is not a get rich quick scheme.  It is a real company selling real products where, in sharp contrast to jobs in the government or financial industries, six figure incomes must be earned.  According to one statistic, roughly one in 2,000 consultants will attain a six figure income from their annual sales activities.

Mary Kay Pink Anarchist Flag
The Mary Kay Pink Anarchist Flag, and homage to Mary Kay’s anarchic sales structure

And therein lies the anarchic genius of the Mary Kay structure, it gives literally everyone a shot at working to attain said six figure income, which cannot be said of many jobs out there.  The barriers to entry are practically nil and sales training is freely available in most cities from fellow consultants, who naturally stand to benefit from the overall success of their fellow consultants.  The only limitations placed on the consultant are the time, energy, and ingenuity that they are willing to put into the endeavour.

The genius of the Mary Kay structure is furthered in that the commission and the sales leadership structures allow for advancement in almost direct correlation to the of effort and ingenuity of the individual consultant.  For the most part, there are no administrative barriers to income advancement, and at any point the consultant can choose to attempt to increase their income by increasing their efforts towards product sales or towards recruiting a team and supporting their team’s efforts at product sales.

It is the entrepreneur’s dream, and it appears to work as the founder, Mary Kay Ash, intended it.  The sales structure of Mary Kay allows the manufacturer to harness the anarchy in which we all live to maximize the sales potential of their considerable product offering.

The secret to success in any income earning endeavour is self determination (being one’s own boss) and working one’s tail off.  Mary Kay provides the tools and gives the consultant the first part of the equation from the outset.  Results and advancement are then determined by the initiative of the consultants themselves.

Starting one’s own business can be a hard, thankless, and sometimes losing proposition, especially during the first few years when the proprietor is learning the ropes and testing what works and what does not.  In Mary Kay, as with anything in life, there is no guarantee of success if one gives it a run, but there is a guarantee of failure if one does not try.

Even if one has no need for skin care products, it is impossible not to admire the anarchic genius of Mary Kay’s sales structure, for it is a microcosm of organic economic activity as nature intended it.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for August 24, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.46
Oil Price per Barrel:  $96.07
Corn Price per Bushel:  $8.02
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.68%
FED Target Rate:  0.13%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,671 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  8.3%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.0%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  13,173
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,262,700,000,000
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,058,800,000,000

How Anarchy shapes the US Presidency and Foreign Policy

George Friedman delivers another excellent analysis in his Geopolitical Weekly report on the limits, both explicit and implicit, of the power of the US Presidency.

He further analyzes how the choice to intervene or not in foreign conflicts is seen as simply a choice between maintaining the balance of power in the world via a series of minor conflicts or via a large scale conflict ala WWI and WWII.

Like the large black locust tree in our yard which fell over the weekend, you choose to either trim it along the way or wait for it to come crashing down.

In the end, the US President is subject to forces well beyond their control, just like the rest of us.  While ascribing omnipotence to the office may help those who cannot accept the reality of anarchy to sleep at night, it does little to change the relative impotence of the one that holds it.

Mr Friedman’s complete report can be seen here via Stratfor:

The Election, the Presidency and Foreign Policy

Is Atheism with regards to Government going Mainstream?

7/12/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

We recently subscribed to Gary North’s latest project, a site called “The Tea Party Economist.”  To be clear, we have no political interest nor affiliation.  It is our feeling that government, in its current state, is best ignored and avoided rather than confronted.  It will go away on its own.

To draw on a well known analogy, the Tea Party, like the Republican and Democratic parties, are all fighting for control of the steering wheel of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.  Rather than fight it out on the control deck, we at The Mint realize that the only ones who survived the Titanic were those who found a lifeboat or other means to stay afloat.

Despite our distaste for all things political, we respect Mr. North and have greatly enjoyed and benefited from what he shares.  We suspect that the use of “Tea Party” is more of an attempt to attract his target audience than any endorsement of the Tea Party.

Today, Mr. North shared an article at Forbes which made us gasp.  It was written by Jerry Bowyer and as we read through it, one thought passed through our mind:  Has our manner of thinking really gone mainstream?

Mr. Bowyer points out a number of examples of a general decline in voluntary compliance with things the government increasingly uses its superior force to mandate, such as taxes and environmental laws.  The irony is that as a government’s power grab via rules and regulations accelerates, voluntary compliance, from which all forms of government derive their power, declines.

If Mr. Bowyer is correct, then it would appear that Americans are taking the idea of Atheism with regards to government to heart.

It is clear, yet seldom acknowledged, that the absence of voluntary compliance is the most effective type of revolution which can be waged.

Mr. Bowyer also makes an important distinction.  The lack of voluntary compliance is not a form of civil disobedience or act of aggression towards a government.  Rather, it is the conscious choice to stop believing in the government and live one’s life as if it does not exist as anything more than a lethal nuisance to be avoided.  Mr. Bowyer eloquently describes this phenomenon via an amoeba metaphor:

Amoeba Government
Amoeba Ordinatio

“It’s not civil disobedience that I’m talking about. It’s the opposite:  Civil disobedience is meant to be noticed. It is a price paid in the hope of creating social change. What I’m talking about is not based on hope; in fact, it has given up much hope on social change. It thinks the government is a colossal amoeba twitching mindlessly in response to tiny pinpricks of pain from an endless army of micro-brained interest groups. The point is not to teach the amoeba nor to guide it, but simply to stay away from the lethal stupidity of its pseudopods.”

“The amoeba does not get smarter but it does get hungrier and bigger. On the other hand, we get smarter. More and more of our life takes place outside of the amoeba’s reach: in the privacy of our own homes, or in capital accounts in other nations, or in the fastest growing amoeba avoidance zone ever created, cyberspace. We revolt decision by decision, transaction by transaction, because we believe deep down that most of what government tells us to do is at bottom illegitimate.”

You can read the entire article here at Forbes.com:

July 4th Question, Part III: Americans Revolt Billions of Times a Day

Everyday, more and more people are recognizing the insanity of attempting to comply with the onslaught of rules and regulations which allegedly protect them against others.  They are realizing that the Rules are building a prison in which they themselves are incarcerated.

We conclude today’s Mint with a quote from Ayn Rand which seems appropriate when considering an amoeba like government:

“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.”

While we may have no confidence in government, we make up for it in an abundance of faith in God and our fellow men and women.  Are you ready to come out of Babylon?

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for July 12, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.43
Oil Price per Barrel:  $85.76
Corn Price per Bushel:  $7.71
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.48%
FED Target Rate:  0.17%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,571 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  8.2%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  -0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  12,573
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,367,500,000,000
M2 Monetary Base:  $9,963,900,000,000

Spain, Inc., the latest proof of Anarchy in action, an Impromptu Manifesto

6/11/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

When we attended graduate school in Spain, we were the first North American student in our course.  It was late 2003 and the Eurozone was full of optimism.  This optimism lead some of the professors to use a portion of their class time taunt the US model as failed and the European model as the obvious way forward.

As proof of European supremacy, our Finance professor often made a point of mentioning to us that the yields on the Spanish 10yr bond were almost the equivalent to the yields on the US 10yr bond.

What a difference nine years and 500 basis points make.

Circa 2012, Spain dominates the financial headlines as the latest casualty of the European debt crisis.  Apparently Spain now is in need of a bailout.  The bailout strategy which will be employed by Spain, Inc. is a hybrid of the prior bailouts accepted by their counterparts, Greece, Inc. and Ireland, Inc.

Greece, Inc. required a bailout because its government was broke.  Ireland, Inc. was slightly more ingenious in that it made a good faith effort to backstop its banks, only to find that it was now the entity which required a backstop.  Spain, Inc, theoretically learning from both experiences, forced its banks to accept the backstop directly so that the Spanish government could save face and be spared the humiliation of the Irish scenario.

Unfortunately, the markets have seen through the charade and are now putting pressure on all bonds, bank or sovereign, which hail from the Iberian Peninsula.

What a difference nine years and 500 basis points make!

Spain’s strategy has failed before it was even implemented for lack of collateral and credibility, both of which are in desperately short supply amongst the EU leadership.

How did once proud Europe end up in this situation?  They decided to force a debt based currency integration by integrating only the currency part of the equation and leaving the debt and fiscal matters to chance.

As if choosing to use a debt based currency weren’t bad enough, choosing only to implement the currency is like handing the nations foolish enough to engage in such a gamble the revolver in a game of Russian roulette where the revolver is fully loaded.

Now, the revolver is being passed and it is Spain’s turn.  Once Spain slumps to the floor, it is Italy’s turn, the Belgium, France, etc. until the European Currency Union, doomed from its outset, breathes its last.

At some point in the process, possibly as Spain pulls the trigger, USA, Inc. will be forced to step in with the “ultimate” backstop, the final hope of the failed, insane “debt is money” currency regime.  As the US throws its sovereign credit rating in front of the runaway freight train of Europe’s soveriegns, it will quickly find itself in the very situation that it is trying to save the European Sovereigns from.

For in this debt crisis, the unwritten rule of quality holds.  When one adds wine to sewage, one gets sewage.  When one adds sewage to wine, one gets sewage.  The sovereign vats have long since been polluted.  It might make sense to check one’s portfolio and remove as much sewage as possible.

Beyond that, we will present two unsolicited yet practical bits of advice.  First, US Bonds will ultimately slide as USA, Inc. wades across the pond to aid Europe.  The Euro currency will rally as the run on European banks by the citizens and the wholesale dumping of any bond denominated in the currency begins.  Quite simply, demand for the Euro will exceed supply in the short term.

Plan accordingly.

We submit to you that the Spain, Inc. debacle is further evidence of one of The Mint’s central themes, that Anarchy is man’s reality, it is an ultimate given, it simply is, and all understanding of the current political and social structures is greatly facilitated by one’s acceptance of this fact.

In fact, one’s ability to act and react to the unfolding changes in the current political and social structures depends upon accepting and embracing Anarchy as the basis for reality and learning to operate in the Truly Capitalistic system which organically emerges as men learn anew that mutual trust and cooperation are in their rightly understood self interests, and that he who is to lead must truly become the servant of all.

To truly embrace this fact, we must understand the nature of mankind.  Man, left to his own devices, is completely devoid of the ability to do the right thing.  He doesn’t have it in him.  He is lazy, self-serving, and completely evil.  He needs God and his fellow man to be able to do anything productive, altruistic, or what may be considered remotely good.  A full defense of this statement is a subject for another day (although the evidence is all around us), we mention it here only to underscore the necessity of a framework which presupposes this fact within which mankind can use this weakness to avoid both self and mutual destruction.

The only reliable framework which has emerged out of natural Anarchy which not only addresses the problem of human nature, but also turn man’s weaknesses into strengths is what we call True Capitalism.  Ironically, by allowing market forces to work with as little hindrance as possible, mankind can insulate itself from descending into chaos and catastrophe.

In fact, to fight the workings of True Capitalism is, by default, to submit oneself to chaos and misery.  Yet every nation on the planet is devoted to some degree in the fight against True capitalism.  Why?  Because the nation state sells itself as the most perfect expression of man’s good intentions, which we presuppose do not exist.  In other words, the dream of the nation state is built on a false pretense that is usually attributed to socialism: That man is inherently good and wants to do good to others.

Given their presuppositions, is it clear that the nation state and a truly capitalistic society are, in fact, the antithesis of one another.  Where a nation state regulates by edict,  truly capitalistic society regulates by example.  Where a nation state is rigid, where  truly capitalistic society is pliable.  Hence, where  truly capitalistic society will bend but not break, the nation state is repeatedly smashed to pieces when faced with change.

For the more a nation state tries to force men to do good, the more mankind’s character flaws will overtake these good intentions until the nation state becomes an expression of mankind’s evil nature.

The truly capitalistic society allows each mans evil nature to be corrected by allowing him to experience the consequences of his inherently poor behavior, paradoxically and naturally improving the behavior and norms of all.

Moving to a less philosophical level, how can we be sure that Anarchy is the basis of man’s current existence?  The evidence can be found in that the institutions which supposedly offer the best option to Anarchy, the nation states if the world, are beginning to succumb to the punishments they have built up in their losing fight against natural law.

Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and now Spain, Inc. are now succumbing to the inevitable.  The member of club med which turns from the failure of the Euro currency to go it alone and embrace the much feared “Anarchy,” as it were, paradoxically stands to be richly rewarded by the flocks of tourists who can suddenly afford a European vacation without the Euro.

We conclude with a brief manifesto for your perusal and enjoyment.  What does the future hold?

Out of Anarchy, a Truly Capitalistic System will ORGANICALLY emerge, and with it a new dawn for humanity, built on mutual interest and almost endless capital formation which will engender a spontaneous and dynamic social order, a society without borders that would enjoy freedom and prosperity that we cannot even imagine under current conditions.

Believe.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for June 11, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.35
Oil Price per Barrel:  $81.49

Corn Price per Bushel:  $5.92
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.60%
FED Target Rate:  0.16%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,596 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  8.2%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.0%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  12,411

M1 Monetary Base:  $2,306,000,000,000
M2 Monetary Base:  $9,790,100,000,000

Anarchy: Atheism with regards to government – Part III – The Test

6/4/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

A colleague from our grad school days in Barcelona recently contacted us from Madrid with an exciting project he and a partner are developing.  As such, we are unwittingly trying our hand at the emergent Natural Cosmetics Market.

While Spain and Europe in general appear to be falling apart at the seams, his company is experiencing a boom.  As with most smaller enterprises, all it lacks is some well guided investment to transform this mini-boom into a supersonic boom.  “El Empujon”, we call it.  The big push to get them over the hump, to open new markets, scale production, and create countless jobs in the value chain.

It is just this sort of thing that Governments in the West espouse in word but make nearly impossible in deed.

While the products are all natural, they may be subject to FDA approvals.  Then, once the governmental hurdles are cleared, we face a fiercely competitive market where access to the final consumer is tightly controlled by what amounts to a monopoly or at best, an oligarchy, in the cosmetics world.  Then there are patents, customs, and any number of mines in the field which must be avoided or diffused to successfully bring the products to market.

How shall The Mint attack this Goliath?  We are working on a strategy, which we call, the “Heart of the Beast.”  The details of which, for obvious reasons, we shall keep a well guarded secret for the moment.

More on this to come.

In our last correspondence, we presented a hypothesis for dealing with government.  Now, we must move the hypothesis down a level.  How, then would one test the hypothesis by embracing anarchy, or atheism with regards to government, in a place like Oregon?

Oregon is a State which places a relatively large amount of faith in its political system and, by extension, the power of the government to solve social problems. 

The approach seems to work for most.  The territory is home to an abundance of natural resources and a great number of people who are willing to go along with the government’s program.  In these conditions, the idea and mechanisms of government are tolerated and to an extent championed, for it is possible to live in Oregon and enjoy a relatively high standard of living despite the waste inherent in governmental activities.

Disarming the State is as simple as changing and then using one's mind

However, one can only wonder as to what may be possible here in the great Northwest were the government not to hyper regulate every industry or confiscate 9% of the wages earned by those who labor in its borders (on top of the roughly 21% that the Federal government lays claim to).

Is the average citizen better off living on 70% of his wages?  Or, put another way, does the average citizen derive enough benefit from being “governed” that he or she would value it at roughly one third of his or her income?

There are burning questions, fellow taxpayer, that every citizen would do well to ask themselves from time to time.  If the mechanism of government were to go away, or be reduced to the spheres where it paradoxically does add value to the economy (note that, were this the case, it would technically cease to be government and become yet another capitalistic enterprise operating in the anarchic surroundings), would it not hold that everyone, including those who work in the unproductive areas of government, would be better off on a relative basis?

The answer, of course, is yes, unless one finds themselves in a position which relies upon the government being able to confiscate a certain amount of resources or the privileges which the mechanism of government may grant them.

However, even this minority would be better off once they adjusted to the reality of life without the idea of government.

What about the Disaster aid, Police and Fire Departments?  Aren’t they at least necessary?

Of course they are!  And for that very reason, private organizations would quickly spring up to fill these vital roles.  In fact, they already exist.  They are commonly known as Security and Insurance companies.  In Anarcho-Capitalist theory, the array of companies which would arise are called “Private Defense Agencies.”  Anyone skeptical about what would arise in a purely anarchic system to replace functions currently delegated to the Nation State is encouraged to study this theory.

For in some ways, the Nation State is simply an over diversified and poorly run Private Defense Agency.

As with any failing capitalistic entity, when a Nation State has gone from being a servant of the people to active enslavement, its lack of popularity invariably shows up in its deteriorating financial condition.  This fact alone is proof that Anarchy is the context in which the Nation States of the world today act and operate.  On this basis alone it is proper to constantly question the relevancy of the State with regards to its utility against viable alternatives.

Yet despite the failure and bankruptcy of nearly all of the Nation States that have existed and the presence of well developed theories which offer alternatives to these failures, the mechanism of the Nation State remains in place and retains for itself a monopolistic power over defense, welfare, as well as the right to generally meddle in all of the affairs of its subjects at whim.

When living within geographical boundaries of a failing Nation State, it is wise to be prepared to live as if it did not exist, which means that functions vital for one’s existence must be secured by the individual or a cooperative independant of the failing Nation State, for it has been observed throughout history that the authorities of a failing Nation State have a tendency to pillag…we mean, relieve their subjec…we mean, citizens, of their means of sustenance by the most expedient means available.

What is the most expedient means possible?  If the Nation State controls the money supply, they simply print money and acquire resources, which is more the rule than the exception circa 2012.

Once a Nation State has begun to relieve their citizens of their wealth in this way, it is possible that those who understand what is going on will convince all to resist by way of armed conflict.  However, this is rarely effective, for it tends to replace one form of tyranny with another.  These methods rely upon might to make right, which most thinking persons are keenly aware is a losing proposition.

Persons and Nation States, especially those that are desperate and have resorted to robbery, rarely give up their arms willingly or peacefully, so it is up to the individual to peacefully disarm it.  This is best done by using a tactic that is not coincidentally very effective against the school yard bully.

Avoidance.

How can one do this?  For practical purposes, we have compiled a brief list of steps which one could take to avoid and thereby peacefully resist a Nation State which has failed:

1.  Money, trade what you want to:  Conduct trade in a currency other than the one used to pay the tax.  For it is proper to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.  While it may be inconvenient at first to trade using alternative currencies, one may find that it is often not obligatory to use Caesar’s money.

2.  Rely on Common sense:  Ignore laws and excessive regulations and respect the free will of those you work with.  If someone is willing to work for you for less than minimum wage, allow them to work, do not deprive them of a job to comply with an arbitrary wage set by a bureaucrat.  Make no conscious distinction between contract workers and employees, for both are freely performing work.

3.  An important caveat to this is to not brag about flouting unreasonable laws and regulations.  Assume that if you are breaking a legitimate labor law, for example, both you and the employee will know of it and have dealt with it long before the government will deal with it.  It is the false hope that government is regulating untenable working conditions that gives rise to untenable working conditions in the first place.

4.  Come out of Babylon:  If you live in a place where the microscope of government regulation is unavoidable, move until you can freely live a safe distance from it.

5.  Cross borders:  If language is not a barrier and your trade or profession is not location specific, there should be no resistance from either government to crossing national borders in search of better opportunities, for all stand to benefit from this.

6.  Sell what consumers want, not what the government allows you to sell.  The greatest test of a product (food included) is public opinion.  Government approval of products, like labor laws tend to give the population a false sense of security.

As we have stated above, if the Nation State’s intentions are pure and in harmony with Natural Law, there should be no resistance from them to an individual who chooses to take these steps.

If, on the other hand, the bankrupt Nation State begins to pass and enforce laws against these actions, restricting freedom and by default, trade, in a vain effort to pillage its subjects to pay the politicians’ debts, it then shows itself to be predatory.

Anyone who has attempted to take any the steps above has likely encountered some sort of resistance to taking these actions.  What may come as a surprise is that the resistance may not have come directly from the government itself, for the government of a failing Nation State, or any Nation State for that matter, does not have the resources to enforce all of the rules that they put on the books.

Rather, resistance, more often than not, comes from well meaning but misguided fellow citizens who are unwittingly trained by the government’s education system to deter these brave souls on the questionable moral basis of simply obeying the rules, no matter how unreasonable they may be.

What these well intentioned citizens fail to realize is that the rules make slaves of everyone.

Is it possible to live in a Nation State as if it did not exist?  It is as simple as changing and then using one’s mind.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

 

Key Indicators for June 4, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.34

Oil Price per Barrel:  $84.16

Corn Price per Bushel:  $5.68

10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.72%

FED Target Rate:  0.16%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,618

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25% AWAY WE GO!

Unemployment Rate:  8.2%

Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.0%

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,101

M1 Monetary Base:  $2,232,800,000,000

M2 Monetary Base:  $9,820,900,000,000

Anarchy: Atheism with regards to government – Part II – On the Legitimacy of and belief in Government

5/23/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

“I am an atheist with regards to the world’s government, for I have chosen to live in the Kingdom of God”

Yesterday at The Mint, we took quite a ride through Portland’s plastic bag ban, bisacksuality, the virtues of non-violent protest, anarchy, atheism, and the imaginary construct of government. 

If you missed it, we encourage you to give it a read as it will aid greatly in understanding today’s installment.  Of course, if your prefer to jump cold turkey into today’s Mint, by all means, carry on.

And onward we must toil, for this is exceedingly important.

Yesterday we offered that the best way to test the legitimacy of government, that is, its right to govern, would be to simply live as if the government did not exist and see where resistance came from. 

If resistance were to come from a solid majority, then that would lend credence to the necessity of government.  If resistance were to appear in the form of a minority relying on an imaginary framework to create and enforce a series of rules, imposed by one group on other groups in order to gain or maintain an unearned privilege, the legitimacy of the government should be questioned.

Not the legitimacy of those who are governing at the time, mind you, rather, the legitimacy of the apparatus which allows such rule by the minority at the expense of the majority. 

For if a majority would be materially better off by simply shedding the illusion of government, why does the idea of government persist? 

Here at The Mint, we understand that the idea of government and its companion, central banking, have risen as mans’ collective response to help him deal with his anarchic surroundings.

Let’s face it, it is nice to sleep at night with the idea that someone is watching over us and our assets.  Even more comfort may be found in the idea that, were something to happen to ourselves or our assets, we would probably still be taken care of.

Yet these same promises are also the promises of the Almighty God!  Why, then, if one were to believe in the God of the Bible, would it make sense to attribute the power of God to a government which is by definition an assembly of fallible men?

The answer, most would say, is that God is unseen, while men, while they may be fallible, can be observed to be acting.   This logic is clear.  Some may even take it a step further and claim that the government is God’s agent to provide protection and provision to His people.  There is certainly support for this idea in scripture.  However, it is important to watch how the men act before blindly ascribing supernatural powers to them.

In the case of government, the confiscation of n

The irony is this: To be an Atheist is to be an Anarchist, and to be an Anarchist is to live in the Kingdom of God

early 30% of a person’s income, which is what the average American may expect to pay in the form of Federal, State, and Local taxes, does not exactly fit with most peoples idea of the preservation of assets, nor does the idea of restricting the ability of one to own a weapon fit with the preservation of one’s life.

Yet it is clearly stated in the Bible that he who trusts in God shall be both protected and provided for.

How can this paradox be reconciled?  For it is one thing to deny the existence of the unseen God.  It is quite another to deny the existence of God on one hand, and on the other assign the attributes of the non existent God to an entity which consistently operates in a manner contrary to the self interest and freedom of the individual, which presumably would be the reason that an individual would deny the existence of God in the first place.

For the sake of consistency, then, the professing atheist must be a professing anarchist as well.  If not, one would be at a minimum inconsistent and possbily insane to assent to most if not all of the actions of the government, for the sacrifices required by most governments on the earth far exceed those requested of humanity by the Living God.

Those who know God, on the other hand, would be inconsistent were they to declare that God is their provider and protector and then eschew what God asks of them in favor of fulfilling a requirement imposed upon them by the government when the two come into conflict with each other.

So what gives?  Is it possible to be an atheist with regards to the world’s governments without living in defiance of nor toiling against them?  Is it possible to simply deal with the inconveniences which appear as a result of a large part of the world’s population acting upon the belief that the government really exists?

In other words, is it possible to live in the world but not be of the world, as the apostle Paul alluded to?  For to do so is to choose to live in the Kingdom of God.

The only way to know for sure is for both the atheist and the believer to peacefully and actively test the hypothesis of a government’s legitimacy by living their lives as if the government did not exist, and then patiently wait and see where any resistence to their chosen way of life came from.

Aslong as they are not stealing from of hurting anyone, they should be just fine, right? 

More to come.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

 Key Indicators for May 23, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.45

Oil Price per Barrel:  $90.37

Corn Price per Bushel:  $6.03

10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.72%

FED Target Rate:  0.16%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,561

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25% AWAY WE GO!

Unemployment Rate:  8.1%

Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.0%

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,496

M1 Monetary Base:  $2,233,100,000,000

M2 Monetary Base:  $9,836,900,000,000

Anarchy – Atheism with regards to government – Part I

5/22/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

There are certain questions which one encounters in everyday life which demand a shocking answer.

For example, the everyday grocery bagging inquiry “Would you like paper or plastic?” can be responded to with the customary preference.  This is the routine response and requires no creativity whatsoever.

A prepared, slightly creative individual may think outside of the box and have their response prepared.  “I don’t need a bag, I’ve brought my own,” which is interpreted to mean “I am saving the earth and thereby reject your greedy corporate attempt to deliberately pollute it by rudely offering me an already manufactured bag for my own convenience.”

Then there is the creative genius, the one who rises above the imaginary philosophical bickering and takes what is given to them while at the same time disarming the mythical compulsion which the slightly creative person above felt threatened by.  What is their shocking response to this common question?

“I’ll take either one, I’m bisacksual.”

In the same way, when approached with the somewhat common question posed by an eager petitioner “are you registered to vote?”  One can give the standard yes or no answer which the question requires.

The slightly creative person may turn the question into an opportunity to share their point of view.  “That depends, what is the issue?”  Depending upon the issue, they may either wholeheartedly lend their support and sign the petition or engage in a lengthy debate about the error in supporting the proposed legislation.

Enter the creative genius, as in the grocery check-out line, they rise above the imaginary philosophical bickering about what the government should or shouldn’t require everyone to do and at the same time disarm the mythical compulsion which caused the slightly creative person to enter into a lengthy and meaningless debate.  What, then, is their shocking response to this common question?

“I’m an atheist with regards to government.”

This is dedicated to the creative geniuses.

At the moment, we are residing in Oregon, where plastic bags are frowned upon to the point that the City of Portland passed an ordinance intended to reduce the use of them.  The result is that large retailers in Portland are now one sack outlets, which not only clashes with Portland’s tendency towards plurality in any number of spheres, it has noticeably diminished the quality of the paper sacks available.

The great irony in the ban on bisacksuality is that the same people seen at City Hall protesting the “forced” use of plastic bags are likely to be the same ones who will chain themselves to a tree when the increased demand for paper sacks resulting from this action (the butterfly effect, if you will) leads to the acceleration in the destruction of rainforests in the Amazon.

On the bright side, the plastic bag ban and resulting plea to save the rainforests should combine to help Oregon’s ailing lumber industry in the short term.

Yet all of this nonsense about plastic bags, the rejection of bisacksual Portlanders, and backdoor stimulation of the Oregon lumber industry serves to illustrate the effects that government actions have on the population and industry.

As Henry Hazlitt astutely observed in his classic “Economics in one lesson,” actions taken by governments have the exact opposite long term effect on reality as that which was intended.  For this reason alone, all government mandates must be met with suspicion.

Yet none of these government actions and the resulting imbalances would be possible without an unwavering faith in the government on the part of the people, which is why the only hope for the world to escape the crazy cycles inherent in placing faith in the government is for the populace to become not militant, but agnostic towards the actions of their government as they would a well intentioned but clumsy sidekick.

Take the example of Portland’s plastic bag ban.  Were the disenfranchised bisacksual population of Portland to violently oppose the plastic bag police (which, most certainly, do not exist), they would be wasting their time and resources only to perpetuate a system which promises nothing more but endless power struggles and the short lived thrill of victory or agony of defeat.

Even if bisackuality were to be legalized, no sooner would the ink be dry on the new ordinance than would a band of sacktivist warriors covered in plastic armor be organizing to take back their right to a paper only Portland.  The bisacksuals would then organize and revolt, etc.

To be clear, we have no strong feelings one way or the other on the sack issue, we have merely chosen to shamelessly embellish upon the theme in order to make a larger point.

The point is that militancy breeds militancy, and violence breeds violence.  Ghandi, and more recently Martin Luther King, understood that long term, permanent change could never come about by force of arms.  Rather, they understood that the only way to test whether or not an idea was true or simply temporary public opinion was to live in peaceful defiance of the idea and tolerate whatever opposition they met with.

In the case of King, the good reverend was thrust into the civil rights battle in the Southern US.  For those who may be unfamiliar with this piece of history, we will oversimplify it by saying that there were rules in the South which demanded that African Americans sit in the back of the bus.

Rosa Parks and thousands of other African Americans began to put this rule to the test, not by petitioning the powers that be for permission to sit in front of the bus, but rather, by sitting in front of the bus as if the rule did not exist.

Would some supernatural force come and move her to the back?  Or would those who used the rule to gain privilege for themselves be the ones who would force her to the back of the bus or even deny her entry onto the bus in the first place?

The creative geniuses amongst us already know the answer.

The deeper question which must be addressed, then, is not whether or not each individual rule is necessary, but rather, is a government which imposes rules and forces those effected to put them the test, a necessity?  Or is it merely an imaginary framework to erect a series of rules which are imposed by one group on other groups in order to gain or maintain an unearned privilege?

The only valid way to test this theory would be for one was to live their life as if the government did not really exist.  What if one were to test this theory not by withdrawing from the government or fighting to change it, for both courses of action would be to acknowledge its existence, but by simply deciding not to believe in it?

In other words, what if one decided to stop attributing power to the government by simply changing their own mind about its existence and acting accordingly?  What if the simplest path to freedom were to become a peaceful Anarchist?  An atheist with regards to government, as it were?

These questions must burn until another day.  Please share your thoughts below, as we are intrigued.

More tomorrow…

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for May 22, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.53

Oil Price per Barrel:  $91.67

Corn Price per Bushel:  $5.97

10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.79%

FED Target Rate:  0.16%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,568

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25% AWAY WE GO!

Unemployment Rate:  8.1%

Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.0%

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,503

M1 Monetary Base:  $2,233,100,000,000

M2 Monetary Base:  $9,836,900,000,000