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.
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!
Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com
Key Indicators for June 4, 2012
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25% AWAY WE GO!
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,101
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