VOTE FOR YOURSELF

               Oh, which presidential candidate is the best one to vote for in order to make the economy stronger?  Obama needs four more years in order for the implemented policies and regulation to take effect.  Romney will fix the economy with tax cuts for this group and subsidies for that group.  It’s like they are playing Whack-a-mole with fiscal policies without dealing with the source of the problem.  The reality is, no matter what candidate wins the Presidency and no matter what majority is in the House and Senate; there is no political solution to repair the damage that has been done to the economy and our currency.  The inflated currency will inevitably collapse and the economy will crash.

               We all know about the $16 trillion debt, and people have been worried about the increasing debt for generations.  The difference between the debt of the past and now is the magnitude at which it has grown and the exponential debt of unfunded liabilities that have been promised by politicians.  The unfunded liabilities that we must pay for just passed $120 trillion and increasing.  These are programs like Social Security and Medicare etc.  The “affordable” healthcare act will eventually be added to this category.  These are actuarially unsound.  Just that alone is a debt of over $1 million per taxpayer and you will not get a net benefit out of these programs compared to the amount that you are forced to pay into them.  Then you can add another $140 thousand per taxpayer for the national debt.  We have never seen debt numbers of this magnitude before (adjusting for inflation and GDP).  Our debt to GDP ratio just passed the 100% mark.  Our landlord China has a debt to GDP ratio around only 11%. How do you tell your child that he or she has been born into indentured servitude with a price of over $50,000? Remember, these are the debt numbers that the U.S. Treasury and Congressional budget office are telling us.  Just think of how the numbers would look if we added in all the backroom, off the books deals made that we will never know about.

               When the Federal Reserve was created 100 years ago, it started a forced monopoly on the money supply.  Ever since then the value of the currency has decreased by 98%.  The value of that currency that has been taken from the private citizens has flowed to the elite political ruling class that has connections to the government.  The money supply has recently been inflated beyond any proportion ever imagined before.  When that happens, interest rates must naturally go up, but the Fed also has kept rates artificially low so it makes the economy look better than it really is.  This can’t last for much longer.  As America’s credit rating gets worse, we will no longer be able to borrow from China, and the interest rate on borrowed money will increase.

               I’m not sure when the currency “bubble” will pop, but depending on how much more the government tries to “fix” the economy, I would guess it will be most likely within 15 years, but if there are some creative inventions that make our economy more efficient like what we have seen in the past (computers, internet, etc.) it could help delay the inevitable.

                If the currency collapses under a second term with Obama, you can bet that it will be blamed on “the free market” (as if there actually is one).  Big corporations will also be blamed for it.  In a previous article, “Stop Fixing Everything”, I pointed out that corporations are a product of big government.  Corporations wouldn’t exist in a free market.  The big “fat cats” on Wall Street will also be blamed for it.  In a completely free market the stock market would play a much smaller role in the big picture of the economy.  The reason why Wall Street firms are so big and corrupt is because they obtain leverage by being politically connected, and the politicians favor those that pander to them. So after the “dominoes” fall, you can bet there will be even more extreme regulation and intervention in the economy than before, all in the name of “saving” it.  Obama will try to convince you that a few elite intellectuals know how to control a market better than the sum total of all individuals making mutually beneficial transactions with each other.  In other words, they know how you should live your life more than you do.

               I’m not sure what will trigger the house of cards to fall.  Maybe it will be Greece going bankrupt, then that affects Germany, thus collapsing the Euro.  Maybe it will be a smaller trigger like the college tuition “bubble” popping.  No matter what events that happen that will trigger our currency to collapse; you can be sure the news media won’t see it coming.  This will be a major setback for China, but they will be the first to bounce back and be the economic superpower of the world.

               The one political solution that needs to be done can’t be done.  For example, let’s say (hypothetically) that someone like Ron Paul became President, and there were a bunch of “Ron Pauls’” in the House and Senate, and they got rid of all the actuarially unsound and wasteful government programs.  They would need to eliminate the Dept. of Defense, and the Dept. of Education, Social Security etc., and all the special interest groups and lobbyists. Then let’s say they abolish the 16^th amendment so the Feds can no longer steal your money.  They would also have to eliminate the Federal Reserve because if the Federal Government isn’t getting your tax dollars, they can just print the money and it’s just the same as if they taxed you.  You get the idea, they would just about abolish the past 100 years of economic programs.  Sure, that would save the economy, but there would be protesting, and riots in the streets.  It would be absolute chaos because so many people have become dependent upon the government.  We all are forced to become dependent upon the redistribution of the government to some degree.  The news media would say; “Oh you see, this libertarian freedom stuff just leads to riots and chaos.”  “The population needs to be managed by the state.” So what needs to be done can’t be done.  There is no political solution.

               I can hear you all now saying… “But Jeremy, we need some of these programs in order to contribute to the greater good.”  “Don’t you care about helping the poor, and the old folks, and the disabled, and educating children?”  “What about the military, roads and bridges, and how will we handle criminals?”  “Who is going to lead us?”  I do care about all of these things, and most others do to.  I also know that we need rule of law based upon two commonly moral principles that I’m sure we can all agree upon. 

1. No individual or group may violate the private property of another individual. 

2. No individual or group may initiate the use of force or aggression against another individual or group.

                 I would just prefer to enforce universal moral principles without violating universal moral principles; otherwise we would be contradicting ourselves. We must realize that government has been “providing” things by use of forced association.  You always end up with better results with voluntary association rather than a forced monopoly.  It’s like some of us keep thinking that if the government doesn’t provide things like, welfare to the poor, and elderly, or helpless, or education, marriage contracts, roads, railroads, electricity, water, currency, and everything else, then these things can’t be provided.  The reality is that the government never started any of these things; they just took it over and transformed it into a forced monopoly.  This always leads to high cost and low quality results.  More importantly it is a violation of your natural property rights.

               So how will things be provided without the state?  Just the way we would want them to.  We would just organize willfully without being strong-armed into contributing to things that have high cost, low quality results.  We would still have rules and structure.  Just think of all the autonomous interactions we make cooperatively with others in our personal lives with no direct state intervention.  Think of all the restaurants in NY City that bring in fresh food from all around the world every day.  There is no central planning involved in this orchestra of transactions, and things work out just fine.  Maybe it would be better if we stop using central planning for education, welfare, and all that other stuff too.

               This idea of being governed by an anointed group of people has been around for a few thousand years now.  So I can understand how just the thought of having a voluntary society is sort of like Neo trying to figure out what the Matrix is. Maybe we should realize that any form of government always ends in tyranny (even when you start with a limited constitutional republic). 

               Slavery has been around since the beginning of society in all countries around the world.  I bet that around 200 years ago when people were talking about and writing about ending slavery, whether it was about Malays enslaving Malays, or North Africans enslaving Southern Europeans, or European Americans enslaving Africans, they realized that slavery is universally immoral and morality trumps everything else.  There were many back then that realized this but they were fearful of the unknown, after all there had never been a society in the history of mankind without slavery.  Some said. “How will crops get harvested?” “Our economy might collapse.”  “How are freed slaves going live on their own?” Now days we realize that if there is slavery in an economy, you end up with higher cost and lower quality results than you do under free enterprise.  No rational person would own a slave these days whether it’s the law or not. Perhaps many generations into the distant future, people will also realize that when there is government in society, you end up with higher cost and lower quality results, along with being immoral, compared to a completely voluntary society.

“I freed a thousand slaves, and I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” –Harriet Tubman (former freed slave and antislavery activist from the Underground Railroad)

                 I’m not advocating any overthrow of government or anything like that.  I’m just throwing the idea out there that maybe there is a more virtuous way for a society to operate.  If what we have today is the result of thousands of years of fine tuning a way to organize society, maybe the structure that it’s based on is the problem. 

                The Democrat Party claims to advocate personal and social freedom, while the Republican Party claims to advocate economic freedom.  The reality is; when it’s a Democrat majority you lose economic freedom, and personal freedom stays about the same.  When it’s a Republican majority you lose personal and social freedom and economic freedom stays about the same.  Either way, the monster of government control grows bigger with every term.  The elite political ruling class always wins at the expense of the governed.  So forgive me if I choose not to participate in the voting process as I favor my principles over political strategy.  Vote for whatever candidate you want.  You are screwed either way.

                I’m sorry if I ruined your day with the bad news of the economy.  Even though we have all grown up in a world of complete insanity, don’t let it get you down.  Whatever you do in life, do your best every day.  Just keep having fun with everyone you associate with, and keep helping and caring for others however you can.