Friday, March 6, 2009

Obamaflatulence, Central Banking, and Revolution

Mackay opined:
Well Scott if you could relate economics to organic chemistry I might have a better chance of understanding of our current economic state.
Actually, from what I can tell, economics is pretty easy. I spend most of my time talking about central banking and unspinning all the lies of the fiscal manipulators. It is central banking policy that is complex, and this is by design. If central banking were as easy to understand as organic chemistry, life would be a lot simpler. But if it were even slightly less complex, it probably wouldn't exist, because if it were widely understood, I doubt it would be tolerated. I have little doubt that most visitors to this blog leave within two seconds as their eyes glaze over with boredom at the mention of monetary statistics. The fact is, central banking is boring. Insanely boring. Making it insanely complex helps keep people even further away, leaving it to the "experts," bureaucrats like Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Bernanke, and clever, dedicated critics like Gary North, neither set of which do too many average folks pay much attention. Yet any time Barrack Obama farts, he makes international headlines. This absolutely must be the work of demonic forces. Thanks to all the attention the Presidency gets, there is simply no way the guy could get away with too much at once. Yet the FED has doubled the money supply in no time, and nobody says a word. If you point it out, they yawn, pay no notice, then tune in for more Obamaflatulence. Folks, the monetary and economic situation will ruin us long before Obama does. The present system is on the verge of collapse. There are no two ways about it. The world will never be the same again. It is inevitable; it may be coming quite soon. Obama, no Obama, it doesn't matter. He had nothing to do with it. It seems, however, that Obama's mere presence has brought all kinds of folks out of the woodwork at approximately the same time that the FED is in the process of destroying the country. I've been increasingly encountering calls for "revolution" and the like, even at places like Eternity Road. I hate to say it, but when it comes to violence, in this situation you can count me out. Not that I'm not sympathetic to the cause. I'm all for an "Atlas Shrugged type withdrawal," robbing the economy of productive power to bring the present situation to a more rapid conclusion, but I don't think it will be necessary. The die has already been cast. The debts have been rung up and the bills can't be paid. It's over, folks, the fat lady may not have sung yet, but she's got her sweaty hands around the microphone. I do not think, however, that taking up arms is the appropriate response for anyone. I certainly will not do it, and the reasons are pretty simple. The big problem I see is, basically, Americans are "brainwashed," for lack of a better word. We like to say this about North Koreans and other such groups, but we have our own variety. Maybe it is not quite as bad, but it is still there, and it is overpowering. Our culture has degraded to the point that we both cannot think rationally about things and have eliminated the traditions that at one time kept us safe. There are very few folks who can think as clearly as someone like Mr. Porretto or Fred Reed or Gary North or the participants on this blog anymore. Those of us who do are not like some isolated holdovers keeping an ancient tradition alive, either. We are not the Amish. We are reconstituting it from scratch by reading old writings, creating abstract, hypothetical constructs as we have never actually experienced such a system, and were mostly educated by the educrats and appologists of the present regime. What we have learned, and the conclusions we have drawn are largely a private undertaking. Such is the culture of present day America. We are the strange ones, the political and economic alchemists. The culture of the masses is very different. And culture determines government. Period. The characteristics and qualities of a population lead naturally to the government that rules over them. America's government is a function of the people who live here. What is to be done about that? Deport everyone and replace them with people who agree with the revolutionaries? Do some ethnic/ideological cleansing? As I said, count me out. Obama is not the problem. Democrats and Republicans are not the problem. We are, and there are no short term, acceptable solutions to put us back on a path to limited government. It's easy for those of us committed to freedom to get caught up in a Braveheart-esque mentality, picturing ourselves standing up to the tyrant in the field of battle. It sounds so appealingly idealistic, yet I would wager that even of those who might joing in such a defiant stand, the vast majority really only have a fuzzy idea of what limited government means in the abstract, let alone in practice, and even if you succeeded, you would find it impossible to produce a system of limited government. A truly limited government would be an imposition foisted on the American populace at this point. Supposing you rammed it through anyway, the citizenry would quickly rebel. Case in point: how many people presently want to abolish the FED? How many more think you are a nutbag for suggesting that this is even remotely a good idea, not to mention that it is actually crucially important to sustaining a system of free-enterprise? This is why I am passive. I know who the tyrant is, and he is us. There is nothing I can do, only observe, comment, and try to persuade whoever will listen. Violence will not work, because even if the present system is taken down, the underlying culture has not changed. The new system will look just like the old, probably worse because we will have destroyed a lot of legal inertia that kept us looking at least a little bit like the old America. This is why America is having such difficulty succeeding in Iraq and Afghanistan. The people who live there are what they are. You can't really change them by force. There's nothing the US Army can do about it. I don't see a return to "freedom" anytime soon for America. I see a dark age looming. We don't look like a free-wheeling 18th century America anymore. We look like an over-taxed, over-bureaucratized, over-extended 3rd century Rome. At this point in time, an attempt at revolution would be folly. It would be utterly pointless slaughter. You can't liberate people from what they are. Well, at least you can't do it through violence. This is what we've got to change. As a nation, we've got a few lessons to learn. It might take a long time.

3 comments:

  1. Maybe what we have are lessons to unlearn...

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  2. Should have added to my above comment: I had a peek at a few of your posts, and my eyes didn't glaze over. Time willing, I'll try to stick around for a bit.

    You are a bit gloomy, but I suppose your topic warrants it. ;-)

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  3. "Maybe what we have are lessons to unlearn..."

    Exactly. I actually thought for a bit whether to use learn, unlearn, or relearn.

    Any of the three would probably have been appropriate. I just went with the simplest.

    BTW, thanks for visiting. If you are interested in more basic Austrian stuff by me, I would recommend "The Real Conspiracy: Keynesianism and Central Banking" and "The Fallacy of Neutral Money," (probably the most important concept you'll need to understand to really 'get' Austrian theory). I thought I had a post devoted to the business cycle, but I guess I don't. I'd better get to writing one!

    At any rate, Fran covered it pretty well.

    Actually, now that I think about it, I think I'll put up a little post with links to my background stuff, and put a permanent link to it on the sidebar. That'll be easier.

    Of course, I would actually recommend Gary North first, but you won't have personal access to him unless you want to get a subscription to his website. A good place to start with him would be "Mises on Money," which you can easily find by googling.

    Thanks again!

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