Incompressible

The mantra of liberals these days is separation of church and State - keep religion out of politics (because apparently religion can somehow make politics even worse), keep theology out of government schools, and so on. The mantra of conservatives is not quite the opposite - because everyone is all too painfully aware of the horrific instances of State power wielded for the purposes of church-sanctioned "purification" of society, the Inquisition being perhaps the most notable example. But evangelical conservatives in the United States have come to see the State as the sole salvation of moral goodness in society. Why, if we don't ban those gay marriages, the whole country will become overrun by a bunch of girly men! If we don't incarcerate teens for pot or alcohol possession, why, they won't learn their lesson! If they intend to destroy their lives on pot and alcohol, we'll make sure we destroy them first in state prisons and juvenile facilities. Think of it li...

In an earlier post , I discussed the risks associated with making extended preparations for extinction events and other armageddon scenarios (by making a human-induced extinction event significantly more probable). I just ran across an article today that presents many of the same concerns about ultra-wealthy misanthropes using their wealth to promote anti-population causes (the latest rage being Global Warming). I found this quote particularly salient: "It may not come as a shock to find that those involved heavily in the unproductive, if still important, sphere of finance should believe that there is little point to the human race. When you are a member of a strand of society that is widely regarded as parasitic on the rest, the notion that the whole of humanity is parasitical on the planet is not a huge intellectual leap. But once you have ruled out suicide as an option, you need some reason to keep going. ‘Saving the planet’ has become a mission statement both for the pointless...

An article in the news today details violent suppression of protests in Zimbabwe. With hyper-inflation (11,000,000%!), Zimbabwe's corrupt government gives us a look behind the curtain at the true nature of any state. When Mugabe came to power, he used the crimes of the British (esp. the much-celebrated criminal, Cecil Rhodes) to justify confiscation of the farms of whites. In principle, retaking stolen property is not wrong. But the State has no interest in justice and a state actor never intends to seize property to do justice. Mugabe has distributed the seized land to his cronies - friends and family - to solidify his power base. In the process, the agricultural industry of Zimbabwe has been decimated and its population hurled into 85% unemployment with disastrous hyper-inflation. This is the true face of the state. Our government is only better as a matter of degree, but its actions in running up public debt, inflating the currency and redistributing wealth from the poor to ric...

The Presidential election is a dog and pony show, people. It is the modern equivalent of the Roman games. The intent is to keep you, the sheeple, distracted on something irrelevant while you are being fleeced by the Washington Mafia. Remember, the basic principle of magic (and street cons) is to conceal the minor motion (the trick) with a major motion (the flourish). The election is the flourish. The bailout is the trick, though today's political magicians are pretty pathetic. They just don't make FDRs anymore. Isn't this a bit extreme? Maybe, maybe not, but you at least owe it to yourself to understand this financial catastrophe and the implications for you. Here's some of the lessons of history that are relevant. 1) Fiat and inflationary currencies always collapse sooner or later. Whether it be the Chinese and their "flying cash" under Kublai Khan, the debased coins of the Roman empire, the paper Continental under the Continental Congress, the paper money of...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/ny...1marriage.html Well, we should take time to celebrate the small advances of liberty, especially during these times of rampant fascism. While it is my religious belief that homosexuality is immoral, if two adults make a choice to live in a certain way, that is their business. While marriage, per se, should be a religious, not a civil issue, in my opinion, it is a step in the right direction for the court system to extend the same property protections and make available divorce and other kinds of legal proceedings related to resolving disputes that arise in sexual relationships of any kind. We have a long way to go in terms of sexual freedom - there is still a massive prejudice on the left against poly- lifestyles. It will be interesting to see the left forced to confront its own moral fascism over the next decade or so in the arena of poly- families. Apparently, Canada is already extending some protections to poly- families. Hopefully, the US will ...

The Renaissance Italian Luca Pacioli is credited with the invention of double-entry bookkeeping (liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses and asset balance.) This enables businesses to calculate in terms of money their profitability and track their true capital. When the government redistributes "wealth" it is not really redistributing what economists call wealth ("subjective satisfaction with a good, service or state of affairs") because that cannot be redistributed. Rather, it is redistributing profits orequity (assets). It does this by putting a liability or expense on the balance sheet of one individual or organization (usually in the form of taxes) and simultaneously putting an equity or revenue on the balance sheet of some other individual or organization. This is no different than any other transaction, except that it is not voluntary. Pacioli's double-entry bookkeeping could be used to track how this occurs all throughout our economy as wealth is redist...

What does it even mean for credit to freeze and why should that be a problem? Let's look at what credit is. Loans (credit ) are given out to individuals or organizations on the basis of their credit-worthiness. Credit-worthiness is a kind of financial reputation that is usually attained through documented repayment of past credit. Or, in the case of the loan by which I purchased our second car, credit-worthiness is established through family relationship to my creditor (my wife's grandfather). In any case, loans entail some degree of reputability and trustworthiness of the debtor and the creditor's ability to believe in the debtor's reputability. The giving of a loan requires the creditor to forego the consumption or capital purchases he could have otherwise engaged in with the money. This means that the act of giving a loan has a cost to the creditor. This is a common point of confusion among the populace as the charging of interest (usury) is typically seen as mean-sp...