Monday, August 31, 2015

Why Capitalism Will Win - by Gary North

Gary North is one of my favorite authors. I have read many of his books. He is a historian, economist and theologian - all wrapped up in one. In fact, he is the only writer I know that can put all the pieces together and I use his sources often. Just as a reminder, that is exactly the purpose of my website and blog.

THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE
Capitalism today is clearly the wave of the future. If people had understood what Gordon Moore said in 1965, they would have paid no attention to what Bettina Aptheker and her peers said in 1965.
As far as I can see, there is no equivalent of Bettina Aptheker around today, but if there is, nobody in the news media is rushing to interview her.
We know Aesop's story of the tortoise and the hare. Lenin in 1923 looked like the hare of the 20th century. But the effects of what has come to be called Moore's law should have been visible at the time. From 1890 until 1950, the cost of information was cut in half every three years. From 1950 to 1965, this was reduced to every two years. From 1965 until today, it has been reduced to somewhere between 18 months and one year. This process is accelerating. The tortoise ceased to be a tortoise. He became a hare. Then he became a cheeta.
We should have seen this coming. In the days of Jesus, the speed of the transfer of information was approximately one mile an hour. By 1800, this had increased to approximately a mile and a quarter per hour. Then, in 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse increased the speed to 186,000 miles a second, reduced only by the speed of two telegraphers, including their note-taking, plus the speed of a runner to get a scribbled note to a paying customer. That was a tipoff as to what was about to take place.
Anyone who thinks that a dozen members of the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve System can oversee the growth of the American economy has not taken seriously either Mises or Hayek. More to the point, he has not taken seriously the implications of Moore's law.
Moore's law is part of a long-term technological process that goes way beyond silicon chips. It has to do with the cost of information. The idea that a dozen tenured bureaucrats in a government-created monopoly can oversee the operations of the digitized American economy is so ludicrous that only a Keynesian could believe it.
CONCLUSION
Keynesianism is not the wave of the future. When you think "Paul Krugman," think "Bettina Aptheker."

Sunday, August 30, 2015

As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned

This article by Angelo Codevilla was first sent to my recipients in 2013. It is, by far, the best analysis of current American politics. If you want to understand what is going on in government and why, this is a must read. Hint: it is NOT Dems vs. Pubs!

The ever-growing U.S. government has an edgy social, ethical, and political character. It is distasteful to a majority of persons who vote Republican and to independent voters, as well as to perhaps one fifth of those who vote Democrat. The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. Yet far has it been from the Republican leadership to defend them. Whenever possible, the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.
Thus public opinion polls confirm that some two thirds of Americans feel that government is “them” not “us,” that government has been taking the country in the wrong direction, and that such sentiments largely parallel partisan identification: While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side. Again: While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other. Well or badly, its demand for representation will be met.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/02/20/as-country-club-republicans-link-up-with-the-democratic-ruling-class-millions-of-voters-are-orphaned/



Clinical Proof that Most Politicians and CEO’s Are Certifiably Insane

After writing one of my most recent articles with regard to what typically happens when a currency collapse occurs, due to a currency devaluation taking down a country's economy—as the Chinese are gobbling up all of our important economic assets—many people wrote to me asking me when the total collapse is going to happen. The short answer is that I have a hard time predicting the actions of psychopaths. All of us have a hard time predicting the action of others who are so different from the mainstream of America because most of us do not think like psychopaths. However, I can state with certainty that when the last mortgage has been stolen and the last pension has been confiscated, then it will be time to collapse the dollar and plunge this country into a hellish nightmare.
Our country should be dubbed the United States of Psychopathology. Psychopaths are at the root of the world's problems. They kill hundreds of millions in wars which serve no purpose except to enrich the psychopaths. Subsequently, psychopaths, such as the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, recruit already compromised psychopaths to do their bidding in both elected office and as the CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations, as well as in key administrative positions.


The God-Ordained Family Government

So it helps to understand that this attack on Family government is from far more than just the sodomites. They have very powerful allies in a multitude of places who have been hacking at the foundations of Family government for more than one hundred and fifty years. Many of us only see the most obvious and more blatant attacks. It is only when we turn to the Word of God and come to understand the full eight areas which God has given jurisdiction to Family government that we begin to understand the complete nature of this attack. It is in God's Word that we find the answers to this attack and how we can begin to turn the tide and restore the full, God-ordained realm of Family government. Repentance of our participation of the violation of God's Law must come first. Only then can there be a restoration and a revival of the realm of Family government.
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/08/the-god-ordained-family-government-part-3/#brWIrePrcetLIwWs.99



Politics from the Pulpit Myths Debunked

It sounds a lot like the "civics" classes many had in high school. Yet, somehow, many pastors, or as some say "pastures," identify this activity as political in nature that would jeopardize their tax-exempt status. Challenging their stance gets one a look as though you are the spawn of Satan, spewing green acid vomit while your head spins around as you rise in the air. These "pastures" and their congregation have little difficulty sending their children to the government indoctrination centers disguised as schools to receive an anti-theist education -- an education where history is skewed, the Constitution and its meaning butchered, Christianity relegated to non-existence while promoting the false religion of Islam, and the Founding Fathers labeled as "terrorists" and "old white men" with antiquated views of freedom and liberty. The indoctrination of their children to accept a one-world government, violation of freedom and liberty and eradication of God-given rights is acceptable while teaching the Constitution from a Biblical standpoint is "political."
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/08/politics-from-the-pulpit-myths-debunked/#OroeJYpPyVklR8tD.99


Saturday, August 29, 2015

Energy Delusions

Officially clean energy is about generating energy without emitting carbon dioxide. The favorite technologies are wind and solar power. In reality clean energy is about crony capitalism and deluded environmentalists. The government gives subsidies to various useless wind power and solar power projects. The promoters of the projects and allied environmentalists support the politicians. The Clean Energy Summit is a chance for the crony capitalists and the politicians to get together and celebrate their mutual good fortune. Environmental organizations and their followers provide political cover. A political exchange of favors is morphed into a noble crusade to save the Earth from global warming.
The idea that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause disastrous global warming is irresistible because it provides endless financial opportunities for extracting money from the government and the consumers of energy. The global warming disaster theory, never strong, has been scientifically demolished by the accumulation of damaging facts such as the failure of the Earth to warm for the last 18 years. But so much money is being handed out that the clean energy industry has become entrenched and politically powerful.

The Investor Revolt Arrives: This Hasn't Happened Since Q4 2008

To the extent that the Fed-driven, six-year rally restored some semblance of trust between retail investors and Wall Street, it was wiped away for good on Monday when, in a harrowing day of flash-crashing mayhem, the perils of broken, manipulated markets were laid bare for all to see and to add insult to injury, the ETF pricing model blew up causing some funds to trade far below NAV.
Given that, and given how predisposed household investors are to mistrust Wall Street in the post-crisis, post-Flash Boys world, retail outflows during uncertain times (like those that began last month when China’s stock market collapse began to make national news) shouldn’t come as a surprise, but as Credit Suisse notes, something happened in July and August that hasn’t happened since Q4 of 2008: retail investors pulled money from both stocks and bond funds.
In other words, mom and pop were selling everything

The Central Bankers’ Malodorous War On Savers - by David Stockman

What these unspeakably dangerous fools argued was that cash should be abolished so that the central banks could get on with their job of stimulating “depressed” economies by setting interest at negative nominal rates.
In other words, it is apparently not enough that someone who saved $150,000 over a lifetime of work and foregone consumption should earn just $1 per day of interest on liquid savings deposits or treasury bills. No, the central bankers’ posse now wants to actually expropriate these savings by extracting a monthly levy, and by throwing anyone in jail who attempts to hide their wealth outside the controlled banking system by keeping it in private script or unconfiscated greenbacks.

Friday, August 28, 2015

May I Please Plan for the Future Now, Grandma Yellen?

The truth of the matter is that normally functioning capital markets, and most specifically the markets that involve lending money for interest, are all about future expectations.  A man loans money to a corporation because he believes the corporation will make enough money in the future to pay back the loan, plus interest.  A man loans money to another man to buy a house because he believes that the borrower is creditworthy enough to pay back the loan over time, plus interest.  A man lends money to a government because he is sick enough to believe that the government he is lending to won’t default on its bonds at some point.
Given this stupidly obvious truth, the fact that Grandma Yellen can’t bring herself to tell us what the hell she is going to do reveals that she does not understand even the banal foundations of normally functioning capital markets.  She is absolutely terrified of the effect her decisions are going to have on the markets, and so she cowardly does nothing while promising to act “when appropriate.”

Reliving the Crash of '29

This is the first article I'm posting in a category I have named Fedonomics. You will see why in time .

One common guiding assumption characterized the Keynesians, socialists, and fascists of the 1930s: that laissez-faire, free-market capitalism had been the touchstone of the US economy during the 1920s, and that this old-fashioned form of capitalism had manifestly failed us by generating, or at least allowing, the most catastrophic depression in history to strike at the United States and the entire Western world.
Well, weren’t the 1920s, with their burgeoning optimism, their speculation, their enshrinement of big business in politics, their Republican dominance, their individualism, their hedonistic cultural decadence, weren’t these years indeed the heyday of laissez-faire? Certainly the decade looked that way to most observers, and hence it was natural that the free market should take the blame for the consequences of unbridled capitalism in 1929 and after.
Unfortunately for the course of history, the common interpretation was dead wrong: there was very little laissez-faire capitalism in the 1920s. Indeed the opposite was true: significant parts of the economy were infused with proto–New Deal statism, a statism that plunged us into the Great Depression and prolonged this miasma for more than a decade.
Reliving the Crash of ‘29 – LewRockwell.com

Saved by Christmas - Steve McCann's life story is simply incredible, but true!

Author Steve McCann's life story

During the Christmas season many years ago, I stood in front of a nativity scene in a small Catholic church, unaware of God's existence.  In my most desperate hour of need, he reached out to me.  My life experience bears witness to not only the devastation as wrought by the base aspect of human nature, but that God is there for each of us, individually and as a society-- if we choose to accept his helping hand.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/saved_by_christmas_1.html#ixzz2oVtn6qGW
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Immigration must benefit the home nation

Steve McCann, the author, is an immigrant. I will post another article in which he recounts his story.

The unvarnished truth is that if the United States is to survive as founded, it cannot afford either economically, politically or from a national security perspective to have an undefined, loose and emotion-based immigration policy.
Based on my life’s experience I do have empathy with those seeking a better life and in particular the children who been used as pawns in order for their extended families to access the welfare and economic benefits of living in the United States.  However, I am more concerned about the future of my adopted country and all of my fellow citizens.  I would venture that I am not alone in my outlook, as a vast majority of other immigrants and naturalized citizens are increasingly amazed at the folly that is immigration policy in America.
For many years the various regimes in Washington and the nation’s governing class has been motivated by crass politics and maintaining or increasing their hold on governmental power.   They have not given a damn about the well-being of the people or the future of the country.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Life and Death and the Last Days, or Why Eschatology Matters

This post begins the subject of  Religion in American culture. It is perhaps the least understood factor to be acknowledged by Americans, both religious and secular, in the fortunes of our country's history and its future survival.

Life and Death and the Last Days, or Why Eschatology Matters
The stream of countless writings and publications of modern prophecy teachers is about the single most destructive force in the world today. It is worse than atheism, for it actually affects large numbers, and actually affects the church from the inside. It is worse than socialism—for it is, in fact, the type of Christian social impotence that enables and runs interference for bad economics and politics. It keeps Christians at bay, and enables their enslavers.

The Quiet Revolution: How the New Left Took Over the Democratic Party

Read this historic account and weep, because they now run the country!

Unelected and unaccountable judges and regulatory bureaucrats that are part of today’s ever-expanding federal government are only part of the problem. Clearly, American citizenry need to understand the roots and causality of the current national decline, and the need to embark on a new course with the capacity and energy to go deep and broad and transcend party politics. 
Life, liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and even the Constitution itself are now threatened by a secular progressive minority at war with God. Americans need a second Paul Revere moment to wake up and get serious about choosing and electing leaders with the courage to make hard choices and the conviction to correct the nation’s compass. 

Gramsci’s Road Map

I consider Antonio Gramsci the most influential man of the 20th century! - CL

Gramsci’s Road Map

“Gramsci wasn’t finished. After building their coalition “they must enter into every civil, cultural and political activity in every nation, patiently leavening them all as thoroughly as yeast leavens bread.”[6] To change the culture, Gramsci argued, “would require a ‘long march through the institutions’ — the arts, cinema, theater, schools, colleges, seminaries, newspapers, magazines, and the new electronic medium [of the time], radio.”[7]
Gramsci supplied the road map, and liberals, I mean, “Progressives,” followed it to the letter.”

Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/7625/how-liberalism-took-over-america/

Gramsci's Dream Came True: We Have a Leftist Ruling Class

Gramsci's Dream Came True: We Have a Leftist Ruling Class

“Antonio Gramsci is a figure of high importance to the development of the left, both in Britain and the United states. While looking into Gramsci, I came across James Joll's book, a clear exposition of Gramsci’s ideas by a fan of the Italian Marxist. Thus it can be said that the text is a fair account of Gramsci's ideas. And if there is any bias in the texts I've chosen, it's bias in favor -- rather than against – Antonio Gramsci.
It can also be said that James Joll was himself a perfect example of the Gramscian elite. For a start, as Gramsci urged, Joll “took over” parts of at least four “institutions”: Oxford University, the London School of Economics (along with numerous other Marxists), the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, and the British Academy.”

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/10/gramscis_dream_came_true_we_have_a_leftist_ruling_class.html#ixzz3HAf2i1uS

It is impossible to restore America politically and economically if it is not restored culturally.

Which of the Two Dozen 2016 GOP Contenders is the Right One?

“It is impossible to restore America politically and economically if it is not restored culturally. Reagan understood this, I believe, as exhibited by the words in his farewell address. But he never seriously addressed the issue – either because he didn't have time or perhaps he lacked the belief that he could make a difference. We can never know. But, the matter of the culture is critical to the success of the conservative restoration project. For in fact, culture trumps politics.
Twentieth century progressives – especially Antonio Gramsci -- grasped this idea. They understood that in order to radically alter the politics of the United States, they had to first undermine bourgeois culture and replace it with a more libertine version. They understood that the flow of influence runs downhill from culture to politics. And so they set about changing America's culture. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Today, the left controls virtually all of the opinion-molding organs of American society: the media and the arts, public schools, foundations, seminaries, museums, libraries, higher education, the federal bureaucracy, the legal profession and so on.
Classic American culture celebrated individual liberty, limited government, free market capitalism, strong morals grounded in religion, intact traditional families and vibrant cohesive communities, individual responsibility and the meritocracy, and American Exceptionalism in particular, the idea that America is a model and force for good in the world. That culture has been supplanted by one that values: group rights, big government and crony capitalism, loose morals and banishment of religion from the public square, global American weakness and disengagement, and an obscene focus on the warts in American history.
It is little wonder that in such a culture, the least experienced, most anti-American, anti-Constitutional, radically left, lawless president in American history could be elected and re-elected.
We must recapture the culture. It took the left a century to overthrow America's classic culture. It may take us a century to win it back. A program for doing so is for another essay. What we need now is not just another Reagan, but a succession of triple C presidents who understand the cultural issue, as well as the foreign and economic policy issues, and who have the requisite ideas, understanding and political skills to bring about a conservative renaissance. Through their leadership we can take back our country. At the moment, I'll settle for a first person in that line. Which of the two dozen contenders is that special person? I pray that we find out soon.”

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/which_of_the_two_dozen_2016_gop_contenders_is_the_right_one.html#ixzz3P1dCKfFW

21 Homeschool Resources For All Ages

“The homeschooling landscape has changed a lot in the last twenty years. Negative stereotypes that hounded us in 1994 have largely been proven ridiculous. When I started homeschooling my kindergartener last year, I was up to my eyeballs in resources, many of them free. My parents spent $1000 on curricula the first year they taught us at home. In 2014 I spent less than $100.

Here’s a selection of my favorite articles and homeschool resources for all ages, and they’re all free.”

http://thesurvivalmom.com/homeschool-resources-for-all-ages/

Homeschooling as Scapegoat

“One can’t help but think that underneath all the talk about socialization and abuse, it’s the freedom that really bothers them. The thought of people raising their children outside the approved system is evidently too much for the left-wing mind to handle. As journalist Dana Goldstein has said, homeschooling is a violation of progressive values. It’s a threat to left-wing dominance in our education system, and therefore must be stomped out.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417274/homeschooling-scapegoat-matthew-hennessey

5 Tips For Families Considering Homeschooling

This article is one of several, which define how we as ordinary citizens, can take charge of our own lives - educating our own children. The pioneers in this field began 30+ years ago - all we need to do is make the decision. Again, this is basic stuff. The public education system is dead functionally - unless you consider making government mobots is a good thing. - CL

“Homeschooling is having a moment. The number of homeschooled students in the United States grew by 300,000 between 2007 and 2012, and now make up about 3 percent of the school-aged population. According to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics, parents chose to homeschool their children for many reasons. The most common was concern about the school’s environment. Second was a desire to provide moral education, and the third was dissatisfaction with other education options.

Growing parent dissatisfaction with Common Core has already led to an increase in the number of parents who choose to homeschool their children. I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but the small homeschooling community to which our family belongs is already planning to add a number of families next year on top of the growth it experienced last year.”


http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/29/5-tips-for-families-considering-homeschooling/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=bdaeb429a1-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-bdaeb429a1-83795033

How do we change the culture now?

It is my conclusion that without cultural change, nothing changes in government or politics. They are downstream from the culture. This article is also  part of my pre-supposition on the website Home page. Paul Rosenberg has the 'How' nailed here:

“Not long ago, with these ideas in mind, I wrote this to a friend: It is fully corrupt, from top to bottom, and I don’t believe there are any “good guys” inside, waiting for “the right time.” It is OVER.
I withdraw. I forsake them. I refuse to waste my energy on their politics. Humanity deserves better and I aim to do my part in building it.
I will shed no tears when this system finally collapses – it will be a liberation.
From here on, I’ll build new things and will have nothing to do with the old.
My friend – a good man – agreed.
The good and productive people of this world deserve something better than the abusive dominators that seek to control their every move, and we are more than capable of building it. But we have to stop waiting for permission from the lords of the status quo – they will never give us permission to bypass their domination.
We have to make our own decisions and simply start building something better. We are able, and this system is unworthy of our efforts.
Now would be a very good time to start.”

http://www.freemansperspective.com/wont-be-fixed/

The USA is now functioning as an oligarchy, not a constitutional republic.

Several weeks ago, Robert Ringer wrote an article which best defines how our present government functions. I have posted this here on the blog and it is a basic pre-supposition on the website.

“The reason poverty, war, and political tyranny are beyond my control is because powerful people have too much at stake to allow anyone or anything to get in their way. Let’s get real here: Poverty, war, and political power are extremely profitable businesses, and if the ruling class believes you’re a serious threat to its agenda, you might just end up looking like an anti-Putin journalist who overdosed on radioactive poisoning.
In the United States, the instrument that controls all things macro is an oligarchy motivated by unfathomable amounts of money and power. This oligarchy has two factions. One is the so-called Democratic Party, which consists primarily of Marxists and socialists. The other is the so-called Republican Party, which consists primarily of liberals.
Notwithstanding their efforts to make the gullible public believe they are radically opposed to each other’s policies, in truth they agree on virtually all of the fundamentals of totalitarianism — especially the fundamental belief in the supremacy of politicians and bureaucrats over the rest of the populace.”

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/06/robert-ringer/how-to-respond-to-the-oligarchy/

Here’s how to resist the Left’s culture control, one conversation at a time.

This article by Stella Morabito fits in very well with the basic theme of our forum and surely merits being our first post. I also posted a  DISQUS comment at the author's website.

Perception is everything. Wars are often won or lost based on how the actors perceive one another’s strengths and weaknesses, not so much how strong or weak they are in reality. So it goes with any agenda item.
When people sense a shift in public opinion on an issue, a fair number will shift right along with what they perceive. Thus, power elites can shape behaviors and attitudes by applying various techniques of crowd psychology, focused on propaganda and silencing dissent.
The end product is thought reform or “collective belief formation.” It’s all about molding your perception of a given issue so your perception will influence others’ perceptions, creating an “opinion cascade.” Effective propaganda also keeps you in the dark about the fact that you are being manipulated.