Frediano

In Rwanda, it was a Canadian general -- Dallaire -- who valiantly told Kofi/UN/US/West to go to Hell,and who did what he could with what he had to save those he could. Nobel Peace Prize Winning Kofi/UN/US/West was telling Dallaire on the ground in Rwanda to do nothing but defend themselves(?!?!?!?!) Dallaire had little in terms of resources except for some lightly armed Belgian troops and even more lightly armed Senagelese, Bangladeshi, Gwanaian, Pakistani troops, and a Canadian officer detachment. The Belgians cut and ran as soon as they were bloodied in an deliberate attack designed to demonstrate that was exactly what the West would do in these contexts, and that is exactly what the West did. As soon as the Belgians were bloodied, they ran screaming out of Rwanda and left Dallaire with next to nothing. The US, which claimed it didn't have force in the region and couldn't aid the forces in Rwanda(so soon after Somalia with Clinton's Third Way finger in the wind and accurately reading the not so stiff breeze wafting on from the capuccino sipping crowd tst-tst-tsking over the news from abroad at Starbucks,, suddenly had all the force it needed to oversee our own cut and run out of Rwanda. As the UN/West cut and ran in the face of easily cowed teenagers wielding machetes, Dallaire came up with the brilliant tactic of rounding up citizens into the soccer stadiums, so he could focus his limited troops on the entrances to the stadia. A troop with a sidearm sitting on a folding chair sternly saying "No! These people are under UN protection." was all that was required. And , the West of LockHeed Martin and Boeing and FMC fame could do nothing to help save 800,000 people from being slowly hacked to death by easily cowed teenagers wielding machetes, armed and directed by their own government..while Dallaire ;ed a bunch of bravee third worlders with little more than sidearms and saved those who he could.. Apparently, not enough money to be made making hovels in those jungles bounce. What did we learn? Nothing. That is America/the West today. WHat we should have learned: Read David Reiff's "A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis." Read Dallaire's "Shake Hands with the Devil." The poor bastard blames himself ... for being hung out to dry by the entire world. And. especially, read about Captain Mbaye Diagne, a Senaglese Muslim. We learned that modern America doesn't have the sense that father's once taught children about when to lift and when to not lift an arm in anger. The terminus of all this spinelessness is the following: what we are unable to facedown in Baghdad and Syria, etc. we will ultimately be unable to facedown in Baltimore.

What is it you claim this nation learned from Vietnam? Apologize to who? The South Vietnamese who we left swing in the wind of eventual 're-education' camps? The millions of victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia? The 55,000 who were left in a meatgrinder, who were part of an armed force that won every battle in the conflict, but watched its weak assed leadership lose the war? If it was acceptable to end that conflict with "Never mind, we really didn't mean it" then it was acceptable to have never entered the conflct to begin with. But... learn from history? What are you smoking? Is that what anybody did from Vietnam? Should we apologize to the Rwandans for expensively deploying UN troops halfway around the world, encumbered with the mission 'you may defend only yourselves, rudely, in front of folks desperate for justice from over the horizon, being slaughtered by thehundreds of thousands by government armed easily cowed teens wielding ... machetes. Logic screams out, if that is the mission of UN/Western justice-- defend only itself when in harms way-- that the best, most efficient, most polite place to accomplish that is in the parking lot on East 44th street. Perhaps the Somalians in the headily named 'Project Restore Hope" when once again, we didn't mean what we said? Apologize to the thousands of Kurd fighters who were rolled up in 1996 by Saddam's ground forces while we patrolled the skies in 30 million dollar fighter planes doign nothing but take pictures-- after operatives on the ground encouraged the Kurds to rebel against Saddam's regime with the promise "America's got your back?" "No Fly Zones" translated: we don't care what you do to innocents as long as you don't bnesmirch the good names of Orville and Wilbur and use fixed wing aircraft while doing so, other than that, flail away. Even on folks who believed AMerica when we told them we'd have their back, just like Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Looking at the scorecard for unilaterally declared gesture megapolitcs, I'm guessing that's what you mean by "should we just repeat it?" Way too much nuanced third-way sensibilities endlessly screwing the pooch. It has turned the olive branch on the UN shield into a fig leaf; it is modenrity's official symbol of doing everything possible short of actually doing anything. Credibility: mean what you say, say what you mean. Don't say it if you don't mean it. If you ever utter the words 'must' as an American POTUS, then don't do so lightly, because if you do so and then don't follow through, you've just invited the well earned and deserved contenpt of every two bit thug in the world. who is not impressed by our unilateral declarations of third way 'limited actions' and imminently weatherable gesture bombings and hollow weak-assed declarations of 'The US Military does not do pinpricks" coming out of the mouth of Time Magazine's 'Reluctant Warrior." The US Military does exactly what is demanded of it by politicos in DC worried about their PR and optics and campaigns and resumes and soft landings in IKE's MIC. Learning from history: WWII. We win, they lose, with terrible consequences worldwide. Or...don't do it at all. Not even a little bit. No nuance. For about six months, the world thought that America had returned. The results of credible action in Iraq? Qadaafi coughing up his CBN in Libya without a shot being fired. See 2004 IAEA report about what was found in Libya. And then came the endless signs of hand wringing propitiation and apology and internal political complete nonsense, and the world was reassured that the Third Way was fully back, and they were right about the West all along. And now, we're digging up those same weapons in Syria and pretending the actions of Assad's Ba'ath Socialists are unrelated to the actions of his former neighbor Saddam's Ba'ath Socialists... Seriously...repeat history? Not us.

I have a sort of simplistic view not being an academic. I believe the answer to your question is meme's, cultural "ideas" passed from person to person but mainly from person to child. Children, before the age of reason, have no defense from absorbing bad ideas. After reaching the age of reason there is a sort of Stockholm syndrome in play preventing reason from overcoming these bad memes. The purpose of philosophy is to repair bad memes. Most people are not stupid, far from it. They are programmed wrongly. The advance of civilization is slowly to discard bad memes and replace them with better ones. For sure; childhood is when we are effectively 'socialized.' It's when we accept, as an absolute absolute, the concreteness of a singular concept "S"ociety and later, based on that concrete, the abosolute reality of a singular myth 'the' Economy. That particular meme has meandered modernity into its current going nowhere cul de sac. But the 'social' disease is not irreversible. We are now 'celebrating' the fifth year of the 2008 financial 'crisis.' Obama has had five years of 'running the economy' from DC with his chutes and ladders fatfingering of winners/losers, funded via the effort of a secretary printing 0s on paper bonds. The value-proxy balance sheets of the banks have been restored; the value producing engines of prosperity are still flatlined.. The high priests of value-proxy Keynsianism look at the sick results with disbelief and conclude, as suspected, that the reason the volcano Gods are still angry is becuase of the impurity of the last set of sacrifices. Time for more of the same. Time Magazine's latest spin is that capitalism swindled us all again; the last five years of leaning socialist just didn't lean hard enough. Tribal leaders cannot get away with such abject undeniable public failure without an electorate that has been effectively and thoroughly 'socialized.' We got that stuttering fool Barny Frank lamenting "If only Congress had listened to him." And "The CRA had nothing to with anything." ... and 'We just need to fix Fanny and Freddie." Sure thing...those bastions of free market capitalism. And few just ... laugh at him? Stop worrying about the nation going down the tubes; it's been a done deal for decades, wreck on rails. Apparent -- even to those in Congress -- since at least the 70s. Moynihan, on the floor of the Senate: "God help us when they(some future generation in America) realize what we did to them." No, libertarian ideas will never be popular in this nation, certainily not in time to pull its chesnuts from its funeral pyre. Maybe the next one, but even that is a crap shoot. So what is second best? Well, choose wisely what you decide to support with your blood and treasure-- with your life. And get out of the way of the rest of it, failing on its own. Don't support tribal failure with your one and only life. A nation that can send 55,000 of its best into a meat grinder and then end the conflict with "Never mind, America really didn't mean it, what were we thinking?" as its excuse to stroke IKE's MIC for ten years safely from the Bistro's in Georgetown is no longer a nation worth defending, and hasnt been for decades. The heart of this nation gave its body and soul when asked, while an effete, elite crust huddled around the crabspread in DC and cut deals. If it was acceptable to end Vietnam on those lawyerly terms-- self losing a war after asking those at the pointy end of the stick to win every battle in it, then it was acceptable to have never entered the conflict to begin with, and the US has been governed by the same weak assed nervous propitiation, endlessly apologizing for and self attacking American freedom, as opposed to defending it, for decades. Screw that sick nation with a chainsaw, I barely recognize it compared to an America that once was.

Accelerated present consumption in exchange for creation of future value: debt/credit Deferred present consumption of present value already created in exchange for future value: savings/investment We tend to borrow when we are young and have a future of value creation ahead of us. We tend to save when we are middle aged and seek to convert excess present value into future value. We tend to live off the earnings of our savings in old age. The alchemy which supports that conversion of deferred present value into actual future value is exactly the relation between debt and savings/investment-- when it is in balance, it is win-win for each of the participants(who largely tend to be the -same- participants at different stages of their ecomonic careers. But this exactly illustrates the difference between private debt and public debt; there is no such thing as public savings/investment. This means, in order to not endemically pervert/distort the economies, the sum of all private and public debt must be balanced by just private savings/investment-- since there is no such thing as public savings/investment. When some folks focus just on 'debt' and call it the foundation of our economic system, they are being a little selective; in balanced, healthy functioning economies, it is both debt and savings/investment that is the foundation of our economies, in balance, as the alchemy that provides the magic of using accelerated consumption of value to also be the means of converting deferred present value into actual future value. When all that is in balance -- which is the function of conservative banking regulations -- there is no perversion of our economies. The single greatest actor disturbing that balance in our economies has long been the government itself. When a private entity takes on private debt, a human incentive is created to create new value in the future, to paydown debt. When a public entity painlessly takes on public debt, not a single human being anywhere has any incentive to do anything at all. Public debt is borne with the same painless ease that it is accepted to begin with. All that remains after the accelerated present consumption of public bond financed present value is an unwanted obligation on a future generation, imperfectly redirected onto others who did not participate in the orginal accelerated consumption, by way of politico chutes and ladders. The upside of introducing value proxies into commerce-- of defining trade as value for value-proxy for value, instead of value-value(pure barter) is clear. But it is not withour doownside. The downside is, the introduction of more opportunities for gaming of the new value-proxy marketplace. The use of value-proxies that themselves have intrinsic value -- coins -- is a hedge against that gaming. In modern economies that use value-proxies with no intrinsic value, it is open season the gaming of value-proxies, and the sharks have long come runnng. regards, Fred

You described so well just one benefit, of many, in marriage. Men and women belong together. Obviously you're just another man brainwashed by a woman. --Brant break on through to the other side! In these parts, we call it, er, ... "meow" - whipped.

My wife often lets me pretend that her commands are suggestions which I just happen to agree with. She's 5'3", runs me like a top. For thirty years.

Sorry to hear that. Nobody greets you like your dog. They have like no memory. You can see a dog at 10:00 and he will go nuts, like he hasn't seen you in a year. Walk into the bathroom. Then, walk out again--you can see him again at 10:03, and it is the same exuberant greeting. Like, 'Where have you been? I was worried you fell in my big white porcelain upstairs water dish." Cats are kind of the opposite. You can be away for a month, and they always look at you like "What the Hell are YOU looking at?" And if they ever do anythong uncool or stupid, like forget thay they've been declawed and try to climb the drapes, they collect themselves and look at you like you're the idiot. 30 yrs ago, when I was fixing up an old farmhouse, cat jumps up on the bed in the middle of the night and deposits a wet dead bat in my ex-wifes open palm, asleep. She wakes up and hurls the gooey damp lump across the room and screams. We turn the lights on, and the cat is on the bed, licking its paws, looking at us like 'What the hell is worng with you? That was a present." The keyword in that story is 'ex.' The dead giveaway was 'fixing up old farmhouse' and 'wet dead bat.'

You are waaay over my head. --Brant Folks(I almost called them Twits)on Twitter must restrict their Tweets to 140 characers each. That is what makes Twitter the smash hit phenom it is in today's world. But pretty soon, someone else will realize that the consonants serve no purpose, form a new, improved Twitter (ie), and that 40 billion times zero is still zero.

The oddest reality about Rand's silent revolution is, there is no Galt's Gulch. There is no marching army of Randians(what an odd idea!) There is no John Galt flying around the nation convincing people to not contribute to the tribal madness. There is no fortress to storm. There is no 'shrugging', no people dropping out, as she described in her romantic work of fiction. There is only people hiding in plain sight-- people who 'ducked' decades ago, before contributing to the madness. You cannot enslave that which doesn't even exist. There is just the world, filled with people who have assessed tribal politics and have pretty much concluded the same thing, long ago. I've dealt with such people for 30 yrs. There is no civil war, no boot on the throat of socialism and socialists. There is just ... not supporting them by making their world work for them and being hated for it, and instead, watching them fail of their own terrible ideas. What I call 'the surprising face of social justice.' It's one thing to go after CEOs. Go get them! I'll cheer. Are there many left? The fewer the sooner the better. That's what a mythical John Galt would do. But here's the dirty little secret: no need for a John Galt, because the socialists are acting the part! The CEOs that are left at this point are pretty much propped up by government, and vice versa. It's pretty much a mutual cripple defense league at this point. Then what? Try more effective, if somehat confused, guilt? (How dare you folks not take advantage of folks by employing them and riding them like ponies!) When the impotency of that mirthful argument is finally apparent even to its advocates-- the ones taking it up the butt today for embracing such going nowhere nonsense-- will it be time to expose the fangs for what they have really been all along? No doubt. Then, it will be time to storm the bastions of capitalism, like the Martin Tower in North Bethlehem, once home of Beth Steel--the Beth Steel that once employed 330,000 people. Been empty for 20 years...or maybe the country club down at Saucon, where the evil capitalists used to roam. Can round up a few chiroprachters and Buick salesmen and radiologists today, have at them for the necessary 15 minutes of going nowhere noise. Or maybe Wall Street? Why not. Go get the FaceBook IPOers and their 100B of capital thrown at a self-subscribing marketing data collection paltform that employs maybe 3400 people. What then? The FED? Storm the imperial buildings and discover all the printing presses and their infinite ability to print 0s on paper on our behalf? This is going to be some revolution. Go get those damned capitalists at GM, at IBM, at Solyndra, at Curt Schilling's Studio 38...

Couldn't there be a new service...one that was restricted not to 140 ch, but simply 10 emoticons? Imagine the possibilities.

Length of posts. I can't recall when I did one as long as your #167. Maybe never. --Brant Wordy SOBs like me is why Twitter was invented; to keep out the blowhards. OTOH... I've often wondered, in regards to Twitter; what is the purpose of all the consonants?

Mikee: Indeed: me: 1] Fire 2] Ready 3] Aim It was aimed at those who think national socialism is compassionate, not at those who think getting out of the way of the labor theory of value is compassionate. regards, Fred

Peace and prosperity: free association.

What part of "compassionate" is confusing to you? "Totally not a problem in the least except for those who it is a problem." There is a world of meaning in this sentence. Do you want to live in a world of peace and prosperity or a world that blows up in your face periodically and predictably? You have a theory that compassion means, lining up with your worldview. You justify it by saying that if we don't cave to the endless demands of others demanding whatever whim they wish, they will riot. Well, no thank you to your view of Mad Max world, not signing up. Apparently, me getting out of the way and not riding others like ponies-- sucking all the profits out of their virtuous hides by employing them -- is not 'compassionate.' Or maybe, just not caring about the consequences when I get out of the way of them and their labor theory of value. It is not 'compassionate' of me to not commandeer others lives and care about their lives more than they do? I can only change myself-- and did, 30 yrs ago. My path has a Pareto efficiency in excess of 100%. As many others are free to take the same path as so choose, and not diminish the whole. In fact, the more the better-- for those who choose. Many have. Enough? Enough for what? Enough for them. For those who choose to cling to their ratcake politics, that is their choice. I am not their father, we are peers living in freedom. They do not need to report to my offices at 7:00am every morning. They do not need to do as they are told by me. They do not need to labor all week and hand over most of their creative efforts to me, to make my life better at the expense of theirs. And more to the point... vice versa. I do not accept as an obligation that which I have been long told is a defacto sign of my criminality-- employing others. They are free to choose their own path...and have-- including, waiting now five years for politicos in government, who claim to run some singular thing called 'the economy,' to deliver to them "jobs, jobs, jobs"...by printing zeros on paper bonds. 6 yrs? 10 yrs? 60 yrs? Five years not long enough? If there is a compassionate flaw in the above reality, then my theory is, it is in those who pushed the meme that employing others was a defacto criminal act, and gave us this world that some enjoy far more than others. See Marx and his labor theory of value, and all the flotsam still floating in the wake of his wreckage today.. They can live with the consequences of their beliefs, I will live with the consequences of mine, and more power to them. You've defined 'compassion' as me offering myself up to the tribe, to be ridden like a tribal property pony, to serve every whim and need and wish and desire except my own, with my benevolence directed not by me-- the mere creator of my 'excess wealth' -- but by you, the mere observer of my excess wealth.. Well, I'm here to tell you, screw that. Until you and yours actually get out the club and beat my skull in, I''m not signing up with your gibberish. If that is my motivation for state compassion-- your mob and its clubs -- well, bring your lunch, we'll make a day of it. But assuming the riot prevails, in the aftermath, who will you ride in this universe, as it is, then? The terminus of your worldview is two pathetic creatures in a hovel in rags, pointing to their own sores as their proof of their right to the last not so maggoty piece of rotted Elk. ("My need trumps your need.") But long before the riot stage, there is the chains stage. Tired of the uncomfortable waiting for the creators-- and while the fangs are out and we are snarling, lets not call them 'creators'-- let's call them 'receivers' of the 'excess wealth' that only we create with our labor -- to show their benevolence, we allow our resentment to justify our chains directed at them. We outlaw benevolence and charity, and replace it with those folks and waiting rooms down at the SS office as our 'right', plus millions in new real estate in the counties around DC...the New Deal/Great Society. Worked out well for Northern Va. Not so well for Detroit. But, don't let me get in the way of your vision of national socialist compassion as it is in this world. Your unilateral definition of compassion (I should work for you and yours and let you direct my benevolence and charity as you see fit) is not working out so well for those you claim to want to be compassionate towards. You claim I am not compassionate because in my theory of the economies, I don't care how long your victims let you lead them to Hell. I can live with you calling me not compassionate because of that. How long is enough? How many generations lost to a bad idea are necessary, before the nation stops beating this dead horse-- before we back out of this going nowhere fast cul de sac of bad ideas that led the USSR onto the trash heap of history? I can't care, because I don't control you and likeminded yours; I can only change myself, and have, 30 yrs ago. So feel free. You and the victims of your worldview can take all the time they need to figure this out, because the objective facts are, their consequences are their own to live with, to the best of my abilities to avoid them, which unfortunatly is not 100%. (I have to at the very least watch the tragedy of a once great nation failing under this rot.)

Relative to me, anyway. 12,787 posts vs 173? I am a newbie.

That's absolutely true; the difference between socialism and and national socialism is the difference between free association and forced association. The difference between socialists and national socialists is their embrace of whips and guns and force. Socialists -- like minded individuals who wish to form co-ops, non-profits, and communes, etc., are totally free to do so in afree nation, and more power to them. What they are not able to do in a free nation is round up their unwilling peers and force them to join at the point of a gun. Some of our peers living in freedom choose socialism. Some choose capitalism. To each his own. Only via the fatfingiering of government can socialists be forced to participate in capitalism, as in, the unwilling shareholders of GM and Solyndra. Only via the fatfingering of government can capitalist be forced to participate in socialism, as in, the unwilling shareholders of GM and Solyndra. Glad to illuminate the difference between those who advocate socialism, and those who advocate national socialism. Advocates of 'national capitalism' would be outlawing co-ops and non-profits and communes and such. As in, nowhere to be seen. Those freely choosing to form co-ops and non-profits and communes with a free assiociation of like minded folks are free to have at it. Not so national socialists, who claim otherwise; they say 'we would not ban free enterprise...only enslave it to the state.' They would claim to do so via pure democracy, just like a gang rape. "We had a vote, and the unwilling lost." How can any thinking human being justify national socialism brought about by the ethics of a gang rape?

Has this been a lot of writing? I suppose, relative to Twitter or bumper stickers.

CEOs earn/'get' alot of money; undeservedly many say. I've heard that clear as a bell my whole adult life. This isn't a recent Tribal chant. They manage large enterprises that employ/take advantage of/squeeze the profits out of thousands of workers. Ok. We've pushed this meme to Hell and back. Every businessman in every Hollywood movie is a Bernie Madoff villian...and every working man is a virtuous pillar of the community, with only a virtuous government as his protection. Sure, Ioved Henry Fonda in 'Grapes of Wrath.' What a relief when the Joads pulled the jalopy into the clean government run camp, the one run by the affable Mr. Santa Clause. 30's political propaganda was spectacular in b/w. OK. But what do people expect after decades of this nonsense? Folks just can't help themselves, they just have to build companies and hire people? A tiny handful of CEOs are earning huge salaries at large companies in this nation... of 330,000,000 people. And tons more folks are slumming in the cracks and crevices earning mid six figures without all the aggravation of dealing with employees. Why not? Who wouldn't choose that, after decades of being told that hiring people and giving them jobs is a defacto admission of criminal activity? And so, we get the world we beg for. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but at least fewer evil folks are taking advantage of the poor by ... giving them jobs. As they wait for government to tax all the non-existing CEOs earning exhorbitant salaries to redistribute, let's hope they don't get tired of waiting for the never delivered chutes and ladders promises of do nothing politicos mostly lining their own pockets. Math is hard. But here's some. Under what paradigm does government reap the most tax revenues? 1] Lots of greedy CEOs earning millions, hiring lots of folks earning tens of thousands. 2] A few greedy CEOs earning millions, hiring not many folks earning tens of thousands, and many more folks getting by in the cracks and crevices of commerce with mid six figure incomes hiring nobody at all...and then, the rest, either unemployed, underemployed, or 'no longer looking for work.' Our ratcake politics has created world#2. If you listened carefully to the ratcake politics, world#2 is exactly what was begged for. It is hard to take seriously complaints about achieving exactly what was clearly demanded. Only, this isn't the desired outcome; the desired outcome was, we all get to accuse CEOs and so on of being abject criminals for employing folks, and yet, because of our low regard for these criminals, fully expect them to carry on anyway, because they can't help themselves but to create jobs and hire people and suck all the lifeblood out of them. Newsflash: lots of capable folks can help themselves, and do otherwise, and have, for decades. So how is the embrace of ratcake politics working out for those it was intended to help? And here is the other dirty little secret floating around the cracks and crevices of commerce: take all the time in the world needed to figure this out. Folks don't even have to agree with it, or believe it is a significant impact on anything. And that is fine. The universe really doesn't care one way or the other, and I have to admit, neither do I, because our faulty belief systems pretty much land squarely only on ourselves; this is the totally unexpected face of 'redistributive social justice.' Want some totally unselfish compassionate advice? Stop stabbing yoursefl in the back with embracing ratcake politics. Can't do that? Love it too much? OK. Totally not a problem in the least except for those who it is a problem.

Better for both the rich and the poor if the vessel of the state would just stick to painting the double yellow lines fairly down the middle of the road, and stop driving itself between anarchy and despotism. -FG Bartlett 2013

Professional Licensing Here is another memory from my time in the Borg(shudder.) My first yr at this company, my official title was E.I.T. (Engineer in Training). They made us sit in a lecture hall every Friday afternoon, and listen to a licensed P.E. drone on from his notebook. He'd stare at his notes, copy the problem on the board, work it out, and we were supposed to take copious notes. One afternoon, early on, he is working a static bridge/truss problem. He has some loads, he works out the reaction forces at both ends of the bridge. Trusses going up and down at odd angles, a tour de force of trig applied over and over... he writes down the reactive forces at both ends of the bridge, then looks up and asks if there are any questions. The results look odd to me; the bridge is clearly not in static equilibrium. It should be moving, if those are the reactive loads. I raise my hand and voice my observations. He is livid. How dare I presume? He's been giving this same lecture for 15 years. Who am I to question, I'm an E.I.T., after all. He says he's checked the math long ago. I ask, "can I show you?" I walk up to his diagram on the board, and just draw a huge "free body" circle around all the exquisite truss details. "Ignore the internal loads...here are your external forces and moments...this body should be rotating, if these are the external loads on it." It is obvious. He stares at his notes. He's mumbling something. He fatfingered the math somewhere on the internal loads. We eventually find it, all is well. 15 yrs of engineers had slept through his lectures, never questioned his authority, never really gave a rats ass. He was a 'licensed P.E.' Question authority. We all make mistakes. Even 'licensed' folks. Especially licensed folks. License to kill. It is human nature. "The easiest person to fool is yourself." (Feynman). Question economic experts; because they ain't. We miss Feynman. We miss Friedman. We miss Rand. Fortunately, their thoughts words remain, but.. we could sorely use some more just like them.

In my exit interview, the VP of Engineering tried to strong arm me. "If you do this, you'll be road kill in 6 months." I can't describe the pleasure of looking back at that comment, 30 ys later.

I don't write for a living; I write as my "cheap alternative to much needed therapy." I'm an engineer. BSE Princeton, 1977, magna cum laude. SM in ME, MIT, 1978. I worked as a development engineer for almost 5 years, until some weasel asked me to cheat a customer (Royal Dutch Shell) by faking a performance test. I'd been 'borrowed' by the test department(of a $2B/yr then capital equip mfg)to instrument and test a customer's turbine/compressor skid. They wanted me to 'steal' efficiency from the compressor and 'give' it to the turbine. Total technical barbarism, and unneccessary, since the total skid efficiency was well over contract--the compressor was high on efficiency, the turbine just a little low, net was, the skid delivered contract conditions at less power than contract. I'd given internal component efficiency reports to the client, including propagated uncertainties, on line calbrations standard certs, etc., and they were ecstatic with the results; they would have detected the nonsense of reporting different flange-flange results in a heartbeat adn then questioned everything, the RDS engineers were very sharp, and there was no need to blow our credibility with this nonsense. 'Management' -- not my immediate supervisor, the manager of Development, but the powers above him, told me it was either that, or my job. I told them they didn't need me to make up funny numbers, and gave them my notice on the spot. I was 27. That was my first and last job ever, working for someone else as a W2 employee. It was 1983, 30 years ago. I've been self-employed ever since. I left without a plan, without a client list, without a year's capital-- without all the things the experts say is critical when starting out on your own. Never regretted it for a second.

A truly mindbending description... So what do you do about it? No fast, easy solutions, this nation has been over-run for decades before you and I were born. First step: Laugh at Ivy Leaguers in government, like Bernanke, encourage others to do same. Illuminate their nonsense. The Ivies are tiny inbred chokepoints, long over-run by the adversaries of freedom. They became mandrels of left wing thought and indoctrination-- decades ago. Deliberately targets in the 30s, 40s, 50s. By the 60s, completely over-run. The Ivies, today, are the nation's theocratic seminaries of the religion "Social Scientology,' defined as "S"ociety=God and the state is its proper church. They cookie-cutter out instructoids by the wagonload, and by doing so, unduly influence the machinery of state and even other university faculties. The indoctrination is clumsy, heavy handed and obvious...and also effective. For every Stossel that escapes unscathed, there are a hundred identical Katrina vanden Heuvels that spring up like weeds. It is a complete ideological rout. Obama's last two USSC nominees? Identical former Princeton radical feminists. Who whispers into his ear at night? An identical former Princeton radical feminst. The place graduates 1000 or so a year, like a large highschool; is it really such a hot idea that such tiny, inbred places have such an overwhelming influence on our machinery of state? Seriously. When enough finally see the Ivies for what the are, then maybe there is a prayer of a revolt, to take back the nation. But as of today, it is a complete rout. The Ivies are tiny, like large high schools. Totally open campuses in a nation with totally open borders and no police state. Of course they were over-run during the Cold War; what was possibly going to stop that? We didn't win the Cold War; we caught the Cold. Time to start coughing up phlegm. I'm still resonating with your words. And was asking that question alluding to practical actions, and you just answered it. You write. (...and very well, too) I'm obviously not a writer, so what I do in the face of global banking conspiracies, currency manipulation, and the cultural dominance of University medrasas, is to do business with other American Capitalists. The only way to enjoy freedom in America is to work to earn the money to buy it. Yes, exactly; those that can, do exactly what you are doing. That is what humans who love their life do when they realize they are swimming in a vast sea of tribal stupidity. Rather than drown by trying to swallow away the sea, they swim instead. That is what folks must do -in this universe, as it is- no matter what the dreaming utiopists imagine. That explains a recent article in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323324904579042830303535934.html Not just Obama's latest policies of the last few years, but going back to FDR and the New Deal and the attempt at coercive redistribution since 1913. As the clumsy constructivist forks get more aggressive, those taking it on the chin are primarily those who embace the ratcake politics of the times. The results are 180 degrees opposite those deliberately targeted, and as their policies fail and fail again, eventually the impotent fangs come out. What else can they do? Admit that almost a century of Progressive nonsense has led the bottom half only to despair? That's not going to happen. No, the CronyFest on the DC-- not just the left -- is going to cling to the popular gig until the literaly bloody end, dragging the nation to its knees. The progressives/Democrats might have led the nation here, but the GOP gleefully followed along with its muddy, soul-less inneffective non-alternatives and pandering to thier own freedom eating theocrat wannabes. It's not even necessary to analyze the Democrats; they are exactly who they say they are. Freedom eaters. But what is truly worse is the GOP. GOP: Nixon's 1970 Economic Recovery Act. Jesus. Reagan: as good as its been in 50 years and still totally inneffective at reducing the size of government. McCain, today playing games on his phone, when he is not reassuring the nation in 2008 that even though he got C's in economics, he knew enough to get by to 'run the economy.' The honorable Mr. Meathead did not have the wherewithal to challenge the premise of Anderson Cooper's loaded question(at the Jan 2008 CA GOP Primary debate, at Reagan's Library no less, in front of his widow; "Tell us why YOU are best suited to RUN THE US ECONOMY[sic]".) This affable ex fighter jock/pow should be spending his Golden Years slapping backs and selling cold beer in massive quantities out in the parched Arizona desert, not representing the leadership of the alternative party to the Democrats. And Romney? At the same debate, he not only embraced that same question from Cooper but met it with candy and flowers. Then, after getting trounced in 2008, Romney doubled down on his sellout of freedom by coming back in 2012 with the same "Hey, let's do the USSR thing and let ME run the Economy! Here's my resume..." At that same debate in 2008 , Ron Paul finally got to asnwer the question, shook his head and asked the front runners, "What are you going on about? This isn't the former Soviet Union; it is not the proper function of the POTUS to 'run the economy.'" And kind of shook his head in disgust as the front runners grinned like empty bobble heads, looking at him like -he- was the idiot. That was when I realized that the GOP had no soul, no core. It simply wanted its shot to run the CronyFest on the Potomac. The alternative to the No Hope For Freedom Democrats were these sad False Hope For Freedom gladhanders. I knew they wouldn't win in Nov; I knew the GOP was basically finished. And I realized, it was mainly the problem. By being a totally inneffective alternative to the Democrats, the GOP is like a buffer, protecting the Democratic/Progressive agenda. These GOP gladhanders are just playing for their piece. So...duck,. Get out of the way until it breaks, because it is breaking. In the aftermath? Swim as best you can for as long as you can until and if you find dry ground. You can count on bouyancy. You can count on day and night coming. You can count on yourself. The rest is a crapshoot of risk/reward. Take away the games and finesse, and that is what this universe fairly offers, yet without tribal collective insanity, often yields up paradise with just the slightest effort. You just need to be careful in the midst of the current and getting worse tribal insanity to not make the wrong kind of effort; the kind of effort that sustains or supports the madness...so... duck.

And, best if done in a phlegmatic manner.

That is a good one. Be better if I spelled 'caught' correclty. Even correctly.