United Conformists of America

The defining feature of American life is neither freedom nor democracy. It is conformity. Rather than create an economic and political system devoted to rights and democracy,  Americans have created one based on conformity-to-power. American democracy is not just the tyranny of the majority--it is the banality of the $250 prostitute who conforms to the desires of her john.  The  john is the boss who makes demands on those who work for him.  Political correctness in universities, groupthink in corporations, and obedience to military orders are fundamental to the large-scale organizations on which American life is based; one cannot flourish in America without making the fictitious pleasure moans of a prostituted yes-man.  The chief source of independence from the American whore house is accumulated wealth, but the media madams and pimps, and the government and corporate  racketeers who control them, impose high marginal tax rates that, prophylactically, prevent release.

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America's Political and Economic Systems Have Failed, and They Should be Dismantled

The average American earns no more than he earned in 1970.  Yet, the supposed promise of American life is economic growth and opportunity. There has been no, zero, zip economic growth in 40 years.  What has occurred is that more Americans do more unproductive work on behalf of more  government and more social parasites.  The devil in the story is the government, of course, which has misdirected the economy and created income inequality, economic stagnation, lack of opportunity, and job flight.  In doing so, it has murdered millions of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of others around the world. America's great error has been assumption of an imperial crown; like Rome, America was a republic that became an empire in centuries-long decline.

The solution is not an even greater empire. The United Nations, whose land was donated by the Rockefeller family and developed by Progressive Robert Moses, is no solution, nor is socialism.  They are the problems.

America's empire building arises from narcissism.  The nation was successful not because of Hamilton and Lincoln but because of the anti-Federalist spirit, which imbued the individual with ambition, achievement orientation, and confidence to work in a spirit inherited from Americans' Calvinist faith.   The federalist--as opposed to Federalist--mindset limited central power and so permitted creativity and innovation.  State-oriented economic interests, including the slave interest as reflected in the writings of George Fitzhugh and, earlier, in Hamilton's reports to Congress, were from the beginning narcissistic.

Jefferson's legacy was powerful enough to restrain Hamilton's and Lincoln's narcissism for a century, until the 1890s; in the 1890s belief in the power of an elite to guide society--as opposed to the ideal of a spontaneous order created through the innovative capacity of all human beings--became the nation's bylaw.  From there, it was a simple matter to extend the narcissistic, rationalistic fantasy from Washington to the League of Nations. 

Like all human delusions, the rationalist, Progressive fantasy will fail.  The Roman system was based on rational self-interest and economic exploitation; so is the Progressive system.  The reason the economy has not grown, that the average American is not better off, is that the Progressive model cannot innovate. Planners' expectations limit progress no matter how smart the planners are.  The result is stagnation and then collapse as events outside the ken of rationalistic thought overtake the planners' mental models.  The process took four centuries with respect to the western Roman Empire, and 14 centuries with respect to the eastern one.  I give America a century.  The decline will be more rapid because advances in transportation and communication (that occurred in libertarian Britain and America) have hastened the historical pace of change.

The solution is, of course, decentralization--the dismantling of the federal government and the abolition of the United Nations.  Doing so would restructure the process of special interest extraction, creating a new, level playing field.  The costs of the United Nations have quickly exceeded its benefits (if there are any benefits), and the UN should be transformed into a global treaty organization like the World Trade Organization. Washington should be merged into Virginia, and the federal government should be closed.  The remnant of the federal government should also be a treaty organization similar to NATO.  In fact, the federal government could be replaced by NATO, with the states individually joining the World Trade Organization. 

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Bliss Is Better Than Ignorance

A friend has been up in arms about slanted, pro-Obama coverage.  It is not that the media is liberal, corporatist, or mainstream.  The media is a dumb wasteland.  I advised her to avoid making herself ignorant and turn off the TV or close the newspaper forever.

M, why watch the bozos on television?  You know that they are propagandists, and often ignorant ones.  Why waste your time with the likes of the guy you’re writing to (whom I’ve never heard of, incidentally, and I am happy about it).  You know that the television, radio, and print sources are, with few exceptions, sources of lies, propaganda, ignorance, and stupidity—usually all of them combined—so why help their ratings by watching them?    I haven’t watched television or read a Wall Street-linked newspaper in years, and I am better informed for it. 

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Is America a Moral Nation?

The American left lacks morality.  It is not that it is immoral; rather, America's elite, educated class does not know what morality is and depends on theft for its status.  That has been true of all elites with the exception of some of the American and British elites of the 18th through 20th centuries, especially the so-called robber barons, who, despite moral flaws, created wealth in proportion to their obtaining it.  All other elite classes in history have obtained wealth through criminality. These includes the socialist elites in Europe and Asia as well as past feudal elites.

Left-wing ideology is  therapy for the American elite's moral emptiness.  Left-wing Americans believe that other members of society are as morally empty as they are, so others must be regulated and controlled.  The left's lack of morality is elucidated in its power lust, for it sees itself as regulator and controller--the dictator to others of what is moral.  Because it does not know what morality is, yet claims to act in the name of morality, the left's aims are inherently unstable and illogical.  The instability threatens public well being.  Most Americans are not as morally empty as the left;  it is the left's power lust from which most Americans need protection.  Education has emptied America of morality, and the Progressive ideology in which America is indoctrinating its children is therapy for the teachers' moral nothingness. 

In business schools ideologies like corporate social responsibility are their therapy.  They transfer their basic, human need for moral belief and faith to empirical science, to the state, and to ideology.  But positivism cannot replace morality, and it cannot replace faith.  The grasping for power is desperate;  the left transforms the millions of human beings it has butchered into symptoms of moral nothingness.  In the American educational system, the left's holocaust never occurred; my students do not know the Soviet, Chinese, or Cambodian death count.

America's move to the left is a symptom of torn moral fabric.  This is no longer a nation that is tolerant, free, or righteous. This is a nation that aims to print money, to get something for nothing, and to use the rhetoric of democracy to extract wealth from its victims.The victims will be the Americans themselves--those who who have supported Progressivism and those who have opposed it.

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Whither the Economy?

I have been pondering the gold and stock markets this week, and I am concluding that there will be another leg to the downtrend, then a nice robust rally in the stock market for about a year. The rally may be as much as 50%.  That will absorb some of the liquidity that the Fed has created.  I am waiting for another fall before getting in.  The same is true of gold, but the fall might be sharper.  I have been totally out of precious metals since early April.  I am about 35% in the stock market. If it falls another 5-10% I'm in.

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Can the Principles of a Free Market Survive in a Society Treading on Financial Eggshells?

Julie Masters  

The financial crisis has left the notion of a truly free market economy somewhat battered, perhaps down and out. For years both London and New York enjoyed have enjoyed prosperity with a culture of expense accounts and endless lunches. However, by 2007 things were beginning to look a little less rosy, and after 2008, the lunches and flamboyant Wall Street corporate gifts seemed like a distant memory.

Many commentators point to the injections of debt into many of the world’s largest economies as evidence that the neoliberal animal which has lived during this era has privatized its last rail system or cut its last tax.  Can liberalism be given a new lease on life with a political and economic reshuffling?

An era of Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism was an economic claxon--the growth of rich nations in recent decades has been exponential. Its advocates suggested it provided a path for investment and economic efficiency against the backdrop of socialist reform in postwar years. In fact, many would argue that as the disposable cash reserves among the poorer echelons of society fell (together with those of the state following tax cuts) demand fell.

It’s critics would further comment that the resultant low incomes created a stranglehold on demand that in turn thwarted employment and created a cycle of debt. It is fair to say that neoliberalism has defined the free-market policies of recent history. It is also fair to say that it has created enormous credit growth that, if perhaps managed more prudently, might provide a solution. But how could policymakers have come up with a means of avoiding the crash in 2008?

Lehman and the 2008 crash

The crash of 2008 began in 2007, arguably signposted by BNP Paribas's decision to cease activity in US mortgage debt. This wiped out confidence among the interbank community as, although losses could not be known, they certainly could be estimated in large multiples of trillions of dollars. This destroyed trust between banks, and business ground to a halt. However, it wasn’t until the US government allowed Lehman Brothers to go under that the situation could be seen. 

Overnight, complete confidence in the Western banking system collapsed. If an institution like Lehman could go bankrupt, then any bank could go bankrupt.  Until then the US had bailed out numerous institutions (with taxpayers’ money) to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, with the UK similarly bailing out Northern Rock. Corporate culture was from that moment on set to change.  Anyone working in London or New York during the booming years of the early to mid-2000s will remember that an expense account was simply there to be run up. 

Golf days and numerous corporate gifts were commonplace. What followed was an injection of government capital into the banking system, which was enough to save the banks, but not the associated economies. Could a more prudent system of financial regulation have prevented the crisis of 2008, keeping credit cycles constrained before they boiled over? 

There are numerous tools which economists and policy makers have at their disposal in this regard, one of which includes placing a ceiling on the risk portfolio of financial institutions, an exercise in drafting that, when combined with others measures such as liquidity buffers, could have prevented the catastrophic demise of Lehman, as The Wall Street Journal suggested at the time. What such measures do is provide a safety net. They allow the development and innovation of new financial products and services by keeping checks on the total amount of credit in the system. If it was possible for regulators, through historical identification of credit cycles, to keep one step ahead of innovation, then regulatory tools may have a place or provide a means to save neoliberal system.

The end of Thatcher/Regan economics?

Should neoliberalism be condemned to death?  It could be said that all it has created is history’s largest and deepest financial crisis, prior to which it suffocated productivity and created inequality in economies in which it was left to thrive. This would be a harsh and inaccurate view, with perhaps a fairer conclusion being that it gave a breakeven situation for the past few decades. Ultimately, the effects of a free market can have a hugely positive effect on kick starting economies, and as has been shown in Chile (which also adopted a system of neoliberalism) it can flourish. It could also be true that Western economies could also benefit from the stimulus economic freedom brings through neoliberal principles. However, if institutions are to avoid the cyclical credit risk that this brings, innovative regulation must be at the root of such an ideology.

Julie Masters, a freelance writer, has made a guest contribution. The views reflect those of the author and are not mine.

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The New York Times versus the KKK--Who Hates the Most?

The KKK hates Jews, Blacks, immigrants, Asians, and Obama.

The New York Times hates Republicans, Bush, Christians, Tea Party,  and the Koch brothers.

Who hates the most?  

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Karl Pearson on Environmentalism

"The first aim of any genuine work of science, however popular, ought to be the presentation of such a classification of facts that the reader's mind is irresistibly led to acknowledge a logical sequence —a law which appeals to the reason before it captivates the imagination. Let us be quite sure that whenever we come across a conclusion in a scientific work which does not flow from the classification of facts, or which is not directly stated by the author to be an assumption, then we are dealing with bad science."

Karl Pearson (2008-05-21). THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE (1900) (Kindle Locations 370-375).  . Kindle Edition. 

The Grammar of Science was published in 1900.

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Americans Bid America Farewell

Two pro-freedom friends have told me that they are relocating to foreign countries.  One, the head of an academic department at CUNY, is moving with his wife and 12-year-old daughter to a university in Dubai.  A second, the owner of a diner on Route 28 in Phoenicia, New York, told me that he is moving with his pregnant wife to the Philippines.  Both have numerous reasons for the moves: The former is frustrated with CUNY while the latter's wife is originally from the Philippines.   Both, though, named the American political-and-economic situation as an important consideration.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Where liberty is, there is my country."  Neither the UAE nor the Phillipines is, according to the Heritage Foundation's rankings, freer than the US.   However, I suspect the Heritage Foundation overrates the extent of freedom in the US.

The Heritage Foundation considers five countries as free:


1. Hong Kong  89.3
2. Singapore     88.0
3. Australia      82.6
4. New Zealand  81.4
5. Switzerland    81.1-0

In addition, the ranking lists 30 countries as mostly free:

6	Canada	79.4	-0.5		21	Georgia	72.2	+2.8
7	Chile	79.0	+0.7		22	Lithuania	72.1	+0.6
8	Mauritius	76.9	-0.1		23	Iceland	72.1	+1.2
9	Denmark	76.1	-0.1		24	Japan	71.8	+0.2
10	United States	76.0	-0.3		25	Austria	71.8	+1.5
11	Ireland	75.7	-1.2		26	Macau	71.7	-0.1
12	Bahrain	75.5	+0.3		27	Qatar	71.3	0.0
13	Estonia	75.3	+2.1		28	United Arab Emirates	71.1	+1.8
14	United Kingdom	74.8	+0.7		29	Czech Republic	70.9	+1.0
15	Luxembourg	74.2	-0.3		30	Botswana	70.6	+1.0
16	Finland	74.0	+1.7		31	Norway	70.5	+1.7
17	The Netherlands	73.5	+0.2		32	Saint Lucia	70.4	-0.9
18	Sweden	72.9	+1.2		33	Jordan	70.4	+0.5
19	Germany	72.8	+1.8		34	South Korea	70.3	+0.4
20	Taiwan	72.7	+0.8		35	The Bahamas	70.1	+2.1

The freedom rankings are based  on 10 measures of economic freedom (in parentheses) grouped in to four main headings:

1. Rule of Law (property rights, freedom from corruption);
2. Limited Government (fiscal freedom, government spending);
3. Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom); and
4. Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom).

It seems to me that one of the chief freedoms, freedom of exit, is given insufficient weight.  Freedom to flee a renegade state is so crucial to the overall state of freedom that it should be given a broader heading.  Among the mostly free and free countries America comes nearly last with respect to freedom of exit.  Expatriates' income is taxed and those who wish to renounce American citizenship have their retirement accounts taxed; for many Americans this makes exit tantamount to financial suicide.

In America, the median household wealth was $77,300 in 2010 and $126,400 in 2007, according to the New York Times.  According to OECD data, which is probably a few years old:

Household net-adjusted disposable income is the amount of money that a household earns each year after tax. It represents the money available to a household for spending on goods or services. In (the) United States, the average household net-adjusted disposable income is 38 001 USD a year, much higher than the OECD average of 23 047 USD.

Household financial wealth is the total value of a household’s financial worth. In the United States, the average household net financial wealth is estimated at 115 918 USD, much higher than the OECD average of 40 516 USD and the highest figure in the OECD. While the ideal measure of household wealth should include real assets (e.g. land and dwellings), such information is currently available for only a small number of OECD countries.

Much of Americans' wealth is in IRAs and retirement accounts.  That money is taxed upon renunciation of US citizenship.


According to International Living the best places to retire are these:

1.Ecuador	100	95	73	62	72	45	86	96	81
2. Panama	93	100	62	63	77	74	93	69	80
3. Mexico	94	90	68	66	76	59	81	92	79
4. France	78	60	59	81	100	92	100	87	78
5. Italy	85	65	64	85	90	62	100	87	78
6. Uruguay	94	80	64	72	72	61	100	93	77
7. Malta	88	72	66	71	80	52	100	95	76
8. Chile	95	87	60	67	73	73	98	59	76
9. Spain	90	65	56	68	90	66	100	79	75
10. Costa Rica	95	76	62	60	78	60	95	79	75
11. Brazil	92	74	66	61	73	62	83	82	74
12. Argentina	92	60	61	70	82	56	100	91	74
13. Colombia	98	70	68	58	72	44	71	92	73
14. New Zealand	96	55	58	59	86	70	100	84	73
15. U.S.	57	78	57	79	78	100	100	80	73
16. Portugal	72	74	60	72	77	56	100	83	72
17. Australia	57	69	56	58	87	92	100	84	71
18. Belize	83	78	69	58	60	60	82	65	70
19. Malaysia	96	62	66	71	68	44	86	43	69
20. Ireland	78	80	28	81	79	60	100	65	68
21. Nicaragua	98	60	66	57	66	36	69	68	67
22. U.K.	57	80	30	70	84	80	100	66	67
23. Honduras	97	50	65	32	66	40	71	83	64
24. Dom Rep	97	60	58	47	60	40	70	57	63
25. Thailand	92	45	68	65	63	32	60	24

The only country freer than the US that is also a desirable retirement destination is Chile. This makes a choice difficult.  I am thinking of doing a systematic study of the top twenty countries on both lists to draw my own conclusions.  I haven't traveled much, so this would be an enjoyable and useful project.

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Saratoga Says No to Environmental Extremism

I submitted this piece to the Lincoln Eagle this morning. 

Saratoga Says No to Environmental Extremism

Mitchell Langbert

David Chew, a Saratoga freedom fighter, has flung himself into the Agenda 21 maelstrom, and he aims to show Kingston citizens how to resist Mayor Gallo's assaults on your freedom, which include Gallo's Block by Blockheads program and his comprehensive plan now discussed in City Hall under the chairmanship of Alderman at Large James Noble.  

Chew says that, like Saratoga's comprehensive plans, Gallo's comprehensive plan links with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Cleaner Greener Communities regionalization scheme.  Gov. Cuomo's scheme, which he has funded through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to the tune of $100 million, aims to force you to drive a smaller car and live in a smaller home.  It aims to end the American tradition of electing the officials who govern you, replacing local democracy with regional soviets.  

Chew believes that Saratoga County is a microcosm of what is happening nationally, including in Kingston.  With just under 27,000 in population, Saratoga Springs is about the same size as Kingston.  Just as, under Alderman Noble's leadership, Kingston is discussing adoption of a comprehensive plan linked to the Cleaner Greener Communities program, so has Saratoga Springs adopted one, and Saratoga County is following with its own.   

Chew says that Saratoga Springs has commissioned a 15-member comprehensive planning committee to review and update the city’s present plan.  The Saratoga Springs Comprehensive Planning Committee is stacked with insiders with extremist environmentalist agendas.  A third of the planning committee seats have gone to members of a radical environmental organization, Sustainable Saratoga.   “Sustainable Saratoga submitted an 11-page position paper that contained extreme ideas that are receiving undue attention from the paid consulting firm and the CPC members," Chew says. 

Chew says that another organization, Saratoga Preserving Land and Nature (PLAN), has had undue influence in the comprehensive planning process.  Saratoga PLAN is the local affiliate of the national Land Trust Alliance, and it has an organization member sitting on the comprehensive plan committee. The land trust is in the business of working with federal agencies offering grants and land restriction programs tied to crippling conservation easement contracts, sale of private property development rights, and the acquisition of lands for land-use-management purposes.  The land trusts' stock-in-trade is environmental extremism.   

Alderman Noble's son, Steve Noble, is chair of the Kingston Land Trust, which is listed as a local land trust on the website of the national Land Trust Alliance, the same national organization to which Saratoga Springs PLAN belongs.  As well, Julie Noble is on the comprehensive planning board along with Alderman Noble.  Julie bills herself as an environmental educator.  The Lincoln Eagle has called Alderman Noble for comment.

Chew points out that Saratoga's politicians are increasingly overt about transfer of home rule and local power to regional authorities.  In our region the regional soviet to whom Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Gallo aim to transfer political power is Engage Mid-Hudson; in the Capital Region Cuomo's soviet is called the Sustainable Capital Region. Both key off Agenda 21.  In the Capital Region, "The politicians, including 23 town supervisors, are talking openly of transferring power. The corruption is overt; the message has been reiterated in their minds for many years," says Chew.   

On July 11 and July 15 Chew led two groups of local freedom fighters to comprehensive planning meetings.  On July 11, 25 to 30 local freedom fighters showed up at the comprehensive plan meeting, overwhelming the mere dozen of green insiders.  On July 15 four local freedom fighters appeared, but given that ten green insiders were again present, the freedom fighters constituted nearly a third of those present.  

John Anthony has proposed a sustainable freedom pledge that he suggests all city planners and members of comprehensive plan committees sign.  To make a sustainable freedom pledge, elected officials make a public commitment to maintaining private property rights--the source of your standard of living.  Is Mayor Gallo willing to defend your right to live in your home? 

Some of the members of the Kingston Comprehensive Plan Committee who should sign a sustainable freedom oath are as follows:  James Noble, Julie Noble, Suzanne Cahill, Kyla Haber, Alderwoman Deborah Brown, Alderwoman Mary Ann Mills, Dennis Doyle, Kevin Gilfeather, Toni Roser, Ralph Swenson, Michael Schupp, and Judith Hansen.

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