Bernard Madoff Sentencing Fnord

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

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

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

Who should be responsible for reimbursing the victims?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inflation vs. Reflation

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

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

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

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

An Example Tax Resister Insurance Calculation

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

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

Francois Tremblay then commented:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark Sanford's Fnord

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Washington D.C. Train Crash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reader Mail #101

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

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

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

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

The bottom line for tax evasion/resistance is:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This post on no third solution had some interesting bits.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The summary was:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AdBrite is not keyword targeted. That advice is irrelevant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All of those are obviously silly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RE: Ron PAul

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you said:

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

I think this would work great.

It's on my list of things to do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(repeat same joke with deal or no deal)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our children don't owe crap.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You're commenting on the wrong post.

The government should

-buy out the federal reserve permenently

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

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

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

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

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



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



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



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



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

You're entirely pro-State trolling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think intentions make all the difference in the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I really shouldn't waste time debating idiots.

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

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

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

Were you forced to take drugs? I hope not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Responding to your reader mail comment to my post:

You are exactly wrong. Quoting that page:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do Vampires Exist?

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

Is this nonfiction?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Got My First AdBrite Check!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reader Mail #100

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

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

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

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

I disagree. There is an objective standard of evil.

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

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

Evil is stupid and inefficient.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why are you so eager to defend Stanford bank?

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

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

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

Molyneux has a great metaphor - free range chicken farming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's true for successful businesses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I liked the first comment on that second article:

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

That was interesting. Was that your comment?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't get the quantum physics analogy.

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

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

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

I don't get that bit at all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summarizing the key points:

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

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

Right now, Ron Paul is all we have.

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

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

You're missing the point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imagine if these people embraced agorism on any level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You mean Irwin Schiff?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take care, Elli

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

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

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

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

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

Folks still don't get it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep up your great posts!

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

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

Another good site is Shadow Government Statistics

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

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

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

I just bought a Chinese Real Estate Fund - TAO.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's more complicated than that.

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

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

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

Anon (NaF POISON commenter),

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

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

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

H2SiF6 + 2 NaOH → Na2SiF6 + 2 H2O

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

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

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

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

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

The Myth of Job Creation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who Owes the National Debt?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Donating Stolen Property Makes you a Hero!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iran's Fake Election

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

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

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

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

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

Riots and protests serve several useful functions.

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

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

Pay Attention When You Talk!

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

The origin of this behavior comes from three locations:

1. school
2. TV
3. wage slave jobs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Green Shoots" Fnord

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video Game Evil vs. Real World Evil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you a Slave?

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

Taxation is not a voluntary exchange.

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

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

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

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

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

Parasites Colonized the Software Industry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Ron Paul Good or Evil?

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

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

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

There is a "debate ceiling". Ideas more radical than those of the "debate ceiling" are not publicly discussed. Ron Paul represents the limit of (L)libertarian/minarchist thinking. Ron Paul does not explicitly say "Who needs a government anyway?" Ron Paul holds out the false hope that the system can be reformed. In this manner, Ron Paul is a shill for the establishment. Ron Paul is advocating for the usual libertarian/minarchist intellectual trap, rather than advocating for true free markets.

Via the Internet, Ron Paul has successfully led some people to the philosophy of true free markets. For example, some people found my blog via posts on the Ron Paul forums. Once you realize that Ron Paul is a promising candidate with no chance of getting elected, you realize "The system is completely broken!" and that leads to "Who needs a government anyway?" The Ron Paul Internet forums are still active. However, only a minority of Ron Paul supporters have been converted to agorism.

Ron Paul is good, because he helps raise awareness for "The Federal Reserve is evil!", "The income tax is evil!", and "Big government is evil!" However, he is part of the problem because he does not say "Who needs a government anyway?" By giving a weak criticism of the State, Ron Paul can seem to be endorsing the State.

Reader Mail #99

In this thread on Bureaucrash (site registration required), someone was complaining about this post on the Left Libertarian Yahoo group. Someone wrote an article in the New York Times comedy papers about "When free trade comes to third world countries, it leads to violence and bad things." Some people were offended by the blatant propaganda and falsehoods.

The problem is that "Bring free trade to third world countries!" usually means "fake free trade". Instead of genuine free trade, the new laws are really corporate welfare for large international corporations. For example, the water distribution system might be "privatized", but it's really a State-licensed monopoly to the corporation selling water.

With genuine free trade, anyone living in the USA could freely move to that country and work, and anyone in that country could freely move to the USA and work here. That never occurs. By restricting the movement of the workers/cattle, the masters in various countries agree to respect each others' property.

Whenever I see someone wearing a "Bring free trade to Africa!" T-Shirt, my retort now is "How about bringing free trade to the United States?" They usually don't get the joke/truth.

I don't get offended anymore by propaganda in the mainstream media. A mainstream "journalist" is really a comedian, whose performance is stale and no longer funny. Viewed that way, it's amusing to just watch the fnords.

The Supreme Leader of Humanity probably prefers for mainstream media sources to remain lies, for now. It's important to keep the masses stupid and complacent, while the smartest people slowly realize the truth. If the truth were broadcast in the mainstream media, it would cause a massive panic. It's better if people slowly discover the truth, starting with the smartest first.

As long as people can freely communicate on the Internet, there's no reason to be offended by lies in the mainstream media. It's like watching your neighbor beat his child; technically, it's none of your business. Of course, a world filled with insane people is a problem, so in a sense it does matter!

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This article and this article, via Bureaucrash, were on how the Libertarian party was hijacked by pro-State trolls.

It is impossible to achieve reform via voting or political means. If you attempt to organize a large group of people, for the purpose of voting or protesting, then professional disinformation agents will infiltrate your organization and hijack your movement. There's deliberate spies, planted by the government. There also are people who are just plain jerks, who will infiltrate your organization because they enjoy it and they lull the leaders into a false sense of complacency.

If you organize a movement along free market principles, via agorism, then it's almost impossible for the bad guys to infiltrate it. If one part is inefficient due to idiots or corruption, then it will merely be replaced by competition. Also, via agorism, you only need a handful of people to get started on the path of freedom. If you seek political means for freedom, you need to convince 50%+ of the people to strongly care about your cause.

The difference between now and 20+ years ago is that the Internet is decentralized, and allows people to share information easily. Even if 99.9%+ of the people are clueless pro-State trolls, the Internet makes it easy for the remaining 0.1% to share information. Previously, people with a clue were too easily kept isolated and confused, preventing a critical mass from occurring.

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This article, via Bureaucrash, is an introduction to Agorism written by Konkin. It's decent introductory-level material. I'm looking for more advanced stuff.

I liked this bit (paraphrasing):

Q: Why do people trade?

A: Because A values X more than Y, while B values Y more than X. Then, they both profit from the trade.

There's another reason to trade. Division and specialization of labor is useful.

If I had to grow my own food and couldn't trade, I'd have to spend a lot of time on it. It's better for someone else to grow food full-time, and specialize and become efficient. Then, we can trade. With modern farming techniques, one person can grow enough food to feed 100+ people. That's more labor-efficient than everyone spending 10% or more of their time growing food. Similarly, I'd never get anything done if I had to build my own computer, build my own cell phone, generate my own electricity, etc. Division of labor is efficient.

The evil in the present is that the State sellers of electricity/cell phones/health care have a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly. Division of labor is good. When the State gives a monopoly to a handful of people, that leads to evil. That provides the illusion that division of labor and the conveniences of our modern civilization are evil.

Free trade is good. Government restriction of trade is evil. People have been brainwashed to believe that State restriction of free trade is good. "Unrestricted free trade is evil!" is propaganda. The problem always is pre-existing regulation of the market, and the crisis is then exacerbated by more regulation.

For example, I've never successfully convinced any of my relatives "Government licensing requirements for doctors are the reason health care is expensive. If there were no restrictive State licensing requirements, then there would be more competition and cheaper prices." All the talk of "Obama will create national health insurance!" is an evil fnord distracting people from "Health care is expensive because government restricts the supply of doctors and restricts what treatments are legal."

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The new issue of the journal "ALLiance" of the Libertarian Left was out. I was hoping for better information on practical agorism.

There was an interesting statistic. One person can be fed on 0.1 of an acre of land, with suitable farming techniques. That's interesting. One of my ideas was to buy a couple of acres of farmland and pay some people to work it for me. Then, I'd have someplace to go in a SHTF scenario, and could profitably sell the food otherwise. As long as "rent collected" is greater than property taxes owned, it's worth it to occupy the land.

There also was a bit on how government, and laws regulating male-female interactions, restrict the rights of women. For example, I was falsely accused of sexual harassment at my most recent job. That law worked against me and some of my coworkers, who had to scramble to finish the project without me. I wasn't accused of a crime, but I wasn't given any due process regarding the incident. The corporate employer is effectively a branch of the State. In a criminal trial, you're entitled to a certain illusion of fairness, but a corporate employer need not give a reason when they fire you. For people living paycheck-to-paycheck (fortunately I'm not), getting fired can be just as bad as being jailed.

In a business that's mostly men, then you might be reluctant to hire a woman, lest you later be accused of "sexual harassment". If an accusation is made, you have to bend over backwards to cater to the accuser, lest you be victim of a lawsuit.

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On the subject of property taxes, there's another reason to prefer gold to real estate. In some cities, the government has been bankrupted due to debts. The property has ridiculously high property tax rates, making the value of the land zero. It'd be cheaper to rent in a neighboring city, than to "buy" and pay high property taxes.

As the State collapses, ridiculously high property taxes could be a problem. There's nothing that prevents State enforcers from jacking up property tax rates. All the land in a city is held as collateral for the debts of the politicians/parasites.

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

It is currently completely legal to build your own firearm, as long as the end result complies with your local laws (http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/faq2.htm#a6). But since it's not serialized, you are not allowed to transfer it.

You are exactly wrong. Quoting that page:

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

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

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

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

And gold has storage costs, who knew.

You're exactly missing the point. This is a common fallacy by pro-State troll economists. "Gold investors are idiots!" I see that repeated so often on the Communism Channel that it makes me want to convert all my savings to gold.

The storage costs of gold are artificially high, due to State restriction of the market. It's illegal/impractical to operate a gold warehouse receipt business.

If you store gold in your home, then your cost is zero. Of course, that risks theft.

A COMEX gold warehouse receipt costs about $150 per year for 100 ounces of gold. The GLD ETF has a fee of 0.50%. However, both of those investments are reported to the State/IRS, and you may not be able to get your gold in a SHTF scenario. Property tax rates are 1% or more, depending on where you live.

In a true free market, you can profitably make gold-denominated loans for a positive interest rate. Before 1913, there were positive interest rates on a gold-denominated savings account, or a "Bill of Exchange". In the present, it's illegal/impractical to make gold-denominated loans. The Federal Reserve credit monopoly means that a gold-denominated loan would have an implied interest rate of 20%-30%+.

If I own physical gold, I can move and take my gold with me. If I "own" land, and the State parasites raise property tax rates, I am SOL.

A real estate investment is decent. I won't keep 100% of my savings in gold. With a gold investment, you risk theft of your metal. With real estate, you risk gradual theft via property taxes.

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

Over the long term and across housing bubbles/credit crunches, Land is the only asset that "always" increases in value

http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp11.htm

I don't know what your fantasy is. As far as I can tell, the dollar-denominated price of gold and the stock market also increase over time.

A lot of people selling subprime mortgage bonds lost gambling "Housing prices always rise."

Due to rising rent without having to work for that rent. The ultimate free lunch, granted by the state.

For the economists to say that credit boom investment in Land was irrational is absurd. Land always rises in value. That makes it a perfectly rational investment surely?

You probably will earn a positive return from an unleveraged real estate investment. Whether it'll be a greater return than a gold investment is another issue.

The problem with land is that you don't actually own it. Property taxes and zoning laws restrict what you may do with your land.

One of the main evils of the State is "There's no safe place to store your savings." No matter what you pick, your savings will be eroded by taxes, inflation, or other State-mandated costs.

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This post on BradSpangler.com was interesting. It's about how the Bureaucrash website allegedly has been taken over by pro-State trolls. It's also about how (L)libertarians say "We must censor those with radical/anarchist viewpoints, otherwise we won't be taken seriously."

I also noticed this problem on the Ron Paul Forums. The site owners feel obligated to censor people with extreme viewpoints. Otherwise, those people discredit Ron Paul, via the Strawman Fallacy. "Some members of the Libertarian party have extreme viewpoints. Therefore, all viewpoints of all (L)libertarians should not be taken seriously."

Once a website adopts a censorship policy, this leads to continuous debates over "What content is appropriate?" Over time, the people with the most liberal viewpoint towards "appropriate site content" get disgusted and leave. This is an "evaporative cooling" effect.

Similarly, in politics and mainstream journalism, those with the most independent thinking ability get frustrated and leave. Eventually, you only have people who are complete pro-State trolls.

This problem is faced by mainstream journalists/comedians/writers/actors. You must adopt a culture of self-censorship, lest you not be taken seriously. For example, if I attempted to promote agorism via standup comedy, then some people might say "FSK, you should tone down your act. If you're that extreme, you'll never be taken seriously. If you talk that way, no mainstream media outlet will ever invite you as a guest." The fallacy is that my extreme/accurate viewpoint is the reason I would be interesting in the first place.

One nice thing about the Internet is that if you believe that a website's owners are being unreasonable, you can say "**** you! I'm starting a competing website." I can bypass mainstream media censorship and self-publish. Of course, that means that it's slow and takes time to acquire readers!

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Fivemileshigh has left a new comment on your post "The Fallacy of Suing the Government":

A greater underlying fallacy is that the state runs the justice system, and thus rendering a just verdict is unlikely simply because of the conflict of interest.

I've mentioned that elsewhere, although that wasn't the point of that post.

The degree of unlikelihood is directly proportional to the "depth" of the issue, for example you would never get a verdict of "Taxation is immoral" from the state, whereas you are quite likely to get a "FSK was speeding 63 mph instead of 67, therefore he shall pay a $100 fine, not $200" Everyone will say, wow, justice was done, he was charged the correct $100 and not the abusive $200. Nobody will stop to ask hey, exactly who did FSK hurt by doing 67 in a 55 zone on an empty road in the middle of nowhere? Nobody will see that you are asking the robber for justice.

As a better example, consider a plea bargain. Suppose that State enforcers decide to assault me for practicing agorism. I would face 20 years in prison if convicted. I'm offered a plea bargain for one year in prison. Most people would be bullied into accepting the plea bargain. Then, people say "See! The prosecutor was generous! He offered you a plea bargain!"

Another example is an income tax refund. It's merely a partial return of stolen property, but most people treat it as a boon from the government.

My parents got all excited about their $250 stimulus payment check. I pointed out that their savings and pension lost more than $250 of purchasing power, due to inflation. They didn't get it. They only saw "Woohoo! Free money!"

There are all sorts of tricks that provide the illusion that the State is good, while it really is evil. It was very traumatic when I first started seeing the fnords. Now, my reaction is "Oh, that again! Does that really fool people?"

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

I inherited a shed full of stuff from my dad who started farming (as a child) in the 1930's with his dad, and so on going back to the 1860's (though I am not a farmer). One of the items I discovered was an old pesticide container with the the word POISON written in large letters on the front. Right about the word poison, written equally as large, were the words SODIUM FLUORIDE. The contents of the container were 90% Sodium Fluoride and 10% inert ingredients. The fluoride in toothpaste and mixed with public water is the same stuff and it is POISON. The best explanation as to why it is put into public water has to do with aluminum production and profit maximization. Fluoride is a waste product of aluminum production and aluminum companies would have had to expend money to counter the environmental damage unless they could convince some idiot(s) to actually pay them money to buy their toxic industrial waste. I can't remember who, but someone wrote a book on this very topic and it's worth a read if you're interested in this topic

That's the story I read. Allegedly, fluoride is hazardous waste. The manufacturers then successfully lobbied for "Fluoride is beneficial!", and then got a deal to eliminate their waste by dumping it in everyone's drinking water!

I simultaneously can't believe someone would be that evil to do that on purpose. On the other hand, members of the parasite class are pretty evil.

I consider "Fluoride is beneficial!" and "Fluoride is harmful!" to be not proven either way. The Matrix has severely messed up most mainstream science. A lot of "proven facts" should be re-verified.

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I've mostly recovered my blogging energy. I'm getting back to my "write at least one new post per day" habit. That's good, because I've nearly used up my pool of queued drafts.

I've noticed that it takes 2-3 months to fully recover my energy after being involuntarily hospitalized. Some things take as long as 1.5 years. I'm ahead of where I usually am after being kidnapped and tortured.

I feel that I'm doing well enough to avoid another involuntary hospitalization. It seems that my "panic attacks" were really about reconciling my emotional intelligence with my logical intelligence. I feel that I now have mostly synchronized emotions and logic, whereas before it was like I had two halves of my brain unable to communicate.

I'm noticing more how other people seem to have messed-up emotions or messed-up logic. It's very disturbing. It seems to affect everyone, but some people show the symptoms more than others.

I'm noticing 0.5-2 year old children a bit more. They seem to all have a very traumatized look on their face. It's as if they're realizing "OMFG! All the adults around me are insane!" By the time they're old enough to remember, they've learned that being insane is "normal" and don't notice anything unusual.

I wonder how productive I would have been, if I had never been pro-State brainwashed. It might be impossible to survive in a State school or wage slave job, without being pro-State brainwashed. Are my current troubles finding a job due to my higher awareness? Or, does the economy just plain suck right now? I need to get out of the wage slave career track, but I'm probably going to need a wage slave job for the next few years.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Compound Interest Paradox":

"Since money can only be put into circulation via a loan, the system guarantees that the banks will eventually own practically everything." (from 1st paragraph) Can't it be put into circulation via an exchange for labor (i.e. wage/salary) or other market operations (i.e. sale of a good or service that you have produced)?

No. Suppose I accept a job to write software for $5000. I get $5000. My employer gets the software. However, no new money was created by this transaction. My employer paid me out of money that already existed. My employer did not print new money in order to pay me.

Only a bank has the power to create money. If you aren't a bank, no matter how much work you perform, you don't create new money.

When you work, you create wealth. Some of this wealth is then leeched by the financial industry. A bankster will loan you or your employer or someone else money, in exchange for a fraction of your work.

Under the US monetary system, the banksters are guaranteed a certain percentage of all productive labor. Only the banksters have the power to create money.

This is a common misconception. "When I work, I create money." When you work, you only create goods and services, which you trade for money. No new money is created when a non-banker works. All new money is created by a bank. That is the essence of the Paradox.

With the power to print money, the banksters may buy any business they choose. For example, Sumner Redstone acquired control of Viacom and CBS in a leveraged buyout. In other words, a group of banksters picked Sumner Redstone to control Viacom and CBS. If Sumner Redstone does not perform well, then another leveraged buyout can be arranged. The banksters directly or indirectly control all mainstream media corporations; with this control, it's very easy for them to cover up their abuses.

If I had a privately owned business that the banksters want, they can make me a huge buyout offer. If I refuse, they can finance a large corporate competitor. If necessary, they can lobby for laws declaring my business illegal.

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I liked this post on no third solution. As part of Chrysler and GM's bankruptcy, some dealer franchises are forced to close. David Z is writing about Chrysler, but GM has a similar problem.

A Chrysler dealership is not owned by Chrysler. It is an independent business with a franchise agreement.

It would be very annoying to have spent money buying a Chrysler dealer business, only to have the agreement terminated. Chrysler is in bankruptcy, so suing Chrysler for unfairly terminating your franchise is a waste of time.

The Chrysler dealers are SOL for many reasons:

1. Chrysler is not repurchasing unsold cars. Once the dealership franchise is terminated, the ex-dealer may no longer sell the cars as new with a factory warranty. They will become used cars, with a huge drop in market value, even though they've never been driven.
2. The ex-dealers will no longer be able to service warranties on cars they already sold. Chrysler makes payments to dealers for repairs performed while under warranty.
   
3. The dealers have an inventory of parts they purchased for repairs. These parts must now be sold at a loss.
4. Many dealers have extensive leverage. If a dealer has an inventory of 100 cars and paid $10k each, the dealer doesn't put up $1M of his own money. The dealer borrows $1M. The dealer is now forced to repay the loan. The dealer business might own the lot the store occupies, and now the bank will take it as collateral.
5. The dealer loses all the accumulated investment in his business. If the dealer did a good job servicing someone who previously purchased a car, then that dealer will not get a repeat customer.
   

What's the free market solution for determining what dealerships close? How about "If a dealership can't meet its expenses, then it closes. Otherwise, it stays in business." What actually happened is a State bureaucrat decided which dealership businesses stay open and which ones close.

Suppose that X and Y both own a dealership business in the same area. If X is forced to close but not Y, then this is a windfall for Y. To be fair, X should be allowed to stay open as long as he has enough sales to justify his expenses.

I'm surprised that nobody on the Communism Channel is complaining "Why not allow a dealer business to stay open as long as its profitable? What right do Chrysler and GM have to force them to close? Why should a bureaucrat decide which businesses stay open and which ones close?"

What would a car dealer business look like in a true free market? There would be many small car manufacturers instead of three megacorporations. A car salesman would probably have an arrangement with several small manufacturers. If one of them went bankrupt, then other competitors would pick up the slack. In the present, a car dealer has an exclusive agreement with one megacorporation. They're sort of an independent business, but they're at the mercy of the megacorporation.

The reason there are no emerging small competitors is that the auto industry is heavily regulated. A group of 5-10 people can't start a new car manufacturing business, because of the huge overhead. A UAW employee who loses his job can't say "**** this! I'm going to make and sell my own cars!" The problem is not that the corporation owns the factory. The corporation owns the army of lawyers and bureaucrats that ensure compliance with the extensive State regulation.

Contrast that with the software industry. It's very common for a software engineer to leave Microsoft or Google and start their own successful software business.

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chronosaidit (http://chronosaidit.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #98":

Below is my last comment regarding your "blinking" post. Could you explain to me how I am 'hostile' according to your comments above (in Reader Mail #98)? I have not only explained myself fully, I have also agreed with you on some level. So I fail to understand what it is that you are saying, and would appreciate your feedback as to specifically what, again in the post below, is hostile! Thank you!

It's just the overall tone. It's like pornography. I know it when I see it.

You're mentioning the same points over and over again, without saying anything new.

On your response to my 'blinking one eye...' comment, you wrote.
Dogs/cats are not a valid comparison...and, it's possible that birds...
You would be better off researching birds, etc. Likewise, you assume that because an animal is domesticated that it is 'pro-state brainwashed.' You might look into the history of animal domestication. The first dogs/cats were animals that fed off of the scraps of human consumption. It is not likely the state had anything to do with that. When you associate the state 'carte blanche' with everything, you use the same 'straw man fallacy' that you yourself frequently argue against.

Again, the reason your 'blink one at a time' hypothesis makes little sense, is because you have made a statement without comparing it to anything in reality. I strongly encourage you to compare your 'hypothesized blinking pattern' with some other animal. Dog, cat, monkey, cow, whatever, I seriously doubt that the relationship between an animal and a human affects its instincts severely to the point of affecting its blinking habits. Do you see how ridiculous this is? It's like saying that pro-state brainwashing directly affects the volume of air that the lungs can hold. Now, wouldn't breathing and exercise make more sense? In the same way...

If you want to say that you are no longer afraid of looking people in the eye, because you are releasing yourself from habits and thoughts from your history, I understand that. That makes sense! Because you are comparing your past behavior to your current behavior, or because you compare your behavior to others, like you did when you mentioned people frequently blinking. You have a point on the blinking. I find that it is people's own awareness of either the fact that they are full of **** and are trying to take advantage of you, or they have prejudged you with a stereotype and are uncomfortable around you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with theorizing and I am not offended, however in its current state, your hypothesis on blinking has no correlation to reality.

chronosaidit (http://chronosaidit.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #98":

This comment definitely has a hostile tone. I've already answered all these points many times.

Again, this is the main question:

Are you more likely to lose 30% of your savings in a market dip than you are to lose it in a burglary, assuming you take the proper precautions in both scenarios?

I've already said that gold has outperformed the stock market by a huge margin over the past 10 years. If the "safe place to store it" problem were addressed, I'd probably convert all my savings to gold and silver.

I've decided to not cash in my State paper investments (yet). I'm buying GLD and SLV with new investment money, while leaving my old investments where they are. GLD and SLV only underperform metal by 0.5% per year, but in a SHTF scenario they will be worthless.

I'm also going to start buying physical gold and silver, but that will have to wait another 2-3 years.

I'm probably at the point where "the rate at which my savings are eroded due to inflation" exceeds "new savings". That isn't a valid comparison, because the economy is bad and I'm currently unemployed.

My personal priorities are:

1. Get a wage slave job.
2. Make sure I don't get involuntarily hospitalized again.
3. Get some in-person friends who aren't pro-State trolls.
   
4. Get my own apartment again.
5. Start working on promoting agorism.
6. Start working on practical agorism. Start converting my State paper investments to gold and silver.

I still have other personal goals that are more urgent than "Start buying gold and silver."

That is the basic question I asked re: gold and silver. Basically you pointed out a few things:

1) Cops could steal your gold/silver.
2) Criminals can sell your gold/silver if they steal it.
3) It's risky to run a gold/silver warehouse.
4) Your parents spy on everything you do.
5) Torture
6) TSHTF scenario

I will answer the above in order.

First, the boys in blue...I asked you about portfolio losses and investment options, why are you talking about police raids? It's not like you are going to have access to your Schwab account if you are behind bars. You have to do something stupid to have your gold seized by the police...(like selling liberty dollars-that is a stupid business endeavor, it is no different from on-the-books tax resistance...challenging the bad guys, on their turf). If the police raid your house, you did not take the proper precautions. The chance that someone is the victim of a random, unprovoked police raid is extremely small, and should not be in a normal person's investment decision.

If I own State paper investments, such as cash, bonds, or stocks, I'm guaranteed to get ripped off by inflation over time. I've already repeatedly said that.

No matter how I buy gold, it is reported to the State. If I buy from an online dealer, they are required to report the transaction to the State. There's a paper trail when I mail them a check. If I buy in a store, I am required to show ID.

I have no idea what the theft risk is. Also, a State enforcer need not directly raid my apartment himself. He may leak the information to a criminal he's working with. A State database of "People who have bought gold and silver and taken delivery." would be very useful to any criminal.

"Establish a gold/silver/FRN barter network" is one of my agorist business ideas. This would let people buy gold and silver with reporting the transaction to the State. If I create such a business, and publicly advertise it, then I place myself at greater risk of a State raid. If I create such a business and don't advertise it, then how do I get customers?

Second, criminals. If you are clever, someone can break into your house, and steal 'everything' and not find 'everything' that is valuable to you. You simply ought to have the good sense to protect your gold/silver at a level that reflects the value of money you have invested in it. If you cannot do this, you probably deserve to have it stolen from you.

I've already thought of ways to cleverly hide gold and silver. I've already considered the possibility of paying some friends to store some for me also. That is not currently an option.

Actually, platinum has more options for safe hiding than gold and silver. Platinum isn't commonly recognized as valuable. If I knew someone with a metalworks, I could have them re-cast platinum as figurines or other things, and paint them so they looked not valuable.

Third, a gold/silver warehouse. Here we are again, with the liberty dollar scam. Seriously, if you are running a gold/silver warehouse, you are talking about a completely different topic, that is far in left field, compared to investing a portion of your retirement assets in physical gold. So I won't even comment further, that portion of your response was a tangent.

I'm saying that, if operating a gold/silver warehouse receipt bank were legal, then I could buy gold and store it there. That would reduce the risk of gold ownership. State enforcers have violently raided people who attempted to operate an on-the-books warehouse receipt banking business. It isn't just the Liberty Dollar. Various E-Gold vendors have also had that problem.

"Operate an off-the-books agorist gold and silver warehouse receipt bank and barter network" is one of my business ideas. If I do that, I'm risking being the victim of State violence.

Fourth, your parents, this is about the only valid response, and I covered it already. Again...
At $900/ounce, 30k in gold, is about two pounds in weight. Two pounds of gold could fit in a shoe box. As I said, it should be pretty easy to sneak a shoe box past your parents, especially if they thought you bought a pair of shoes! It may be too risky for you, but for most of your readership, this is a valid idea.

But how will I get $900 out of my checking account to buy the gold? My parents control my finances. I need to get my own apartment and control of my own stuff again first.

For my readers, buying gold and storing it cleverly is a valid option.

Five. Torture. I am not sure why you continue to use extremely low probability scenarios to 'talk yourself out of' reasonable considerations. Again, what kind of idiot buys gold, stores it in his home, and allows outsiders to find out that he has it? I can think of several, several ways to make a purchase and make sure no one knows what you bought, own, etc. So being tortured "Where is your gold?" is again, one of those low-probability 'this-only-occurs-if-you're-

careless' scenarios. It's only possible if the person attacking you knows that you have gold. If this happens, it is your fault, and you can prevent this from happening, since its under your control.

It's not clear that, if being interrogated by police/terrorists for several days, I would be unable to hold out and refuse to disclose where I hid my gold. I would try, but it's not clear I could actually do it under pressure.

Of course, the goal is to avoid being kidnapped in the first place. If I become a public advocate for agorism, then I'm making it harder for me to practice agorism myself. If I publicly speak about agorism, I'm simultaneously making myself a target. Someone needs to be a public/mainstream advocate for agorism. I don't see anyone else succeeding, so I'm going to try it myself.

Six...TSHTF. When TSHTF, either the state collapses, or financial panic ensues, and how far off do you think we are from a collapse of the state? If you really believe it will take 10-20 years, you should invest in gold now, and sell (or not sell, maybe just leave the country, who knows) before the financial panic begins. When TSHTF, there will be plenty of warning. Since this is true, I believe the argument that "when TSHTF, 20 years from now, anything could happen, so I better not invest in gold today" is not a valid argument. Again, it assumes the risks are so great there is nothing you can to to avoid, prepare for, or defend against them, including selling off your gold before the risks become reality.

"Leave the USA to avoid the collapse" is silly, because other countries are just as bad or worse.

I never said "I'm not investing in gold because that's a useless precaution when TSHTF." I said "I need other precautions, in addition to actual physical gold, in order to survive the coming collapse." Gold is useless unless you know people who will sell you goods and services in exchange for gold. Gold is useless unless you have arrangements for private police protection when the State collapses.

I said "I'm not investing in gold right now. My reason is that, living with my parents, they bar me from owning physical gold. I can't withdraw money from my checking account or cash in my State paper investments without approval. In the meantime, I'm buying some GLD and SLV. I'll buy some gold and silver after I get my own apartment again. Regaining my physical freedom is a higher priority goal for me than buying gold and silver." I'm willing to wait another 2-3 years.

If you are not taking care to make sure you do not lose your investments, you deserve to lose them, anyway. This goes for whether they are in the markets, a private bank, or your own home.

I am more knowledgeable about investing than 99%+ of the population. Most of the "information" you read about investing is merely fnords. Most of it is negative information, designed to confuse and scare people. I used to think "Buy-and-hold an S&P 500 index fund or individual stocks is best." Once I realized that the stock market doesn't outperform true inflation, it was like discovering that Santa Claus doesn't exist. I now think that "Buy-and-hold physical gold and silver is best. Owning some real estate with a paid-off mortgage is also worthwhile, but I'd only bother with owning a primary residence or business, and not rental properties."

My progress for investing knowledge was:

1. Interest-bearing money market account!
2. CDs!
3. S&P 500 index fund!
4. Individual stocks!
5. Experiment with trading options! (That was a failure.)
6. It turns out that the stock market is one big scam! Gold and silver are better! I haven't made my first physical metal purchase yet, but I will sometime in the next few years.

Anyway, all of this is no new information. I've mentioned all these points before and you misquoted me in a few places.

"Cash in my State paper investments and buy gold and silver!" is on my list of things to do. However, getting my own apartment and recovering my physical freedom is a higher priority. I feel that I've acquired mental freedom, which should lead to physical freedom soon.

It's hard interviewing for wage slave jobs now. Almost always, someone with the parasitic personality is on the hiring committee. When a parasite sees "I'm not going to be able to push around FSK!", then he will veto the decision to hire me. The other people have no clue what's going on.

I guess that proverb is wrong. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!" A more accurate statement is "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man gets his eye poked out!"

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Watching the Yankees play the Red Sox seems pointless. It is practically guaranteed that one of them will win the division and the other will win the wild card. That makes the regular season almost irrelevant. However, the Yankees were awful last year and didn't make the playoffs.

There was an outcry over "The Yankees charged too much for tickets in their new stadium." Some high-priced seats were empty, which is embarrassing when shown on TV.

The only fair way to sell tickets is via a dutch auction. If you set a fixed price, and you pick a price that's too high, there's empty seats. If you pick a price that's too low, that leads to arbitrage profit for scalpers.

The Yankees picked their price schedule a year or two ago, before the economy crashed. Now, they have empty seats. If they lower prices, then people who bought tickets at higher prices are unhappy.

If you feel that ticket prices are too high, then there's a simple solution. Don't go to the game! It's not like electricity or telephone service, where there's a State-licensed monopoly of a key service. The Yankees do have a State-licensed monopoly in a certain sense. Major League Baseball wouldn't approve a new franchise in the NYC area. Forming a competing baseball league is prohibitively expensive, due to State subsidies for existing businesses. However, baseball isn't a necessity; it isn't as immoral as the other State monopolies.

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

A person in most states does not need a license to purchase a fire arm (hand gun or long gun).

Where I live in NYC, you need a State license. I believe that you must apply for Federal permission whenever you purchase a gun.

Assault weapons are not banned. There is no maximum to magazine capacity. All machine guns are banned and a license or stamp is required for ownership.most states have no gun registration requirements. In most states a person has to have a background check performed before they are allowed to purchase a fire arm. But the record of which weapon is purchased remains with the dealer. There is no registration requirement.
The record of who has which guns could be taken from the gun dealers and used to find who has what. At present I have 12 unregistered fire arms ,5 hand guns,3 assault types,all purchased in a legal fashion and I don't have a single license.

I think if we have to defend against the state that would be whats called revolution!!

I didn't know that gun dealers are only required to report that you purchased a gun, and not which kind.

In NYC, it's pretty much illegal to own a gun unless you're a policeman. Also, it's illegal for me to purchase a gun since I was involuntarily hospitalized with a mental illness. There's no way I can appeal and say "The psychiatrist's judgement was wrong!" I'm flat-out banned with no appeal, according to the way the law was written.

Of course, if I really wanted a gun, I probably could arrange for someone else to buy one for me and give it to me. That isn't necessary. If I were popular enough to need protection, I also should have enough money to hire a security guard.

I wonder if any disgruntled pro-State trolls would physically assault me, based on my blog? Sometimes, I wonder. I prefer for idiots to get disgusted and leave.

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cyberTrebuchet has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #98":

I have the same reservation as you about the Liberty Dollar, but I still think it's a very decent transition. I'll buy a whole bunch of their silver one-ounce coins with the arbitrary $20 on the front and offer it to local businesses in exchange, say, for a pizza. Right now, according to LD's online store, I'll pay just barely under $20 for each coin, even though the spot price is only 15 or 16 slave points. The spot price'll keep going up in terms of SPs, which of course I'll tell anyone to whom I offer the silver; I'll also tell them about the reminting-with-greater-face-

value-as-spot-increases policy.

Yeah, it's flawed, and I share your reservation, but I still think this is the best step for now. During this transition awareness will be raised of the idea you keep mentioning of eventually quoting prices in terms of an objective amount of a commodity. And then ultimately we won't bother stamping a face value, because enough people will have realized the FR/Income Tax scam.

You're free to use Liberty Dollars if you want. I'm not the one using violence to stop you from using Liberty Dollars when I'm not around.

If someone tried to buy something from me with a Liberty Dollar, I'd only give them credit based on the spot price of silver, and not the face amount.

I don't get the point of the Liberty Dollar. Why not just use silver rounds and trade them based on the spot price of silver? Why not directly quote prices in silver instead of slave points? When you go into an agorist store, they should say "This costs one ounce of silver." instead of "This costs 16 slave points."

Of course, you're free to use Liberty Dollars if you want. I prefer to quote prices in silver, because that's making a mental transition away from slave points. Quoting prices in silver and gold instead of slave points emphasizes "Gold is money!"

The biggest mistake the Liberty Dollar made is that their money sort of looks like State-issued money. That was used an excuse for a violent crackdown. If they printed "This is not legal tender!" on it, then they might have avoided an FBI raid. It's OK to use Liberty Dollars, as long as you understand the distinction between Liberty Dollars and State-issued money.

BTW, if you do use Liberty Dollars for an on-the-books transaction, you must report it to the IRS as a barter transaction. The taxation rate for barter is higher than for transactions using slave points.

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

It is very disturbing to see just how similar news channels are on big matters like Iraq, and especially the economy.

Is it a deliberate conspiracy? Or, is it a series of bad decisions and coincidences?

Some people say that the State propaganda engine in a "free" society like the USA is actually more efficient than the State propaganda engine in the Soviet Union or China. There is plenty of illusion of open discourse, but key issues like "Taxation is theft!" and "The USA has a corrupt monetary system!" are never discussed.

Most mainstream media outlets merely parrot the press releases issued by the government. There is very little independent thinking. The path of least resistance is to merely recite official State propaganda. Is it a deliberate conspiracy, or merely sloppy/lazy journalism? Either way, it's wrong, and must stop. There is evidence of a conspiracy, because each mainstream media corporation is led by a puppet chosen by insiders. Once the vast majority of the people in a corporation are pro-State trolls, then independent thinkers are easily removed.

I was watching the Colbert Report from Iraq. I didn't realize that the USA still had that many troops in Iraq. Stephen Colbert mentioned "How come mainstream media coverage of the Iraq war has pretty much gone away?" Obama "ended" the Iraq war. Now, the "news" no longer covers it. Therefore, the war is over.

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

Nice post FSK.. my research shows me that we are actually headed towards an ice age. Due to what is called a maunder minimum. When the sun has no sun spots it puts out about .5% less radiation. The month of may and early june has been setting record low temperatures across the country(look it up). But the media isn't reporting it.So actually green house gasses may help off set global cooling.

It has been cool here in May and June. You can't draw conclusions of a long-term trend based on two months.

Its also my belief that the hype of going green is a ploy to sell America out.If you put so many regulations on a factories emissions that its not cost effective to operate within our country. So they move the operation to another country which
has no emission control. This way the green house gasses are still produced. But American workers have lost more ability to find jobs.And the items are still produced leaving the same carbon footprint. The only thing that has changed is where things are produced.

The carbon dioxide emission credits are being allocated in a politically biased manner. That will raise the overhead cost of anyone who wants to start a new business. It's the usual corporate welfare.

I have no idea if "Carbon dioxide causes global warming!" and "Global warming is damaging!" are true or not. It seems suspicious.

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

There is a link with anti-depressants also:

http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/2003-08-Prozac-Paxil-Fluorophenyl.htm

That was interesting. I didn't know that some antidepressants contain fluorine.

Lithium and fluorine are literally poison. Lithium is one of the strongest bases, and fluorine is one of the strongest acids.

It makes sense that, if lithium messes up your brain chemistry, then fluorine would have a similar effect.

I tried looking it up, and I never understood the chemistry for "fluoride prevents tooth decay". The best explanation was that it catalyzes the re-mineralization process in your mouth. That still makes no sense to me.

I'm concerned that a lot of mainstream medicine is flat-out wrong.

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robert30062 has left a new comment on your post "Stupid Equals Evil":

When someone does harm I often ask myself, "was that from incompetence or deliberate intentions?".

That doesn't tell the full story.

For example, a psychiatrist is genuinely trying to help me. However, there is evidence that the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness was intentionally promoted as a fraud 30-50 years ago, and now it's standard practice. Once a fraud is in place, it can be perpetuated even if none of the leaders are consciously aware of it.

If someone tries to injure me out of incompetence, I will try to correct them. Stupid people just don't learn. That's one of the key attributes of being stupid. Trying to educate an idiot is a lot of wasted effort for very little benefit.

It's better to just avoid stupid people. That's a problem when almost everyone is a brainwashed pro-State troll!

I think there are variations within the incompetence found in government/corporate policy.

It is hard to say exactly. Most of the people working in positions of authority have genuine good intentions. It only takes a handful of parasitic people to **** things up. Government has a monopoly, so there's no recourse once the parasites take over.

A lot of the principles of the corrupt system were devised 50-100+ years ago. Now, it's self-sustaining. There is evidence that the original people who controlled the Federal Reserve knew that their true purpose was to loot and pillage. Now, Ben Bernanke probably is not aware that the US monetary system is one big scam. Ben Bernanke is publicly a believable liar, because he genuinely believes he's doing the right thing.

Good people working in a corrupt system leads to evil. Over time, people learn to not notice things, as a means of self-defense. It'd be too depressing to notice you're hurting people when you think you're helping them. Continuing the above example, psychiatrists must have a low level of emotional awareness, because otherwise they'd notice they are hurting their patients.

When I hear politicians talk about so called "illegal immigration" without discussing NAFTA, I know that they are being deliberately dishonest.

Unrestricted free immigration is the free market answer. It is a problem in a Communist economy like the USA, where there is a fixed pool of jobs. When there's a fixed pool of jobs, importing workers drives down salaries. The extra workers can't easily start new businesses.

Public subsidies of Agri-Business companies in the USA put prices at an artificially low level in the market, a price level which Central American farmers can't compete with and make a profit. Not having the power of government subsidy, they have no choice but to head north to try and find work. On the other hand, I think it's interesting to read what Adam Smith had to say about some people in power and how seemingly honest justifications are made for some of the most dangerous policies the world has ever seen.

Consider Obama. He has genuinely good intentions. However, many of his advisers probably have the parasitic personality type. He probably follows their advice without thinking about it. The net effect is that evil people can usually do as they please, even if someone with the "abused productive" personality type is in the position of authority.

President Kennedy, some have said, had what Smith referred to as the "burden of power" complex whereby you feel no guilt for wrongdoing because you feel that power has been thrust upon you, and since you are the most qualified to manage such a destiny then you have no choice but to accept the evils that accompany great imperial power.

President Kennedy seemed to have genuinely good intentions about doing his job honestly.

That seems to be the corrupt bargain that most politicians make. "I'm going to participate in the vast evil of government. In return, I'll get to help some people. I'll put up with the lobbyists begging for favors, because that's the only way to get elected." The net effect is that most/all of government is the usual evil, and politicians occasionally get to support some pet project. Some of the less-evil politicians say that they put up with the garbage, so that they can occasionally do something they feel strongly about. Of course, a lot of politicians have the parasitic personality type and loot and pillage as much as they can.

I had an interesting conversation with a former US ambassador to Honduras in which he discussed the "power by committee" complex used by the neoconservative Nixonites such as Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, etc. He recalled policy meetings in the Oval Office in which each person would defer to the other or what they claimed as "consensus policy", "continuity" and so forth. What this really meant was since every one is guilty no one is. It is a bizarre combination of exclusive yet distributive decision making at the top levels of corporate/government power.

Even in a committee, someone with the parasitic personality type is pulling the strings.

For example, suppose I go on a job interview. Four of the interviewers have the "abused productive" personality type, and I get along well with them. The fifth interviewer has the parasitic personality type. He'll see "FSK is someone I can't push around. I need to make sure he isn't hired." When the five people are discussing "Should FSK be hired?", the parasite will have the other four voting to not hire me. He'll change their memories about how good a candidate I was.

Even if it's a committee, there's usually one parasite pulling the strings. The lead parasite creates the illusion of consensus, when he's really making the decisions.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Satanic Death Hospitals":

How does a snake represent life when satan took the form of a serpent?
And how can it be justified by Greek mythology and still mention The Bible in the same comment...according to The Bible, Greek mythology- no matter how preety it might seem, is still paganism.
Also, if a symbol was latter made evil because people worshiped it, then when did it become 'un-evil' and who declared it so?

Isaiah 53:5 says by Jesus' stripes we are healed...why then use a rod & serpent to represent healing?

Other people have given me a hard time for that post.

That logo makes me feel uncomfortable. Whenever I see an ambulance with that logo, I wonder "Who are they going to murder now?" Given my history of abuse by hospitals, it's understandable.

There are two separate issues that should not be confused.

1. That logo seems like it represents death instead of life and healing.
2. The health care system in the USA is completely broken.

You may disagree with me on "That logo is evil!" It's obvious that the health care system in the USA isn't working. A free market system would be superior. There should be no State licensing requirements for doctors and no State regulation of health care at all.

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Liberty Tiger has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #98":

I wasn't forced to take meds for ADHD as a child, fortunately.

That's good. That may not be the case if you were a child today. Due to lobbying by drug company executives, there now is a strong push to "diagnose" children as having a mental illness, and then forcibly drug them. Even as an adult, it was hard enough for me to convince my parents "These drugs are hurting me!" Most children won't have the ability to recognize the negative side-effects of the drugs.

I was constantly disciplined for my impulsive, "rebellious" behavior.

That's a better treatment. However, when you realize that a State school is really a brainwashing center, it makes sense that some children resist. I was completely unaware of the scam at the time, and played along.

A child won't even consider the possibility "School is bad for me!", and articulate it as clearly as I do. All the adults around them are brainwashed to believe "School is good for you!"

Going back to "Stupid Equals Evil", most teachers have been brainwashed to believe "School is good for students!" They'll be the best teacher possible, given the constraint of a corrupt system. That only makes them more effective shills for the State. Most teachers don't have the ability to say "The fundamental structure of the school system is defective!" Does it matter that most teachers have good intentions, even though the end result is evil?

Teachers sincerely believe that they're doing good and not evil. That only makes them more effective liars. If a teacher were consciously aware of the corrupt nature of schools, then they would not be effective at brainwashing their students.

Even a Math teacher is evil. First, Math is usually taught in a manner that discourages all but the smartest students; that's a natural side-effect of grading on a curve. Second, only binary logic is taught in schools, where every statement is absolutely true or false. That fails for real-world problems, because it's harder to determine the truth of many statements. Binary logic really messes you up when you have false beliefs, such as "Taxation is not theft!" If you're absolutely certain of false statements, it becomes impossible to learn; overcoming the hurdle of false beliefs is too hard. The only place where Bayesian reasoning is somewhat taught is in the area of Computer Science and AI.

As an adult I voluntary tried various medications to increase my focus and attention. All of the medications I tried had very negative side effects. Strattera has sexual side effects which were detrimental to my relationship with my wife.

Why did you experiment with those drugs? I've noticed that "There's a drug that solves all problems!" is an evil fnord. It's promoted by drug companies looking to sell their products.

I noticed sexual side-effects with anti-psychotic drugs. They are pretty much undocumented, if you read pro-State sources on those drugs.

When I told my psychiatrist, "This drug has side effect X!", they didn't believe me. It's impossible to convince a State psychiatrist that those drugs have damaging side effects. The psychiatrist always said "X is a symptom of your mental illness. X is not due to those drugs. I can prescribe another additional drug to help you with X." I know my psychiatrist was wrong, because the side effects went away when I stopped taking the poison.

Wellbutrin made me just not care about anything. Ritalin and Concerta are speed and caused me to lose sleep and appetite, made me nervous and anxious, and caused weight loss.

When I was on anti-psychotic drugs, I felt no motivation to do anything. Those drugs also slow your metabolism, with weight gain as a side effect. Anti-depressants and anti-ADHD drugs seem to have the opposite effect as anti-psychotic drugs. They stimulate your brain's activity instead of suppressing it. Both are evil.

It took about 2 months since my release from the hospital to recover my blogging energy. I suspect that I don't fully recover until 12-18 months after I stop taking the drugs.

I've since found natural remedies for focus and concentration without the harmful side effects of pharmaceuticals. I would never administer these drugs to a child. The child simply could not understand the negative side-effects or how to communicate the negative thoughts and emotions that these drugs generate. Drugging a child to control his mind is abuse.

That is one of the most serious abuses of the Matrix. Forced drugging of children and adults is inhumane.

Based on my experiences, my observations, and feedback from others, I'd say that anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs are inappropriate 99%+ of the time. My observations are scientific. I'm pretty sure a properly controlled scientific experiment, where patients were kept on placebo for 10+ years, would prove I'm right.

Most FDA approval studies are only for 6-12 weeks, and have many flaws.

1. The FDA study is for 6-12 weeks, but doctors keep their patient on the drugs for years or decades.
2. The study doesn't do a proper placebo test. Suppose a patient was taking anti-psychotic drug X, and enters an approval study for drug Y. If the patient is given a placebo, then the patient will experience withdrawal from drug X. Drug Y will mask the withdrawal symptoms from drug X. A period of 6-12 weeks isn't enough to fully recover from withdrawal; in my experience, it's 12-18+ months. In this manner, the placebo test is conducted incorrectly. There should be three groups. (1) patients already taking another anti-psychotic drugs (2) patients not taking another drug (3) people who have not been diagnosed with a mental illness at all. Anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs will cause a mental illness in an otherwise health person. A psychiatrist will say "That's not the way the drugs work!", which is what they've been brainwashed to say. If a drug makes a healthy person very sick, then it should be viewed with suspicion, especially for a controversial problem like "mental illness".
   
3. The study is conducted by "scientists" working for the drug company seeking approval. Naturally, their goal is to get approval. It is irrelevant if the drug actually helps patients, or if the drug hurts patients. With suitable lobbying and marketing to doctors, harmful drugs can be sold. Even if sued, damages are typically less than 1 year of profits from the drug.
   
4. The scientist determines "Does the psychiatric drug work?" based on an interview with the patient. This is completely subjective.
5. There is no unbiased drug research. A professor at a university seems impartial, but he gets his funding from the State. The drug research money is controlled by drug company lobbyists. If a professor does the "wrong" research, he won't get a grant and he won't pass peer review. In this manner, peer review prevents progress of science.
   

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I'm still a bit behind on answering reader comments, but I'll publish this instead of waiting and falling further behind. I've mostly recovered my blogging energy. I'm recovering my "One new post per day!" blogging discipline.

The Global Warming Scam

There is a lot of mainstream media hype surrounding "global warming". This is, by itself, an indication that there's some funny business going on. At this point, anybody who suggests "Does carbon dioxide really cause global warming?" is roundly decried as a fool.

There are three issues regarding global warming:

1. Do carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming, or are there other factors?
2. Is global warming overall beneficial or overall harmful?
3. Is the solution to give the State more power? This is the most evil part. The solution for *ANY* problem is "Give the State more power!", when the State is the ultimate cause.

I tried understanding the chemistry of "carbon dioxide causes global warming", but didn't get it. I don't understand how carbon dioxide absorbs and reflects infrared heat radiation. After a minute or two googling, this was the best reference I could find for "Carbon dioxide does *NOT* cause global warming". His argument was "Carbon dioxide does absorb certain frequencies of infrared light. However, maximum absorption occurs after only 10-20 meters. After that, additional carbon dioxide makes no difference."

The Earth and the Sun have longer-term trends of increasing and decreasing temperature. Are we currently at a time where solar output is increasing, as part of a longer cyclical cycle? How much global warming is caused by human carbon dioxide emissions, and how much is caused by other factors?

There is evidence that, at some point in the past, plants were growing in Antarctica. This indicates that there are cyclical trends in the Earth's temperature.

There another important issue not frequently mentioned. Is global warming beneficial or damaging overall? Global warming is awful if you live in New Orleans below sea level. If you own property in northern Canada, then global warming helps you. Global warming leads to longer growing seasons and better crop yields. I consider "global warming is harmful overall" to be not proven. It might be cheaper to pay for people in New Orleans to move, than it is to try and stop global warming.

In the "global warming" debate, both sides accuse the other of being crazy conspiracy theorists. Some people say "Carbon dioxide causes global warming is scientifically proven. Therefore, you are a conspiracy theorist if you deny this scientific fact." Other people say "'Carbon dioxide causes global warming' is a crazy conspiracy theory. The science is very lousy."

Mainstream science says "Anti-psychotic drugs are beneficial!", which I know to be false. Scientists do fake research promoting anti-psychotic drugs. Is the science behind global warming just as lousy?

Some scientists have performed computer simulations that show carbon dioxide leads to global warming. However, these simulations have as a pre-assumption that carbon dioxide causes global warming. By setting up the rules of the simulation, the outcome is biased.

Most/all science is funded directly or indirectly by the State. This leads to biased conclusions. If politicians want to make an issue of global warming, then they provide extra funding for scientists who say "Carbon dioxide causes global warming!" By providing lots of funding for certain research, the State rewards scientists who have certain ideas, whether they're right or wrong.

Suppose that the vast majority of scientists believe "Carbon dioxide causes global warming!" The peer review system means anyone with the opposite viewpoint won't find a job. If a scientist says "Maybe carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming?", then he's really saying "Maybe all these other scientists are complete frauds?" In this manner, peer review discourages scientific progress.

Similarly, suppose a professor wanted to prove "Anti-psychotic drugs are worse than placebo over a 10-20 year period." The people approving the grant proposal are all brainwashed psychiatrists who believe "Anti-psychotic drugs are beneficial!" They'll see that research as a waste of time, and not approve it. I'm pretty sure that, in a proper scientific experiment, placebo would beat anti-psychotic drugs over an extended period of time.

The current State funding of science encourages professors to do small incremental improvements on previous results. There is no market for a scientist to re-verify old results. There is no market for a scientist who challenges the conventional wisdom in his field. Any scientist who tried to verify old results or do really original work would be forfeiting his career.

Suppose it were possible to scientifically prove "Carbon dioxide pollution causes global warming!" and "Global warming is bad overall!" I still disagree with the conclusion "The correct solution to the 'global warming' problem is to give the State more power."

How much damage is caused the carbon dioxide in a gallon of gasoline? I doubt it is more than a few cents a gallon. For that, it wouldn't be worth the hassle of collecting.

Suppose that burning a gallon of gasoline is proven to cause $1 of damage. Then what happens? You can't demand that everyone stop using gasoline. In that case, anybody who burns gasoline would have to pay $1/gallon into a fund to reimburse victims, exactly the same as taxes are collected in the present. However, the State would not have a monopoly over collecting this tax. In practice, the actual damage of carbon dioxide pollution is probably negligible and not worth collecting.

I suspect that the truth is closer to "Carbon dioxide is not harmful or causes negligible harm." than "OMFG!! Carbon dioxide is *BAD*!" Massive State propaganda for global warming makes me suspect funny business.

In the present, the State usually shields polluters from the negative consequences of their misconduct. For example, in NYC, playground asphalt was made from recycled tires. This was recently proven to contain harmful amounts of lead. Are the people who built the playgrounds personally liable? Is the person who decide to put lead in the asphalt personally liable? No. They are protected by sovereign immunity.

The global warming scam is the usual "Problem! Reaction! Solution!" paradigm. A problem or crisis is invented, probably one that was caused by the State in the first place. The media overhypes the problem. The solution is to give the State more power.

Most "carbon credit" or similar proposals are thinly veiled corporate welfare. The credits are allocated in a way that benefit insiders at the expense of everyone else. The regulations make it hard for anyone to start a new business. For example, old businesses get carbon credits based on their previous usage. A new business must buy carbon credits, or is forbidden. The only fair way to allocate carbon credits is "Each person gets an equal credit." The proposed systems allocate the credits to insiders, at the expense of everyone else.

I read an interesting conspiracy theory regarding global warming. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was no powerful enemy to keep the general population frightened. "Global warming is a problem!" and "Terrorism is a problem!" are excuses that were invented. They were manufactured crises, as an excuse for an increase in State power.

I consider "Carbon dioxide causes global warming!" and "Global warming is damaging!" to be not proven either way. I don't know of any research performed by scientists I trust. Is the global warming crisis completely fabricated, as an excuse for increasing State power? Is the global warming crisis another form of corporate welfare? Even if you believe "Carbon dioxide causes global warming!" and "Global warming is damaging!", I disagree with "The solution is to give the State more power!" The State can only cause problems and make things worse.

Fnords Setting up the Next Recession

On the Communism Channel recently, I noticed a huge shift in the fnords.

In late 2008 and early 2009, everyone in the mainstream media was saying "OMFG!! Bailout!! Simulus!! Deficit spending to stimulate the economy!" Now, everyone is saying "OMFG!! Inflation is a serious problem!"

When you print lots of new money to "stimulate the economy", the result is inflation. That's obvious to me, but apparently nobody in the mainstream media was complaining a few months ago. It's a huge amount of cognitive dissonance. It makes absolutely no sense that, in only a few months, the state of the economy went from "OMFG!! Bailouts and deficit spending!" to "OMFG!! Inflation!!"

In addition to the bailout money explicitly allocated by the Federal government, the Federal Reserve has kept the Fed Funds Rate in the 0%-0.25% range. When the Federal Reserve "monetizes the debt", it prints brand new money to purchase Treasury Notes and keep interest rates low. The Federal Reserve has an unlimited budget, so they may print as much new money as desired to keep interest rates at whatever level they choose.

The Federal Reserve directly sets the overnight Fed Funds Rate. The Federal Reserve indirectly sets long-term rates. If the average Fed Funds Rate over the next 10 years is expected to be 4%, then the yield on a 10 year Treasury Bond should be approximately 4%. Otherwise, there would be an arbitrage opportunity for the banksters. They could short sell Treasury Bonds and lend the proceeds at the Fed Funds Rate, or borrow at the Fed Funds Rate and buy Treasury Bonds. In this manner, the Federal Reserve indirectly sets long-term interest rates, in addition to explicitly setting short-term rates.

The Federal government has printed several trillion dollars in TARP and other programs to bail out financial industry insiders. Even bailout money allocated to non-banks subsidizes bank profits. For example, the creditors of GM were mostly hedge funds, and so GM bailout money really went to the banksters.

In addition to Federal government bailout money, the Federal Reserve has printed an undisclosed amount of new money. M2 is increasing at a rate of 8.5%-9% per year, about $0.7T. M3 is growing at an even faster rate. M3 was nearly twice as big as M2 when the Federal Reserve stopped publishing it, and some people estimate that M3 is growing at a rate of 15%-20% per year. Most of the new money created by the Federal Reserve is included in M3 but not in M2, although such newly created money should find its way to M2 eventually.

In the past year, the Federal Reserve probably has created a couple of trillion dollars in new money to further bail out financial industry insiders, but it's impossible to get good statistics on exactly what the Federal Reserve insiders are doing.

By keeping the Fed Funds Rate near 0%, the Federal Reserve is causing an inflationary boom. Massive inflation is the primary reason for most stock market gains. The stock market actually underperforms true inflation.

Consumer prices seem to be rising at a rate of 20%-30% per year, comparing things I buy. (I really should explicitly keep track and make the "FSK price index". It's easier to just look at the price of gold.) The CPI is a biased measure of inflation, and severely understates true inflation. When a pro-State troll communist/comedian talks about inflation, he's usually referring to CPI-inflation and not true inflation.

The flip from "OMFG! Bailout!" to "OMFG! Inflation!" is part of the State-created business cycles. It's all about the Compound Interest Paradox. You don't understand why periodic recessions and booms occur until you understand the Compound Interest Paradox. The Federal Reserve is forced to cut the Fed Funds Rate during a recession/depression to prevent hyperdeflation. The most recent recession/depression was so severe that an explicit bailout by the Federal government was also needed.

Cheap credit causes an inflationary boom. Negative real interest rates send a false price signal that investing is profitable. This causes an inflationary boom. Eventually, the Federal Reserve is forced to raise interest rates to prevent hyperinflation. This sets up the next recession/depression and next bailout.

The Federal Reserve bails out the banksters in every recession via a Fed Funds Rate cut. The most recent recession was more severe than usual, requiring an explicit additional bailout. Boom/bust cycles benefit insiders at the expense of everyone else. During a boom, insiders get first dibs on spending newly printed money. During a bust, insiders are "too big to fail" and get a bailout. As an individual small business owner, boom/bust cycles ruin your ability to plan for the future.

If, as an individual, you load up on debt, then you will be bankrupted during the next recession/depression. Only "too big to fail" businesses can safely load up on as much debt as they can. Even if a large business like GM or AIG goes bankrupt, executives typically get to keep their cushy jobs, even in bankrupty. Even if laid off, insiders almost always find another cushy job at another corporation. They have "valuable management experience", even though they have no skills that would be useful in a true free market.

If, as an individual, you stay debt-free and keep cash savings, then your savings will be stolen via inflation during the boom. Via inflation, you are subsidizing your larger corporate competitors. Further, part of the proceeds from income taxes you pay are used to subisidize your larger corporate competitors.

For example, Microsoft pays a huge inflation tax on its cash savings. However, Microsoft receives massive direct and indirect State subidies, like all large corporations. Microsoft pays a huge inflation tax on its cash reserves, but simultaneously receives a massive State subsidy; the value of the State subsidy is larger than the inflation tax that Microsoft pays. As corporations go, Microsoft is relatively benign, even though software engineers usually bash Microsoft at every opportunity. I can boycott Microsoft and use Linux if I choose; currently, the most important information on my PC is actually stored by Google (my blog and gmail). There are legitimate economies of scale in software. Even in a free market, key software that almost everyone uses would probably still be written by a small handful of people.

If, as an individual, you stay debt-free and hold no cash, then you risk being bankrupted during the next recession. You will have no debts, but your customers will be unable to buy your product or pay their bills. During the boom, you'll need to expand your business or lose ground to competitors who do borrow. During the bust, you'll be forced to downsize, because your customers won't have any money.

Boom/bust cycles wreck the ability for individuals to plan for the future. Executives at a "too big to fail" business do not have this problem. They always qualify for a bailout. Even in bankruptcy, they usually will keep their jobs. Even if laid off, nepotism capitalism means that the insiders almost always can get another cushy job elsewehere. Bankruptcy and limited liability incorporation give executives at a large corporation a free put option to cheat creditors. As a small business owner, all your net worth is usually tied up in your business; you may even take out personal loans or a mortgage on your house to finance your business. An executive who fails merely finds another job. A small business owner who fails usually loses everything.

With fiat debt-based money, the Federal Reserve must continually adjust interest rates. The economy oscillates between hyperdeflation/recession/depression and hyperinflation/boom. During a boom, negative real interest rates cause too much money to be created and malinvested. During a bust, the Compound Interest Paradox causes money to drain out of the economy as more loans are repaid than issued. As the final collapse draws near, the oscillations will get more severe.

Pretty soon, interest rates must be raised. This will start the next deflationary depression/recession. This will also prevent a hyperinflationary collapse of the dollar. The State propaganda engine must switch its message ahead of the change. However, you can't rely on the State propaganda engine when planning your business or investing, because unexpected surprises always occur. These surprises always benefit insiders at the expense of everyone else.

It's amusing to notice the rapid propaganda change from "OMFG! Bailout!" to "OMFG! Inflation!" It's like someone flipped a switch and now all the propaganda is sending the opposite message. I'm surprised that nobody is pointing out the obvious contradiction. One day, someone was pressing the "Hype bailout!" button. All of a sudden, they started pressing the "Hype inflation!" button, and everyone switched their story.

Are there a handful of people pulling the strings? Is the Supreme Leader of Humanity intentionally creating such obvious fnords, to accelerate the collapse? Has my fnord awareness increased? As a practical matter, it's irrelevant if it's a deliberate conspiracy or merely a massive coincidence. Either way, the State is evil and must be eliminated.

The "conspiracy" aspect is easily explained in this case. Most mainstream media sources merely parrot the press releases issued by the Federal Reserve and Treasury department. If the Federal Reserve issues a press release saying "OMFG! Bailout!", then every mainstream media outlet says "OMFG! Bailout!" If the Federal Reserve issues a press release saying "OMFG! Inflation!", then every mainstream media outlet says "OMFG! Inflation!" If you're an independent thinker, then you don't get a job working in a mainstream media outlet. It's much easier to parrot authority figures rather than think for yourself.

Besides, if you just parrot what State enforcers say, then you can't be fired for contradicting the official State propaganda. The mechanism for firing people who tell the truth is so efficient that only rarely must someone be explicitly be fired. It's similar to "Almost everyone voluntarily pays taxes. Therefore, State police rarely directly violently force someone to pay. Therefore, taxation is not theft, because almost everyone pays 'voluntarily'." You don't get to be a mainstream media personality unless you're already thoroughly brainwashed as a pro-State troll. Almost nobody considers contradicting official propaganda, and nobody in the mainstream media notices the scam.

Suppose a worker/writer at a mainstream media outlet said "Hey! Why are we switching from saying 'OMFG! Bailout' to 'OMFG! Inflation!' in just a few months? This makes no sense!" That person's cowokers would say "Shut up, idiot!", and that person would learn to conform. He might receive a stern lecture about "Be a team player if you want a successful career!" A single honest person surrounded by pro-State trolls cannot be effective at promoting truth.

It's very amusing to notice the rapid switch from "OMFG! Bailout!" to "OMFG! Inflation!" in the mainstream media. I am no longer offended or angry at propaganda. My reaction now is "Oh, that again! Does that really fool people?" Of course, the vast majority are still fooled.

Credit Card Reform Fnord

There's been a lot of hype in the mainstream media about "credit card reform".

When you buy something on a credit card, the bank gets something like 3% of the total purchase price. Most businesses accept the cost. A credit card is easier than handling cash. It's a way to buy over the telephone and over the Internet. A business that handles cash risks theft by its employees.

Even if you pay your balance in full each month, the credit card corporation still profits, via these fees. As a customer, you still pay this cost in the form of higher prices, although it isn't explicitly deducted from your purchase.

The "credit card reform" laws were written by lobbyists hired by executives at large credit card companies. The "reform" is going to be an excuse to raise prices. All regulations have the effect of raising costs and cementing the control by corporate monopolies/oligopolies.

One of the main effects of the "credit card reform" law is that people with good credit will pay higher fees, because credit card companies will have additional State-mandated costs.

A "reform" law is almost always written by lobbyists from the industry regulated.

The latest credit card reform law the usual disguised corporate welfare. The cost of the new regulations will be passed on to customers as higher prices.

Stupid Equals Evil

Is there any difference between stupidity and evil? I'm starting to suspect that evil and stupid are the same.

It's a scientifically proven fact that the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness is nonsense. Does it matter if it's a deliberate fraud, or merely gross incompetence? Either way, the victims are injured.

A psychiatrist prescribes anti-psychotic drugs. Is the psychiatrist intentionally injuring his patients/victims? Is the psychiatrist so clueless and brainwashed that he's unaware of what he's doing? Either way, the psychiatrist is a mass-murderer.

Consider the CEO of a large "too big to fail" bank. He produces nothing of tangible economic value, while still paying himself a huge salary. Does the CEO really believe that he's a brilliant businessman and deserves his huge salary? Or, is the CEO aware that the financial system is one big scam? Either way, the CEO is stealing from the rest of society to pay his salary.

Are politicians and insiders consciously aware that "Taxation is theft!" and covering up the truth? Or, are they merely so clueless that they believe their own propaganda? Either way, government is a massive extortion racket that should be eliminated.

Suppose a pro-State troll posts an obviously stupid comment. Does it matter if the idiot has good intentions? It's irrelevant if it's a troll intentionally wasting my time, or someone too stupid to think and read carefully before commenting. I shouldn't waste time responding to idiots. I'm getting better at distinguishing between people with sincerely good intentions and someone who's just pro-State trolling. Some people are too stubborn and stupid and brainwashed to learn. (When I get my own domain, I'll have a FAQ section. That probably won't cut down on stupid comments.)

It makes no difference whether someone injures me through gross incompetence or on purpose. Either way, the result is the same. For this reason, there's no difference between a stupid person and an evil person. The most dangerous people are the ones who have convinced themselves and the people around them that they're geniuses, when they really have no useful skills. Evil people injure others through their incompetence, as much or more than they injure them on purpose. Most high-ranking members of the parasite class think they're geniuses, when they're really criminals.

Agorist Toolkit - Guns

At some point, the agorist economy might need to defend itself against invasions by the State.

Guns acquired legally require a license. The bad guys know who has a gun and can round them up and collect them.

Fortunately, in the USA, the gun owners/manufacturers have a decent lobby. Gun ownership probably won't be completely outlawed.

Some enterprising agorist manufacturers will make their own guns. These guns will probably be of a higher quality than those available legally.

The State bans ownership of the most effective weapons. With an assault rifle, one person can successfully confront a team of 10-20 policemen. For this reason, assault weapons are banned.

Good weapons level the playing field between amateur and professional soldier. In the present, the best weapons are reserved for the professional soldiers/police.

The agorist community might have weapons designed to defend themselves from a State raid. Most military weapons are designed for offense. A weapon designed specifically for defense would have many advantages.

However, such measures won't be practical unless a large number of agorists are living together in an independent, self-sustaining community. By the time it's practical to defend yourself via force, the State probably has already lost.

On the other hand, if there's enough demand for privately-manufactured guns, then privately-manufactured guns will be built. With all the hassles of registered gun ownership, I would understand if people wanted to purchase a gun that didn't have a registration requirement.

It won't be practical to use force to defend yourself from the State until after the State has lost. Stealth and bribery are better tactics. For example, an agorist could profitably bribe a State enforcer to ignore him. Drug dealers and prostitutes frequently pay bribes to the police. Such tactics are risky, unless you trust the recipient of the bribe.

What is the US Government's Credit Rating?

I was watching the Communism Channel, and the comedians were saying "Due to increasing national debt, the US Federal government may lose its AAA credit rating. Great Britain is similarly under review for a downgrade."

In a related story, Treasury Secretary Geithner was speaking to a bunch of Chinese students. He said "The US dollar is strong and an investment in Treasury debt is safe!" The Chinese students laughed at him. It's disappointing that the comedians/journalists in the USA don't have a similar reaction. Even though there's been a lot of hype about "The Chinese State censors information on the Tienanmen Square protest!", the Chinese State does not censor information on "The US dollar and US Treasury debt is a bad investment!" You'll never hear a comedian on the Communism Channel say "Inflation is theft! If you invest in Treasury bonds you're guaranteed to get ripped off by inflation!"

The fallacy is that all of the US Federal government's debt is in US dollars. The US government is the issuer for dollars, and can never be bankrupted as long as all of its debts are in dollars *AND* people in the USA are forced at gunpoint to use slave points instead of real money.

When I say "The US government is the issuer for dollars.", that's slightly inaccurate. Congress has delegated its money printing power to the Federal Reserve and financial industry. However, Congress does have the power to print new Treasury bonds. These Treasury bonds are then sold primarily to financial industry insiders, who then sell approximately 10% of them back to the Federal Reserve, and then via 10:1 reserve ratio fractional reserve banking create the money required to buy the remaining 90%.

Congress can always print new Treasury bonds to increase the national debt. Financial industry insiders will always buy these bonds, at a price greater than the expected Fed Funds Rate over the life of the bond. For example, if the Fed Funds Rate is expected to average 1% over the next year, then the banksters will buy a 1 year Treasury Note for slightly more than 1%. Banks are allowed to use very high leverage ratios when investing in Treasury debt. For example, if leverage ratios are 100x for Treasury debt, and the 1 year Treasury Note yields 1.2%, then the banksters make a guaranteed riskless profit of 20%, when they make a 100:1 leveraged investment in Treasury debt, borrowing at the Fed Funds Rate.

Some Treasury debt is sold to individuals/suckers and foreign central banks. These people hold an unleveraged long investment in Treasury debt. Their return is far less than true inflation, which is 10%-30%+ per year, depending on what measure of inflation you use.

Because the Federal Reserve keeps the Fed Funds Rate much less than true inflation, the yield on Treasury debt will also be much less than true inflation. Negative real interest rates cause an investment in Treasury debt to lose to inflation over time.

At any time, Congress could repeal or amend the Federal Reserve law, but the Federal Reserve is politically untouchable. With the ability to literally print new money, financial industry insiders make sure they spend a lot on lobbying. Financial industry insiders receive a massive State subsidy, paid by everyone else as inflation; they can always profitably lobby to block reform. For this reason, if you're convinced of the evil of the Federal Reserve, your only option is to boycott the Federal Reserve and income tax, and to use gold or silver or barter instead of slave points.

The income tax prevents slaves living in the USA from boycotting the US dollar. According to IRS State enforcers, all economic activity is subject to taxation, even if you use barter. Legally, it is impossible to boycott the Federal Reserve, because you must pay income taxes whenever you work. The IRS only accepts Federal Reserve slave points in exchange for permission to work.

As long as the State has the power to use violence to force people to pay income taxes, the US government cannot be bankrupted. People cannot boycott the US dollar and pay income taxes at the same time. Some State economists cryptically say "The US dollar is not backed by gold. The US dollar is backed by the Federal government's taxation power." What that literally means is "The income tax prevents people from boycotting the US dollar and using real money instead." The comment "The US dollar is backed by the State's taxation power." indicates that the pro-State troll economists are vaguely aware of the scam, but unable to explicitly say so.

Of course, if there were runaway hyperinflation, then there are some people living in the USA who would say "**** this!" and start using real money instead. If things got that bad, then the government and taxation system would collapse. During hyperinflation, the income tax would not be sufficient disincentive against using real money. Income tax need not be paid immediately, so hyperinflation would make the income tax burden on barter transactions negligibile. However, inflation might need to get as high as 100%-500%+ per year, before people will start to abandon the dollar.

If all the central banks outside the USA simultaneously sold their dollars, and people outside the USA refused to accept dollars, then all those dollars would find their way back to the USA. This would cause a massive inflation spike in the USA, but it might not be so bad to completely wreck the economic and political system.

State enforcers have some tricks up their sleeve, during times of hyperinflation. They can issue a new fiat paper money, convertible at a rate of 10^15:1 or whatever with the old hyperinflationary paper money. This is accompanied by mainstream media propaganda "The economy is getting better!" Surprisingly, this sometimes works! After getting burned by hyperinflation, people are all too gullible to accept a new fiat paper money printed in a different font and color!

All countries everywhere have a corrupt fiat monetary system. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure that every country also has a debt-based monetary system; I know of no country that uses credit-based fiat money instead of debt-based fiat money. With credit-based fiat money, new money is directly spent into circulation by the government, rather than borrowed from a central bank as occurs in the USA and most/all "modern" industrialized countries.

Other countries don't abandon the dollar because their fiat money is just as worthless as the US dollar. From the point of view of the parasites controlling other countries, it's better for them to support the US dollar, than risk the collapse of the scam and the gravy train. Other countries' leaders don't say "The US dollar is worthless paper!", because that would also bring up the issue "Isn't our fiat paper also worthless?"

If you invest in a money market account, or in Treasury debt, or in corporate bonds, then you are making a donation to the State. You money loses its purchasing power to inflation faster than you are credited with interest. The CPI is biased and is far less than true inflation. The CPI is an evil fnord that provides the illusion that inflation not a problem.

It is silly to say "The US government has an AAA credit rating." If you invest in dollars or dollar-denominated bonds, then you are guaranteed to get ripped off by inflation over time.

The US government has been technically bankrupt since:

1. 1971, when President Nixon defaulted on foreign central banks' right to redeem their US paper dollars for gold.
2. 1933, when President Roosevelt defaulted on the gold-redeemability of the Federal Reserve Note, and demanded US citizens turn over their gold for paper.
3. 1913, when the Federal Reserve was created. The default on the dollar didn't occur until 1933, but once the Federal Reserve was created, a default on the gold-redeemability of the US dollar was inevitable. The Federal Reserve was allowed to print more Federal Reserve Notes than there was physical gold in the US Treasury, guaranteeing an eventual default. Even though the US dollar was gold-redeemable from 1913-1933, it was still debt-based money. New Federal Reserve Notes would only enter circulation when the Federal Reserve "monetized debt".
4. 1861, when the southern states walked out of Congress. Until the Civil War, the Constitution was supposed to be a voluntary contract, and states could withdraw their consent at any time. This placed a check against expansion of Federal government power. After the Civil War, the power of the Federal government dramatically increased. Also, the banking industry was heavily regulated during the Civil War.
5. 1787, when the Federal government was first created. All forms of taxation are theft, and no monopolisitc government is legitimate. Further, the people who wrote the Constitution were only supposed to fix minor flaws in the Articles of Confederation, rather than making a strong central government. The Constitution was actually an act of treason, and that's why it was written in secret.
   

The US government cannot be bankrupted as long as people in the USA are forced to use the US dollar as money, under threat of IRS State violence. The US government can always print new money to pay off its debts.

Reader Mail #98

In this thread on Bureaucrash, someone was asking "What's the correct anarchist attitude towards gay marriage?"

The correct anarchist answer is "Marriage contracts are none of the government's business."

In the present, married people get certain legal perks. For example, you can inherit your partner's property without taxes. You can make decisions for your partner if they're incapacitated. Under certain circumstances, married people pay less in taxes than if they were unmarried.

Without government, people could make any type of marriage contract they want. As another example, polygamous marriage contracts are not presently allowed by the State.

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In this thread on Bureaucrash, someone was trying to sell canned goods at a farmers' market without a State license.

What you should do is sell them in private to trusted partners. Selling to the general public at a farmers' market is too risky. There are several risks at a farmers' market.

1. A policeman could stop by and harass you.
2. One of your competitors, who does have a State license, could complain to the police. I've noticed that the biggest risk of "practicing industry X without a license" is that someone with a license will complain.
3. A disgruntled customer could complain to the police.
   

Eventually, there'll be "agorist markets", held in private, where all of the people have been screened as trustworthy agorists. That's still a few years away.

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This thread on Bureaucrash was interesting (site registration required). Allegedly, Mike Gogulski was banned from Bureaucrash, and all his posts were deleted. He was later reinstated. Some people were complaining that the Bureaucrash site owners are a bunch of pro-State trolls. (They weren't using my phrase, but that's what they meant.)

Once a user-generated content website adopts a censorship policy, this inevitably leads to debates about "What content is appropriate?"

I should write my own forum engine. I'm still recovering my energy.

One nice thing about the Internet is that it's easy to say "**** you! I'm leaving!" and start a competing website. If you believe that your corporate employer is being unreasonable, it's very hard to say "**** you! I'm starting my own competing business!", due to State restrictions of the market. If you believe that a State enforcer is unfairly treating you, it's illegal to say "**** you! I'm starting my own competing government!"

On Blogger, I run the risk that Google will decide to censor me and delete my blog. On my own domain, I'd have less risk. From time to time, a State enforcer will seize ownership of a domain name, so there's still some risk. For example, I remember that a judge ordered Wikileaks' domain registration revoked.

My blog is valuable from the knowledge gained, and not just the content. Even if I had to start over again from zero regular readers and lost my SEO/SERP, I've still gained a lot from blogging.

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

I was always a B+ student, with occasional As in classes that I found interesting. Thing is, I put forth pretty much ZERO effort in school: from kindergarten through college.

I also got high grades with low effort. In history and social studies, which was essentially a memorization contest, I had to spend some time and effort memorizing.

My teachers used to say things like, "David is not living up to his potential". Presumably they knew as well as I did that I was capable of all A's, but the marginal effort required to get those
grades wasn't worth it.

I didn't learn that "School is a waste!" until much later. I took it seriously at the time. I always believed that "If you get good grades and become a skilled worker (abused productive worker), then everything will work out for you." In retrospect, that turned out to be a lie. Of course, you could argue that I did benefit from learning, because I was able to discover the scam.

Most of the advice I read about "being a good employee/citizen" is really "be a good slave".

People are conditioned to think, "David could've gotten all A's and gone to a great school to get a great job." What they miss is that the "better" college you attend, the more likely it is that you graduate as a complete Tool with zero ability to think for yourself.

It depends on what subject you study. If you study Mathematics or Computer Science or certain areas of science and engineering, you learn skills that are actually useful. If you get a degree in law/MBA/economics/politics, you're learning to be a more brainwashed pro-State troll, rather than learning useful things. If you get a degree as a doctor, you learn some useful things, but a lot of it is artifical State overhead designed to decrease the supply of doctors and increase the cost of a State doctor license.

For a student entering college now, my advice is "Learn things that are actually useful." Of course, distinguishing between subjects that are lies and subjects that are useful is tricky! When I was in college, I intuitively knew that economics was flaky, but I didn't realize the massive scam of the current economic system. At the time, I figured "If I learn a lot of Mathematics, then I can always learn economics later!" When I seriously studied economics working as a financial software engineer, I realized that a lot of it doesn't make sense. My Mathematics training had helped me learn to think clearly. When I read economics books, it was obvious to me "These are the assumptions." and "These are the conclusions." The problem is that the assumptions are wrong.

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

I was diagnosed ADHD as a kid. I found most people and task uninteresting to me. I still do.

I hope you weren't forced to take ritalin or other harmful drugs.

I was skilled enough at being a "good" student that I didn't have that problem. Now, I have very little patience for fools. That is a problem, since nearly everyone is a brainwashed pro-State troll.

School's aren't just a waste of time, they're actually dangerous. If your child goes to school knowing it's a scam they'll likely be the target of manipulation and abuse by "educators" attempting to control and conform them to their arbitrary, statist standards.

If the parents take an active role, the the educators are less likely to push an abusive agenda.

I have three young kids. There's no way in hell I'd put them in a government school, I don't care what sacrifices I have to make to homeschool them. We're going to unschool, that's homeschooling without a curriculum and based on the child's interests.

I heard that Montessori schools are good, but I haven't researched it myself.

"Start a homeschooling business" is one of my agorist business ideas. That one will wait until/if I have children. If you put your material on the Internet, then it's easy to share the work of others.

For example, if I were homeschooling, it'd be very hard to find sources for history that aren't pro-State trolling. For example, stuff like "History of Central Banking in the USA" is stuff that's completely missing from State history/brainwashing education.

There also were things like "Spend 6 months full-time on a computer programming project!" that wouldn't be feasible in State schools. I probably would have been better off spending 1-2+ years full-time working on writing my own software projects, than going to a State school. (I should start working on some personal projects while I'm unemployed.)

Homeschooling is only practical if one parent has a job where they can work from home, or if one parent earns enough so that the other doesn't have to work. In that sense, "Women in the workforce!" was a massive scam that moved resources away from raising children, increasing the dependence of parents on State bureaucrats.

Schools also play a "babysit children" function, in addition to the pro-State brainwashing. Someone has to watch the children while the parents work in their wage slave jobs.

In a State school, your child will receive very little individual attention. If you homeschool, and give your child 5 minutes of individual attention per hour, that's more individual attention than they would get in a State school. It's hard to get a job where you can work from home, or make enough so that one parent doesn't have to work.

There also is the "socialize with other children" factor. Of course, the socialization that you learn in school is more brainwashing than genuine learning. Hanging out with other children can be accomplished other ways. This is easier if several homeschooling parents pool their resources.

I've considered offering Math and Computer Science classes for homeschoolers. It's probably illegal to teach out of your home without a State license. Of course, if you do it properly agorist-style, then nobody would ever find out!

I'd like to try homeschooling, but it's hard to arrange "one parent works from home" or "one parent doesn't need to work". If you think about it, and add all the taxes and hidden costs, it's silly for both parents to work in a full-time on-the-books slave job.

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

The recent upswing in ADD/ADHD diagnoses means that the Matrix and the State are becoming more obvious! At the very least, the psychiatrists are seeing more symptoms of kids who aren't completely taken in.

That's a natural effect. Over time, the Matrix gets stronger. At the same time, people start evolving greater existence.

Unfortunately, State-licensed psychiatrists are so stupid that they'll label millions of kids as "defective" rather than acknowledging the existence of the Matrix. In my experience, psychiatrists actually have a pretty low level of emotional awareness.

I've made the following argument to each of my psychiatrists, and none of them got it:

1. FSK is only sick at most a few days per year.
2. FSK was fine living without drugs for many years, until his first panic attack.
   
3. The drugs have damaging side effects, which prevent FSK from doing all the things he normally likes to do. (Actually, "The drugs make FSK unable to think clearly." is the intended effect of the drugs.)
   
4. Therefore, FSK prefers to not take the drugs, be fine 99%+ of the time, and risk relapse.
5. Over time, FSK's natural healing process will lead to his recovery without drugs.
   

The psychiatrists can't overcome their brainwashing. They've been brainwashed to believe:

1. The drugs have no significant negative side effects.
2. Once someone has been labeled with a mental illness, they must keep taking the drugs for the rest of their life, or they will relapse.
3. The only way to treat someone with a mental illness is with drugs.
   

I'm probably the only person who has ever had several panic attacks, refused to take the harmful drugs, and then mostly/fully crack their pro-State brainwashing.

There are some slackers who are basically unaware of the State, but the ones I know who fit this personality type are often parasites and blatant pro-State trolls.

The more intelligent you are, the more the Matrix hurts you. The most intelligent people are the ones who suffer the most. Therefore, people learn that being stupid and parasitic is desirable. People intentionally don't use all of their brains and thinking ability, because the truth is very depressing. As a baby, you learn to ignore the truth, because it's very depressing. By the time you're an adult, you believe that being insane is "normal".

The Matrix exists primarily to benefit the parasites. The USA is an economic and political system "of the parasites, by the parasites, and for the parasites." Most of the rules of the economic and political system facilitate the looting of the productive workers by the parasites. Since nearly 50% of the population are parasites (or more), and most people aspire to the parasite role, reform cannot occur via voting.

If you're really stupid, or play the parasite role well (which actually requires some intelligence), then you don't suffer so much under the Matrix.

I was at the extreme end of the "abused productive" personality type, so I suffered the most under the Matrix. Playing the parasite role is obviously stupid, but "abused productive" people have their limitations. I was caught in a no-win situation. I wasn't willing to use parasite tactics. If you're playing the "abused productive" role too well, then parasites start feeling threatened by you. I knew enough to not accept abuse by other people, but I also wasn't willing to be an abuser.

When it came to meeting women, I couldn't date a parasite, because I wouldn't let other people abuse me. I couldn't date an "abused productive" woman, because the parasites around us would always interrupt, or the brainwashing imposed by parasites would prevent progress. Two "abused productive" people can't normally overcome their pro-State brainwashing. Even if two "abused productive" people start dating, one of them must play the parasite role.

Now, I should be able to successfully hang out with an "abused productive" woman, but then convert her to "sane" (or the same mental state as me). I've only recently achieved higher awareness, so it'll take some time for me to implement this. Just because I haven't succeeded yet, doesn't mean my ideas are wrong!

Watching one of my friends with ADHD was depressing; it suppressed his appetite, so during lunch he stayed in the classroom during homework and was strenuously boring and detached while on the medication he was prescribed. I don't happen to know what it was.

You mean that the drugs he was prescribed hurt him. ADHD itself is a made-up disease. Instead of saying "You have ADHD.", you could just as easily say "You are able to sense the Matrix."

All the drugs that alter your brain chemistry are incredibly damaging.

Myself, I match David_Z's school record; B-pluses in subjects I didn't find interesting, and C's in the ones I detested (mainly history), A's in the subjects I liked. I agree that I would have liked to learn math and science several times faster than it was actually taught in school. Especially in public school, (and doubly so in the elementary grades!) that part of the curriculum is tripe, poorly explained and pushed too slowly and complicatedly.

I did better in Math, because it was objective. In English, saying "This essay deserves an A!" is entirely subjective. In retrospect, the writing tactics I learned in school are slave thinking tactics. For example, in a school essay, if you write "People who disagree with me (and give stupid arguments) are idiots!", then you'll get an F. When blogging, that's an important attitude to have, because otherwise I'd waste a lot of time on pro-State trolls. Also in a school essay, you'll get an F if you disagree with State propaganda. For example, if I presented my economics ideas in a paper in an economics class, I'd probably get an F. If I were an economics PhD student and tried making a thesis based on my blog's economic ideas, I probably would not get a degree.

In retrospect, I could have learned important things a lot faster if I were educated properly. I'm referring mostly to Mathematics, Computer Science, and Science. It also would have been nice to learn some non-pro-State trolling history, politics, and economics. I also should have learned how to build and repair things. The "shop" classes I took in school were a joke. A State shop class seems like an evil fnord that says "Actually building things is boring and lame!"

Sending children to a slave school is a bad idea. It doesn't matter if it's a private school; most are either religious (hah!) or are preparatory (crush students by drilling them hard with work). I think you'd be hard pressed to find a government-chartered private school that won't try to inflict pro-State brainwashing on children.

I heard that Montessori schools are decent, but I haven't tried them.

When the time comes, I'll try to homeschool. Either I'd need a "work at home" business, or earn enough that my wife wouldn't have to work.

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This YouTube video was interesting. It's a combination of a pool trick shot and dominoes.

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Thompson has left a new comment on your post "The Liberty Dollar Scam Continues!":

The Liberty Dollar serves as a good transition, though. Once FRNs are more or less obsolete because of the success of agorism, then it'll make sense to bargain in terms of weights and measures; until then, I think it makes sense enough to keep upping the FRN "face value" as FRNs depreciate.

My point is that you're better off using silver rounds than using Liberty Dollars.

When you buy Liberty Dollars, you're paying a markup to the spot price of silver. For example, suppose the spot price of silver is $16/ounce and the Liberty Dollar has "$50" printed on it. The difference of $34 is seignorage profit for the people who mint Liberty Dollars.

Instead of Liberty Dollars, you should use use generic silver rounds. Trade them based on the spot price of silver, rather than having a fixed exchange rate between slave points and silver.

If your "alternate currency" is based on slave points, that's loss-oriented thinking. An alternate currency should be completely independent of Federal Reserve points. It's much healthier to think "This costs an ounce of silver." instead of "This costs $16." (assuming a spot price of $16/ounce) If you know the spot price of silver, it's easy to translate between prices in slave points, and prices quoted in real money.

For example, the price of a gallon of gasoline, divided by the price of an ounce of silver, has remained pretty steady over time. If you quote the price of gasoline in real money, then the price increase is slow/negligible. This calculation shows that most of the increase in energy prices is merely compensation for inflation.

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

For the past couple of days I've been reading your blog (I've read maybe 20 or 30 posts, mostly longer ones, and mostly from your all-time top hits list) and I can't find any contradictions. Keep it up. The remnant is very much poised and ready, and its numbers are growing to top it off.

I don't have any good statistics for the number of people who are convinced "Monopolistic government is evil!" and "Agorism is the best strategy for resisting the evil State." My blog's readership is increasing, and I see more intelligent discussion of agorism elsewhere.

I'm also seeing people writing articles on "That FSK is such a loser!", which I guess is an indication of success.

Elsewhere you mentioned "gulching." That'll be a reference whose origin is Atlas Shrugged: the nickname the essentially agorist (though they haven't yet shaken off the last rags of libertarian optimism of legal violence - as I have only very recently done) remnant of creative industrialists give to the valley to which they withdraw to work in peace: "[John] Galt's Gulch."

I've read Atlas Shrugged, and know that "gluching" is a reference to Ayn Rand. Agorism is the best way to implement Ayn Rand's vision of a strike by productive workers. Instead of outright striking, you create wealth that the bad guys can't steal. You don't need to move to a remote area and set up a self-sufficient community to get greater freedom. I can stay where I am and achieve greater freedom by agorism. For example, there's nothing immoral with me using the State electricity/telephone monopoly until free market alternatives are developed.

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do so. It isn't quite perfect - it retains that nagging optimism of the state - but it does provide a good model of an agorist revolution and the subsequent demise of institutionalized force.

Based on my experience, if you see someone in an online discussion forum who names themselves after a character in an Ayn Rand novel, they're usually an idiot. The problem is that the "Objectivist" movement is now controlled by idiots. Ayn Rand's novels are interesting. I wouldn't bother hanging out with her followers/worshipers.

One more thing (sorry to address so much in the same comment on the same post): I too have had the same inkling as you that the SLH might actually want the intelligent ones to see the scam. Either he empathizes with us (he too knows it's all bullshit) and wishes us to withdraw while he maintains his control, as in Brave New World, or he really is ultimately going for the collapse of the State: and with it, the extinction of anti-life philosophies which attempt to exist in defiance of reality. Either way, it's pretty sweet.

This issue keeps coming up. There is evidence that whoever's really pulling the strings actually wants the current corrupt system to collapse. "Taxation is theft!" and "Government is terrorism!" are ideas that are 150+ years old. Has some secret group been working towards the elimination of government for decades/centuries?

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Thompson has left a new comment on your post "My Brain is Sore!":

It's hard to describe, because it seems to be a "You have to experience it yourself!" thing.

Enlightenment is indeed.

I try to do the best I can.

You wouldn't happen to live near NYC, would you? I want to meet up with some more agorists, to do some serious short-term planning.

I live in NYC, specifically Brooklyn.

For now, I'm focusing on "promote agorism" more than actual agorism. Right now, raising awareness is probably more important than actual agorism.

It says on your profile page that you're an actor. I've been considering "Experiment with standup comedy" as a means of promoting agorism. I've been considering experimenting as an independent filmmaker, but that's probably going to wait 1-2 years. I'm considering vlogging and also maybe recording some agorist-themed sketch comedy.

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

Unfortunately, the price of gold is also manipulated.

Yes. However,

1. The price of gold is usually manipulated downward. This means that the increase in the price of gold is less than or equal to true inflation.
2. Central banks have nearly exhausted their gold reserves, which limits their ability to manipulate the gold price.
3. You can buy gold and take physical delivery, which limits the extent of the manipulation. If the price of gold is kept artificially too low, then people will merely buy gold and take possession.

Over a 5-10+ year period, the price of gold is a more accurate measure of inflation than the CPI. It wasn't a valid comparison before 1975, because it was illegal to own gold. It wasn't a valid comparison in the 80s and early 90s, because central banks were dumping their gold reserves to keep the price of gold down. Over the past 10 years, gold has been a better measure of inflation than the CPI.

As further evidence that gold is an accurate measure of inflation, the rate of increase in the price of gold tracks M3 and reconstructed M3 pretty well.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Obama Nominated Someone for the Supreme Court":

Amen,

In ron paul's book "the revolution" he mentions how congress has the power to decide when supreme court can't rule on certain types of cases.

I've heard of three ways that Congress can overrule the Supreme Court.

1. Congress can clarify an ambiguous law. For example, the Supreme Court granted Major League Baseball an exemption from antitrust law, which they later regretted but didn't overturn due to the corrupt principle of stare decisis. Congress has the power to clarify antitrust law, saying that baseball is not exempt.
2. Congress can amend the Constitution (with also ratification by individual state governments needed). For example, the Supreme Court struck down an income tax in the late 19th century, which was clarified by the 16th amendment. (Ignoring the "Was that ratification fraudulent?" and "Taxation is theft!" arguments.)
   
3. Congress can increase the size of the Supreme Court. At first, the Supreme Court was hostile to Roosevelt's New Deal and the huge expansion of Federal government power. Roosevelt threatened to get Congress to pass a law increasing the size of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court capitulated and let the New Deal laws stand.
   

Once you realize "Taxation is theft!" and "Government is a massive criminal conspiracy!", then it's irrelevant what the Supreme Court does. The Supreme Court is an evil fnord providing the illusion of justice. Every single erosion of individual freedom was approved by the Supreme Court, and via "stare decisis", those erosions became permanent.

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chronosaidit (http://chronosaidit.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #97":

On your response to my 'blinking one eye...' comment, you wrote.
Dogs/cats are not a valid comparison...and, it's possible that birds...
You would be better off researching birds, etc.

I don't know of any research conducted on blinking patterns of wild animals. I'm looking, but haven't noticed anything yet. Most wild animals won't sit still and let you watch them closely. The fact that you're watching them can influence their behavior.

Likewise, you assume that because an animal is domesticated that it is 'pro-state brainwashed.' You might look into the history of animal domestication. The first dogs/cats were animals that fed off of the scraps of human consumption. It is not likely the state had anything to do with that. When you associate the state 'carte blanche' with everything, you use the same 'straw man fallacy' that you yourself frequently argue against.

Not initially. However, dogs are literally prisoners of their human owners. Most dogs are confined to a territory much less than is "natural", which makes them go crazy. Especially in NYC, dogs locked in an apartment all day tend to get overexcited when they go outside or see another dog.

When I see a dog behind a fence barking, it seems as if it's saying "Help! I'm trapped here!" The dog isn't barking with hostility. The dog is pleading for help and escape.

As another example, there was a panda raised in captivity by humans. It was then released into the wild. It was murdered by the other pandas. Apparently, the wild pandas thought that a human-raised panda was insane.

Again, the reason your 'blink one at a time' hypothesis makes little sense, is because you have made a statement without comparing it to anything in reality. I strongly encourage you to compare your 'hypothesized blinking pattern' with some other animal. Dog, cat, monkey, cow, whatever, I seriously doubt that the relationship between an animal and a human affects its instincts severely to the point of affecting its blinking habits. Do you see how ridiculous this is? It's like saying that pro-state brainwashing directly affects the volume of air that the lungs can hold. Now, wouldn't breathing and exercise make more sense? In the same way...

I've noticed, and these are definitely true:

1. I blink a lot less often than other people.
2. Other people almost always blink both eyes simultaneously.
3. I'm blinking my eyes one at a time independently.

Is there a correlation between blinking patterns and pro-State brainwashing. I'm not sure. I'm saying "Yes, maybe. That's interesting." Why are you so hostile?

If you want to say that you are no longer afraid of looking people in the eye, because you are releasing yourself from habits and thoughts from your history, I understand that. That makes sense! Because you are comparing your past behavior to your current behavior, or because you compare your behavior to others, like you did when you mentioned people frequently blinking. You have a point on the blinking. I find that it is people's own awareness of either the fact that they are full of **** and are trying to take advantage of you, or they have prejudged you with a stereotype and are uncomfortable around you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with theorizing and I am not offended, however in its current state, your hypothesis on blinking has no correlation to reality.

The point is that I blink a lot less than the other people I see. I also notice that I blink my eyes independently rather than simultaneously. Is it irrelevant or important? It's hard to say unless I manage to help someone else crack their pro-State brainwashing as much as me.

The State isn't just government. It's about how most/all people are either crippled emotionally ("abused productive") or crippled logically ("parasitic").

I don't see why you're so hostile about this?

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Black-Scholes Formula is Wrong! - Part 6/12 - ...":

there is no contradiction. axiom one is not that the expected return equals the risk free rate but that the expected return UNDER RISK NEUTRAL probabilities equals the risk free rate. u should have thought about that for a second before blasting out that nonsense

You are wrong. Even if you choose to hedge, the error in "expected return" affects option prices. Professional options traders don't notice, because the error is in their favor.

If you have an infinitesimal error at each step in the calculation, then when you integrate, it adds up to real errors.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Black-Scholes Formula is Wrong! - Part 9/12 - ...":

this happens when people trade that dont know any math. why do you trade options if you dont have any idea about it? black scholes isn't wrong. it is right under the hypothesis made. your "contradiction" reposes upon your lack of understanding of the concept of risk neutral probabilities. i suggest you learn basic math and read a book about options before you trade again

This comment appears to be by the same idiot as the above.

Economics is a subject where people think they are experts, where they really know less than nothing. If you've been pro-State brainwashes as an economist, then you have less than zero knowledge.

Given the assumptions of the model, the Math of the Black-Scholes formula is correct. I claim that the assumptions are wrong. It is obvious, because stocks have outperformed the Fed Fund Rate in every significant time period. Stocks will outperform money market funds, but underperform true inflation, because real interest rates are negative.

Just because I couldn't profit from my knowledge of the defect, doesn't mean my ideas are wrong. I underestimated the size and severity of the recession/depression. Since periodic severe recessions are guaranteed, and can last for several years, I can't profit from this defect by buying calls.

Only people who control businesses that are "too big to fail" can profitably exploit defects in the monetary system.

I claim that this Anonymous commenter is the one with zero knowledge of Mathematics. You can't tell the difference between axioms and conclusions. If your axioms are wrong, then your conclusions will almost always be wrong, no matter how much fancy calculations you perform.

The Black-Sholes formula predicts actual market prices, because professional traders will borrow/lend at the Fed Funds Rate, performing the arbitrage indicated by the put/call parity formula. I don't have the perk of borrowing at the Fed Funds Rate. I thought that by purchasing call options, I could indirectly borrow at the Fed Funds Rate. That idea failed, because the recession/depression was more severe than I thought it would be. In mid-2008, I actually was way ahead, but then the market crashed and the value of my options went to zero.

As a non-insider, I can't profitably exploit the defects in the monetary system. I thought that was a way to indirectly benefit, but it was too much risk for too little return.

That's like saying "FSK attempted practical agorism. He then was assaulted by State police. Therefore, practicing agorism is stupid." Just because I might someday attempt agorism and fail due to State violence, doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

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Colin D has left a new comment on your post "The Fallacy of Suing the Government":

The way I see it:

If John Doe sues the city for $2M and wins, the taxpayers should be pressuring the city to prevent these lawsuits. If there's no pressure, there's no incentive for the city to curb the lawsuits, as the city will simply continue to pass the costs on.

How exactly would I pressure the city to prevent frivolous lawsuits and abuse? Voting and other State-licensed protest methods are pointless. Each lawsuit only costs me personally $1 or less. It isn't worth my time to try and fight for each individual $1. I'm better off completely boycotting the government and not paying taxes.

The same is true of companies. When someone sues a company and wins, the company usually must raise its prices some or even perhaps microscopically in order to offset the cost of the lawsuit. If there is no pressure from the other customers, then the company has little incentive to prevent the behavior again, other than perhaps media attention or cause organizations (PETA, EFF, PTC, etc.).

The company should not have pressure from customers. The company should have pressure from competitors, who don't have to charge extra due to lawsuits. Most large corporations have a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly. If I believe a large corporation is doing something inefficient, it's impractical/illegal for me to start a competing business, due to State restriction of the market. The large corporation can just pass the cost of lawsuits on as higher prices.

The people who are affected by the tax or price increases must apply pressure or the taxes and prices will just keep going up!

The only way to apply pressure to the bad guys is to say "**** this! Taxation is theft! I'm not paying anymore!" Any other resistance tactic is merely acting like a slave.

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chronosaidit (http://chronosaidit.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Is it Stupid to own an IRA or 401(k) Retirement Ac...":

FSK says: It's too risky to store gold and silver metal.

It's risky, but I'm not sure what the risk is. Ideally, I'd like to have a gold/silver warehouse receipt bank to store my metal, but such a business is illegal.

Physical gold and silver probably are the best investments out there, but they're not zero risk.

Would it be worth it to a thief to steal gold from you? How would he even know you had it? Are you more likely to lose 30% of your savings in a market dip than you are to lose it in a burglary, assuming you take the proper precautions in both scenarios?

For me, storing physical gold would be a distributed banking type business. Suppose I had 100 ounces of gold. I might store 10 ounces at each of 8 friends (maybe paying a fee), and then keep 20 ounces in my home. Storing all 100 ounces in one place is risky.

In the present, whenever I buy gold from an on-the-books business, that transaction must be reported to the State. That's how they'll know I have gold and silver. The risk isn't just theft from common criminals. The risk also is theft from criminals wearing shiny badges and uniforms!

How does a thief profit from stealing a car? How does he profit from stealing a flat screen television? How does he profit from stealing 160oz (10 lbs) of gold bars/coins? Does he walk into a bank (a simple burglar, remember) and exchange them for cash?

I'm sure even the stupidest criminal can find a way to fence stolen gold and silver. There are people skilled enough to melt down gold and silver and re-forge it, although I don't have the equipment and skill for that.

Can he even open the safe? What if he ends up getting everything you own except your safe, and your dirty laundry?

I've heard of instances where the safe was stolen outright! Alternatively, you can be robbed by the people you hired to install the safe for you! I heard that, if you want a safe in your house for storing gold and silver, you have to install it yourself.

What if I'm living in an apartment, and don't have the right to renovate and install a safe?

Do you have insurance? Do you have an alarm? Do you leave your windows open and your doors unlocked? What kind of neighborhood do you live in? How likely is it for you to be burglarized, whether you have gold at home, or not?

Would my insurance cover stolen gold and silver? Then, I have to report my ownership to the State, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place. Even if you live in a good neighborhood, State police can still raid you.

Seriously...
So you have a math degree...well, what are your thoughts on the following:

What are the different probabilities? Are they all the same?
1) Robbed/burglarized under all circumstances
2) Robbed w/ gold inside
3) Robbed w/ gold inside a locked safe
4) Robbed w/ regular expensive consumer goods (jewelry, electronics, cash, whatever burglars steal)

What are 1-4 given:
1) 50-100k of insurance (how much is this?)
2) A security system
3) Intelligent habits - lock your doors, don't have strange people in your home, etc
4) Private security patrols
5) Local police (how good is your neighborhood)

The organizers of the Liberty Dollar took very sensible precautions, and FBI agents stole their gold and silver. If I'm running a gold/silver barter network or gold/silver warehouse receipt banking business, then I'll probably be similarly assaulted.

I'm sorry, but when I consider the 'math' I think if one investment will net you all these benefits, and all you have to do is buy it, hold it, store it, and insure it, I do not see what the big problem is.

But I could be wrong. I have not called an insurance company and asked them how much it would cost to insure $50k worth of gold bars (isn't that insane, that this is only 55 oz of gold, at $900/oz). Do you realize how small that is? That's not even 4 lbs of gold. It could fit in a shoebox sized safe. It could also fit in a shoebox.

If I have $100k of gold, I could just get a COMEX warehouse receipt. I'd just buy a gold future and take delivery. The storage fee on that is something like $100-$150 per year. Of course, that still has the "IRS finds out about my transaction." problem along with "I may not be able to get to my gold in a SHTF scenario."

I've definitely thought of clever ways to hide gold and silver and platinum in my home or apartment. I will try it, but not yet.

And you really believe you could not protect that from a burglary?

If a policeman (or ordinary criminal) points a gun at me and says "Tell me where you've hidden your gold!", would I really be able to resist? What if I'm held prisoner and tortured?

You could buy that much gold and your parents would never know. You'd walk in with a shoebox and they'd think you went shoe shopping. And that's $50k in gold. A number of people cannot afford that.

Everytime you say "my parents are paranoid..." I think of when you respond to commenters with "you're assuming the state is omnipotent." You're doing the same. You're assuming the factors 'against you' have a probability of 1 of occuring.

I'm living with my parents, who spy on everything I do. I don't live with police. However, my parents act as police.

The reality is that my options are severely limited while stuck living with my parents. I should acquire my physical freedom first, before attempting agorism. However, that's going to take another year or two.

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I'm still way behind on answering reader comments, but I'll publish what I have so far. I've used up most of the drafts in my queue, but I've mostly recovered my blogging energy.

Is Real Estate a Good Investment?

Real estate should underperform gold and silver for several reasons.

The biggest reason is property taxes. Property taxes are a drag on the return from a real estate investment. If there's 10% inflation, then your property taxes will probably also rise by 10%.

When you buy real estate, you don't actually own it. You merely have a perpetual transferable lease. The only exception would be someplace like California, where there's a law that limits the rate of property tax increase per property per year. The cap is less than true inflation, which means that your inflation-adjusted property tax burden decreases every year. However, people in California pay higher other taxes to compensate. Fortunately, these other taxes are easier for an agorist to dodge. Avoiding property taxes is only practical if you can violently resist the State police who come to kick you off your land.

Another problem is zoning laws. A few blocks away, someone is buddies with the zoning board, gets a zoning variance, and builds a big apartment building. That decreases the value of your house.

Another problem is tax breaks for new construction. New construction frequently is exempt from property taxes for a certain number of years. To compensate, other properties pay higher taxes.

Another problem is that housing wears out. You have to spend money on repairs.

Another problem is rent control laws. Even if your rental property isn't subject to rent control, the regulation could be changed later. For example, in NYC, a bunch of apartments were about to go above the rent threshold for rent stabilization. The rent control law was changed, and the rent threshold for deregulation was increased.

One advantage of real estate is that, in times of hyperinflation, your mortgage gets wiped out. You can repay the loan with devalued money. "Maximize your leverage!" is a risky strategy, because you'll get wiped out during the next deflationary recession/depression. If you aren't "too big to fail" and you aren't an insider, leverage will cause you to lose everything during the next bust.

If you have the spare resources, buying a house and maybe some farmland is probably a good idea. Once the State collapses, you won't have to pay property taxes anymore. It might make sense to take a mortgage when you initially buy the property. You should repay it and not refinance as property values rise. If you refinance every time property values rise, then you'll get wiped out during the next deflationary recession/depression. Further, you pay a fee every time you refinance.

I do agree with the conventional wisdom. "Owning" is superior to renting if you plan to stay for 7+ years.

The most important point to remember regarding land "ownership" is that you don't actually own it. Due to property taxes, the State has a greater claim to the property than you. You don't actually "own" land. You merely have a perpetual transferable lease, with the rent (property taxes) chosen arbitrarily via State enforcers. There is a limit to how much property taxes can be raised each year, lest the cattle complain and start noticing the scam.

GM Filed for Bankruptcy

Yesterday, General Motors filed for bankruptcy.

GM was removed from the Dow index and replaced with Cisco. At the same time, Citigroup will be replaced by Travelers. This change doesn't take effect for a week. In the meantime, a bankrupt business will be included in the Dow index. A bankruptcy by GM has been inevitable for awhile. GM should have been removed from the Dow index a long time ago, although that probably wasn't politically acceptable until they filed for bankruptcy.

The Federal government is contributing additional bailout money as part of the bankruptcy arrangement. If you listen to pro-State trolls on the Communism Channel, they'll say "Good for the State! GM is 'too big to fail'." If GM is going to be such a great business after bankruptcy, the shouldn't GM's management be able to raise capital from sources other than the government? By definition, the Federal government is paying above-market rates for the "investment" in GM. Also remember that the Federal government may make a 5% return over two years on its "investment" and claim a profit, even though that return underperforms true inflation.

Before filing for bankruptcy, GM's creditors already agreed to get paid a certain percentage of the face amount of their bonds. That isn't the way bankruptcy is supposed to work. The corporation's assets are supposed to be sold to the highest bidder, and the creditors get whatever they can. Some of the Federal government bailout money is being used to repay creditors.

There also is supposed to be a clearly determined order of which creditors get highest priority. The pre-bankruptcy negotiations meant that creditors were paid in a different order than they should have been paid. Of course, lobbyists from the bondholders made sure they got a good deal. There probably won't be adequate public disclosure of which creditors got how much bailout money. You might be able to find out who gets paid what, but it's practically impossible to determine what creditors whould have received if there were no bailout.

If you were foolish enough to lend GM money in the past 5-10 years, or bought their bonds, then you deserve to lose most of your investment. Even if the Federal government contributed zero bailout money, GM's assets still would be sold in bankruptcy court (if they're worth anything). If the State spends another $10B or whatever bailout out GM, that's $10B that couldn't have otherwise be spent on something useful.

Notice that GM's creditors made out on both the initial bailout and in bankruptcy. The bailout in 2008 meant that GM was able to make another 3-6 months of payments on their bonds before filing for bankruptcy. This is substantial, because GM's bonds were "junk" paying yields of 15% or more. If you bought GM debt just before the first bailout was announced, you made a huge return. For the second bailout, anyone who knew that there would be no additional bailout could have made money short selling GM stock. Alteratively, insiders who knew what the bailout/bankruptcy deal would be made a killing. They could have bought or short sold GM debt, based on how good the bailout/bankruptcy deal would be.

GM's dealers also got a bad deal. GM has selected some dealerships to close, as part of the downsizing. A GM dealer is a separate business, who has a franchise agreement with GM. I believe the same is true with Ford and Chrysler. When the franchise agreement is terminated, the franchisee loses their investment in the business. Plus, closing franchises allows insiders to profit. Suppose that X and Y both own a dealership franchise in the same area. If GM orders X to close but not Y, then this is a windfall for Y. For this reason, operating a franchise seems like a stupid business idea, as an auto dealer or restaurant or other franchises. If the controlling corporation makes bad decisions, then the franchisee is SOL.

You might wonder "If GM, Ford, and Chrysler are so inefficient, then why doesn't someone start a competing car manufacturing business." The answer is State restriction of the market. The auto manufacturing industry is heavily regulated. There are lots of regulatory hoops for getting a new car approved as "street legal". You can't start out making 10-20 cars per year and then bootstrap to a larger business. The cost of regulation compliance makes a small car manufacturing business illegal/impractical. All the "consumer saftey" regulations are really "corporate safety" regulations, because they increase the cost of new competitors entering the market.

GM's CEO appears to get to keep his job, even during bankruptcy. He can claim "GM had structural problems that couldn't be solved in the short time I've been working here. The recession/depression is to blame, and not anything I did. An executive who's familiar with the business will do better than hiring someone else." He'll probably be paid with options/equity in post-bankruptcy GM. During the next inflationary boom, he'll be able to cash out his options for a huge windfall.

Most of the discussions of GM's bankruptcy are evil fnords designed to distract from the true issues. The issues of GM's bankruptcy are:

1. Why is GM "too big to fail"? Why aren't smaller competitors entering this market, when the established corporations are so obviously inefficient?
2. Is a heavily regulated auto industry a good idea?
3. Why can't GM raise capital from sources other than the government?
4. Why should creditors get a bailout? They should have known about GM's problems when they lent them money. GM has been struggling for years now.
5. Why should unionized employees get a bailout? It's irrelevant if a monopoly/oligopoly pays above-market labor costs, because the cost is passed on as higher taxes. Some of the bailout money will be used to pay GM's employees.

The economic and political system is one big scam. It's annoying to watch pro-State trolls discussing the merits of various economic policies.

The Fallacy of Suing the Government

There was an interesting story in the mainstream media recently. A man claims that he was improperly beaten by police. He is now suing the NYC government for millions of dollars.

Normally, police get at worst a slap on the wrist when they are caught committing misconduct. In this case, there were some criminal charges filed against the policeman. Even if convicted, the penalty will be far less than if the roles were reversed and the man had beaten a policeman.

Notice that the man is not suing the individual police officers. The man is suing the NYC government. Suppose the case goes to trial, and the man wins a verdict of $2M, or he settles the lawsuit. In that case, everyone else living in NYC pays higher taxes to compensate for the verdict. Using the example of a $2M verdict and 10M people living in NYC, then everyone living in NYC would pay $0.20 in higher taxes to pay for the verdict.

You might say "Big deal, $0.20!", but when you add up all the abuses of the State it's a substantial amount of money. Stealing $0.20 from everyone living in NYC is only practical when the theft is backed by State violence. If you had to go door-to-door and violently demand $0.20 in tribute, then the theft would be impractical.

Saying "The NYC government should pay $2M to compensate the victim!" is logically equivalent to saying "Everyone living in NYC pays $0.20 to compensate the victim!"

Even if the man did sue the individual police officers, their union contract probably specifies that the NYC government reimburses them for any losses. In this manner, suing a State agent for misconduct is impossible. Even if you sue and win, the State is able to pass the cost on to the cattle in the form of higher taxes.

Alternatively, suppose the people working in the NYPD had to personally pay the $2M via a payroll deduction. In that case, there would be a real incentive for the police to crack down on misconduct. In the present, the cost of the lawsuit is paid by the NY government's general budget. If you're a policeman, and one of your coworkers does something wrong, you aren't adversely affected.

In a true free market, when a worker commits negligence or misconduct while on the job, then he and his employer are personally liable for the loss. If you are working for a free market business or you are the owner, and someone commits misconduct, then you might lose your job or your business. When a State agent commits negligence or fraud, the cost is paid by the taxpayers/cattle. The cost of the fraud/theft is paid by the people who were robbed in the first place!

Similarly, a large corporation is a branch of the government. When executives commit misconduct and get caught, the corporation reimburses them for the loss. Executives only face personal liability when their misconduct is so bad that the corporation goes bankrupt, as occurred with Enron. When shareholders sue executives for misconduct, the executives defend themselves with the shareholders' money! Unless the misconduct is truly egregious, executives usually get away with it. For recent high-profile failures such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, GM, etc., the executives faced no personal liability at all. They merely claim "We made a mistake. We didn't mess up on purpose. We followed the laws (which our lobbyists wrote)." The rules of the monetary system guarantee periodic severe crises.

Corporate executives typically purchase liability insurance. In many ways, the outcomes of the legal system are random, so this is considered to be an insurable risk. The insurance is paid by the corporation, so the cost is borne by shareholders and customers. All large corporations purchase such insurance, and the cost is paid by customers in the form of higher prices.

In a true free market, you would be unable to purchase insurance protecting yourself in the event of fraud or misconduct. You can purchase insurance to guard against accidents or small mistakes, but not deliberate fraud or gross negligence. The punitive damages would be so high to make such insurance unprofitable.

Further, corporate executives have successfully lobbied for "tort reform", further limiting the corporate liability. The argument for "tort reform" is "Corporations pass on the cost of lawsuits to their customers anyway. Therefore, damages in lawsuits should be limited." This is only a problem because large corporations have a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly. There is no place in the market for a small well-run business to compete, due to the massive subsidies that large corporations receive.

When the State or a corporation is sued and loses, that merely provides the illusion of justice. The cost of the lawsuit is passed on to taxpayers or customers, in the form of higher taxes or higher prices. The victim receives a windfall, but everyone else pays the cost. The executives responsible for the misconduct almost always keep their high-paying jobs. In this manner, there is no incentive for a State agent to peform his job well, because he is immune from the negative consequences of failure.