What is Wrong With the People.
First, there is plenty of reason for hope, so don’t despair, but …
Something is wrong with the people, who seem increasingly partisan, ignorant, apathetic, dishonest, evasive, cowardly, hypocritical, passive aggressive, insecure, conformist, closed minded, irrational, illogical, and unprincipled. Perhaps most obvious is the increase in cognitive dissonance, but the entirety of the character devolution of the people should be really obvious to any American who has lived long enough. I first noticed it during the Clinton Administration, but the root cause actually started long before that and merely took a rather obvious leap under Clinton.
A lifetime of experience has taught me that just about everyone has the potential for the dark side as well as the potential for nobility. Both impulses are in our genes, but something in our environment is favoring the dark side. We are evolving in that direction. More specifically, we are being bred.
First, let’s identify the rather obvious trends that motivate us to find a cause. Then, we will learn how they all have the same root cause:
- Physical health problems are growing exponentially.
(i.e. infertility, cancer, autism, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and allergies.) - Mental health problems are growing exponentially.
(e.g. psychotropic drug prescriptions.) - Prices are going up, and wealth is going down.
- Dependency on government is growing exponentially.
- Government spending, borrowing, and intervention is growing exponentially.
- The only viable political candidates at election time are those lacking principles.
- The people who gain the most wealth tend to be those who lack principles.
- The people who best climb the corporate ladder tend to be those who lack principles.
- The people who gain the most fame tend to be those who lack principles.
- The mainstream media suppress reality and promote myths.
(i.e. 9/11, Obama, Clintonomics, anthropogenic global warming, the crash of 2008, the economic recovery, money, the police state, Syrian intervention, the Tea Parties, energy independence, Detroit, race, racism, Trayvon, gender, guns, abortion, homosexuality, the Constitution, history, the free-market, science, innovation, libertarianism, progressivism, fascism.)
Before we can solve a problem, we usually must understand the cause; otherwise, the unintended consequences could be worse than the original problem. In fact, the solutions of the past are the cause of most of our problems today.
Given that those who are most successful tend to be those who are least principled, we can see why every other problem is the result of unhealthy interventions at the top, but how did it get to be this way?
After a few generations of unhealthy interventions from the top by men who may or may not have been principled, we can see how their bad solutions created a perverse incentive structure that rewards bad behavior and punishes good behavior. Just like how bad parenting creates a spoiled child who suffers from arrested development, now an entire people are increasingly spoiled children who suffer from arrested development.
The Soviet Union had a system that rewarded unprincipled people, and we should take note how it crumbled from within.
Everything afflicting the people (that wasn’t caused by evolution) is caused by dishonest banking and a dishonest money supply, and the watershed of problems are self reinforcing.
One unusually large cause of problems, that was itself indirectly caused by dishonest banking and dishonest money, is political correctness. Another unusually large cause of problems that was itself indirectly caused by dishonest banking and dishonest money, is media bias. Of course, the chain of cause and effect is long, complex, self-reinforcing, and suppressed by the media; whereas, alternative myths are substituted by the media so that we do not learn how the world really works, but the chain of cause and effect should be clear by the end of this article.
This is where the real explanation begins.
Dishonest banking and money are caused by:
- Central banking
- Fiat currency
- Fractional reserve banking
- Quantitative easing
- Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP)
Central Banking: The Federal Reserve is a private bank with a government granted monopoly on currency creation; whereas, money is a product just like any other, and thus would benefit from competition just like any other product. Why do you think the Federal Reserve refuses to be audited? Central banking was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Fiat Currency: What most people still don’t know is that all of the money in America is created from nothing and backed by nothing except confidence, and thus it is referred to as fiat currency. Fiat currency was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Fractional Reserve Banking: The main cause of fiat currency is that banks can lend at least ten times as much money as they receive in deposits, and depending on the type of loan and type of deposit, it can be even more. Over time, the government has been making it increasingly easier for banks to create more unearned money out of nothing. This is known as fractional reserve banking, which was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Quantitative Easing: In addition to fractional reserve banking, under Obama, the Federal reserve created a much larger than usual amount of money and loaned it to the government and the banks. This is known as quantitative easing, which was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
ZIRP: The federal reserve has reduced the interest rates to nearly zero percent on money it loans to the government and on money it loans to those banks who own the Federal Reserve. This is known as Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP), which was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Consider that any entity who borrows money at zero interest has little incentive to ever pay it back, and will in fact have much incentive to keep borrowing. That’s a very corrupting influence.
Bailouts: Before Quantitative Easing and ZIRP, the government tried bailouts. Does anyone believe that the crash of 2008 and many of its prerequisites would have happened if all the self-proclaimed Elites had been certain that bailouts were an impossibility? It is almost as if bailouts were part of some plan.
Bailouts are unconstitutional, but they happened anyway, so we see that it is really just the character of the American people that gives the Constitution its power, and the American people lacked the character to stop the bailouts. It is almost as if character devolution were part of some plan.
Bailouts were universally considered dishonest until the Obama administration.
Cronyism: Dishonest banking causes the government and the big banks to receive a flood of unearned money, which then finds it way to their closest cronies, which thus tempts cronies to become closer cronies and which tempts honest entities to become first-time cronies. This is called cronyism, and although it has been growing for a long time, it was universally considered to be dishonest—until Obama became the President.
Government rewards cronies with bailouts, contracts, tax breaks, regulations that help the crony and/or hurt honest competitors, and with selective enforcement of laws and regulations. Once the media became cronies, then media bias also helped other cronies and hurt honest competitors.
Once cronyism took hold at the top of government, the cronyism trickled down to the local level. Cronies in local government thus have the support of the cronies directly above them.
A system that favors cronyism makes it increasingly difficult for honest individuals and honest businesses to compete with cronies. It also manufactures more cronies by corrupting honest people. Furthermore, the dwindling number of men of principle limit their own success by avoiding doing business with cronies.
Dishonest bankers corrupted honest banking, which then corrupted government, which then corrupted the free-market, which thus corrupted the people, which thus reduced entrepreneurship, innovation, efficiency, and honesty.
Inflation: Newly created dollars make each existing dollar worth less than before, and thus a reason to be first in line for the new money is the ability to spend it before each dollar has become worth less than it would have been worth – had the new money never been created. This is called inflation, which was universally considered dishonest before FDR.
Inflation is like a tax of several percent a year on every dollar in existence. It makes prices permanently higher than they would have been. The recipient of the inflation tax is whoever received the new money before it inflated prices. Inflation is theft.
Therefore, inflation tempts honest people to compete to be first in line—to be cronies.
Misallocation of Capital: More than ever before, there is a flood of new money at near zero percent interest rates. This new money often starts off in investment banks, and thus much of it naturally finds it way into financial instruments, which thus creates even more incentive to bet the rest of the new money on financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, hedge funds, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and options.
Consider the alternatives available to anyone who had access to unlimited new money at zero-percent interest rates. Would such an investor expend the effort to evaluate and fund your idea for a product which has a 50% chance of making him 10 million dollars in five years, and which is in a field he knows nothing about, and which will have even less chance of success than before given inflation, cronyism, and the increased interest in financial instruments? —OR— Would he instead invest in financial instruments and in bribing politicians given that those investments would have the potential for more profit and a faster payoff, and given that he is already intimately familiar with such investments? If he loses, he can always just borrow more at zero interest until he wins.
Suppose you were not the investor, but that you were instead the MIT graduate who could invent a product. You could first make an engineer’s salary for a few years to save up some money to invest in your idea, or you could try to attract an investor’s capital away from the easy money he could make with financial instruments. – OR – You could work for Goldman Sachs and make three times as much right away, and have three times the opportunity to make a couple of million dollars, and do it three times sooner. This is like The Funger Games.
Then there is what happens when the government has more money to spend. That means more labor is commanded toward government projects and less labor is available for projects that are capable of earning enough money from voluntary customers to pay for themselves—no command necessary. At the same time, inflation resulting from government borrowing reduces the value of each dollar spent on projects capable of earning enough money from voluntary customers to pay for themselves.
These are examples of misallocation of capital resulting from interventions in the free-market, and are caused by dishonest banking. Misallocation of capital was universally considered unhealthy before FDR.
The Seen vs. The Unseen: Misallocation of capital is very hard to detect because of “the seen vs. the unseen”, which is a phenomenon first identified by Frederic Bastiat in 1850. Whereas, we can easily see the jobs created by the new money at zero interest, only one man in a million can see the jobs that were lost or never created because of the new money.
An additional hurdle is the bias of a crony media cheering for the new money projects and ridiculing the one in a million who can see the lost jobs and who can see that they were higher quality jobs because they would have been making something for which people would have voluntarily paid enough to generate a profit; whereas, crony jobs were created as a result of cronyism, taxes, bribes, and free money.
The “seen vs. the unseen” was universal knowledge, but that was before government schools.
The Broken Window Fallacy: One way to penetrate the media bias and “the seen vs. the unseen” is the broken window fallacy, which is another idea from Frederic Bastiat in 1850.
Consider that progressives claim that all government spending, such as war, helps the economy as much as (or more than) any private spending. The progressive argument is another version of the argument that if a kid breaks a window, then that helps the economy because the capital spent on fixing the broken window created more work for the carpenter and more work for the window maker.
Whereas, we can easily see the jobs created by the capital spent on fixing broken windows, we cannot easily see the jobs that would have been created by that same capital if the windows had never been broken. Both labor and physical resources were obviously wasted in such a misallocation of capital.
Sooner or later the capital would have been used to create something the owner thought customers would voluntarily pay enough for to earn him a profit. If the owner couldn’t think of any use for his capital, then he or his bank would loan it out to any borrower who did have an idea to create something the borrower thought customers would voluntarily pay enough for to earn him a profit and thus enable him to pay the interest on the loan.
The broken window fallacy so easily penetrates the seen vs. the unseen that it made it difficult for governments to borrow such great sums of money, and thus great effort has been spent by economists and other cronies to deny or circumvent the broken window fallacy. The pressure to deny reality has corrupted many economists because the surest path to obscurity in economics has been to embrace reality.
Keynesianism: The broken window fallacy was universally accepted until John Maynard Keynes developed the obfuscation that so delights dishonest bankers, governments, and cronies to this day. Keynes said that if people were unemployed, and if capital were not being used at that moment, then government should take that capital in the form of taxes, or borrow money, and spend it on some kind of project—any kind of project.
Keynesianism has been the dominant economic theory since FDR. Consider that Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman recently said that the best thing that could happen to the economy would be fighting off an alien invasion! or building the Death Star! or just plain old war! Of course, we could just build some pyramids or some bridges to nowhere too. We could even just dig some holes and fill them up again. We could make them dig with spoons to maximize employment.
Like I said, the pressure to deny reality has corrupted many economists because the surest path to obscurity in economics has been to embrace reality. Athough that began to change rapidly after the Great Crash of 2008 and the ongoing economic malaise since, the cartel of cronies have pretty successfully suppressed the truth yet again.
The New Plantation: In order to buy off a majority in a pseudo democracy, the dishonest bankers and their cronies understood that they needed a lot more cronies, and that it would be pretty easy to buy the poorest people with all that free money and with the bias of their cronies in the media. Hence they invented the New Deal and then the War on Poverty.
They are not even spending their own money. They just create it and loan it to the government, and then the middle class must pay it back to them (through taxes)—and with interest! These programs are unconstitutional, and are also taxation without representation for those who were too young to vote against the programs or the against borrowing. This is why I say the federal debt is not legitimate.
The War on Poverty has enslaved the black community. Government dependency is the new plantation. The black community has thus been neutralized and pacified and only causes damage to itself and is no threat to the dishonest bankers.
Winning an election in America is just about impossible if a candidate is perceived to be unsupportive of government dependency. If a candidate does not conform on this issue, or on other issues as well, then the crony media will paint him as an uncaring racist who hates poor people. Not only does this system prevent men of character from winning, but such a repulsive system naturally discourages men of character from running for political office in the first place.
In addition to corrupting or discouraging honest candidates. Teaching people that they can’t survive without being given the fruits of other men’s labor is a corrupting influence on their character. It is an atrocity of progressivism on a grand scale.
A few brave black men have come forth to expose how the Democratic Party has enslaved the black community on the new plantation. They call themselves “runaway slaves”. Some are the one in a million who can see what would have been (they can see the unseen), and some are just honest, independent minded men of principle. They are mercilessly ridiculed by the crony media when not being completely ignored by them. They are among my heroes.
Affirmative Action: In a wealthy country like America, the trinkets of the new plantation could not corrupt enough voters, so the dishonest bankers and their cronies in government and the media then invented affirmative action, which lets a woman or an individual from a racial minority sue a company for millions if that company fired her, didn’t hire her, didn’t promote her, or allowed anyone to tell a joke about women or her race. Ironically, the potential of such lawsuits is a rational reason not to hire someone. Likewise, another irony is how it raises the rational question of whether someone is competent if they benefited from affirmative action.
Of course, if the politiclaly corect theory were correct that hiring more women and minorities is profitable for a company, then that would have obviously happened naturally whether or not government intervened. To understand why, suppose those companies who hired women and minorities outcompeted those who did not, then the other companies would see that and would either emulate their success or go out of business. If hiring women and minorities does not make your business more profitable, then why should the government force you to hire them anyway? Either way, to interfere in a private business is fascism.
Another aspect of affirmative action in business is 8a companies, which are companies owned by women or racial minorities. Government gives preference to 8a companies for government contracts, loans, bailouts, subsidies, taxes, etc. Government also gives preferential treatment to companies who buy goods and services from 8a companies.
Academia also has affirmative action. For example, every school gives preference to students who are female or from a racial minority.
SAT scores are fudged based on race. Asians lose points. Hispanics gain points. Blacks gain more points than Hispanics, and the scores of whites are unaltered.
Title IX is a court decision that mandates a university must have equal numbers of female athletes and spend equal amounts of money on male and female athletics. Given that evolution has genetically programmed females to be less interested in athletics, the universities try to be fair by giving a lot more athletic scholarships to female students, and by reducing the number of male athletes. Now they want to extend this philosophy to science and engineering!
Another example of the cognitive dissonance of title IX is cheerleading. Although cheerleading is the most rigorous and dangerous female sport, they are not counted as athletes, because cheerleading is politically incorrect. In their putative desire to help female athletes, progressives have exposed cheerleaders to great danger without any of the insurance or other protections they give to other female athletes.
Reproduction is another kind of affirmative action, and one where the government’s double standard is pretty extreme. The outcome of a pregnancy is solely the woman’s choice, and thus the result of that choice is solely the woman’s responsibility. More specifically, if the woman chooses the more expensive choice, then that extra expense is solely her responsibility.
Just to be clear, birth is the more expensive choice, and abortion is the less expensive choice; therefore, the extra expense for the birth choice is the cost of birth plus 18 years of child support minus the cost of abortion. It would be a simple and fair legal matter for the man to also choose whether he wants to be responsible for the birth, but instead, the government let’s the woman decide for him whether he will pay her 18 years of child support.
Divorce is another kind of affirmative action, and one where the government’s double standard is pretty extreme:
- Everyone knows that child custody decisions are extremely biased and typically force men to pay a lot of money to a woman who can spend it however she wants while the man is treated like a criminal without any rights by the government and by his ex-wife. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he is treated like a slave.
- If a man decides to use his own time and his own genius to build a business instead of watching TV, then his wife can divorce him, and the government will give her half of the business he built, which not only hurts that man and his business, but which also hurts his employees and his customers, and the economy in general.
The crony media ensure that winning an election in America is just about impossible if a candidate is perceived to be unsupportive of affirmative action. If a candidate does not conform on this issue, or on other issues as well, then the crony media will paint him as an uncaring racist who hates poor people and women. Not only does this system prevent men of character from winning, but such a repulsive system naturally discourages men of character from running for political office in the first place.
An employee who takes the noble and rational position of opposing affirmative action will be cited as evidence of his employer’s guilt in an affirmative action lawsuit. This discourages companies from hiring or promoting anyone who opposes affirmative action. Also, the crony media have taught everyone that it is OK to ridicule and shun anyone who opposes affirmative action, and thus only conformist employees who lack principles can easily climb the corporate ladder.
If an opponent of affirmative action tries to be an entrepreneur, then advertisers and investors will shun him because of potential ridicule from the crony media.
Such a double standard not only tends to corrupt or expel honest, independent minded men of principle, it also corrupts women and racial minorities. Although the putative goal is to help women and racial minorities, teaching them that they cannot succeed without help from the government is a corrupting influence on their character. Teaching them that double standards are OK, and that intervention in voluntary agreements is OK, are also corrupting influences on their character.
Sexual Harassment: In a wealthy and tolerant country like America, the trinkets of the new plantation and affirmative action could not corrupt enough voters, so the dishonest bankers and their cronies in government and the media then invented sexual harassment. which is all about banning speech and ideas. For example it is illegal to create a hostile working environment for women through one’s speech, although for all practical purposes, women have no such restrictions on their speech about men. Ironically, the potential of such lawsuits is a rational reason not to hire a woman.
For example, if a man were to make the politically incorrect statement that men and women have obviously evolved different genetically programmed behaviors, then that would contradict the politically correct belief that men and women are only different because of how they were raised. This would place his employer at risk of being sued if they did not fire or discipline him if anyone complained, which is likely.
Telling any joke about women would be illegal; whereas, the HR woman at my company had a joke on her wall ridiculing men, which is legal for all practical purposes. The rules do not apply equally to men and women.
If a man complains that the rules do not apply equally to men and women, then this would place his employer at risk of being sued if they did not fire or discipline him – if anyone complained. At the very least, he would just be shunned – because his thinking did not conform, and the crony media have taught everyone that it is OK to shun and ridicule anyone who does not conform with political correctness.
The kind of man who thrives in a politically correct workplace environment is obviously like the kind of President who thrives in a politically correct environment – like Bill Clinton – the unprincipled, harassing, raping, adulterous, liar – who feminists defend.
Sexual harassment laws created a hostile workplace environment for honest, independent minded men of principle.
Winning an election in America is just about impossible if a candidate is perceived to be unsupportive of sexual harassment laws. If a candidate does not conform on this issue, and other issues as well, then the crony media will paint him as an uncaring misogynist who hates women and will accuse him of sexual harassment. Not only does this system prevent men of character from winning, but such a repulsive system naturally discourages men of character from running for political office in the first place.
Such a double standard not only tends to corrupt or expel honest, independent minded men of character, but it also corrupts women by teaching them to have double standards, to overreact to perceived insults, and to feel dependent on government.
Arrested Development: In spite of all the pressures trying to corrupt every man, woman, and child in America, a mature, honest, independent minded man of principle can successfully maintain his integrity and still support a family if he is smart enough and articulate enough. Such individuals are few, but their power is magnified by the Internet, which is why the dishonest bankers and their cronies in government and the media employ an array of forces to arrest our development.
Controlling the Internet is one strategy employed to arrest our development. Although the Internet is not the physical world, and cannot by itself produce a mature person, it can help anyone to develop faster and more completely through exposure to all of the ideas that ever existed. Control of the Internet continues to progress along many fronts.
Eliminating independent entrepreneurs (those who get no advantage from the government) is a strategy employed to arrest our development because independent entrepreneurs not only learn all about reality, but are also role models who inspire others.
Eliminating small businesses is another strategy employed to arrest our development. Although many small businesses are dependent on government in one or more ways, and are thus cronies to varying degrees, they still are much closer to reality than the big corporate experience.
Eliminating family farms is a must. People are exposed to a lot of reality on a farm, and they feel way less dependent on government.
Eliminating ownership of single family homes (especially without a mortgage) is also an important technique for arresting our development. People who grow up in cities and who rent an apartment, are much more likely to suffer from arrested development and feel much more helpless and dependent on government. They are more likely to be conformists, and they are also more like puppies—weird little puppies. They quietly support the system built by the dishonest bankers and passive aggressively pressure others into conforming. They lack the confidence, the courage, and the independence of thought necessary to break out of their cage. Their confidence comes entirely from the establishment narrative.
The myriad regulations, laws, and financial collapses have been forcing waves of people into becoming city renters—almost as if that were the plan.
Bad Role Models: The most obvious of the many causes of the character devolution of the people is bad role models. We already explained how bad role models got to be role models, but apparently we are genetically programmed to emulate successful role models—even if they lack principles.
I first noticed this trend in the Clinton Administration, and I am certain that it was the example of Bill Clinton himself that influenced people to devolve. I am certain because that is how it affected me, as well as the people around me. It probably didn’t help that I lived in the Washington DC area throughout the Clinton administration. I started down this path a couple of times, but as an independent thinker, I always came back and continued to evolve in a more noble direction. This doesn’t work for everyone because being an independent thinker is hard and is not reinforced by most people’s genetic programming; otherwise, we wouldn’t have these problems in the first place.
Whereas, Bill Clinton was the first relevant bad role model, since then, the relevant bad role model has been the media. These role models are almost exclusively Democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists, etc. Perhaps not so coincidentally, when I think of those ordinary people succumbing to character devolution, they happen to mostly be Democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists, etc.
Obama is not a relevant bad role model because he is just another infected progressive. He is the good cop, and the media are the bad cop. Together they are one entity. Obama is just a front man—a blank canvas on to which the media can paint any image they want.
Although we live in a system that tends to reward those least principled, and where those infected partially infect everyone else, I also notice that because their character flaws have become so obvious, many others are becoming better people by taking pride in not being like them.
Elitism: Needless to say, so much free money and so much power creates a class of people who could not compete in a free-market, and yet, who feel entitled to … well … everything. They are much like trust fund babies, or like the boss’s son. In fact, their character is similar to that of the people they have trapped in government dependency.
Most elites think the rest of us are just sucking up their resources—that we are useless eaters, and the earth would be a lot better off if there were far fewer of us. That’s called eugenics—much like what was proposed by Obama’s progressive science czar. It is no secret that Nazis were inspired by the eugenics of American progressives. It is thus almost as if the exponential growth in physical and mental maladies were part of some plan.
Therefore, elites plot to convince us that we need a global government to protect the earth – hence exaggerated global threats like anthropogenic global warming. Of course, they would control their new global government just as easily as they control the US government. Then there would be even less diversity of ideas in government which would be just about perfect for an established oligarchy.
Elites protect themselves by keeping us divided against each other, which is another reason for their programs such as affirmative action, welfare, title IX, sexual harassment, political correctness, and all other manifestations of identity politics. They use the same technique Machiavelli recommended to divide and conquer a people. They are not ideological. They will support any weak faction, but always through coercive means—in order to maximize division among the people.
Whichever party is in power, the federal debt rises, poverty increases, and regulation increases. Their regulations reduce competition and retard innovation. Fewer competitors and retarded innovation are solving problems slower than they occur; whereas, a freer market used to solve problems faster than they occurred.
Reduced competition and slower innovation is a good thing to those elites who want to maintain control over the people and continue milking them. I think that perhaps at one time, elites were more noble, but then they lost their way. They have been corrupted by … themselves.
Media Bias: While both extreme and quite obvious, media bias is not as obvious as a cause of character devolution, but the media cause character devolution by suppressing reality and promoting myths in support of all of the other causes of character devolution we have already talked about. Such a biased agenda permeates the entire media, from Hollywood sitcoms, to the mainstream “News” organizations.
The following links are just a sampling of topics on which the media suppresses reality and promote myths:
- 9/11
- Obama
- Clintonomics
- anthropogenic global warming
- the crash of 2008
- the economic recovery
- money
- the police state
- Syrian intervention
- the Tea Parties
- energy independence
- Detroit
- race
- racism
- Trayvon
- gender
- guns
- abortion
- homosexuality
- the Constitution
- history
- the free-market
- science
- innovation
- libertarianism
- progressivism
- fascism
Progressives
It’s about ideas—not factions.
The collection of ideas and policies driving the character devolution of Americans, like all ideas and policies, do have their adherents; but what can we call these particular believers given how they span all other factions? They could be any religion, race, party, nationality, etc. They include the Republican Party leadership (the Neocons), the Democratic Party leadership, and lots of other believers; but the most diligent and articulate believers tend to call themselves “progressives”, which is pretty historically accurate, so we are using that term as well. I previously referred to believers as The Political Class, but the term “progressive” is much more common.
Looking at the words and actions of enough progressives, anyone can conclude that they champion two ideas, whether they realize it or not:
- Government rightly has the power to implement any good idea. (progressivism)
- When we are all on the same page, everyone benefits. (fascism)
Just talking with a wide variety of people in America, one can see that a large percentage, adhere to both of these two ideas, whether they realize it or not. Of course, believers seem even more numerous outside America, but I am a witness to the American manifestation.
Propaganda (added May 24, 2020)
We talked about how we have so few good role models and so many bad role models, but on TV, bad role models are now the norm.
TV has become increasingly toxic. If you watch it, you will have more difficulty developing good relationships. You will become a worse version of yourself. You will have unreasonable expectations. You will be confused about who you are and what you want. You will have a distorted understanding of how the world really works and a distorted understanding of human nature. You will suspect that pedophiles, Nazis, and terrorists exist among your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. You will dislike, distrust, and distance ordinary people—especially those who are different than you.
Therefore, I am one of many who do not watch TV anymore, and who won’t pay to see new movies either. For example, the new Star Wars movies could have made several billion more dollars, but they decided that propaganda was more important than profits. Although they ignore significant market interest, and although profit is thus not their primary motivator, profit is still possible because cronyism locks out anyone who would produce healthier competing content.
Social media platforms are often worse than TV. They are designed to create echo chambers and to mask the behavior of shills, who can thus more easily infect healthy people or else cause them to leave and take their healthy perspective with them—leaving that community more toxic, which thus infects more people and causes the healthiest remaining ones to leave—in a self-reinforcing downward spiral.
If it all seems like it must be by design, but it seems like that would require an impossible level of conspiracy, then consider that we can now easily prove the existence of globally dominant players above any President, billionaire, or intelligence agency because we can see their ability to maintain impossible global cover ups and maintain easily falsifiable global myths.
The result of such manipulations by the apex players is to make us dislike, distrust, and distance each other, so that we are looking at each other instead of looking at them, and so that we cannot unite against them.
It is pretty easy to deduce that because such a cabal exists, then they cannot allow anyone who might pierce the illusion of legitimacy (or who might effectively counter their psyops) to become influential, powerful, wealthy, or famous.
In addition to the many barriers to entry created by their cronyism, they must also flood the market with cronies. This is most obvious among the alternative sources where sooner-or-later, just about all alternatives out themselves as controlled opposition (e.g. Alex Jones).
Psyops (added May 24, 2020)
Propaganda is really just a subset of psyops (Psychological Operations).
The manipulation that emanates from the apex players is obscured by multiple levels of indirection, but it is pretty fine-grained and diverse. There are millions of resulting inputs that reach each individual and which tend to manipulate that individual into those boxes that further their agenda.
Even boxes that appear to counter the agenda can be used to help the agenda. For example, all conflict can be used as a pretext to justify more control (e.g. more of a police state).
Of course, the number of people in each box is also important.
Certainly in America they want a majority in either the Democrat or Republican box, in the Global Warming alarmism box, and in the Covid-19 alarmism box.
They would like to see a majority of men in the MGTOW box, and a majority of women in the single-mom box.
Some boxes in which they probably want zero individuals are: 1) truly independent thinkers, and 2) those who pierce the illusion of legitimacy.
They certainly wouldn’t want too many people in the box: “those who cannot be bought”, but even those people could be useful if sold a narrative, such as if they thought they were fighting terrorists.
A general principle would be to keep people as divided as possible, so that we are weak, and so that we are looking at each other instead of looking at them, and so that we cannot unite against them.
One way to divide people is with agent provocateurs online, but consider that for each actual agent, there are many individuals who have been played by such agents provocateur, so statistically, one who sounds like an agent provocateur is much more likely to simply be one who has been played.
Now consider that the 24/7 propaganda, toxicity, and psyops to which we are all exposed will produce far more unwitting assets than actual agents could ever produce. Those who know they are agents/assets are primarily just reinforcing the 24/7 programming in which everyone is immersed. For example, they make it seem cool. The infected will then have confidence and infect others.
Now consider that all of those infected on one side of an issue will only reinforce the beliefs of those infected on the opposing side of an issue. The infected on both sides thus appear to each other to confirm that their angst is justified, when in fact it is all bullshit. Where do you think the whole alt-right vs. antifa bullshit came from?
Given that all conflict can be used as a pretext to justify more control, they don’t need to command cops to make it happen. They can just ensure that think tanks produce the guidance that cops should be trained and quipped like warriors as if all of the people are suspected enemies—because terrorism and assault rifles. Sooner or later, cops would thus overreact, and then people would attack cops, and then cops would feel like their indoctrination was correct. This has already happened. (This paragraph was written the day before George Floyd was murdered.)
One of the more interesting psyops is how they manipulate Christians. Consider that they have sufficient ability to make it appear that “the end times” are approaching, so if such a manipulation of Christian fundamentalists could further their agenda …
People think Trump is conservative and anti-establishment, but how else could a NYC Democrat get street cred among conservatives? The whole establishment had to attack Trump relentlessly, but the average journalist really does hate him and only needed permission and a little encouragement from those at the top.
It is not as if they are highly competent or directly command armies or journalists. The only reason their agenda keeps moving forward is because they have no opposition. Even those who think they are opposition are often just being played.
Environmental Toxins (added May 24, 2020)
We are not just being played and purged. We are being played, poisoned, and purged.
Environmental toxins not only weaken our bodies and minds, but they also change who we are. For example, they make men more feminine and thus less of a threat to the players.
Of course, such a crime is only possible because of the collusion by the crony media.
Not only do the crony media cover up what is happening, but they have convinced a majority to focus on the non-issue of CO2—to make it a sacred part of their tribal identity—when there are real environmental problems that are thus infinitely more serious.
Cronyism also gave us the US government recommended food pyramid, which is profoundly toxic. It recommends that we eat mostly carbohydrates, which is itself unhealthy, but which is also the product of such corporations as Monsanto, and which will have thus been genetically modified to withstand more of their herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides; and which were probably grown with fertilizers base on petroleum.
You are Here
There have always been unprincipled men who were able to acquire power and wealth, but dishonest banking has given them almost unlimited power and money, and although cronyism has always existed, a flood of unearned money has made it grow exponentially.
We all know that the opportunity to receive unearned money creates perverse incentives, but this historically unprecedented flood of unearned money has created a pusillanimous plethora of perversity.
Most people in America today remind me of Vika in the movie Oblivion. She is the poster child for passive aggressiveness and normalcy bias.
The reality is that we now live in a system designed to corrupt, expel, or hobble honest, independent-minded men of principle, and reward unprincipled conformists. The purpose of our system is to control us and milk us while preventing any competition from arising.
Those whose genes compel them to be principled independent-thinkers are thus being so burdened and disadvantaged that those genes are literally being bred out of the human race.
Hope (updated May 24, 2020)
Although we live in a system that tends to reward those least principled, and where those infected, partially infect everyone else, I have noticed that because their character flaws have become so obvious, many others are becoming better people by taking pride in not being like them.
The Tea Parties and OWS may not have realized it, but before they were co-opted, they were rebelling against the character devolution of the people, and were unprecedented in recent history.
A couple of years after that, one of their front men, President Obama, (backed by the crony media) was hours away from attacking Syria in another interventionist act of aggression designed to cause countries to borrow more money, but then the Tea Partiers, occupiers, conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, independents, socialists, libertarians, Brits, Russians—the people of the world … came together and said NO! Obama and his cronies appeared to stumble and back off when confronted with this unprecedented and unified assertion of character, which thus appeared to empower Vladimir Putin and the British legislature to also resist Obama and his allies, but our victory was actually a little different. All these front men were told to back off in order to maintain the illusion of legitimacy, without which, they are finished. It was still our victory nonetheless.
More recently, look at how Bernie supporters refused to vote for evil, and recognized that both parties worked for the same people. Then when Bernie himself sold out, many of them called him on it! That is amazing progress!
It is never to late for anyone to become the person they really want to be. To once again embrace the Soul of Humanity requires little more than a decision.
I am reminded of the epiphany by Josh Brolin’s character in the movie Slow Burn (2000). He was a criminal and a simpleton, but he instantly transcended every character in the movie when he rebuked the beautiful woman who offered him herself and a treasure in diamonds if he would kill the other criminal who always bullied him and who deserved to die anyway, but he told her, “No! I’m never letting anyone else talk me into doing something that I know is wrong!”
It is always within everyone’s power to instantly find their way again. It could also look like the epiphany: “I’m throwing out everything I believe, and with whatever time I have left, I will always be super skeptical and super open-minded.”
Though many have lost their way (like all of us) and are thus in a bad place (because everyone is being played), their condition is temporary. That is not who they really are or who they really want to be.
Everyone is redeemable—even the players.
There is so little truth out there that a very small effort from one of us can make a big difference; whereas, the apex players sometimes have to spend billions to achieve the same effect.
Another advantage is that we can go wherever the facts take us; whereas, the players have to conform.
Another advantage is that we only have to shine a light on the players, and otherwise we can ignore them; whereas, they must persuade many (sometimes a majority) to take action.
Absolutely amazing post sir. Thank you. I've bookmarked this and if it weren't 0237 (and thus time for bed) I'd write you something longer and a little more coherent. –W74
I could have simply stated this reply to the question:
The system promotes the advancement of those that nature would normally see unfit to continue. Thus, over time the failures and issues with in the system will grow and expound until they take down the system itself.
Nicely done. I would like to point out, however, that people still have free will, something cronies, politicians or fascists cannot take away. The author makes a strong case against the corruptive influence of big money, big government and massive fraud, but should also point out that individuals have the choice to reject the collective rationale.
Granted, the power of the controlled media and government can be overwhelming, but it is up to those of us who can see through the morass of delusional values to set examples and educate those who are caught up in the system. I applaud the author – his identification of the problems we face is a good first step – and I encourage him to stay on message and add instructive, corrective measures.
Personally, I challenge myself and the corruption of the system on a regular basis by owning and operating my own business, working from my home (which I own), challenging the mores of society at large, rejecting things like social security and payroll taxes and engaging in a bit of civil disobedience by ignoring or violating rules, regulations, while using the system itself to defeat the income tax structure.
There are some simple steps all Americans should take as an effort to confront the false reality. Set up a business in your home and file a schedule C. DO YOUR OWN INCOME TAXES and file on PAPER. That's a huge first step that is available to everyone, though few take advantage of it.
The cognitive dissonance and normalcy bias of most Americans perpetuates the false reality; the author is spot on with his title, suggesting that there is something wrong with the people. It's a long road back, but it's up to people of like minds to forge ahead.
Great article, Jim.
The next Big Realization we need to confront is this:
– Any time, and EVERY time, a society grants to a special group of people a monopoly on the use of violent power (regardless of the rationale used to justify such a grant), the psychopaths among the wider population will inevitably be drawn to become a part of that elite power wielding group.
– As the proportion of psychopaths within this elite group increases, the more deranged & destructive will become the actions of this group, and the fewer good people will remain within it.
– This dynamic is inherently self-reinforcing, inevitable, and unstable, and over time always results in the deaths of thousands, millions, sometimes tens of millions, and usually the destruction of the host society.
– Our only choice is to never, ever grant such power to any group of people.
Government — a incredibly foolish scheme in which we grant all the money, all the guns, all the power, AND a monopoly on violent force to a relatively small group of demonstrably fallible human beings.
Gee, what could possibly go wrong with that?
Let's be clear: Government is THE problem. It is the problem that precedes all others when considering the future of humanity.
Central banks, fiat currencies, fractional-reserve scams, taxes, corruption, cronyism and all the rest, would NEVER be able to rise to their current level of global destructiveness without this one essential toxic element:
– governments unavoidably (and quite naturally) full of psychopaths eagerly & violently enforcing these destructive schemes on everyone else.
Before we can progress to our unlimited future,
humanity must learn to finally & irrevocably turn its back on this destructive childish fantasy that psychopathic power-mad control freaks with all the money, guns, and power, will ever be a solution to anything.
We are indeed HERE.
The question is:
when will we finally turn our backs on this suicidal fantasy called "Government"?
Excellent, concise, and accurate.
Something that you touched on just briefly…. Mortgages and homeownership.
I humbly suggest you include some prose that discusses how the rule
of law has been corrupted from the very highest form (Constitution) on
down to the local levels in regards to US property title. The bankers, in
their clever creation – Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems –
MERS, have wreaked havoc on US property title law. The court
system, county and state attorneys, US Attorney General, IRS (REMIC
violations), among other responsible entities should be all over this.
Instead, the banks pay a "fine" as a "settlement" (JP Morgan $13B
settlement with US Justice Dept is the latest…. BTW these "fines" are
just passed along to the customers and shareholders, while the CFO
and execs continue to collect their bonuses) instead of seeing a judge.
This rule of law is controlled by the cronies, and not by "the people." just think about this frightening concept…
Still, this issue is germane to your discussion above (which deserves a big BRAVO).
Good Luck in your efforts.
you can only ever change your mind. the only way to actually change the world is to force something to kill you. the only difference between never and never was is you. love and change cannot be untied. change is the only constant. all humans only need to be loved.
Fabulous, I think this is spot on!
when the universe was born it it contain fault? did it contain human?
no, both are just ideas.
the human being is powerless. powerless as a tree. you are no the thinker. if there was a 'chooser' we would all get along and you would have nothing to say.
the 'problem' is that man is unaware that all he is is awareness. the powerless witnessing of manifestation.
every apparent person is perfect because , 4.2 billion yrs of evolution, this is the presentation.
I recommend you re-read Keynes s work again…"spend money on any project"? Hmm…not quite. Thats not what he said and the quasi facts presented as his theory today are in large part the reason why we are here.
There are two fundamental characteristic that determine the other characters: (1) honesty versus dishonesty, and (2) predator versus producer.
Anyone who is not fundamentally honest can and will adopt and develop a chaotic mishmash of contradictory ideas. Individuals with such incoherent, confused intellects can always find a rationalization to justify anything.
The other fundamental decision is whether to be a predator or producers. Before humans learned to be producers (take actions to create goods that otherwise would not have come to exist), all humans were predators, just like other animals. Today, every individual has to choose whether to be a predator or producer.
Unfortunately, most producers do not recognize this fundamental distinction, and are confused into believing they must treat human predators different from predators of other species. This is what gives human predators the upper hand. The fact is, if productive humans had always treated every predator of every species in the same manner (shoot to kill, to defend against predatory actions), then the current system completely dominated by predators would never have come to exist. And in fact, government would never have come to exist, because government is precisely and necessarily the domination of predators over producers.
Of course government and [central] banking are the most completely dishonest and predatory of all endeavors, so they do indeed deserve to be put at the top of the list of dangers. But they are not alone. Some pretend to be producers (executives of large corporations), but are in fact predators (via dishonesty and government favors).
One other factor about modern times. Until recently, individuals with the most brains, bravery and independence could leave the domination of predators for a frontier, and forge life on their own, or with a few collaborators. Today, governments claim every square millimeter of the entire planet (in one way or other), so the best, brightest, bravest and most independent no longer have a good way to escape (it never was easy, but was possible). Thus the tensions grow, as the best, brightest, bravest and most independent struggle to find a way to live their lives.
What is needed, of course, is for travel to space, and survival in space to become practical for private efforts. Unfortunately, the predators have such firm control now, when private efforts do reach that stage, the predators will almost certainly thwart them or destroy them.
The sad but probable result: Humans are finished.
Fight back by following the LAW as written.
Are you paying FEDERAL INCOME taxes? How much FEDERAL INCOME did you receive last year?
http://www.losthorizons.com
Read. Understand it. Act accordingly.
The problem with fiat currency and Keynesian economics is the unsustainability of infinite currency in a finite world. We have already overshot the carrying capacity of our planet and devolution is simply nature's way of restoring balance. It is hubris to think that we are at the top of the food chain when the herd can so easily be culled by microorganisms beyond our control.
You are partially correct, but there is no need for environmentalist mysticism.
If the herd were culled by a micro-organism, that would be well within the capabilities of those who think they own the earth, and they would thank you for telling us how nature did it to us because we deserved it.
Read "Why We Elites Manage Innovation"
Could you quote HR joke that ridicules men?
Rick, why do income taxes on PAPER?
The joke on the wall of my company's female HR officer was a picture – not text. I have also seen it elsewhere. It shows human evolution through footprints. First is the footprint of a caveman, then the footprint of a modern man, then the footprint of a man's business shoe, and then the footprint of a woman's business shoe.
A question to you:
Considering we have nuke power plants, chem/bio/nuke weapons, and all the assorted industry that is related, how do we go without government? Do I get the nuke and you the bio weapons? Who gets the chems?
Another question might be something like, how do we keep large groups from forming armies and overrunning the individuals and smaller groups?
I'm quite certain that "no government" is not the answer, at least not in the real world. Some government is the answer, as the founders intended. If evolution brings us to the point we are at and it all must crumble then that is really just an example of the free market acting on us. We have developed an inferior product and so must we fail. Out of the ashes can be born a new nation or nations and they will continue as man always has. Some will get it right for a while and some will not. Some will fail from from the get-go and some will fail later after becoming corrupt. It is a natural cycle.
Don't worry. We all die in the end. There is no perfect system where humans are involved. We do the best we can and when that is not enough someone else rises to the top. Rinse and repeat.
So, you are "certain" that "some government" is the answer.
That's an unfortunate conclusion since the evidence of history clearly demonstrates you are mistaken.
The single most pristine philosophical & formal instantiation of a small government respecting individual liberty occurred in 1776. There is unlikely to EVER be a better example of what happens when you try to set up a society with "some government".
Let's look at the result.
The entire thing collapsed into a lawless, totally corrupted, proto-fascist POLICE STATE in about 200 years. And the actual start of the decomposition began much sooner, within 100 years or so. The "solution" you are so certain about, when it was actually implemented under the most optimum conditions imaginable, almost immediately self-destructed. Think about it.
You really need to face this:
Your "certainty that "some government" is the answer is unsupported by history or any facts at all. It is simply more of the very same widespread & destructive statist fantasy that has crippled human civilization since the beginning.
Before you can formulate a solution, you must first understand the true nature of the problem.
Read what follows with care & then THINK.
Don't react, just think carefully about what it means.
I don't know what the answer is to your very good question, "how do we keep large groups from forming armies and overrunning individuals?", but…
I am fairly certain that the solution will NOT involve this:
– agreeing to give a group the power to form large armies & overrun individuals and smaller groups.
Do you now see the depth of your delusion? Your blindness? Your fantasy?
Open your eyes & finally turn your back on this suicidal fantasy called The State.
The purpose of government is to prevent government (and other forms of organized crime), and thus eventually, the purpose of government is to eliminate government entirely. I am OK with such a minimal government on the way to zero government. I think some of the recent amendments I wrote would make it pretty difficult for government to get out of control again.
"The purpose of our system is to control us and milk us while preventing any competition from arising."
There is no spoon.
Good article and MAINLY true, but your bias is showing:
'…universally considered dishonest until Obama'
Conservatives during the last Bush Admin showed their true FREE MARKET values…with bailouts. Businesses(banks) were then given a parachute to gamble and fraud knowing they would never be prosecuted, and even rescued if need be. Hence, derivatives.
We HAD protective legislation in place but certain sectors of special interest spent DECADES trying to undo it.
You need to delve further into the actors of the institutions at play. Fed Reserve, special interest groups(PNAC, etc.), the revolving door between key government positions and businesses.
You give the Neo-Cons(who have many high ranking Dems in their fold) a free pass. No mention of the Military-Industrial Complex.
No mention of the Petrodollar?
A lot of our 'economics' is the super wealthy funneling tax dollars into 'matters of national security', basically WAR. The US has so many soldiers in other countries because we take their resources that way.
Obama is a terrible President, but it was Bush Sr. who said something of a 'NEW WORLD ORDER'. He must have been speaking about ordering fast food on the internet?
Free Market Economics can only happen in small groups for short periods of time. Oligarchies naturally for as the intended/founding mission of an organization erodes into plain bureaucracy.
Unfortunately, Law of the Jungle, which is assisted by gravity and entropy, is the default.
Not only were bailouts initially supported primarily by the Democratic Party in Congress, but you are conflating the voters with the party leaders. Bailouts have never been OK for a majority of conservatives and Republicans; whereas, they suddenly became OK for a majority of Democratic voters and all of the mainstream media when Obama was elected. For example, the first Tea Parties were motivated primarily by the bailouts, and as we all know, the Tea Parties were all conservatives, libertarians, independents, etc. but no Obama voters. Also, the first Tea Parties barely mentioned Obama, himself. They were simply not about Obama as the MSM would have you believe. Also, the bailouts started one month before Obama was elected, so how could they have been considered OK before Obama in any meaningful way? There are rarely hard lines between factions, and dates, and causes, and effects; however, it is thus pretty accurate to say that bailouts were universally considered dishonest before Obama.
I think your bias is showing.
I mention cronyism a lot, and it is self evident that the MIC and other corporations are up to their eyeballs in cronyism. Who did you think I was talking about when I said: "Government rewards cronies with bailouts, contracts, tax breaks, regulations that help the crony and/or hurt honest competitors, and with selective enforcement of laws and regulations. Once the media became cronies, then media bias also helped other cronies and hurt honest competitors."
I'm not sure how the petrodollar explains what is wrong with the people. Please explain.
I barely hint at any New World Order conspiracy in this article, so why do you mention it, and why do you focus only on statements by Bush Sr.? He is only one of many Republicans and Democrats who talked about a New World Order. For example, Bill Clinton also said it a few times, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter's National Security advisor, talks about it a lot.
I think your bias is showing.
Instead of making the more accurate statement that Neocons are Republican Progressives, you state that Necons include some high Democrats. Progressives are those who believe that government has the power (or should have the power) to implement any good idea.
I think your bias is showing.
You imply that the Repeal of Glass-Steagall (under Clinton BTW) is somehow the cause of all the economic problems, but that was just a pro-regulation red herring by the MSM.
I think your bias is showing.
Read my article "When You Hear Glass Steagall – Run"
THIS!
Get Cracking the Code by Pete Hendrickson. Read it.
Read as many of the filings listed at losthorizons.com as you can. Then read more.
Be brave and embrace your American heritage. Follow the law and learn if you have income, how to properly declare it, and when…….
Just get your ass over to losthorizons.com. Get educated and enjoy your Liberty.
Keynes himself admitted that the make-work policies that resulted from his theory degraded productivity and prolonged the Great Depression. Modern neo-Keynsianism is a deliberate effort to ignore lessons learned to promote the progressive thesis/status quo. The author is correct to point out that our society is addicted to lies and punishes the truth tellers. But reality is not defined by efforts to control perceptions. Eventually, the system will crash, people will wake up, and it will be important that those with vision, depth, and strength of character are prepared to lead. For now we are the eirons banished to the wilderness by the multitudinous alazons. Let us hope the silent majority are jolted awake before we are made to drink hemlock.
The flaw in your logic is that any system devised by humans is natural. I would argue that natural and artificial or human devised systems and processes are mutually exclusive. So using the concept of "natural selection" truly doesn't apply here.
@Unknown, A "natural" system refers to one that is consistent with our genetically programmed behavior and its likely manifestations in our actual physical environment. It could claim to be most natural if it had evolved instead of having been designed, but that would not be a prerequisite to calling it "natural".
Jim,
Good takes all, particularly on Bill Clinton-based bad role modeling. The recipient of an "I'm not haaaapy" divorce in 1993, I was a phone guy in Washington DC, trawling the offices of every lobby and law office in DC. I can tell you for a fact every woman in town was channeling her "inner Monica Lewinski", dating became VERY easy, as did Washington women. I don't classify it as "bad" role modeling, but the singles situation 1993-2009 was a buffet of women for a single man with a motorcycle and a bad-boy look to him. Thankfully, women were not obese then, still thin and beautiful. DC women are a mess these days, not my concern because I moved to Boston in 2009. But divorce, promiscuity and the sheer width and breadth of female sexual behavior changed radically in the span of Clinton's presidency, 92-2000 and beyond. The rest of your takes? Sociology and government 101. Boilerplate. I can't overstate it, I think the biggest change in society is what has happened with women the past 25 years. The view from the grass roots is not good for young men, the drop in marriage rates (women want to "work" and have fun and not marry while still young) is partially that, but at the other end, when the men and women get to be 30 and beyond, the men have gotten used to the idea of dating and never marrying. In any case, the men don't want the older women now. They want the young women they couldn't marry in college, they don't want a thirty year old woman. Turns out, the men are content to marry their video games, porn, cable tv and sports and blow off getting married altogether. Sounds like the women that made men wait until the women are in their thirties to finally settle down are disappointed, hence the "man up" movement which falls on deaf ears, I understand. This doesn't end well except for the 1-room apartment industry. And of course, cat salesmen.
Very interesting. I had not observed women no longer wanting to have kids or get married. My initial thought was that it was just your experience because as soon as I got a motorcycle, leather jacket, etc., in the late 80's, I too was suddenly a hot commodity. However, another somewhat younger friend had recently assured me that women no longer want kids or marriage, so I believe you – mostly, and I want to learn more about this phenomenon. I can see how this is possible given evolution, which I explain in Why Men and Women Do What They Do, but I can't believe it was the influence of Clinton or Lewinsky in this case, so I am very curious as to what could be the influence. The evolutionary programming that is being tapped into here is the woman's desire to get a man, which is competing with here equally strong programmed desire to have kids. It seems to contradict both, but perhaps women have been tricked into thinking they have more time, and they know men don't want them to talk about kids or marriage. There is also the possibility of chemicals in the environment such as the ubiquitous endocrine disruptors. Perhaps women are not as easily satisfied. certainly they are barraged with stories of women who can have it all.
As for my points being boilerplate, they are politically incorrect, and thus I have not heard hardly any of them anywhere else, let alone assembled into a single coherent argument, so where are you hearing them?
Within humanity, there is no such thing as "natural selection", man has depended on it's level of socialisation for survival.
@Santiago, There is clearly natural selection in the last 100,000 years of humanity – even in the last 20,000 years ,and even in the last 100 years … although … selection in the last 100 years is mostly the result of perverse incentives caused by collectivism and cronyism.
It sounds as if you are saying that collectivism (e.g. socialism) is the force that causes people to survive or thrive or to evolve.
Dear Jim,
I like, and agree with, a lot of what you have written, both here and in other articles. I'd like to challenge your point about the value of money though. You say that "all of the money in America is created from nothing and backed by nothing except confidence". This is what some economic text books claim too, but it is actually not true.
Money, a liability of a bank, is backed by the assets of the bank, primarily the debts from its borrowers. The debts from borrowers are valuable to the bank because borrowers promise to take some of the bank's debts out of circulation and hand them over to the bank.
I've written an explanation here: http://www.bluehydra.co.uk/ACE/Post03-MoneyLifecycle.html
From what I have seen of your writing, I believe you may find it persuasive. I think there is currently a viral political effort to attack our traditionally competitive private monetary system, with the intention of replacing it with a government monopoly. The current system works fine as long as banks remain solvent. It is when they become insolvent that there is a huge problem.
When a bank creates new money, it is writing IOUs to other people, adding to its liabilities not its assets. As long as it has enough assets to be able to honour its IOUs (normally debts from borrowers or financial assets), it is entirely reasonable for it to create IOUs.
The current monetary system is a noose on the neck of this world. You describe the problem perfectly without saying it. Debt. We have a debt-based currency which IS THE problem.
Every dollar printed into existence is loaned into existence. That means for every dollar that is, that dollar is owed to someone else. At its base you can look at it like this; if we were all to eliminate our debt we would literally erase our monetary system. That means, simply put, the only way to maintain the economy is with debt. That’s insane.
I also do not consider a private monopoly on the currency of this country run by private bankers that profit from money they loan to us into existence, plus interest a healthy way to maintain our currency. What could go wrong there? Jim is spot-on that Central Banking as a system was considered abhorrent before 1913. In fact central banks were chartered and abolished 5 times prior to 1913 in this country and done so for good reason. Andrew Jackson spent two terms getting rid of the central bank; successfully too I might add.
The system should be one of positive-issued-treasury notes not a FRN. Instead of owing the bank the principle they made up (plus interest) we can easily run the same currency but call it a treasury note (TN). If properly managed (unlike the Fed that manipulates for its own ends, fiduciary is a legal term with weight) the wealth that a nation can create for its own benefit are incalculable.
The money in a system should represent the highest paid to the lowest paid plus economic expansion. It should be based on population; nothing else. When the federal government controls money there are many things which can be done differently. Municipal projects and infrastructure can be underwritten without interest for state and local governments; why the hell do we charge ourselves interest to do work we collectively need done? In times of economic slowdowns the government can spend into the economy directly where private holders of capital (reads vital resource) withhold the leverage from the system waiting for the bust part of the cycle to exercise that leverage at a maximum value. They exclusively look to get the most bang for their buck; they have proven time and again that they cannot responsibly wield that leverage as it is always done for personal gain.
Lending should be boring, and the compensation made by private lenders should be on-par with wealthy, not insanely wealthy. The fact that inflation even exists tells you they are thieves. That is how they maintain control by charging interest on principle they never had to begin with. It’s as though the Marquis de Sade invented money……..the whole system is a trap meant to own you forever. Interest is what causes more debt-based money to be loaned into existence and the cycle repeats. Don’t believe me? Track inflation before the Civil War to now. Notice when the rising curve starts……..tell me the year……..that’s not a coincidence.
There’s more to it but I’m already long in the comment but there isn’t an aspect that cannot be defended so fire away.
Just to clarify – in the last paragraph, the bit in parentheses refers to the assets, not its IOUs.