Thursday, April 22, 2010

Refuting Keynes with Hyperbole, and the Economy

This is my first double post, so I hope I make it worth your while.

For those that have read either Keynes or Bastiat, you ought to have heard ot the Broken Window Fallacy, either through its actual use or refutation. I would like to take that fallacy to an extreme, that the Keynesian theory of economics would say that crime, just like war, supports the economy.

The fallacy of the Broken Window involves the idea that a boy breaking a window results in a window maker making money, therefore the economy is stimulated by a petty crime. Keynes actually admits that war stimulates economy, because government spending stimulates the economy through its spending. If war stimulates the economy, and petty crimes stimulates the economy, then surely murder, theft, robbery, arson, and assault stimulate the economy in the eyes of Keynes.

For all violent crime, the private prisons would get paid more for those who are imprisoned there, thus allowing the prisons to buy more food and other supplies and equipment. For theft and robbery, the victim would have to pay more money to replace that which was stolen, which means that more of that particular good is bought than would otherwise occur. For arson, the property owner would have to pay for another building and all of the property inside, thus causing more money to also be borrowed from the financial system, thus increasing velocity of the monetary policy of the current administration. For assault, the hospital would get more money for treating the injured victim of assault or even battery. All of these crimes boost agregate demand.

This vision of crime is clearly perverse, because it would mean that criminals in general are justified in their crimes, if the goal government at that time is to stimulate the economy. Anyone who find that Keynesianism is correct, they ought to look at more than just the mathematical nature of Keynes's general theory, because the economy is not lead by machines. I will admit that Keynesianism does not treat humans as machines; Keynesiansim treats humans like herbivores of the field and of the forest: the Bear and the Bull.

There ought be no reason to justify war, digging ditches, public works, and breaking windows just to stimulate the economy. While no politician would run on advocating crime and war to stimulate the economy, it is nonetheless necessary to look to the extremities, as it is the extremities of every entity where you see the absurdity or profundity of the particular theory or entity.

Often, when I argue with my older brother, he gets mad at me for using extreme examples in an attempt to refute his points. I will admit that hyperbole is sometimes wasteful, but it is dangerous to posit infrequently what the extremes of a particular viewpoint. For instance, socialism ambiguously offers equality for all, but it fails to mention that when taken to its extremes, socialism results in moral stupidity, as is seen in Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. The reason for this is that if no one has a reason to compete, then the reason to excel in anything whatsoever is pointless. However, if religion is allowed, then Salvation is a possible motivation for moral intelligence, but the majority will avoid such out of a desire for equality or instant gratification as Socialism prefers for the people.

Hyperbole is a mental exercise that helps one to look at the principles of a particualr idea with remarkable clarity, and sometimes disgust. Further, if we did not use byperbole in combat, that is, if we did not look at extremities during combat, then we would fail to notice that very existence of our enemy's hands and therefore his armaments. We would see the enemiy's armor, his facial expression, and his stance, but our puritanical deisre to not watch his extremities would result in us never see the rusty machete slash our shoulder.

Keynes is merely a good example of a popularly held view of economics, which seems to be have a sociopathic view of government, war, and crime. I realize that to tear down one economic theory, you must have something better to replace it with. So far, I can only point out that everything that Keynes suggests to do when a bust occurs is in fact mal-investment, which lead to the bust through a binge in the first place. Why is the economy so bad toady? It is due to the mal-investment of mortgagors, home buyers, speculators (a.k.a. full-time investors), and government spending in general. To solve such a situation, interest rates must become fixed for a decade at least, government spending must be limited to military spending, public salaries, and other miscellaneous obligations, like welfare checks. The reason it is acceptable to maintain the current obligation-spending, is due to the fact that when the economy rebounds due to a fixed interest rate from the Fed and static taxation levels. Yes, if Congress spends no more than they had promised to up until today, then the increase in tax revenue could eventually pay back the total Federal debt. More government spending is mal-investment and is therefore depressionary.

I cannot see government spending decreasing anytime within the next two decades, so I see America experiencing another Great Depression. There need not be WW3, though that is still in the cards with Iran, North Korea, China, India, and Russia all very ablt to wage war at a moments notice if America or Israel invade Iran. Any nation, that is watching America as she has been invading various nations around the world, must be wondering who is the next nation to be liberated from its tyrannical government. Mexico, Cuba, China, Russia, Britain, France, Libya, Spain, Canada, Iran, North Korea, Italy, Germany, Saudi Arabia, most nations in South America and Africa; all of these nations and more are either already qualified or are becoming qualified to be liberated from each their government. I am not suggesting that America will invade any of these nations, but nations must be wonder who is next if they think that America is somehow an empire.

I would love to see a movement in poitics that makes the Democrats impossible to elect outside of the largest and oldest of cities. If Republicans get it into their heads that Democrat light makes them lose their seats in Congress, then maybe, just maybe, our nation can avoid catastrophe. I realize that the word catastrophe has been used frequently in response to the situation of the American economy, but realize that the US $ is looking like a ticking pipe-bomb to foreign investors and that commodities are doing very well compared to most stocks aside from the big technology giants, like Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe.

If I am wrong, then you only lost a couple of minutes to read my thoughts on the economy. If I am right, and you do nothing to prepare, then you might just find yourself at best in line for a soup kitchen, and at worst fighting local gangs, Federal troops, UN troops, or even your neighbors, for everything you hold dear, and maybe your Liberty too.

I must emphasize that if you are not willing to proclaim, "give me Liberty or give me Death", to all of your friends and family, then you are not yet prepared to survive anything that might come your way, whether that be unemployment, violent gangs, or some Federal agent looking to take anything you can use to fight them with.

Give me Liberty or Give me Death!
Joe, a Texan

My official thoughts on Conservatism in action

I had mentioned this to someone once, but I did not seem to have it laid out well enough for that individual to understand my idea properly. I think I may have found some evidence, or at least a supporting opinion. My idea is that conservatives in the Republican party prefer to drive a stake into the political ground, and pull as hard as possible. Meanwhile, the Democrats and RINOs cast a grapel onto the tree of statism, far to the left of the political spectrum. Since all of these individuals are in Congress, they all pull from the same location; this results in conservatives having to try to remain upright while the statists pull them over. It turns out that conservatives and die-hard Republicans take offense to this idea, or at least the individual to whom I posited this idea.

I did come upon this idea indipendently about a half-moth ago. Strangely enough, F.A. Hayek wrote a book which dedicates some number of pages to my very idea, which I guess is not my own idea after all. Here is a short book review of F.A. Hayek's book, The Constitution of Liberty: "Hayek defends classical liberalism, which he distinguishes from European-style “conservatism.” Europe’s political rivalry was between Socialistic centralizers and “conservatives” who resist change, but are gradually pulled in the Socialistic direction. Europe’s classical liberals, by contrast, sought change in the direction of liberty. “There is nothing corresponding to this conflict in the history of the United States,” wrote Hayek, “because what in Europe was called ‘liberalism’ was here the common tradition on which the American polity had been built, thus the defender of American tradition was a liberal in the European sense.” Critics might argue that in recent years the Republican Party has become “conservative” in the Hayekian sense, being incrementally dragged toward socialism by U.S.-style “liberals.”"

That review came from here: . There are quite a few books that did not make it on the list, but those that did are deservedly present.

Getting back to Hayek's and my idea, I would also like to point out that my analogy is about the only thing unique to my idea, as far as I know.

I do find it interesting how offensive conservatives find an accusations, or at least those on radio. I don't know why, but when a liberal or a libertarian calls a main-stream conservative talk-show, they host uses, for about half-a paragraph, soft ad hominem attacks based on the assumption that the caller is a left-winger of the sort that adore Nancy "Schmancy" Pelosi. After that short tyrade, the host will then go on to explain the conservative message, as it is called, and then the caller might hang up or continue to talk until a commercial break. I do not mean to disparage such talk-show hosts in general, rather I wish to point out the use of fallacy in argument against anyone showing partial deviation from conservatism. That in no way means that the talk-show hosts would foment violence, that is the sole tactic of big-government advocates.

It is because of the desire to retain the border-line status-quo of legislation that makes me not want to accept the title of conservative. I would gladly accept any one of the titles of Libertarian, Republican, republican, Tea-Partier, tax-protester, Catholic, or even survivalist. I would gladly choose between the Libertarian or Republican party, advocate republican government, participate in a tea-party rally, and protest increasing taxes. I am a a cradle-Catholic, so I already have that. However, the survivalist title would brand me as a Glenn Beck supporter, becuase, for some reason, all Republicans who advocate for having a month worth of extra food means that I listen to Glenn Beck via his Insider whatchamacallit. I do occasionally listen to this radio show through my car radio, but mostly because he and his comrades with mics are hilarious. Glenn Beck is much easier to on the ears than Hannity or Levin, but that is only because Beck relies very much so on humor.

I have nothing against conservatives, as they are the only leading political coalition that actually oppose Democrats. I am not, however, very thrilled with the Republican party, because it fails regularly to follows their principles as laid out on their website. That being said, state Republicans tend to do a much better job than their national counter-parts.

To connect my idea with national politics lately, lets look at just this last decade. First, the Republicans rightful allowed the Clinton ban on semi-automatic firearms to sunset. Second, the Republicans lead the charge against that pervert Iraqi tyrant, So damn Insane. Third, the Republicans decreased taxes significantly at a national level. Fourth, Bush kicked some serious arse in Iraq and Afghanistan, replacing their governments with legitimate government, similar in structure to American government. These are the good things that the Repbulicans did.

The Republicans, however, di not do so well in other areas, as is evidenced by the fact that a swath of Republicans were replaced by Democrats midway through Bush's last term as President. The Republicans actually legalized warrant-less wiretapping for the FBI and CIA, a heinous offense against the 4th Amendment and 5th Amendment to the US Constitution. The Republicans started our current string of bail outs by passing the TARP bill, which is being spent on new pork-barreling, and which allowed a section of our economy to not have to act responsibly until Obama entered office. The Republicans did nothing to actually scale back the size of government, particularly by eliminating the IRS, DoE, and the EPA. Those three agencies ought to have been eliminated from existence as soon as the majority switched in favor of conservatives. Lastly, the Republicans expanded the welfare state, by expanding Medicare, to I believe it is called Medicare part D.

Don't get me wrong, I would much rather have Republicans in the majority, because when Democrats get in office Ruby Ridge and Waco incident happen. Further, I would have no sympathy for Democrats that lose their job as Congressman, come these next few elections.

I must stress that is was not necessarily the fault of Republicans in Congress that Obam was elected. Rather, it was the fault of Republicans at the national level choosing McCain over Thompson and Huckabee. Palin was a good move, but a better move would have been to switch them making Palin President and McCain Vice-president, thoguh that might not have worked at any rate due to Liberal TV news.

I hope I offended someone with the above, because, otherwise, I would just be preaching to the quire.

I hope you burned some plastic or otherwise polluted the environment for Earth Day, because we ahve to make up for Dallas ISD using hybrid buses instead of natural gas buses.

Have a good weekend and don't do bet on anything predicted, you might win,
Joe from Texas

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Bullroaring for Communication and Dundee knife

First, I will talk about Bullroaring and my path to it. Second, I will talk about my interest in knives, particularly in bowie knives, like the kind that Dundee presents when he say, "Now that's a knife."

1:
Lately, I have been looking into how I might communicate with someone beyond speaking distance without using electronic devices, or at least without using a device that requires the same device on the other end to receive and interpret the communicated information.

Before that I had looked into small Ham radios through which you would use Morse code only to send information, but the radio, license, and antenna were complicated, difficult, and bulky. Don't get me wrong, I think Ham radio is a good hobby to get into, but I am not the kind of person to get into it, unless someone were to give me a radio and antenna for free.

Next I looked into using LEDs to encode information, but taht did not pique my interest seriously enough for whatever reason. The only thing that had piqued my interest at that point was a means of encoding based on trinary with a fourth value for confusion. I would have the operator always switch between four styles of encoding, all based on trinary with a fourth digit for confusion of the enemy.

Next I looked at simply using the sun to reflect light directly at the target audience, but the amount of equipment to make such a dedicated means of communication that I dropped it altogether, only leaving me to carry a small mirror in my bag for those SOS signals to aircraft and boats.

Now that I had avoided both electronic and visual means of communication, I turned to auditory communication. This means would make auditory possible at greater distances than my voice is capable of. I would use what is commonly called a bullroarer. For those archaeology buffs, might recall the bullroarers were at the very least used for ceremony, having much bizarre usage in mystery cults, as well as tribal initiation for youths to become men. Bullroarers were seen as magical, and some researchers believe that that may be due to the very low frequency produced by the usage of a bullroarer.

Disregarding superstitious and cultural use of bullroarers, I reall watching Crododile Dundee using a bullroarer to "make a telephone call," to "get some help," from any nearby Aborigines. Such communication would only be practical in a society that has no common source of electricity, which is why bullroarers are no longer used for communication. That makes bullroarers even better for me, since I could teach all of my friends how to interpret particular patterns for bullroaring, as I now call it, and they could know what is being communicated.

Anyways, the three simplest codons, or letters, that you can make with a bullroarer are lasting, loud, and violent. Lasting is the lowest tone and slowest speed that is audible, Loud is the nest fastest and the middle tone, and violent is anything above and louder than loud. Violent is the easiest to distinguish from the rest, and it is also the most tiring.

You would be surprised how many days my right arm was soar after just thirty minutes of randomly bullroaring. I have been playing around with my bullroarer for the last week or so, and so far the easiest place to practice is on the roof of my house, specifically where the roof meets at about a 60 degree angle.

Bullroarers are easy to make, though the best ones are those that are made like primitive peoples made: oval-shaped or eye-shaped flat pieces of wood. Then you tie a string to one end, give the plank a spin, and spin the wood around in a circle, like a bucket on the end of string. The spinning of the wood is what causes the low pitched sound, and the faster you twirl the contraption, the higher the tone you get.

I have come up with a simple means of writing the three codons I mentioned above: - lasting, | loud, + violent. That is simple trinary, so if you only use three codons per message, then you can make a total of 27 messages, or even the entire English alphabet. Four codons triples that, so I might stick with three for now.

So far I have:

Calling the wind: | - + (the source of the three codons, which is obviously a spell of some sort, which you repeat many times)
Help: + - + (like SOS = shortest longest shortest)
I, me: | - +
Need: - | +
Have: + | -
Come: - | |
Leave: + - -

To communicate, "Come to me, I need help", you would sound out, - | |__| - +__- | +__+ - +. That literally translates to "Come [to] me, [I] need help". Repeating "I" would be pointless, and the __ means a gap to separate each word.

Because of the nature of Google, I am not going to put more than this here, though if you want it, I would gladly print off what I do develop when I am done. One more thing, to make sure that no one heard a whirling of a bullroarer mid message, I wait at least 15 seconds between each set of three codons.

2:
Along with the Dundee interest, I have found that the way Mick carries his knife to be quite convenient. Since I live in Texas, I can legally carry a fixed blade knife in public as long as the blade is less than 5.5" long. I have a Ka-Bar short version, which has a 5.25" blade, and so I get my with that, for now. If I lived IN Alaska or Montana, I would carry something like Dundee carries.

Anyways, I like the blade that Dundee has, for several reason. First, the blade is shiny, making presentation to muggers very obvious. Second, the blade is about 11" long, making its presence most intimidating, plus I could say that it is a real knife. Third, the blade is an excellent weapon; the knife is a bowie knife, the carrying of which is illegal in most states in America, which sadly shows the long-lasting scars of the Civil War.

If I had a ranch, then I would spend a wad of cash on a fancy diagonal, tip up, bottom of the back, sheath and a bowie knife similar in size and features to Dundee's knife. That would be an excellent Christmas or birthday present, by the way. I will keep an eye ought for such a knife next time I go to a gun and knife show.


That is all for now, I hope you enjoy what I have said, and I hope you enjoy life at least a little bit more,
Joe