The Euro - Smoke and Mirrors!

As a result of peoples’ blatant, pervasive ignorance of the enormous difference between money and wealth, their profligacy, cupidity, foolishness, lack of understanding of the laws of economics, and their reckless refusal to set limits on their borrowing and spending, the Greeks have sold themselves into bondage to the money lenders. As a result of blatant, pervasive, reckless disregard of the enormous difference between money and wealth, their cupidity, foolishness and refusal to set limits on their lending, the money lenders have been forced to impose the limits on further borrowing they should have imposed long ago — at the very beginning of the lending.

It is easy to say, “a pox on both their houses,” but that doesn’t solve the real problem that has led both sides to this pass. The problem is the lack of understanding that MONEY IS NOT WEALTH. This stems from the double function of money as both the instrument of commerce and as the measure of value. These are not synonymous terms. Real wealth, of course, consists in what is produced and consumed. One way to express the difference between money and wealth is: wealth is what money can buy or, conversely, wealth is what you can exchange for money. In any case, one shouldn’t spend money before it is earned through the creation of wealth!

The basic lack of understanding results in excessive Public Sector borrowing to support excessive Public Sector spending: the equivalent of people wanting to get something for nothing. The illusion is that it can always be at someone else’s expense. This can never work, except for those who are among the early exploiters of the situation. Those who follow will “reap the whirlwind.” As in Hosea, 8:7, for they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it has no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: and if it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

People need to get it straight: NO wealth can be created in the Public Sector; ALL wealth is created in the Private Sector. And, if the Private Sector exists to create wealth; it must follow then, that the Public Sector exists only to make sure there is a Private Sector.


It is important to remember that there is reflexivity present. Each segment enables the other. I indict both sides; the people and the money lenders who, of all people, should know the effects of what they are doing.

All money lenders (banks) are “regulated” by the government. The subsumed essence of my argument is that it is to the advantage of the government (politicians) and the cronies of the politicians to hold the populace in ignorance of the laws of economics. This allows the former to commit legalized thuggery on the latter. Thus, the politicians can, through sweetheart deals with their cronies in the private sector, plunder the treasure created by the people and get away with it.

Stops are needed on both sides. The citizenry needs to become educated enough to be able to realize what kind of monster they are creating when they insist on eating the pabulum provided "in the government trough." They need to realize that when they do that, they are just screwing themselves. They need to stop electing politicians that promise them money and money substitutes.

Fix the permeability of the ethical and moral barriers that should exist between the politicians and their cronies and most of that problem will go away. To be sure, it is not a perfect solution, but there is no perfect solution where human beings are involved. After all, Suntne angeli?

A Father's Day Musing

My father, a powerfully built man, was born in Belfast, Ireland, immigrating to the U.S. when he was 12 years old. His father, also powerfully built, was a Blacksmith.

I, having been born and raised during "The Great Depression," can still remember and compare my experiences of those days to those of today. How he was able to do it, I don't know, but my "Da," a Journeyman Pattern Maker and Model Maker, working in wood, plaster and metal, at one time held three different jobs simultaneously (my mother worked simultaneously in two jobs but still was able to find the time and energy to volunteer at a local hospital as a Nurse's Aide.) Neither of my parents complained about the workload and, in fact, went out of their way to conceal from me and my two sisters the extent of the family's financial difficulties and what I subsequently came to realize were their labors of truly herculean magnitude.

The closest I came to realizing there was a problem was during one period in which neither parent was working. Every day, my Da went farther and farther from home in search of work. We had to "go on the dole," forced to go to a government facility to pick up powdered milk, flour, beans, rice and other basics. This was a time when to be "on the dole" was, most definitely, not a desirable position to be in. My mother told me not to worry, that this was only a temporary thing, and we would stop going there as soon as we were able. How hard those days were, I did not realize at the time.

I remember how central to our diet were teapots full of hot, black tea accompanied by "Saltine" crackers. Of course, we drank our tea Irish Style, with sugar and cream. Sometimes, this was three times a day. At other times, my mother would make a "mock apple pie" (with not a trace of an apple.) The saltines, to which were added some sugar and cinnamon powder, substituted for the apples. When we were out of flour, we reverted to just the tea and saltines. Still, I never got the idea that we were "poor." Oh, those were the days!

Groupon Pornography Deals Boycott Successful

This is a followup to my Blog entry of April 27, 2012, entitled Groupon Profits from Hardcore Pornography. It gives credit where credit is due.

I am glad to report that the effort to convince Groupon to stop supporting activities that sexually exploit women has been successful. The following is a copy of a message from Morality in Media announcing it.

-----Original Message-----

From: Patrick Trueman, Morality In Media
Sent: 6 Jun 2012 14:38:23 GMT

UPDATE: The boycott was SUCCESSFUL!
   
Groupon stops all deals that profit from exploitation and torture of women

Over the last month, 20,000+ people joined our boycott of coupon giant, Groupon because the company was selling coupons to visit a porn studio. We know of at least three businesses that stopped their deals because of Groupon's decision to run ads for a torture porn company. In addition, 7 other national organizations joined the boycott too. We are writing to tell you that the boycott worked!

This message was sent to us:

"Given all the feedback from partners like you, we reassessed not only consumer interest but also merchant opinion on these types of deals. It's never our intention to offend customers or our business partners. Your feedback has been invaluable to us and executives are regularly informed of merchant response, both positive and negative.  As a result of the feedback from the Armory deal, we have stopped running adult deals across the country.

The Playboy Mansion deal ran after the "non-adult" rule was enacted in the U.S. due to a process glitch.  As soon as we became aware of it, the deal was immediately taken down."

Be encouraged that 20,000+ people stood with you this time. We hope that you feel as motivated as we do to continue to challenge pornography and the pornification of our society where and when you see it. We do not have to simply accept the mainstreaming of pornography and the devastation that results from it. We can fight back! Please continue to learn more, spread the word and take action when and where you can!

Best,

Patrick Trueman
President & CEO"

My thanks to all those who supported me in this effort. Good things can happen if we work together for Good.

Poor, poor, Italy...and The Ridiculous Euro

A few days ago, I read an article by Judy Bachrach in the World Affairs Journal. Here's the URL:

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/judy-bachrach/euro-lies-and-italys-crisis 

I passed the URL on to others, with my comment, "Poor, poor, Italy...so, the ridiculous Euro has been a fraud from the beginning...why am I not surprised? Time to dump the Euro."

A cousin of mine, who happens to live in Sicily, commented, in return: "I would not trust in a German newspaper ... If Italy fails, the euro dies and even the United States'll have big problems with your dollar...The Italian debt is too large and a failure would drag down the entire western economy."

My cousin makes some good points. At the same time, I am not completely clear on what my cousin thinks a "failure" would look like. So, I replied, as follows:

"I would not trust any newspaper, including American. With a modicum of research and the application of wisdom, however, one can deduce the essence of matters.

What 'fail' means in the instant context is not clear. The euro was a terrible idea that was dead on arrival. It couldn't be anything but a rip-off from Day One. It exists only through the overweening cupidity of political thieves (synonym: politicians) and their cronies and wholesale, forcible application of political correctness on a gullible public.

The U.S. already has big and increasingly serious problems with the dollar. Our idiotic, socialist president is capable only of making the problem worse. Although he says otherwise, his actions are tantamount to modeling the U.S. economy on that of Greece. If he is successful, America will suffer the same way Greece is suffering; the same way any country will suffer from the effects of an overabundance of debt.

That Italy's debt, as America's, is too large, is scandalous. But, the real scandal (if one can penetrate the cloud of political correctness to see it) is that the debts represent, respectively, the amounts of wealth stolen from hard-working, productive Italians (and Sicilians) and Americans, by the political thieves and their cronies. It is the cronies who plot with the politicians to obtain special privileges in return for some type of quid pro quo.

What is the fix? The only answer is to make the debt smaller; reducing it to zero is ideal. But, how? The question is a simple one, but the answer is complex, therefore, problematic.

And, the problem does not lie solely with the political thieves. The political thieves can raise the level of government debt only with the quasi-collusion of their cronies and the 'vulgus mobile.' (Readers who are more familiar with the Greek expression than the Latin expression can substitute 'hoi polloi' for 'vulgus mobile.') I use the prefix 'quasi' here because the vulgus mobile are in a state of ignorance of the fundamental, insidious, highly deleterious economic effects innate to government debt of any kind.

In support of the scandal is that the vulgus mobile are deliberately kept in this state of ignorance by the political thieves, who look only to 'feathering their own nests' at the expense of others. They have convinced themselves that 'what is good for me is good for the country.'

The political thieves can get away with this theft because they are able to convince the 'economically ignorant' that they are being given a 'free lunch.' The 'economically knowledgeable,' of course, know this is a lie; they know there is no such thing as a 'free lunch.'

The bottom line is: regardless of the pronouncements of the political thieves as to whether a debt is 'good debt' or 'bad debt,' the Truth is: there is no debt that is 'good.'

All government debt is super-taxation, i.e., a spending of tax monies before they are expropriated from taxpayers and upon which interest (which must also be expropriated from taxpayers) accrues until the debt is repaid. Thus, as it is with tax monies already expropriated, government spending of debt monies is nothing but a redistribution of wealth from those who produce it to those whose only 'claim to fame' is that they are in good graces with the political thieves.

The Western economies are headed for the tank at ever-increasing speed. Somebody has to apply the brakes. The political thieves will not do it voluntarily."

[By the way, I used the Latin expression "vulgus mobile" (also written as "mobile vulgus" meaning "the fickle crowd") rather than the Greek because "mobile" is the origin of our English word, "mob." No disrespect was intended by its use.]

To the above response, I haven't yet received a reply from my cousin... and I may not receive one...

Perhaps you, the reader, will comment...

Groupon Profits from Hardcore Pornography

This is a special message. You need to read this post all the way to the end because this is something you need to know about. Take especial notice of the part labeled “Here begins the last entry.”

Today, having requested and been granted permission to do so, I pass on (with minor editorial deletions) a request from my daughter, London Tyndale-Biscoe. The post comprises a sequence of messages that form an as yet incomplete dialogue between her and Groupon. There is an additional message to her from Morality in Media.

I am posting this material now because I think it is too important to wait. I will append to this post anything I receive further.

[Here begins her message.]

Dear Friends and Family,

Please help me in trying to fight the problem of hardcore pornography. I know it’s not easy to change the world, or even to want to become that involved, but we can all do a little something. Morality in Media have again asked its subscribers, of which I’m one, to ask five people I know to boycott Groupon because of its support of hardcore torture pornography that demeans and humiliates women. Can you help out? All it takes is little more than the press of a button! whether you are male or female.

Love,
London

[Here begins the message from Morality in Media.]

From: Dawn Hawkins, Morality In Media
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 9:34 AM
Subject: The Women with Groupon

Women of Groupon, where are you?? Groupon seeks to profit from exploitation and torture of women. What woman at Groupon vetted this company?

Dear London,

We wondered what the women at Groupon think. But, in our research, we cannot find any women who are among Groupon's senior management. One wonders if this is just another case of the boys-will-be-boys corporate culture?

Kink sells the sickest of hardcore videos and live online performances of “young, sexy teens who are overwhelmed and outnumbered…who need to learn a lesson by multiple men,” according to the Kink website. The girls and women are “bound, whipped, objectified and humiliated ... suspended and tied in rope bondage…tormented beyond all reason ...pulled in and out of cages, their tongues clamped, their bodies pinned.”

We want to know what woman working at Groupon vetted this company?

Contact Groupon again!

...
Our national boycott of Groupon is succeeding in getting the press attention we hoped it would. The company has been selling coupons for torture porn company Kink. We announced the boycott after Groupon defended Kink. Instead of taking responsibility and recognizing the concerns of their customers, the Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations, Brian Totty, even tried to forward all of your complaints back to us. Needles to say, thousands have now canceled their accounts with Groupon.

Dawn Hawkins
Executive Director
Morality in Media

[Here begins London’s first message to Groupon.]

Subject:     REFUND & CANCELLATION - GROUPON #xxxx-xx
Date:     Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:06:11 -0700
From:     London Tyndale-Biscoe
...
Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators:

I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer support since the cancellation I’m requesting is for a  particular reason, the fact that your company is supporting another that markets hardcore pornography, which in addition even includes torture and involves teens. That email to customer support reads:

I want to cancel my membership and be refunded immediately for my Groupon #xxxx-xx for 2-Hiking Yoga Classes.

I purchased the Groupon the day before I became aware that you are advertising for Kink, which markets hardcore pornography that humiliates and objectifies young women, including teens. It also promotes torture. I will be sending an email to executives at your company in addition to this demand for a refund and recantation on your part.

As a woman and a human being, I find it incredible and despicable that you would involve yourselves in such damaging activities. Don’t you realize that by enabling Kink you are directly contributing to a profound, persistent and escalating social problem – that you yourselves as individuals and as a company are (ir)responsible for encouraging a sick and dangerous disrespect of women?

Appalled isn’t a strong enough word to convey how I feel about your advertising choice. It’s so flagrant and egregious that I cannot continue in association with your company. Please remove me from your subscription list and refund me for the above Groupon immediately.

Most sincerely,

Mrs London Tyndale-Biscoe

[Here begins a message response from Groupon.]

Groupon Support
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 6:11 PM
To: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer service.

Hi London,

Thanks for your feedback. We certainly didn't intend to offend anyone.

We strive to offer interesting and exciting deals that will appeal to our diverse customer base. We've run deals with this specific business before, and while we realize it may not appeal to everyone, we've received positive customer feedback on past offers.

We thoroughly vet the businesses we feature, which is why we take these concerns seriously. We've found that the tour offered in this deal is historical and informational in nature and provides a unique look inside the landmark San Francisco Armory and its past.

If you'd still like me to unsubscribe you from our daily email list, please let me know and I'll take care of that right away.

Your feedback is extremely important to us and makes an impact in how we choose which businesses to work with in the future. Thanks again for taking the time to share your concerns with us, and please know that we value your opinion as a customer.

John T
Groupon Customer Support

[Here is London's response.]

From: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your customer service.

Dear John T,

I appreciate that you have replied swiftly. Yes, I do want you to unsubscribe me from the daily email list. Thank you.

I also again request that my Groupon #xxxx-xx be immediately refunded. Please do that and inform me by email. I will look for the money to be refunded to my credit card.

A few words about your and Groupon’s vain comment about not intending to offend anyone --

Have you ever noticed that human beings sometimes, too often, offend when we don’t intend it? Like the woman who cheats on her boyfriend or husband? In pursuing her goal, she doesn’t intend to offend him. The person who steals from your wallet or maybe embezzles Groupon company funds never intends to offend anyone. The man who abducts your son or daughter, or someone else’s, tortures them, sexually abuses them, and kills them probably never intends to offend anyone. Yet damage is done.

The words ‘offensive’ and ‘being offended’ are of late tossed about without much thought, as if taking offense were the core of every disputed matter. But it isn’t. The core of every matter is the matter – it isn’t whether we are or are not offended nor is it whether we have intended or not intended to give offense. The core of the matter here is the question whether supporting and motivating the production, sale and viewing of violent hardcore pornography that revels in and profits from the subjugation and torture of women is morally right or wrong. The answer to that question for me and for many others is that it is wrong and morally reprehensible. I can assure you that I’m only ‘offended’ secondarily, that is, as a response to the primary and preliminary understanding that what Kink is involved in is extremely harmful to others (and to themselves whether they are able to admit this or not), and that your legitimization and promulgation of what you refer to as their ‘interesting and exciting deal[ ]’ implicates yourselves individually and as a corporation in spreading that harm. For my own part, I would be offended at myself if I continued in a relationship with Groupon since I would knowingly be helping you and Kink to spread ‘the compost on the weeds’.

I don’t believe, as I’m sure thousands of other people don’t believe, that what Kink is doing with your aid can honestly be accounted for by saying, ‘it’s only a matter of taste’. Anything can be justified on this flimsiest of arguments. Preferring red to white wine or blue to red clothing or biking to hiking is a matter of taste. None of these relations carry any significant ethical component. But: stealing is just a matter of taste? (the thief simply having a taste for your things). Cheating your best friend is just a matter of taste? Adultery is just a matter of taste? Slavery is a matter of taste? Persuading women to act as victims of sexual predation, humiliation and torture, and inciting others to watch is just a matter of taste? Is murder a matter of taste? Of course it isn’t, and you know it. And you know why. It’s wrong. So is cheating someone out of their money, or out of their trust and peace of mind in the case of a best friend, or that of a wife or husband in adultery, or forcing someone weaker in mind or body on pain of threats, beatings, torture and death to do your personal bidding as in slavery. Helping someone who has fallen in the street, sharing your food with someone who is starving, loving your children, these are good things. You know this also.

So glibly defaulting to the ‘diversity in taste’ argument conveniently allows you to let your own genuine personal and collective knowledge of ethics in human relations fly out the window and leaves you to operate instead on the bankrupt assumption that there is no morality except subjective morality, no truth but subjective truth, and that every point of view is only an opinion. By this valueless token, the victim of murder is entitled to his opinion that murder is bad, while the murderer is entitled to his opinion that it is good  – and each, victim and murderer, will surely be offended by the other’s opinion -- neither, of course, having intended this. But of course, this doesn’t fly. You would agree, I hope, that murder is bad – the persons involved are not in the right relationship to one another -- and I strongly suggest that if you sincerely make an effort to investigate its social ramifications, you will have to admit that making, viewing, and marketing violent hardcore pornography isn’t good for human relationships and isn’t good for the human community at large -- and your promotion of it stinks.

That’s all I have to say.

Sincerely,

London Tyndale-Biscoe

[Here begins Groupon's final response.]


From: Groupon Support
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 5:07 PM
To: London Tyndale-Biscoe
Subject: Re: Dear Groupon Executives and Administrators: I am copying you on the email I sent to your cus... (ticket #xxxxxxx)

Hi London,

I understand your disappointment, which is why I've gone ahead and refunded your requested Groupon. The refund has gone back to your original form of payment, so you can expect to see it reflected on your statement within 10 business days.

I've also unsubscribed your email address, and you will stop receiving all Groupon promotional emails within 48 hours.

If you decide to join us again down the road, we'd be honored to have you back. In the meantime, please know that we take feedback like this very seriously, and I will absolutely make sure it gets in the right hands.

Kind regards and sincere apologies,

John T
Groupon Customer Support 

[Here begins my comment.]

I am pleased that Groupon is making a refund and acknowledging taking feedback very seriously. But this blog post is only about one situation, my daughter's. Groupon is silent on any change in affiliation with Kink that will affect countless others.

I now renew my personal request. Join in helping provide Groupon with the moral incentive to cease and desist from participation in the tearing down of the moral fabric of American Society.

Contact Morality in Media to give them support and contact Groupon to register your moral outrage and your agreement with us.

Thank you.

Should Governments Balance the Books

If governments within a capitalist system believe they exist to serve the best interests of the people, they believe they should balance the books. But, due to their being polluted with socialist ideas, almost all governments within a capitalist system cook the books instead.

Governments within a socialist system do not have this problem. They believe they exist to serve the best interests of the people alright, but they don't believe they should balance the books. Why should such a government bother? The people can't really do anything about it. Keynes told the politicians they didn't have to and, besides, it's none of the peoples' business, anyway. After all, isn't that why the people have a government: to take care of all that complicated stuff for them?

Inflation: From Whence?

Inflation is a condition that comes about when there is more money in circulation in the economy than is necessary to cover the amount of wealth in the economy. Everybody should know that wealth is not money; wealth is what money can buy.

Just as is the case with individuals, governments become indebted when they borrow money. And, like individuals, governments borrow money when they want to spend more more money than they are able to expropriate from the private sector in taxes. In the U.S., banks don't print currency; only the U.S. Treasury can do that. Moreover, governments the world over have reserved the authority to print currency to themselves. Because only they can control the amount they print, governments are the only entities that can cause inflation. There is no incentive in the private sector to do that. It would be insanity.

Rights Are Not Granted By The Government

I read a Mark Steyn piece and was very impressed with the simplicity of his expression of the real guts of the operative portion of the concept of "rights. It is likely that Liberals will not understand what he said on the matter because they suffer from a highly skewed mental set. (If you do not believe that, let me know and I'll post a copy of a study that should prove it to you. It was done by a Liberal, no less.)

What Steyn said in his piece was: (substituting (in brackets) for his words "sovereign" and "state" the synonymous term "government") “RIGHTS” ARE NOT THOSE THINGS GRANTED BY THE [GOVERNMENT] AND ENUMERATED IN STATUTE, BUT THE PRECISE OPPOSITE. THEY'RE RESTRAINTS UPON THE [GOVERNMENT.] THEY'RE NOT ABOUT WHAT THE [GOVERNMENT] ALLOWS YOU TO DO, BUT ABOUT WHAT THE [GOVERNMENT] IS NOT ALLOWED TO DO TO YOU." (Emphasis mine.)

If those ideas sound suspiciously similar to those expressed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, you are correct. (For those who may have forgotten, those amendments are also known as the "Bill of Rights.")

Why Do Politicians Love Keynes's Theory?

Keynes's Theory is not only, itself, logically bankrupt, it ultimately must cause bankruptcy to all those adhering to it. Politicians love Keynes's Theory because it provides them an excuse for believing that government spending and borrowing do not have limits. Thus, they can evade all responsibility for the negative consequences of their redistribution of private funds they strip from the economy. It is application of The Theory that gives them their unreasonable power.

Simple arithmetic logic explains why there must be a limit on government spending and borrowing. Tax money is not created from thin air. By its nature, taxes constitute "legalized theft." Taxes can be taken by government vultures only through a confiscatory process from those who, through their hard work, must first earn the money. The well of taxation is not without a bottom.

It is right thinking to criticize the greed of the political elite. But, the average citizen must also disabuse himself of a different kind of greed: the greed engendered in him by the insidious process of his accepting government largesse. It is upon this kind of greed that the political elite feed themselves at the expense of the citizenry.

The bottom line is: if the average citizen is not willing to resist the temptations offered by the political elite, to accept from the government money he has not earned, he has very poor standing to criticize the same activity from the political elite. "Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while you yourself don’t see the beam in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

The average citizen must stop suspending logic and understand that the largesse does not come from the government. It comes from his fellow citizens (after the government has taken its "pound of flesh" from it.) A key element that can lead toward economic salvation is reduction of the dependence of the citizenry on taxation-funded benefits. This will, in turn, reduce the power of politicians to create new reasons to raise taxes from which, like the mafiosi, they will "wet their beaks."