Thursday, October 31, 2013

How to Prevent Bad Laws


 Our society is obsessed with voting and passing laws.  Supposedly voting 
magically makes everything alright.  Whatever the majority wants, everyone 
else must live with.  This is garbage.  How would you like to have to eat the 
one and only breakfast approved by a majority?
 
 Having that one and only majority mandated breakfast, served only at the 
majority mandated time, would lead to endless strife over what to eat and when 
to eat.  It would also generate a black market in other kinds of breakfasts.
 
 A law is an order.  Those passing and enforcing the law say “Do it our 
way, or we will hurt you.”  A law not backed by force and threats of force 
isn't a law, it is a joke.  We can't change the violent nature of laws.  We 
can make it more difficult for lawmakers to invoke the use of force to control 
others.

 Why should a mere 51 percent be allowed to resort to the use of force 
against 49 percent?  Sometimes the use of force is justified.  Murders should 
be forced to stop.  Does anyone believe murder would be legal merely because 
we required a two-thirds majority to pass laws?

 Why shouldn't we require at least a two-thirds majority to pass any law?  
Why shouldn't those who want to resort to the use of force and threats have to 
convince at least two-thirds that such use of force is justified?

 Requiring super majority approval to repeal a law would be a disaster.  We 
need to make it easier to repeal bad laws.  Let the opponents of a law 
petition for reconsideration of any law.  If on reconsideration the law fails 
to gain super majority approval it would cease to be a law.

 This will not end all exploitive and abusive laws.  It will drastically 
cull the herd.  Few laws beyond basic laws against force and violence such as 
murder, robbery, arson, rape, etc. ever had two-thirds support.  Even fewer 
still have such support.

 Consider Obama Care.  It squeaked through by a vote or two.  It never came 
close to having two-thirds support.  Obama Care would be dead and all but 
forgotten if it had needed two-thirds approval.  Even if it had passed it 
would now be repealed by failure to gain approval on reconsideration.

 Most of the special interest strife in this country is over special 
privileges granted, or sought to be granted, by laws that didn't or couldn't 
ever come close to gaining super majority support.  We would have a far more 
peaceful and less divided nation if we eliminated the possibility of a mere 
majority passing any law.

 Deprived of using the political means to exploit their neighbors, 
individuals would have to resort to the only means still available.  They 
would have to use persuasion, rewards and voluntary cooperation to pursue 
their goals.   They would no longer be able to resort to “Do it my way, or I 
will hurt you.” 

 There are only two things that should be subject to voting.  The first is 
laws against all forms of aggression where the law must be enforced with force 
and violence.  The second is matters where circumstances dictate that everyone 
must accept the same choice.  There are very few things that fall into the 
latter class.

 What to eat for breakfasts, which school to attend, and the size of soft 
drinks aren't included on the list.  People get along better and accomplish 
more when they aren't endlessly threatened with “Do it my way, or I will hurt 
you.”

 The federal government alone has enacted about 200,000 pages of “Do it may 
way, or I will hurt you.”  And, you are presumed to know, and are required to 
obey, every one of them.  Requiring at least two-thirds approval to keep these 
laws might shorten your reading list.  You do read and understand all the laws 
you are ordered to obey, don't you?

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

What Is the Price of Money?

 Prices of most everything have been going up since long before my time.  I remember $0.12 loaves of bread and quarts of milk.  Some bread cost $0.20 or a bit more.  Nickel ice cream cones and candy bars were the standard.  Big candy bars and double dip ice cream cost a whole dime.
 
Does a multi dollar loaf of bread today cost more than a $0.20 one 60 years ago?  Is certainly costs more money.  Money isn't the real measure of either cost or value.  Money is merely a tool we use to make trading easier.

 The cost of something is the human effort used to make it.  Its value is determined by it usefulness to the person using it.  It requires less time to make a loaf of bread today than it did 60 years ago.  The real cost of bread today is less than it was when bread sold for little more than a dime.  The usefulness of bread hasn't changed much over the past 60 years.

 Labor also costs much more today.  I remember working for less than a dollar an hour.  In my first job as an engineer my pay was a bit less than $3.00 per hour.  Most college graduates started for less.  I lived very well on $3.00 per hour.

 When the real cost of making just about everything is less than it used to be, Why do we pay so much more?  The simple answer is, money is cheaper.  It is common practice to state prices in dollars.  It is unusual to hear someone say “A dollar costs a loaf to bread.”

 In a barter economy two people might exchange a dozen eggs for a loaf of bread.  The eggs cost a loaf of bread.  The bread costs a dozen eggs.  Likewise, if the price of a loaf of bread is one dollar, the price of one dollar is the loaf of bread.

 The price of bread hasn't gone up.  The price of money has gone down.  Sixty years ago a loaf of bread would buy the grocer $0.15 or so.  Today dollars are so cheap the grocer can buy two, three or more dollars with a single loaf of bread.

 Why are dollars now so cheap?  Money is useful only for buying things.  The supply of money has increased far faster than the supply of things to buy with the money.  The only use for that surplus money is to bid up the prices.  Otherwise, the surplus money has to remain unspent.  It is most unlikely that people with money will refuse to spend it merely because spending it requires them to bid up the prices.

 Where does all the new money come from?  Probably most are aware that  government can print all the money it wants to.  That is only one tenth of the story.  Once that money is deposited in a bank, that bank can create $9.00 of credit money for every dollar deposited.   That is the “magic” of 10 percent, fractional reserve banking.

 It is beyond available space to explain how banks get away with loaning out the same dollar nine times.   The government controlled banking system does make it possible, for a while at least.

 Whether the money supply is such that bread cost $0.20, $2.00 or even $200.00 doesn't matter.  What matters is changes in the money supply.  Changes in the money supply change prices and disrupt the economy in many ways.

 Money created out of thin air by banks can quickly evaporate back into thin air causing great economic disruption and triggering recessions.  As long a we have the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve banks creating money out of thin air, we will never have a stable economy.  Try as it might government is incapable of preventing fluctuations in the money supply from reeking economic havoc.

 Our ever increasing money supply causes far more serious problems than having to adjust to ever increasing prices.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum

Monday, October 21, 2013

EXCITING TIMES

        We live in perilous times.  All times are perilous.  We always face dangers and challenges.  We can also find hope if we know where to look.

 Few people see the hopes before they are realized.  The forces of technology and public sentiment build quietly and unnoticed like the forces building up along fault lines.  Few notice until the earth moves.  Few also see forces building for technological and social change.

 On Saturday evening, November 4, 1989, I was at a gathering  in Miami.  A number of Ukrainians sat near by discussing the fate of the Ukraine.  Did anyone there even suspect that in less than a week we would awake to the headline "Berlin wall falls?"  Who foresaw that in a couple of years the Soviet Union would cease to exist and Ukraine would again be an independent nation?

 Forces for monumental change are building today.  Many people see the dangers.  How many see the hope?  People see change as a political process acted out within the political frame work.

 Forces for truly revolutionary changes build outside of, and in spite of, the political order.  They shake and change the political order.  Only force beyond the control of government can change government.

 Government is the most conservative of all institutions.  The foundation of government is force and coercion.  Above all else government seeks to conserve, protect and expand its power.  Those who seek to build peace and prosperity by getting government to reform itself seek the impossible.  The only things that can save us from the plunder and destruction of all powerful government are the irresistible forces from new technology and the will of the people.

 Those forces are building in spite of government's best efforts to stop them.  Government's efforts to prevent change amplify the forces that propel us toward change.

 We live in exciting times.  We are witnessing, mostly unaware, the buildup to what may be the most revolutionary and earth shaking change in history -- more earth shaking than gun powder, the atom bomb, or the fall of the Soviet Union.

 The secret to government power is manipulation and control of the minds of the people.  Those who rule and exploit are few.  Their victims are many.  No government can long survive if the will of the people turns against it.

 All governments must control the minds of their subjects, at least enough to gain passive acceptance.  No where is such control more important than in a democracy where people vote.

 It is no accident that governments world wide control education.  The goal of the rulers isn't to teach the there Rs.  In the name of education, starting in childhood, they indoctrinate the citizens to be compliant and dependent on government.  Dependent victims don't rebel.  Abused voters are as compliant to their abusers as are abused wives to their abusers.

 We have front row seats as world shaking forces build to the climax.  The forces of cyber education threaten the existing order.  In a few years decentralized cyber education will be available and affordable for most children.  The more government and the teachers' unions resist it and make government schools even more of a disaster, the more parents will be driven to private cyber education.

 The movement to decentralized education began in the paper book era decades ago.  It required a great effort to leave the government schools then.  The required effort diminishes today, while government schools grow ever worse.

 Government and the teachers unions will try to outlaw independent cyber education.  They will claim to be protecting the children.  Someone said "Religion is the last refuge of scoundrels."  Actually, “for the children” is the last refuge of scoundrels.

 The move to parental controlled cyber education will build slowly.  Suddenly it will break though.  On a quiet September morn teacher will return to nearly empty classrooms.  The next day's headline will shout "The educational wall has fallen."  People will be freed from government  propaganda and in control of their own minds.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

What Can Government Do?

     Millions seem to believe government can do anything. 
The flip side is they also believe nothing can be accomplished
without government.  This attitude of dependence on government
grows every day.

     The gold standard for government accomplishment is a
man on the Moon.  Man on the Moon spawned the phrase "If we
can put a man on the Moon, Why can't we _____________?"  
At one time or another that blank has been occupied with about
every unachieved goal known to humans.  Rarely, if ever, have I
heard any of those questions answered.

     First we will consider what the government actually did
in putting a man on the Moon.  Government hired private
businesses to do the heavy lifting.  Government set the goal and
confiscated the resources from the private sector through taxation
and borrowing.

     In other words the private sector put men on the Moon. 
All government did was coerce and bribe the private sector. 
Those businesses that profited from the Moon project
enthusiastically went along.

     Everything comes with a price.  Doing one thing requires
passing up the opportunity to do something else.  Economists
call the lost opportunity the "opportunity cost."

     Going to the Moon had many opportunity costs for many
people.  We will never know what millions gave up to put a
man on the Moon.  We can have some ideas about the nature of
the sacrifice.

     People first spend resources to achieve their most
important goals.  If putting a man on the Moon had been the
most important goal for the people forced to pay for it, those
people would have voluntarily paid to put a man on the Moon. 
The mere fact that people had to be coerced proves that a man
on the Moon was well down their priority list.

     Eventually man would have visited the Moon.  Very
possibly voluntary efforts would not yet have achieved that goal. 
We would have used the lunar resources to have achieved other
things, perhaps cures for some diseases.  For most people going
to the Moon has provided no more benefit than does the home
team winning a ball game.

     The Moon project boils down to one thing, powerful
people in government forced millions to sacrifice their more
important goals to pursue a goal that was important to powerful
people.  That goal wasn't important enough to those powerful
people for them to finance it with their own wealth.

     Nevertheless, government did command the resources that
greatly accelerated man's arrival on the Moon.  Why does
government fail to achieve goals such as ending poverty or
stopping drug use?

     Putting a man on the Moon involved things.  Government
efforts are usually wasteful.  Still, if government can seize
enough resources it can hire the private sector to achieve any
physical thing that is achievable.

     Poverty, education, drug use, and most other problems we
face are matters of human choice and behavior.  When it comes
to achieving positive changes in human behavior, force, coercion
and bribes (the only tools of government) are next to useless. 
Usually force and threats result in people behaving in more
destructive ways

     Government's attempts to change behavior have mainly
created attitudes of victimhood and dependence on government. 
In the process government has forced most of us to sacrifice our
important goals to fund government failure.

     A recent article reported that the money the government
spent on poverty during 2011 was enough to have given every
poor household over $59,000.  Yet most of those households are
still ranked below the poverty line.

     What can we expect in the future?  Nothing but more
government failures and waste denying us the opportunities to
purse our most important goals.  Unless we somehow achieve a
major change in voter attitudes, the toboggan ride to the end will
only accelerate.  The end  won't be on the Moon.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum

Thursday, October 3, 2013

What Will the Next Outrage Be?

     Outrageous actions of government are so common they
have lost most of their shock effect.  They are still outrageous,
but expected.  This week brought word of two actions that prove
government can still stretch the envelope.

     Both actions sprang from fertile soil that has germinated
many past outrages.  Both are new, mutant varieties.  One
sprouted in the realm of gunaphobic school administrators.   The
other was the fruit of civil asset forfeiture, the mere existence of
which is an outrage.

     The gunaphobic school administrators suspended a
student and threatened to expel him for one year.  His alleged
offense was playing with some kind of spring powered gun.  It
wasn't clear from the report if the student's actions were dumb
or not.  Apparently the son of the complainant was also
participating in whatever happened.

     The key point isn't what happened, but where it
happened.  The student was still in  his own yard at home.  I
don't know if the school administrator's name was Blomberg. 
Whatever his name, he apparently believes he has the right to
completely control everyone else's life.

     It will be a challenge for someone to stretch that
envelope further.  I don't doubt that some bureaucrat and his
minions will find a way.

     The big push for civil asset forfeiture started in the
1960s.  Prosecutors were upset that drug dealers hired lawyers
who made it more difficult for prosecutors to get convictions. 
The plan was to allow the prosecutors to take all of the alleged
drug dealers money.  Without money, how could the defendant
hire a lawyer?

     This scheme wouldn't work if the defendant had to be
found guilty of something before taking his money.  Civil asset
forfeiture allows the government to allege that the money or
other asset was involved with a crime.  Nothing need be alleged
against the owner of the asset.  The asset need not be proven
guilty.

     The government simply files the allegation and takes the
money.  The burden is then on the owner to try and get his
property back.  The owner, who may be penniless because of the
asset seizure, may be required to post bond before he can even
challenge the forfeiture.

     The headline read "Feds Steal $35K From Small Grocer's
Bank Account Despite Finding 'No Violations' To Justify the
Grab."  Sometimes headlines exaggerate.  This one didn't.

     According to the article from "Reason" the grocer in
Fraser, Michigan made a substantial amount of cash sales.  His
insurance didn't cover losses of cash in excess of $10,000.  The
grocer made many cash deposits to avoid holding large amounts
of cash.  To anyone but the Internal Revenue Service that might
appear to be reasonable and prudent.

     Federal law requires banks to report all cash deposits in
excess of $10,000.  The same law, part of the so-called "Patriot
Act," makes it illegal to structure cash deposits for the purpose
of avoiding $10,000 deposits.  Apparently in the government's
view if you split $10,000 into two deposits, that entitles the
government to take every dollar in your bank account.   If you
didn't have the second $5,000 when you made the first deposit,
tough.  The government still gets your money.

     A few months before taking the grocer's money IRS sent
him a letter saying no violations of banking laws were identified. 
The money had been accused of a crime.  That was enough to
prompt the IRS to punish the money.  Any impact on the  grocer
was merely collateral damage.

     The saga isn't over yet. The Institute for Justice is
representing the grocer.  It has a great track record of stopping
abuses by government.  Even if the grocer gets his $35,000
back, it is likely to cost him or the Institute for Justice more than
$35,000.  That is how government gets away with most of its
outrages.  Fighting back costs more than giving up.  In other
words, government is the biggest extortionist on the loose in the
land.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum