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20170529

Government Incentives

"The government should..." is generally the opening of a bad idea. This post I'm going to take apart government incentives.

Lets start with the first time buyers grant 5% rebate on a home up to €500,000 that's €25,000. Sounds great right? Well no, the market reacts to the available funds of the buyer, lenders were happy to give 5% extra and sellers rose the price to the available funds of the buyers. Which is why we've seen an increase on first time buyers homes by 5%, that brings first time buyers back to square 1 and not able to afford houses.

Lets look at the limitations on rent, landlords cannot raise rents by more than 4% from January of this year. Which saw a drastic increase in rent before January. Furthermore it petty much guarantees rents will increase by 4% per annum, in 12 years rents will have doubled. Given wages increase by 2% per annum and people are already paying over half there wages we could reach a critical mass for wages to rent within 20 years. I'm theory the market should stabilise before that critical mass hits, in theory landlords won't let it get to that point as they'll end up in a position with no one to rent to. Unless another government incentive kicks in.

Essentially what we see with any state incentive to relieve the market only works for a short period until the market increases to take advantage of the extra available funds of the consumer. The rules of supply and demand lead to the funds of the consumer dictating the price a product will be sold for, essentially no vendor will price themselves to a point of no sale. This has to be taken in balance with how essential the product is.

Now lets throw on the conspiracy hat. A number of politicians are property owners. If they're in a position to regulate their market upward then they likely will. Even worse they're doing it with tax payers money. This is even further reason government has no place in the marketplace.

20170514

Take Responsibility for Yourself Dammit

I've always been labelled as having a problem with authority, which I don't in the right circumstances I respect authority like in a work circumstance I'll talk to people who know things better than I do as they're a subject matter authority or when work is assigned to me fairly by an authority, I'll accept those. What I have a problem with its nonconcentual authority. We're born into a social contract that we never agreed too, expected to take direction from leaders we likely didn't and don't support while expected to be grateful of poor services in education or health care. All while a large percentage of our income gets stolen to enforce a laws and projects we don't support. When a junkie robs your money for their heroin addiction that's wrong, when a government steals your money for a power addiction that's taxes.

Why do this to ourselves? Because some people lack responsibility. If someone else is running things and it goes wrong it's not there fault they have a gummerment to blame for things going wrong. This is about as emotionally immature as thinking all things are part of God's plan. At least Moses put the effort of putting his stupid ideas on stone, says someone ranting with permanence of one's and zeros but bear with my hypocrisy as I'm trying to tell you to live your life your way without interference. Live with 1 rule, do nothing to interfere with the freedom and liberty of another individual and help support the liberty of others when they make it clear they need it. Let the natural laws take care of the rest. Want to fight gravity? Enjoy falling on your face, want to use an addictive substance without self control? Enjoy your show painful death. Want my property or product of my labor without my consent? Enjoy a bullet to the face.

Won't somebody please think of the outlaws?!
In the early days of the new world countries, primarily the Americas in this example people were allowed to be outlaws. Outlaws aren't necessarily criminals they lived outside the law. This was a double edged sword, a person wasn't expected to follow the law but didn't live with its protection. The universe may make us different but Samuel Colt made us equal. If an outlaw was to commit crime in an area under the law, they would be brought back to that area to face that areas perception of justice. Now we have nowhere to go, we're forced to live someone else's life. This is something our society has lost. Now people who disagree with the law are labelled degenerates, criminals and scum. With the state justifying violence and property damaged against non-violent offenders of laws they don't consent to in the name of a society they don't want to be members of. In a democracy a win of 1% means 49% of people are forced in to something they don't want. Making those peoples wants and needs irrelevant, therefore making those people irrelevant.

What's the answer?
Most of us can't afford a private island and if we could it probably doesn't have the resources we need, if it did the nations we could trade with, would impose a hefty import duty for demonstrating the pointlessness of statism. The other option is sudden revolution but revolutions tend to do just that revolve. That leaves us with progressive change, 1 mind at a time. Educate yourself, your friends and family in libertarianism and anarchism, the former is merely a stepping stone to the latter and is not a place we can let ourselves to get stuck. I warn you now it's an up hill struggle, in talking politics to a socialist and telling them I'm between anarchism and libertarianism they threatened to punch my face in for being a fascist who wants to see the world burn. Clearly they were low on the IQ scale but anarchism does pose a serious threat to socialists, as it is a political system the limits the rights of people in the name of the people, through committee and other government mechanism. Given my above observations socialists can be seen to be people who want a gummerment to blame and deem themselves to have the right to seize property and the fruits of people's labour.
In conclusion if you truly want to be free pick up some Ludwig Von Mises, Hans Hermann Hoppe and Howard Zimm. Think for yourself and question everything.

20170510

A Ramble on Co-ops

A co-op is business made of workers with customers who are members with voting rights on how the business runs, so the shareholder is the consumer.

Having shareholders as the ultimate recipient of the goods or services cuts out some of the dangers I've highlighted before about shareholder based businesses but not all of them but consumers can be sheep like wanting what someone else has and not focusing on what could be, ultimately stifling development. Voting itself is flawed as people will likely vote with the crowd not wanting to be on the losing team. In circumstances where tough decisions have to be made the executive committee will likely have a tough time convincing people or needs be done and possibly lose favour ultimately costing them their place on the committee.

Worker run will hit problems if things get tough for the business, when sacrifices need to be made they won't make them. A lazy worker won't be focused on quality just the sale whilst riding on the back of the more efficient or skilled worker, attempts to compensate for that risk will demoralise the skilled worker and they may end up being labelled a Koulack. The worker will lose when they don't/can't work unless the co-op has some level of personal indemnity insurance which will hurt profits or the worker risks only being paid for what they produce. If sales are seasonal they will risk low income in off seasons.

A successful co-op will still need a hierarchical system of control, executive committee, treasurer etc. but they're more likely to be voluntary which may mean lower quality. Without a executive committee it will fall into disarray and risk more embezzlement than without out but even with a committee there's a risk of embezzlement.

That's the negative down what's the benefits?
As the consumer is the benefactor and the democratic force they have more control over what they can buy and where there business goes. They will pay a lower price for there goods. They can inflate their sense of altruism and feed their ego too.

The worker gets more of the profit from sales. They can choose their working hours and rate of production. Knowing the product innately allows for better sales and gives greater satisfaction for selling it. As co-ops are often require membership to be a customer this gives a reasonably locked in customer base.

I'll argue co-ops will work best in a deregulated capitalist free market but that does open them up to liability for bad goods which will damage the co-op as a whole. In a free market they will be a cornerstone to generate competition, forcing "owner run" businesses to compete on price, quality and first to market products/services. So any socialists reading this are probably frothing at the mouth over this, "B-b-buh worker owned" so what? Any socialist regime has not been run by workers, it's always bureaucrats disconnected from the industry running operations. The workers are just the tool to get those bureaucrats in power. They will regulate co-ops into inoperable circumstances and favor government markets/places of sale over anything that can compete or highlight their incompetence.

20170507

Why Corporatism isn't Capitalism

Corporatism
The control of a state or organization by large interest groups.

Capitalism
An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

The above are the Googled definitions, I feel capitalism is missing that it should be a deregulated market. That is essential, regulations are made by the government. If you take the power to control the markets from the governments then you remove the drive to have business based lobby groups, only social matters lobby groups need exist.

This stems from a comments socialists tried to make, first about banks being the epitome of free market yet when they deregulated they failed, therefore free markets will fail. Which isn't quite right, they failed when they got greedy and try invent value where there was none by loaning to themselves. Whereas credit unions don't take those risks, when one credit union does take that risk the league of credit unions is able to manage the problem and it teaches a lesson to the other credit unions, keeping them all in check. A capitalist market would have let those banks fail and taught the public to be careful who they trust with their money.

What about intellectual property? What about it? How's that working out for the human race with pharmaceuticals? Personally I suffer from chronic pain and I'm financially restrained this leaves me unable to afford the latest medications because there's no competition in creating them, the IP holder is allowed a have a monopoly. As we see with Martin Shkreli and some secondary level science students without that regulation there could be a competitive market see here for an example. But that will stop people wanting to develop. Not true, there will be a significant period of time between release and another body recreating the product, this should allow for reasonable profits to be made to fund the next round of R&D for the next product, with a reasonable percentage going to the business or business lenders (see here for why shareholders are a bad idea).

Markets operate under natural laws, before you think you've got me, a natural law is not a regulation, it's an observable effect. For example the law of gravity, we don't need taxes going to gravity police for gravity to be enforced, you try break the laws of gravity you fall on your face. Want more examples? Evolution is probably the best place you can observe markets in action, an animal develops a trait that is successful, it eats more or survives better and therefore gets to pass on its genes to the next generation who then have those traits. As they're natural laws they can be observed and people can learn what limitations to operate within.

When deregulation happens development can prosper, a company can release a product to the market if it works out, it does well and others will try do the same either cheaper or better. This causes a cycle of development, constantly driving down costs for the consumer. If it fails, then back to the drawing board. If you don't think that's the case then look at the evolution example above (and stop skipping paragraphs).

What about dangerous products? Let's start environmentally, individuals and organisations will still be expected not to intentionally cause harm to others, as per the NAP If your pollution damages property that isn't yours then you need to pay for the repair. Make companies culpable for the damage they cause.
Health similar to the above if it causes harm to someone other than the user then it could be regulated, that's not to say addictive substances should be banned because people steal to get them, people shoplift clothes for the sake of it and no one calls for the ban of clothes. Essentially it's the right of any adult to choose there conscious state. To dictate someones conscious state is to tell someone how to think. This act of deregulation brings drugs out of the hands of criminals into a openly competitive market where clean cheap drugs will win out. A company selling quantities likely to cause overdose should face prosecution.

To surmise, Corporatism is a system that allows those on top to stay on top when they don't belong there, whereas Capitalism is a system of greater flux that has more room for people to prosper as individuals.

20170505

A Brief Breakdown of Fascism

Constantly explaining fascism has driven to write this post and boarder line repetition based psychosis. Which is why this post is dedicated to Ranto... You know who you are!This also means from the SJW misuse of the term fascist.

A fascist is originally a word to describe a bundle of sticks tied around an axe handle (so fascists are similar to faggots), it was then used as a symbol of nationalist socialist movements in Europe to appeal to the working class especially wood cutters, the biggest of those was the Nationalistischer Sozialist der Deutschland Republik (Nationalist Socialist of the German Republic) which outside of Germany was abbreviated as Nazi.

The strange thing is a lot of what led up to fascist politics is right wing ideals roughly starting with Hegel's 'Elements of the Philosophy of Right' which first postulated or near outright stated “the state is the march of God through the world.”. Followed by Carlye's 'On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History' which espouses a "great man" ideal. Which is immediately flawed as we must remember all people are created equal so anyone who deems themselves great enough to lead is just as flawed and prone to error as you or I. This method of leadership is akin to monarchy. Friedrich List 'The National System of Political Economy' which goes into protectionism, infrastructure spending, and government control and support of industry, essentially a strong link between business and government. This is where it starts going socialist, state control of the means of production etc. the difference being the state is a body over the people not of the people. Next author to look is Charles Darwin, he might be good at natural science but not politics. In 'The Descent of Man' long story short he suggests eugenics because it works so well in farming. Let's move on to 'Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro' by Frederick Hoffman, this isn't a statistics based piece like 'The Bell Curve' by Charles A. Murray and Richard Herrnstein. Race traits is pure "the criminal negro mind" bullshit which inspired Jim Crow. Moving on to Madison Grant's 'The Passing of the Great Race' which suggests sterilisation as “practical, merciful, and inevitable solution of the whole problem”, I'll leave that there. This leads nicely to Oswald Spengler's 'The Decline of the West' simply it suggests liberalism is dead (well that was a 100 years too early), and suggests a the only option was a monolithic cultural based government. Essentially starting the battle between communism and fascism. Next look at the friend/enemy politics of Carl Schmidt in 'The Concept of the Political' something we see continue in modern politics like America vs Russia or America vs ISIS or America vs... Jeebus guys get out together! I can't do this without mentioning Adolf Hitler's seminal piece 'Mein Kampf' which draws together a lot of the above work into one piece promoting 1 nation/people/culture united under God to be prosperous and strong. It's a strong piece of writing that appeals to a person's ego, making themselves feel better about themselves and think that Hitler had them and there nations interests at heart, fooling them into a cult of the state.

You maybe thinking I've left out Friedrich Nietzsche, I haven't. Nietzsche despised socialism in all forms, he was a writer who pushes his reader to question everything and think for themselves, he considered the Germans to be beer swilling louts do could not subscribe to the Nazi agenda of a superior race. A large chunk of his ideals were to transcend the idea of statehood and for people to be strong on there own terms, supporting themselves. His works got co-opted after his death by his sister who owned the rights to his books, her husband being a senior member of the Nazi party.

Hopefully this explains a little about what fascism actually is and helps you realise that there's little difference in the modus operandi of Fascism and Socialism, both being authoritarian statists, demanding detriment of individual rights in favour of the community with no consideration that the community is a group of individuals.

20170503

Methods of Control: Co-opted movements

So what do I mean by a co-opted movement? A group that claims to have an end goal but it's means are achieving something else. Why care? People are wasting their energy on being detrimental to there own society and community.

Violence:
The biggest sign of a co-opted movement is one that resorts to violence as its first step, there is nothing that can't be achieved without some rational thought out debate and real open mindedness, beliefs aren't open minded, being able to change you beliefs based on new evidence is.

Self destruction:
As we see with social justice warriors they'll quickly turn on themselves for pointless things and innocent mistakes. Similarly like we've seen with modern feminism attacking Germaine Greer or Christina Sommers. By attacking the established and intellectual proponents of a movement the whole movement is weakened. This way the movement can't organise efficiently.

Private funding:
Never trust altruistic business people, they exist for profit the only time they give money is when they get something in return. Any movement should only accept funding from its own members or small donations from the public, not large grants from investment bankers.

Contradiction in the name of the cause:
A co-opted group will often flip-flop its position to suit its ulterior purpose, arguing against a tactic of its enemy to later adopt that tactic for its own means.

Inability to debate:
A co-opted movement will have limited debating ability and will often veer away from talking about their subject, often falling back to baseless insults, accusations and claims "you shouldn't have to ask" against the person who questions then. When they have to talk about it they'll revert to a person who is trained with a script.

What can be done?
What an opposition should do with a co-opted is:
  • Remain calm
  • Stay on topic
  • Don't resort to violence whilst being prepared to defend themselves and challenge all bullshit
For someone in a co-opted movement is a lot more difficult they're in a cult:
  • It is essential to question everything
  • Encourage debate
  • Discourage violence
  • Try to keep cohesion in the group
  • One reason to co-opt a movement is to break it up but there will come a point where someone will have to leave and start there own group.

20170501

Cannabis is not a gateway drug

One of the biggest arguments against cannabis is "it's a gateway drug". I'm going to propose a few reasons this is wrong.

Mis-education: People are often taught the dangers of cannabis in a greatly exaggerated manner, this will cause people to think the dangers of other drugs are exaggerated too.
Criminals or pushers: Criminals sell drugs, to get cannabis someone is most likely going to be dealing with a serious criminal. Cannabis has the lowest mark-up of any drug, so it's in a criminals interest to sell something more profitable.
Substance abuse: Through escapism people will want to get out of there heads, cannabis isn't all that great at this but is the light start, people who want to escape will start light and work up. Very few start with heroin.

So what can be done?
Education: dis-spell the myths about cannabis, ensure people know the difference between cannabis and hard drugs.
Decriminalise: moving cannabis sale from criminals to legitimate taxed businesses changes the dynamic, a legitimate cannabis seller will be pushing nothing worse than smoking accessories and munchies.
Psychiatric care: the substance abuser will always exist, it could be alcohol, cannabis, paint or anything. There issue lies in the psychological no matter how much prohibition is introduced they'll find something, it can only be resolved with adequate psychiatric help.