A Billion to one

Team Kemendo

2010-04-10T15:46:00.002-05:00

So this is Team Kemendo:

Get used to seeing us...

Old and Wise

2009-08-29T21:02:00.003-05:00

Do you know that old guy who sits around all day and doesn't say anything of much consequence? The ones who don't get all riled up and start yelling at these town hall meetings or don't regularly go to city council meetings and preach about the dog-poop on the board walk. The ones that don't wag fingers.

Yea, the guys who realize that the only way "political issues" can affect them, is if they let them. The ones who know how to make their own food. The ones who can defend it because they have had to. The ones who can set a broken arm and know that every medical issue doesn't require a doctor. The ones who recycle their old pickle jars and fix their own cars. The ones who realize that you can do more with face to face talk than with subpoenas. The ones who realize things don't work out as planned and people are not always honest.

Yep, those are the wise ones. We can learn a lot from them.

Health care Statistics

2009-07-31T03:09:00.005-05:00

Here are two set's of Graphs:
This one compares The U.S. to Australia in terms of both health care spending as a %GDP and % Obesity

The interesting part is that Australia is the closest first world nation to the U.S. in terms of their System of health care. Even the rates of obesity are very strongly correlated, however the cost of care is much different. This would indicate to me that obesity and it's resulting health problems is NOT the differentiator between health care cost in developed nations - as I had previously thought. I think that it likely plays the largest role in the differentiation, but I think how it is handled (treating heart problems and diabetes rather than preventative) is likely what bridges the gap.

Source: OECD Health Data 2009

Attacking dogs and Water buffaloes

2009-07-01T03:58:00.006-05:00

In case you didn't know, I recently moved to a mixed world (part third part first) island controlled by the U.S. You also may not know that I am a runner, and a somewhat competitive one. These two things together generally pose a few problems.

Running on the roads, or anywhere for that matter, in third world countries is generally not considered one of the best ideas. Between the sensibilities of the drivers, the lack of shoulder and the wild animals living in bush areas of third world countries, which generally hug the roads and trails, these places aren't ideal for any type of comfortable long or short distance runs.

I encountered this first while backpacking in Belize and (Briefly) Ecuador, as well as somewhat in Honduras and Tahiti. I decided to, yet again, press my luck by going on a simple 2.5 mile run to test the waters around my neighborhood.

As I somewhat expected, most of the homes had at least two dogs, some were chained, others were not. Unfortunately more than one was significantly hostile to a simple runner and on two separate occasions I indeed found it necessary to slow down and intimidate a charging canine. I also encountered a water buffalo on my route. All without nearly any shoulder whatsoever. All roads on the island are like this.

After this run, a few things came to mind:
1. There is no law from the state nor cultural sensibility that enforces dogs on leashes around here as a safeguard
2. There likely aren't laws or sensibilities because almost no one runs or walks on these roads
3. I am glad there isn't

That said, I am upset that I wont be able to comfortably run around my neighborhood without significant discomfort or a nightstick. However nowhere is it written that I should be comfortable with the running situation. The cultural norms here are not what I would prefer in this regard, however, although I may not agree with them or think them just, I will take action based on each person's individual rights to pet ownership.

Now this can go two ways.

I can either, affirm that I have the right to run on these public roads and assert that by running with protective measures (Night stick, mace etc...) in case of a dog attack. Or I can choose to not run, instead driving to an area which is safe to run without dogs or water buffaloes as obstacles. In the former case I would be well within just right to take whatever protective measures I needed to to protect myself. In the latter I would simply be adapting to my new environment.

Either way, there are solutions to the problem which do not require third party mediation (state). It is just as much the right of the dog owner to keep his or her dog on their property without a leash - if they so choose as it is mine to run. However if I am not on their property and their pet decides to come into my sovereign "bubble" I have the right to do whatever it takes to defend myself.

If it became the case that these violations became the norm and more and more pets were getting bludgeoned to death because they were attacking others on public property, then pet owners would ensure that their pets were locked to their property. If however, the cases of pets attacking others was relatively low, such that the community felt no need to change their pet's behavior, there would be very few people putting themselves into these situations to get attacked. This my friends is the "state of nature" solution; in which no people talk to each other and everyone is simply protective and hostile.

Alternatively, and more positively, neighbors could talk to each other and ask if they would be so kind as to perhaps control their animals, or agree to only run at certain times. Likely, this would be a reasonable solution and a win-win for everyone. Likely this is how these problems would be solved.

This is just an example of a real world situation and how "problems" could be solved without the intervention of government.

A brief preemptive word on the public property issue if some statists out there are thinking about it eg: "well in an anarchy there would be no public property, so your argument is flawed." There are examples of cooperative land agreements and toll roads throughout history. The same would apply here, if someone lived on a piece of property, undoubtedly they and their neighbors would want to access other areas so toll roads or other such arrangements would be made and the distinction between voluntarily shared and private would be made.

ED:
As I have come to find out there is actually an island wide law which states all dogs much be on a leash. Another perfect example of a statute that doesn't reflect the sensibility of the community.

Moderates

2009-06-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

I hear this a lot:

"The truth lies somewhere in the middle"

This often leads to the Logical fallacy Argument to Moderation:

The Argument to Moderation or Golden mean fallacy is a logical fallacy which asserts that a compromise between two positions is correct. The middle ground is often invoked when there are sharply contrasting views that are deeply entrenched. While an outcome that accommodates both parties to some extent is more desirable than an outcome that pleases nobody, it is not necessarily correct.

Taken to its logical extent, if your credo is that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, then the statement alone requires you to not take it as a truth.

Something to think about when you feel to urge to be moderate - especially in light of what is known as the Overton Window.

Health Care

2009-05-25T22:38:00.001-05:00

How much does a doctor cost? How much do surgeries cost? How much does medicine cost?
Average cost for an appendectomy: 15,800
Average cost for heart surgery: 75,536

Average wage of US taxpayer:40,405.48

It blows my mind, knowing the price of these procedures, that anyone thinks that they could be provided to all.

The Rule of Law

2009-05-21T20:33:00.003-05:00

Often much is made about the Rule of Law and why it is the paramount of what we wish for the lawmakers and leaders to follow. However most people either have no idea what it is or have a misguided idea of it.
The Rule of Law:

"a legal-political regime under which the law restrains the government by promoting certain liberties and creating order and predictability regarding how a country functions. In the most basic sense, the rule of law is a system that attempts to protect the rights of citizens from arbitrary and abusive use of government power."

The first element of the rule of law in Lon Fullers definition is:

Laws must exist and those laws should be obeyed by all, including government officials.

This sets a significant precedent in favor of the law in every case rather than in favor of the individuals. In other words it subordinates all individuals to the law as a primary. This makes perfect sense under this circumstance because it's goal is to organize and coerce individuals to act according to hierarchical mandates.

Therefore if your primary edict is to encourage the rule of law, all are morally bound to subordinate to the law no matter if the law is just or not.

We should then question whether the rule of law is a correct base state edict for cooperation and peace - that is, a starting point for peace. If you say that it is, then you are implicitly advocating moral equivalency and subjectivity which encourages and aggravates tyranny. If however you believe that the starting point of cooperation and peace is liberty and virtue - the rule of law can only be a detriment to long term sustainability.

Advocates of this way of thinking may rebut that social mores are different throughout cultures and change occur over time, so it is up to the people at large to make the changes as they come, but that the overriding necessity for a mandatory enforceable law is required above all. This completely ignores the idea of liberty and justice in favor of a ruling power.

The debate seems to be shifting away from liberty lately and I have been seeing a lot more "well I think coercion is OK" arguments. I even heard someone say that "might is right" is a correct ethos not long ago. I am not sure why this is happening but it is becoming clear that more people are becoming okay with totalitarianism at large.

I agree that there are some laws which all are inexplicably bound to: the law of justice and the social contract (Proudhon). However their enforcement mechanisms are self regulating if left to their own devices.

Liberty allows humans to be virtuous - the goal of human life. Some argue that happiness is the goal of life. However, true happiness comes from being virtuous. Without liberty you cannot be virtuous or happy.

Change Indeed

2009-05-19T15:29:00.004-05:00

Obama Sides With Bush in Spy Case

Obama's latest effort to conceal evidence of Bush era crimes

Turley: Obama 'accessory' to war crimes if no prosecution

Obama lets CIA keep controversial renditions tool

Obama's Justice Department backs Bush secrecy on renditions suit

Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability -- resoundingly and disgracefully

The 180-degree reversal of Obama's State Secrets position

Obama, not Bush, now seeking delay of Rove deposition

Despite rhetoric, Obama continues Bush policy on detainees: Indefinite detention, no legal rights Bagram airbase flies under the radar but will continue to operate without US law

Obama Widens Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan

3 Detained in Afghanistan Can Take Challenges to U.S. Court Habeas Ruling Is a Blow to Administration

White House: Obama 'absolutely' stands behind effort to throw out warrantless wiretapping suit

Let's move to Pakistan!

2009-05-08T20:57:00.004-05:00

This is certainly not the image most people get when they hear about the current situation in the SWAT valley in Pakistan.

Few people realize that before the Taliban came in and took over, SWAT was Pakitan's number one tourist destination. Try to imagine if Yosemite, Aspen and The Tetons were taken over simultaneously.

From: http://desktop-beauty.blogspot.com/2007/11/northren-areas-of-pakistan-1.html

Egregious Blatant Violations

2009-05-06T16:49:00.002-05:00

I feel this story warrants as wide a dissemination as possible:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090506_cashing_in_on_government_sachs/

When N.Y. Fed Chairman Stephen Friedman bought stock in the company that he once headed, and where he still serves as a director, he was already in violation of Federal Reserve policy and was hoping for a waiver to permit him to hold his existing multi-million-dollar stock stash and to remain on the Goldman board. The waiver was requested last October by Timothy Geithner, then the president of the N.Y. Fed and now Treasury secretary. Yet, without having received that waiver, Friedman went ahead in December and purchased 37,300 additional shares. With shares he added in January, after the waiver was granted, he ended up with 98,600 shares in Goldman Sachs, worth a total of $13,330,720 at the close of trading on Monday.

Friedman was in violation of the Fed’s policy because, thanks in part to the urging of Geithner and the N.Y. Fed, Goldman Sachs was allowed to become a bank holding company, making it eligible for government bailout funds (an option that Geithner had denied to Goldman rival Lehman Brothers).

Police dont prevent crime

2009-05-05T11:59:00.006-05:00

At least according to Toledo mayor Carty Finkbeiner:

Violent crimes, shootings, are not ever prevented by the presence of a police officer, no matter how many thousands of police officers you have

Yikes. That's a new one to come out in the press. Bravo Mayor.

Of course this isn't a revelation to libertarians and anarchists. By and large police are reactive - however the claim that jail and death penalties (2), administered through the police as state actors, are preventative and a deterrent (PDF Link) is a weak argument at best and an outright lie at the worst.

**
Link to a study which correlates police numbers with crime rates http://www.springerlink.com/content/7q43025510gn57v2/ however they are still undetermined whether there is a false correlation (Crime -> Police) or (Police -> Crime)

Sore Muscles and Brain Pain

2009-04-24T13:18:00.004-05:00

Pain during exercise or exertion is a signal sent from the muscles to the brain telling the brain and Central Nervous system that the muscle is not strong enough for the current exertion. In response, the Central nervous system and brain allocate resources to make the muscles stronger in the future. As a result muscle fibers grow and lengthen, bone strengthens and the next time the exertion is made less signals are sent.

This Homeostasis is comfortable and easy. It is uncomplicated for the most part and requires nothing of the Brain or CNS. Most of all it is the absence of the pain which precedes growth.

I propose that the same type of pain happens in the mind to people who are homeostatic in a worldview. The synapses which complete a current which represents a worldview are thick and strong. When impulses get taken away from those strong connections in order to make new ones, its hurts, and we feel it as confusion, discomfort and pain. If everything that you read, listen to or interact with strengthens or maintains those already made paths, then encountering something opposite or confronting to those paths, will undoubtedly cause pain.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing - if a rationalist encounters a conspiracy theorist, there will undoubtedly be some stress in the brain to make those connections. That does not mean that the challenger is correct, it simply means that there is a challenge to those brain connections we call ideas and concepts. However what would be bad is to ignore the stress or even worse use it to CONFIRM your own pre-set ideas without reasonable basis - you hear this all the time with: well it just doesn't SEEM right, or it just FEELS correct.

There is a paradox here however. This stress in the brain is uncomfortable and at times agonizing, so we seek to get rid of the agony with comforting solutions to cognitive challenges. These comforts however may not be truthful or correct, thus it is necessary for these conflicts to be an integral part of a virtuous life. It may be necessary to, if not enjoy, then welcome the stress and cognitive pain which accompanies challenges to your current homeostasis.

I see the brain then as another muscle, if not exercised often - with the resulting pain and discomfort, it will become useless and die.

Constitution

2009-04-22T12:13:00.003-05:00

I thought this was a great response to an article written by Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Can the congress write any law it wants...Are the rights guaranteed in the Constitution real or just a pretense? Isn’t the whole purpose of government in a free society to uphold rights rather than interfere with them? If the answers to these questions are no longer obvious, it is because we have a central government whose only self-acknowledged limitation is whatever it can get away with.

Dargen:

Yes, congress pretty much can write any law it wants. They have been doing so for quite awhile now, and there is nothing to make them stop. The supreme court might turn away a law or two sometimes, but most of them get through.
The Constitution created the circumstances where this kind of government was possible. The whole purpose of the constitution was to replace a weak confederacy of smaller governments, who had little ability to violate our rights, with a strong federal government funded through the violence of taxation.

Sounds about right if you read the history of the constitution:

Even before Shays’ Rebellion, prominent Americans were thinking of means to strengthen the Articles of Confederation. James Madison and others met with George Washington at Mount Vernon in 1785, to discuss commercial issues relating to Virginia and Maryland.

The stated goal of the Convention — the revision of the Articles of Confederation — was quickly discarded and attention given to more sweeping changes. Discussion turned instead to two competing concepts of how a new government should be formed, the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan.

Anarchy in Somalia

2009-04-20T12:09:00.003-05:00

Recently there have been some murmurs out there about these tea party protesters being compared to anarchists and of course then being compared to the state of Somalia and the current pirate situation:

As a result there is A LOT of misinformation about Somalia, it being a harbor for pirates and terrorism and the "lawlessness" in the state.

This should do a thorough job of cleaning up those ideas:
A non bat-shit account of Anarchy in Somalia

1 hour long Mp3 from Benjamin Powell with the history and state of Somalia today.

CONCLUSION: Somalia is not a utopia and no reasonable anarchist would argue that. However since the government collapsed and before the Islamic courts took over (1995-2006) everything from the murder rate to the phone service got significantly and measurably better - through free market means of competition and lack of monopoly. Only now where there is a possibility of a monopolizing power in the region will there be opportunities for exploitation.

Also, as a point of clarification the issue with these "pirates" goes back a long way and if you know history it will be clear that their issues are larger than just money.

The San Angelo Tea Party

2009-04-15T20:20:00.018-05:00

I have been hearing about these Tea Parties every day on Hannity and other radio programs as well as seeing goofy stories about them on the net. Mostly how these events are by and large underwritten by members of the republican party while simultaneously claiming to be non-partisan. So my friend Ryan and I decided to go and see one of these teabaggings in action, in our small town of San Angelo, TX.

The first official part of the kick off was an all inclusive, everyone welcome invocation:

...this we pray in jesus' name and jesus' name only. AMEN!

Yes, a totally benign prayer to all of those religions out there - with the Amen shouted by the people as requested by the speaker. Then came the playing of the star spangled banner, recitation of the pledge of allegiance and finally the Pledge of Texas.

On first glance, it was certainly interesting to see how diverse and non-partisan the crowd was; especially after seeing those with pro-Obama and anti-Bush signs relegated, by order of the police, to stay a certain distance away from the rally.

I even asked one of the police officers guarding the group if they were ordered to the side and not just self selecting into their own group. His response was that the Democrats would start problems and a riot would ensue - no shit, because in his view the people at the rally would attack the demonstrators. As a result, they felt it was best for everyone to go ahead and separate them. I went on to ask: "If this is supposed to be non-partisan, why do you have these people standing over here?" He figured surely I could understand why they needed to be separated being a military member and all (I was wearing a shirt which indicated my affiliation). Not wishing to be tasered over a small issue, I withdrew my continued questioning as other officers approached.

So; not only are a small group of people in a city of 88,000 not trusted to keep from killing each other at what was ostensibly a peaceful, non-partisan rally, but they are not trusted to such an extent that they were isolated from all others at the rally.

The bulk of the rally was Obama bashing and the standard republican Limbaugh parroting, insane claims (my favorite was that the government said they are going to take away your pickup trucks!!) and appeals to emotion. One small nugget of goodness however was an individual who talked about currency and inflation somewhat knowledgeably; however it was obvious from the crowd that very few cared about his cause as the level of side conversations just around me went up significantly when he was speaking.

Where were all these people when the Patriot Act was being signed into law? Where were they when TARP was being passed? Where were they for so many years under so many administrations which they supported? Nowhere - because their candidate or party was running things.

It is obvious that these Tea parties are not against government at all - they are just a re-branding of the right wing into the "conservative" party. In my limited interaction with those who attended, nearly none were interested in talking about how they elected the same bums that they "wanted out." I asked one woman with a "next time read the bill" sign if she had read the stimulus, her response was "it's not my job to read it." Actually, it IS your job to know what laws are being passed on you. They say ignorance is bliss.

Her answer perfectly summed the whole thing up - "We of the tea party say down with government - just not the government that agrees with us."

**Picture credit to Ryan McIlroy

Edit: After some further reading - it seems as though much of the GOP is rejecting these Tea Parties however with newt gengrich as a backer it is hard to say that the organizers are not affiliated in some ways.

I think this is an example of people who, in the past, have identified themselves with a party (Republican). In actuality they may lean more libertarian but felt, for whatever reason, that they would be better off to support a republican candidate which held fewer of their beliefs but gave a better chance of winning an election. I want to address this issue in another later post about grouping and how our ideas of groups are mostly incorrect.

Kyklos

2009-04-13T22:41:00.003-05:00

Kyklos:

A term used by some classical Greek authors to describe what they saw as the political cycle of governments in a society.

According to Polybius, who has the most fully developed version of the cycle, it rotates through the three basic forms of government, democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy and the three degenerate forms of each of these governments ochlocracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. Originally society is in anarchy but the strongest figure emerges and sets up a monarchy. The monarch's descendants, who because of their family's power lack virtue, become despots and the monarchy degenerates into a tyranny. Because of the excesses of the ruler the tyranny is overthrown by the leading citizens of the state who set up an aristocracy. They too quickly forget about virtue and the state becomes an oligarchy. These oligarchs are overthrown by the people who set up a democracy. Democracy soon becomes corrupt and degenerates into mob rule, beginning the cycle anew.

If there is One and only one thing that people should learn I happen to believe it is this; if for no other reason than because history proves it.

Powers of the president

2009-03-31T15:31:00.002-05:00

My daily news routine:

1. Morning Edition on NPR on the way to work
2. Rush Limbaugh driving home and back for lunch
3. Newser, reddit, Drudge, alternet etc... during lunch
4. Sean Hannity on the drive home
5. All things considered, Marketplace, The World in the evening
6. Random internet from 7-10PM

All I hear from Hannity and Rush to a lesser extent, is how Obama is going to destroy the nation with his broad increase in federal powers and presidential powers.

If these talking heads are really so concerned with liberty and limited government then why weren't they up in arms about the 750 signing statements which gave G. W. Bush broad powers, the Patriot Act which gave the president and congress significant powers, The stand up of the Department of Homeland Security, Warrentless wiretapping or the Justice Department obfuscating constitutional powers through legalese.

These are all clearly expansions of federal and presidential powers - so why did we hear no noise?

Obviously this is in-group bias, but what these dolts COMPLETELY miss is that the democracy which they espouse as so great and hold up as a virtue, has a built in exchange of powers at regular intervals. The powers which they were so happy to abdicate to the state and the OFFICE of the president - are still controlled by the Office - no matter who is in it.

How hard is it to understand that under a democratic system, the elected leaders who you would give your responsibility to won't be there forever. At some point someone you do not agree with will take the reigns and all that comes with it to include those powers that you relinquished.

More than likely you gave them your power to begin with.

"Land protection" as collateral?

2009-03-30T20:45:00.003-05:00

It sure is interesting that just after one of the largest spending bills in history is signed, President Obama is designating 2 million acres across the nation as protected wilderness.

Perhaps that "protected wilderness" is collateral for treasury bonds or other loans from foreign nations....hmm, they seem to go hand and hand.

It would be nice if someone with more time could look up historical wilderness protection plans and treasury bond sales and see if they are perhaps related (all econometric errors corrected of course). If I have more time this week I will try and do the due diligence.

Let's go read the new Betty Boop comic...

2009-03-18T18:44:00.007-05:00

...because apparently we are living in the year 1930.

I posted this in Feb about protectionist measures written into the massive stimulus which are reminiscent to the Smoot-Hawley act of 1930.

I suppose they figured that wasn't enough protectionism, so they wrote even more into the yearly Omnibus spending bill:

Section 136 of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill's Transportation Title states, "None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available under this Act may be used, directly or indirectly, to establish, implement, continue, promote, or in any way permit a cross-border motor carrier demonstration program to allow Mexican-domiciled motor carriers to operate beyond the commercial zones along the international border between the United States and Mexico."

As a result we have this:
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52F7KN20090316

Mexico slapped tariffs on 90 American agricultural and manufactured exports on Monday in retaliation for Washington's move to block Mexican trucks from using U.S. highways.

Mexican Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz said about $2.4 billion worth of exports from 40 U.S. states would be affected and that his government would soon publish a list of them.

Of course trucking monopolies are also happy about this one:

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa commended Congress for voting to ban Mexican trucks. "There is no doubt that Congress has once and for all killed the Bush administration's expensive and illegal pilot project to open the border to Mexican trucks," Hoffa said.

If you are one of those that believe in the "New World Order" or the North American Union - then I suppose this is great news. However those people seem to not understand the relationship between liberty and truly free trade. Whether that is truly free trade is debatable, but to be sure, measures such as this clearly are not.

Oh and I forgot to mention, China is looking at protecting their own tribe too:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123735859467667801.html

China's government rejected a $2.4 billion bid by Coca-Cola Co. for one of the country's largest juice makers on antitrust grounds -- a move that could chill foreigners looking to make deals in China and that risks prompting a backlash against Chinese investing abroad.

I love living in a world where history repeats itself - makes predicting the future really easy.

Creeping Fascism

2009-03-18T18:14:00.002-05:00

From: http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45206

“On March 10, after a report of an apparent mass murder in Samson, Ala., 22 military police soldiers from Fort Rucker, Ala., along with the provost marshal, were sent to the city of Samson,” Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, Va., told CNSNews.com on Monday.

From: http://www.kansascity.com/116/story/1086524.html

The Feb. 20 report called "The Modern Militia Movement" mentions such red flags as political bumper stickers for third-party candidates, such as U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for president last year; talk of conspiracy theories, such as the plan for a superhighway linking Canada to Mexico; and possession of subversive literature.

"It's giving the makeup of militia members and their political beliefs," Hotz said of the report. "It's not saying that everybody who supports these candidates is involved in a militia. It's not even saying that all militias are bad."

There seems to be a trend here. Just get ready as they crack down on anyone questioning the state. Make no mistake this was coming no matter who came into office.

Revisiting Dunbar's Number

2009-03-16T21:23:00.002-05:00

In case you arent familiar with Dunbar's number here is a quick synopsis:

Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.[1] Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.

I think there may be something in trying to expand this number. Perhaps if there was a way to understand the circuitry of this number and then to re-engineer it such that instead of being limited - it grew at the rate of population. This may be a solution to the problems with tribalism which create all strife and conflict within the world.

Problems:
Dunbar's number is based off of interactions with people, not theoretical ideas of others
Technology would need to connect all people such that they would have stable relationships with each individually

People talk about expanding our social circle - well how about expanding it from 150 to 6,000,000,000. Now that sounds like a goal.

The War on Work

2009-03-11T18:58:00.004-05:00

Mike Rowe the host of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel did a fantastic piece on TED this year about how we as a nation look at work as something to be loathed and looked down upon:

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

Confusing Liberty with Standard of living

2009-03-09T18:44:00.004-05:00

The first thing people think about when there is a question of how effective certain types of government are is standard of living. Are the people satiated? What is the infant mortality rate? How much do the people work? How is access to health care? etc...

Unfortunately these things - which reasonably have positive outcomes - are false indicators of stability and liberty. Most people think that as long as standard of living is high, then things are good; However few ask if these same things are sustainable and at their equilibrium.

Take for example infant mortality rate. Beyond the question of causality and the subsequent prevention plans, if prenatal care is such that children which would have normally been miscarried or parents which take extra steps to have children which they would not have been able to have before, then perhaps a low infant mortality rate indicates unsustainable population growth.

Standard of living only describes a feeling that people have about their surroundings and their ability to satiate wants. It however has no relation to stability or sustainability. There are natural mechanisms that, if we fight them before we know we can win (such as through transhumanism), will always bring us back to an equilibrium point which we call "crashes."

Finding where the equilibrium points are is tricky as there are rarely obvious and easy to interpret indicators. Price stability is generally thought to be one of the more potent indicators of an equilibrium; however with global market and monetary intervention skewing the true prices this and other indicators give false signals.

So while you may be able to get that new Samsung Plasma TV for cheap and improve your standard of living, you may simply be living in a coercive bubble which promotes neither sustainability nor liberty as the paramount rather than simply a second thought.

Why Bipartisanship is bad for liberty

2009-03-09T18:38:00.002-05:00

Much ballyhoo is always made about bringing "both sides of the aisle" together in congress and the political debate in order to work together. This idea makes perfect sense when I comes to how we as individuals live and work.

However bipartisanship and branches of the federal government working together has a tricky little way of consolidating power. It is through bipartisanship and cooperation that governments move swiftly. Some great examples of this are:

New Deal
Smoot-Hawley
US Patriot Act
TARP bailout and the most recent "Stimulus" Bill (Warning - Large PDF).
All done swiftly and in the name of crisis.

Let us not forget that - while a flawed document - the constitution separates powers for the explicit purpose of creating competition between branches. This was designed to slow the governmental process to a halt such that the least amount, and hence the least amount of harm, could be accomplished. James Madison said it well:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system. I persuade myself, however, that it will be made apparent to every one, that the charge cannot be supported, and that the maxim on which it relies has been totally misconceived and misapplied. In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.”

The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarkation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.

Makes perfect sense, too bad it seems the limits have only been in parchment, as the executive and legislative branches have been colluding for some time.

46% of Americans can live without government

2009-03-09T08:17:00.004-05:00

This data has been blogged other places but in the spirit of spreading information I feel it should be talked about to its maximum extent.

Rasmussen Reports - a worthy public opinion polling organization recently asked Americans how they felt about this statement

the moral mission of government is simple: no one can earn a living in America or live an American life without protection and empowerment by the government.

Here are the results:

46% Disagree
34% Agree
20% Are not sure

First of all, the fact that this question is even being brought up is encouraging as it points towards a philosophical questioning of the role for governments. Second - despite the fact that 34% agree with this assertion - even more, 46%, disagree. That in an of itself gives at least a glimmer of hope for the future.

This is a bit disconcerting:

As for Lakoff’s comments, Americans under 30 are more supportive than their elders.

However it seems the older people get the more libertarian they become.

So as it is now, a good percent of the nation could survive without an overarching state, however the young population feels less confident that they could than anyone else. Great.

I think is nothing else, this proves that the further away this nation gets from its freedom fighting roots, the more the freedoms we used to have and the limited ones we currently have will be taken for granted - and abdicated to the state.

The Economics Discipline

2009-03-02T20:44:00.002-06:00

I find is terribly frustrating that modern economics as it is taught in most institutes of higher education fails to include ethics of market manipulation as a significant part of its curriculum.

Current economics is taught as though it is a-moral, that any market manipulations through public policy are outcomes that are supposed to create pareto optimality. However few economics programs study the ethics of the goals of market manipulation.

Without an ethics of economics - the entire discipline is blinding itself and will continue to create essentially public policy accountants and mathematicians. It seems then that economics has become the discipline for mathematicians who want to have an impact on public policy - the exact people who should NOT be impacting public policy.

Instead what would indeed create more Pareto optimality would be for philosophers to take the reigns of the economics pedigree.

How exactly am I supposed to feel about this?

2009-03-01T21:17:00.001-06:00

They say congratulations but somehow I feel worse for it...

Representative John Boehner lives up to his name

2009-02-25T20:19:00.003-06:00

http://mobile.thehill.com/leading-the-news/boehner-era-of-big-government-is-back-2009-02-25.html

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) declared a return to “the era of big government” the day after President Obama’s first formal address to Congress.

“From everything I’ve seen, it looks like the era of big government spending is back,” he told reporters at a lunch convened by the Christian Science Monitor. “My question to my Democratic friends is how are you going to pay for it?”

Let's ring in the new era by reviewing some facts about government thus far.

The U.S. Code has 50 Titles ranging from Agriculture to "Indians". Under each title are hundreds of pages delineating how the government regulates each of these areas. The tax code alone is 13458 pages.

Here are the federal agencies currently run by the U.S. in alphabetical order

The top federal income tax rate is 35.5% (Sadly this is lower than other countries)
State income taxes vary between 0% and 10%
This still does not include property, some city, excise, vice and sales taxes.

And last but certainly not least The U.S. Congress enables a monopoly on our money

Let's not forget that under republicans the national debt and spending has nearly always grown while the opposite is true for the democrats - seemingly because democrats are more insular and more apt to tax the citizenry and republicans are more excited about "spreading democracy." Which do you think costs more?

So when representatives decide to go and open their dirty mouth's let us make sure we get a little sanity check and history lesson with it.

Repeat with me now folks Democrats = Republicans.

Here comes Inflation

2009-02-23T11:33:00.003-06:00

This today from the treasury:

Should that assessment indicate that an additional capital buffer is warranted, institutions will have an opportunity to turn first to private sources of capital. Otherwise, the temporary capital buffer will be made available from the government...Any government capital will be in the form of mandatory convertible preferred shares, which would be converted into common equity shares only as needed over time to keep banks in a well-capitalized position and can be retired under improved financial conditions before the conversion becomes mandatory.

Hopefully they have some wizards at the Treasury to evaluate the conditions which warrant capital injection and the subsequent removal from this program.

Secretary of State Clinton doesn't seem to be a very good salesman either

[I]n Beijing, she called on authorities in Beijing to continue buying US Treasuries, saying it would help jumpstart the flagging US economy and stimulate imports of Chinese goods.

"By continuing to support American Treasury instruments the Chinese are recognising our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together,"

China has bought more than $1 trillion in American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home - a shift that could pose some challenges to the U.S. government in the near future but eventually may even produce salutary effects on the world economy.

At first glance, the declining Chinese appetite for U.S. debt - apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the past two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days - comes at an inopportune time.

So, if the treasury wants to "inject capital" into banks and no money is coming in from bonds and the current account is roughly -568,800,000,000 where is the treasury getting the money it wants to do this injecting?

I suggest putting some money into ink and paper stocks as the printing presses should be starting any time now.

Protectionism: Welcome back!

2009-02-19T21:03:00.004-06:00

From the recently passed H.R.1:

BUY AMERICAN

Sec. 1605. Use of American Iron, Steel, and Manufactured Goods. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for a project for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron, steel, and manufactured goods used in the project are produced in the United States.

(b) Subsection (a) shall not apply in any case or category of cases in which the head of the Federal department or agency involved finds that

(1) applying subsection (a) would be inconsistent with the public interest;

(2) iron, steel, and the relevant manufactured goods are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities and of a satisfactory quality;

(3) inclusion of iron, steel, and manufactured goods produced in the United States will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent.

(c) If the head of a Federal department or agency determines that it is necessary to waive the application of subsection (a) based on a finding under subsection (b), the head of the department or agency shall publish in the Federal Register a detailed written justification as to why the provision is being waived.

(d) This section shall be applied in a manner consistent with United States obligations under international agreements.

Looks an awful lot like the Smoot-Hawley protectionist measures taken by Herbert Hoover in 1932.

Hold on to your butts folks!

Breaking Down Capitalism

2009-02-10T14:12:00.007-06:00

The idea of Capitalism to so many anarchists who are claimant to the title in the name of anti-capitalism seem to dismiss the idea of distributed wealth as exploitative without cause and in general attribute mercantilism and historical exploitation as parts of capitalism.

So I am going to try and break down capitalism step by step through a story and see where and if it falls apart. For the purposes of this I define capitalism as the dictionary and wikipedia do: An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and controlled. For the purposes of this story flemish inflation is compensated for through the market and not by a state monopoly.

A man named Joe lives in flatonia - a large landmass surrounded by the ocean on all sides. Joe was born on a farm that his father, his father before him and his father before him, one of the original settlers, planted and raised corn on. Joe always grows enough corn for his family with enough left over to take to the market and trade for other crops and goods. There are other men at the market who are selling fresh and frozen corn, but enough people like fresh corn that Joe does well enough to support his family.

At the market, everyone agrees to exchange their goods for a number of pieces of flemish (a rare and hard to find stone) that they all agree represents their goods. If they don't agree than they can find another good to trade or to try to simply barter. Sometimes Joe goes to the market and trades his corn in for flemishes but doesn't find anything that he wants to trade it for so he keeps it. Sometimes Joe doesn't have enough flemish for what he and his family wants so he saves his flemishes so that he can trade for it later. The demand for Joe's corn in the market with all of his competitors, makes it so that Joe will earn 10 flemishes per ear.

One day, when Joe is looking at a fine rifle for sale at the market which he cant afford, a man named Bob approaches Joe and asks if he wants to work at his factory that makes frozen corn. He tells Joe that in the same time that Joe harvests his corn and sells it on the market for 10 flemishes an ear he can shuck corn and package it for the man for 20 flemishes an ear. Joe thought about it and knowing that he will be better off, agreed to contract with Bob at 20 flemishes an ear. Joe works half of the time he did before and can spend the rest of his time growing another crop on his land if he wants and playing with his family.

This is a very simple example but I think this shows how a simple market transaction works. Now, let's expand the organization.

Bob has a good product and can sell each ear for 40 flemishes. He wants to now grow the company but right now cannot afford new land for crops or new factories. A group of people called the Cornys who have been saving their flemishes for some time decide that Bob has a good idea and want to help him grow the business. Bob decides that if he takes each part of what he owns outright and determines how many flemishes he could sell it all for, then he can divide that by a certain number and sell those parts to the corny's at whatever they will buy each at.

Bob determines that each piece of the frozen corn firm called a share is worth 200 flemishes. But if he only sells to corny, in order to grow the firm he would need to sell each piece for 300 flemishes. If Bob could find more buyers then he could sell each share at 200 flemishes.

Bob successfully finds new buyers and sells the pieces of the company to each person for 200 flemishes. Over the course of a few years more and more people want to buy shares of the frozen corn firm because every year Bob gives each holder of share an extra 500 flemishes (called a dividend) which comes from the difference in what consumers pay for frozen corn and the sum of costs of the firm to include what the workers will accept as payment. As a result the owners will not sell their pieces of the firm for less than 400 flemishes and the price of the share has increased based on the demand for shares (otherwise known as proportional ownership).

Years later, nobody will buy Bob's corn anymore and he can no longer give a yearly dividend. In this case, nobody will pay more for a share than the proportional liquidation value of Bob's goods and the price has dropped.

Joe, has been working hard in Bob's corn factory and has made a good life for himself. Bob has been working hard and has a fantastic life for himself. The owners of corny did not work at all and sold their shares to other people after the share price rose - and they are living the best of all.

Nowhere in this example was anyone coerced or forced to do anything they did not freely choose to do. There are however significant differences in the distribution of flemishes around this economy - that is because the persons with the lowest amount of risk - Joe - got the lowest relative gain, while the individuals with the highest amount of risk - cornys - got the highest relative gain.

This could be flipped also - if the firm had failed, the Cornys and Bob would have lost everything, while Joe would have lost only 10 flemishes an ear. The argument here by syndicalists would be that the size of the firm would have driven Joe's former business out of viability and that is unjust. That is just a fact of life however - one in which Joe reasonably knew.

The syndicalists who are anti-capitalist then are really singularly focused on ending uneven distribution of wealth rather than promoting liberty and freedom. They see the difference in prices and wages as unjust and exploitative simply because they do not adhere to a strict labor in = wages out model. People do not work like this. If I can improve my life by performing labor then it is not an imposition if the result of the labor gives another person wealth. This is what is called a Pareto improvement something syndicalists completely ignore.

By ignoring this simple concept and labeling it as exploitative, syndicalists and socialists violently oppose those seeking to "exploit" others who are willing to give a portion of their wage in exchange for a higher wage than what they currently have. This of course would prove the entire operation moot.

Great rebuttal

2009-02-09T17:19:00.005-06:00

I saw this on reddit today and thought it was one of the simpler rebuttals to the tired free markets failed argument:

When are you idiots on the right wing going to shut the fuck up? How many times does laissez faire economics have to fail before you SHUT THE F**K UP?!
You "free market" morons are the fucking problem.

You, kind sir, must be confused as to the defition of "Laissez faire." You apparently believe that this term means "heavily regulated mixed economy." However, it is actually a French term for "let do" which, in economic thinking, refers to the doctrine that government should refrain from interfering in the economic affairs of a given polity.

All one need do is point to the existence of the Fed (and note that central banking is part of the Marxian plank) in order to disprove the idea that we live in some sort of "laissez faire" paradise. One can then point to the seventy-three thousand pages of the federal register, the Departments of housing, transportation, healthcare, education, energy, mining, agriculture, labor, and commerce, the IRS, the FRB and FDIC, the FBIand CIA, the EPA, FDA, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FTC, FCC, FERC, FEMA, FAA, CAA, INS, OHSA, CPSC, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, NIH, and NASA, the Fed, FRB, and every other government program which regulates and/or steals money from private interests, not to mention the myriad laws/regulations imposed by state governments. Any one of these agencies directly disproves the thesis that we have a free market as each agency is directly designed to interfere in the economy in some way. Added all together, it is factually impossible to conclude anything other than the fact that we have a heavily-regulated mixed economy. In fact, we are far closer to an out-and-out totalitarian police state than we are to a laissez-faire economy.

As such, you are decrying the results of a heavily-regulated mixed economy, not of a lassiez-faire economy. Republicans are certainly responsible for much of our problems, but this is because - gasp! - Republicans don't actually follow through on their rhetoric, but instead run up gigantic defecits while expanding the welfare-warfare state and simultaneously cutting taxes, causing ignorant liberals to conclude that because someone's cutting taxes, they must automatically be pro-free market even if they aggressively intervene everywhere else in the economy.

So go right ahead and bitch about Republican economic policy, but please recognize that Republican economic policy in no way, shape or form represents laissez-faire. Know that you are clamoring for government intervention to fix the problems caused by previous government intervention, NOT to fix any problems that the free market was allegedly unable to handle.

Limits to Freedom

2009-01-28T21:51:00.003-06:00

Often I am confronted by people who say nearly this exact statement: I am all for freedom but not total freedom for people to do whatever they want.

I find that statement interesting.

Most people soon after asking them why not let anyone do anything they want cite murder. "I cant murder you right now" they say. To which my reply is - well what is stopping you?

Sadly the response is - because I would go to jail if I did. I guess people must not like me very much huh? But this response seems to imply that the only reason people do anything or rather do not do some things is for fear of the law rather than because it is good or bad. Talk about a pessimistic view - humans MUST be controlled or we will all be dead in weeks.

I do not know if you realize it or not, but someone can murder now and get away with it. This much is obvious with the fact that there are still murders out there which have not been solved. So apparently making things illegal fails to prevent them in total. It could be argued that the laws prevent some - and as a result are positive even if only one is prevented. Thus we fall inexorably down the subjective road of utilitarianism.

However another case could be made that the current punishment against murder falls short of pure justice and actually does very little to dis-incentivize it. Prison in the United States, is a guarantee of 3 hot meals a day a somewhat temperature controlled room and a host of other "luxuries" which people of some nations do not have - such as exercise rooms and television. If you live in a slum or other area such that you cannot ensure your own safety or paycheck and feel as many do that it is hopeless to get a job or an education - prison is a relatively benign threat.

People currently have the freedom to murder simply because the ability is there (not everyone is locked away in a cell) - why people do not is arguably because most understand that it is in their best interest not to or they object to murder all together.

This is why I hold that we cannot assume we think so differently than everyone else and that without rules, people will behave like animals - the ones who are going to behave like animals will do so regardless. Instead we should understand that limits on freedom do not create a better standard of living - one could argue that these rules give people a "warm fuzzy feeling" of security - but increasingly regulate our day to day lives such that we cannot be free to make decisions and as a result continue to make us increasingly unhappy and less virtuous.

Gold and Growth

2009-01-27T22:55:00.012-06:00

Often the argument comes up with economists that without a fiat currency, or rather, on a gold or commodity standard, the standard of living around the globe and our development would be severely hindered. I would tend to agree with this: artificial and unsustainable growth would be hindered and we would not see the major bubbles that we currently do - nor would we see severe corrections.

This argument however is made on the assumption that commodity discovery and in this specific case gold commodity growth is equal to or slower than the human growth rate.

Too bad that is not the case.

The best data I can find about gold growth puts gold supply growth at an average 6.1% between 1900 and 2007.

Looking even longer term based on other data you can see that the growth of gold stores and population growth have trended together:

*

If we look at population statistics the world population growth rate is right around 1.2%, giving an almost 5% spread between growth of commodity supply and growth of population over a hundred year period.

This basically proves that Gold has grown at a greater rate than the population in current times and based on that one could not reasonably make the claim that growth would be hindered to such an extent that would be unreasonable. It certainly would be slower however - and for the better.

Had the world not devised the artificial fiat currency (and the resultant fractional reserve banks) and created booms and busts, our gold reserves would allow us to grow as a population as well as grow our capital markets. It is even possible that if a fiat currency had never been devised, gold discovery rates may have been significantly higher and allowed us to grow at a faster rate than 6%.

*
The graph does not account population growing logistically or exponentially only in percentage terms. If the case is that gold growth is linear and population growth is logistic or exponential then there may indeed be a case in which gold alone is not possible to use as a base currency, however silver and platinum are both more difficult to find than it is to make paper and as such would be good alternatives or additions to commodity money.

Libertarian Question 2: Consent of the governed

2009-01-27T19:31:00.006-06:00

The first question I addressed asked - If you don't like the way things are done here then why don't you just move?

Often times the answer is followed up with the following response:

2. You implicitly consent to the social contract by not leaving.

So when do I sign this implicit contract? When I go to college? How about on my 18th birthday? Maybe it's when I can drive legally? At what age does a person give their consent to be governed? What age is appropriate to say you are old enough to stand on your own and choose if you want to stay or not? Since we cannot all agree on the same age of consent it seems silly to try and give a single age.

I mean just look at the wide variety of ages of consent, popularly thought to be the age of adulthood and reason: http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

Let's go even further though.

Many times the issue of social contract is brought up in this case and is generally done so without understanding it. Most people incorrectly mean it to mean the "law of the land." However there are a few definitions that have been proposed:

Hobbes
Rousseau
Proudhon
Rawls

So which one is meant? Is it the law of the land or one of the classical definitions?

In the case of the latter I tend to fall into the category of Proudhon because his definition does the best to promote individual liberty and limit the arbitrary nature of any of the other definitions - each inevitably lead to rule of the mass, or rather whatever the prevailing social notions are.

So let's recap: We as the human race cannot agree on when someone is an adult. We as a country also cannot agree on when someone is an adult. The definition of a social contract is not clear.

So then how can one make the argument that you make an agreement with the state or society at large then?

Well they simply say: Your parents made the agreement for you.

I think the fallacy of that is clear enough but if it is not then let me explain: It is not only a violation of the intent of all contract law ever proposed but also violates the entire idea of individual sovereignty. Agreeing to a perpetual contract for a third party without their consent is by definition invalid in even the broadest terms.

Criticisms/Questions of Libertarians/Anarchists and Question 1

2009-01-27T17:27:00.006-06:00

As a service to myself and all others in the Libertarian/Anarchist community I felt that it was appropriate to address some of the biggest criticisms and questions that people have with a non-state theory.

I have found that many of the answers to most criticisms are either not complete or not particularly well formed. So I will take my stab at them and let others critique as they may. That said, each critique stems from my basic building blocks I laid out in my personal philosophy. As such you may not understand where I am coming from without reading that first.

Off to the races:

1. If you don't like the way things are done here then why don't you just move?

First: This comment presupposes that the jurisdiction of the government over the land in which you should "just leave" was rightfully acquired. The common response to that argument is: "Remember the Louisiana PURCHASE? We also purchased Alaska, Oregon etc..." If the land was justly purchased from a large voluntary group of homesteaders, then each tax payer in the 1800's would have a right to a portion of the land, however we know that the land was not acquired this way and tax payers did not get a land share. Since of course the land was not justly acquired, the love it or leave it view accurately describes serfdom.

I often find refutation of that point in the form of: "Since we elect our government, it is not the same as serfdom." However the last time I voted I don't remember there being a none of the above option. The precise reason that we cannot opt-out voluntarily makes this point invalid, all you really get to do is choose your new kings - local and federal.

Second: this attitude shifts the responsibility of action onto the victim (individuals) and away from the aggressor (the state), which is a wholly unreasonable point. The argument goes like this: Because you are not acting to resist, then you are complicit.

Is the woman being raped consenting if she does not fight back?

I know that is an extreme example but it points out that, often the results from resistance are worse in the short term than submitting to the coercion. That is the case now in the U.S. We don't resist because our life is pretty comfortable and we have most of the the things we need and want. If we start fighting back we face arrest, jail time and costly litigation as well as humiliation and scorn. Having nice things however is not what our aims are. If they are yours then I would challenge you to revisit your philosophy.

Finally: this attitude does not support in the least the idea of freedom. It only supports the idea that there is a better way to be less than free. It is an impossibility to hold pure freedom and this position at the same time.

Personal Philosophy

2009-01-26T18:34:00.002-06:00

I have been working on my basic philosophy well, my whole life. Only in the last few months however have I tried to put it into some kind of form. I think that every decision people make is based on one basic tenet that builds in one way or another around it. Called a building block approach, I find this translates to everything in life. So based on the building block approach, here is my philosophy.

The first premise is that no person outside of ones self can direct the actions of the body - in that, only you or I can physically will the movement and actions of our bodies. I call that self-ownership, others call it self-sovereignty. (This seems to be indisputable but I could be missing something)

Second. Rational capacity, working in concert with self-ownership to produce goods for self-sustainment, is what separates man from all other acting beings. This is the virtue of man. (This is one point in which many may argue the degrees of rationale between species - however I know of only one being which plants crops)

Third, in order to have virtuous production, man must have the freedom to act.

Fourth. Based on the principal of self ownership which physically makes man, the reason which makes him virtuous man and freedom which allows him to act as a man, all men are endowed with negative natural rights of life and liberty.

Fifth. These inalienable natural rights inevitably create a individualist social contract with all other individuals having self ownership, reason, and freedom. This contract could also be deemed the non-aggression principal. It requires no action but the lack of desire to negate another individuals natural rights.

Sixth. Any violation of the individualist social contract by any party creates a deficit in one of the preconditions of an individuals natural rights. The proportional remedy of the deficit is thus called Justice.

That is my philosophy in as clear of terms as I can make it.

Volume Trading

2006-07-27T01:40:00.001-05:00

I have never picked a stock that has not risen at least 5% over what I bought it for within 6 months. That doesnt mean anything however because I was trading in such low volume and with stocks that were out of my price range ($25-$50) that I couldnt even cover my trade commissions.

People who write investment books and financial guides are quick to tell you about how to choose the right companies. Everything from what their management is like to financials about P/E and outsanding shares. What they forget to tell you is that regardless of the companies financials and management, unless you have bought enough of a company's stock, it doesnt matter if it goes up one dollar or 10, you still may not cover your commission costs.

For example if I buy 10 shares of BRNDX at 25.56 and it goes up a not insignificant two dollars to 27.56, once I subtract commissions I could be anywhere from 6 dollars up (not a big gain) to dead even. However If I buy 2000 shares of BRNDY at .12 and it goes to .14 (a much more reasonable two cent change) I will have made between 20 and 25 dollars. Both had the same investment but each the yield was drastically different for the change in price.

The opposite is also true however, a small drop can mean big changes in overall portfolio with high volume low price trading.

Here is the key: If you are a high risk speculator who is in the market for fun, but dont have a lot of money (Im talking $500-$1000) then high volume low price trading may be for you.

Until the day that I can buy 5000 - 10000 shares of a $20.00+ stock, I will stick to the low price game.

Obviously the same rules apply as with all security analysis, research is vital.

Question Yourself

2006-07-17T02:44:00.001-05:00

One of the most important things I have ever done in my life is to devise a way to determine how I will be happy starting from this point on. Here's how it goes: Regardless of what happened yesterday or the day before, I am starting right now and I am going to determine how I will make myself happy.

Every person of course has their own definition of happiness. To find yours, simply ask yourself this question: If I could do absolutely anything I wanted to do right now or in the future, regardless of cost or logistics, what would it be? For me it is future flexibility, being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. Perhaps your goal is as small as wanting to eat the perfect steak or as large as being the President of the United States. Each persons answer is different and each answer is right.

Now that you know what you want, here comes question two: how are you going to get it?

Getting steaks is easy, its not as easy to be the President. The goal here however is not to find a final answer, it is to keep questioning yourself and finding out what is next, whether small or large.

Introductions

2006-07-17T01:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I figured it was time to get with the times and set up my own personal weblog. Mark Cuban has one and since I would like to achieve such a status (hence the blog title) it couldnt hurt to have a place to present my ideas. So here I am. I figure this will be a good way to hash out ideas I have, practice my writing and keep those I know in touch with what I am doing.