Private Enterprise versus Free Enterprise

by Logan Albright– Mises Daily:free enterprise

The United States Export-Import Bank is scheduled to expire at the end of June 2015, and the elected representatives of both parties are tripping over themselves to reauthorize it, citing the importance of exports and strong private enterprise to the American economy.

“I’m a very strong supporter of the Ex-Im Bank, because it is a tool for us to be competitive in order to support our businesses exporting,” said Hillary Clinton. “[F]ailure to reauthorize Ex-Im would amount to unilateral disarmament and cost tens of thousands of American jobs,” commented Harry Reid. It would seem that Democrats are eager to claim the mantle traditionally applied to Republicans of “The Party of Business.” But there is a difference between being pro-business and being pro-markets.

In his book, Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom, libertarian attorney and historian John V. Denson observes, “Many businessmen and bankers believe in private enterprise but do not believe in free enterprise” (emphasis in the original).

It’s an important distinction to make. Free enterprise is the laissez-faire, free-market ideal, with the peaceful interactions between individuals being wholly unregulated by government. Under free enterprise, anyone can trade with anyone else on mutually agreeable terms. Since all interactions are voluntary, all traders necessarily benefit, and both wealth and welfare are free to increase without the imposition of artificial limits.

Private enterprise, in contrast, means merely that business and the means of production are held in private hands, although the government may make any number of demands on how these individuals go about their business. The fascist governments of Europe in the past century maintained a system of private enterprise, while simultaneously exercising near complete control over business operations. Similarly, the Roosevelt economy during World War II was marked by extensive private enterprise serving at the pleasure of government.

This is not to say that private enterprise is bad — it isn’t — but merely that it is insufficient for economic liberty, and prone to be corrupted by the political process. At first glance, one would think that business owners would favor free enterprise. After all, who wants to be pushed around by the government? But in fact, we see just the opposite. James Buchanan, founder of the Public Choice school of economics, was famous for exposing the incentives for private companies to attempt to manipulate government into playing favorites in the marketplace. A free enterprise system benefits everyone who is willing to be productive. Government controls on business, on the other hand, benefit the few at the expense of the many, which means the few who benefit have every incentive to lobby for, and support such a system. Thus, we see everywhere lip service being paid to free enterprise, but an actual promotion of private, unfree enterprise.

The U.S. Ex-Im Bank is a perfect example of this. Founded as part of FDR’s New Deal eighty years ago, the Bank has been providing taxpayer-backed loans to private companies. We are told by supposedly pro-business politicians that the program is needed to stimulate exports, even though competition unhindered by corporate cronyism has always proved a superior economic stimulant. Especially egregious is the fact that most of the money the Bank hands out goes to huge corporations that certainly do not need the government’s help to export their goods.

While defenders of the Bank like to claim most of the Bank’s activity is devoted to helping small business, in fact, 97 percent of the Bank’s loan guarantees go to just ten corporations, with the top two being Boeing and General Electric — hardly mom and pop enterprises that need handouts to keep running. While these companies are not owned by the government, the fact that they are private entities does not justify this kind of interventionism, which stifles competition and creates perverse incentives.

If it is reauthorized, the Ex-Im Bank is estimated to cost taxpayers $2 billion over the next decade. It wastes millions on self-promotion and PR, and, due to specific mandates handed down from the Obama administration, it disproportionately rewards political interests, such as the green energy boondoggle known as Solyndra and foreign companies mired in corruption like Abengoa. It would be hard to imagine a less free market approach toward supporting business. Meanwhile, government guarantees of loans to companies that could not secure them on the open market ensures that the money will be poorly invested, serving special interests rather than sound economics.

This sort of protectionism is perhaps the most seductive and insidious example of the lure of private enterprise at the expense of free enterprise. Despite being thoroughly debunked as effective or wise by virtually all credible economists, protectionist policies have been among the most entrenched and difficult to dismantle. The Ex-Im Bank remains a drop in the bucket compared to other protectionist policies, such as the mammoth farm subsidies Congress cheerfully votes for every few years. But even this relatively small program has proven remarkably hard to kill. Part of the reason for this is that Republicans and Democrats alike can vote for protectionist measures while simultaneously claiming to be “pro-business.” The distinction between supporting business freedom and supporting business directly through government action is rarely made.

Private enterprise is a subset of free enterprise; All free enterprise is private, but not all private enterprise is free. The failure to bear this distinction in mind is what leads to public support of indefensible programs like the Ex-Im Bank. The support of private enterprise at the expense of free markets results merely in corporatism, where business becomes an extension of government instead of the agents of competition and choice.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

The Vaccine Bubble

by Michael Belkin – ICPA.org:vaccine bubble

My business involves advising portfolio managers about asset allocation in global financial markets. During my career, I have observed several extreme speculative bubbles, including the Japanese stock market in the late 1980s, the NASDAQ frenzy in 1998–2000 and the U.S. housing bubble from 2006–2008.

These bubbles all ended in tears. I see the same elements now in the pharmaceutical industry’s preoccupation with vaccines. I coined the term “vaccine bubble” (in the book Vaccine Epidemic) to describe the economic and psychological factors that are driving the obsession with and over-investment in vaccines. The psychology of making big profits is causing a lemming-like rush into vaccine research and production. Ultimately, many of these companies and vaccine products will likely turn out to be flash-in-the-pan nobodies and nothings that simply waste investment and get discarded on the ash heap of medical history. In the meantime, families and individuals need to educate themselves and make informed decisions about vaccine acceptance or refusal.

The business model of vaccine manufacturers relies on compulsion—you must take their product, or else.

Investing in Health

Taking pharmaceutical company advice about vaccine safety and efficacy is like trusting a stockbroker or real estate agent to tell you the market is in a bubble. As investors and homeowners have learned the hard way, those with corrupt financial or professional incentives cannot be relied upon to provide trustworthy advice.

From a financial and industry perspective, here is what you need to know. Vaccines are licensed by the FDA and recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Vaccine manufacturers perform (or outsource) their own efficacy and safety studies, so there is plenty of wiggle room for juggling the data. Manufacturers can choose their own placebo to either flatter efficacy or safety. If you think vaccine safety studies use saline solution for a placebo, think again.

The Merck Manuals (the pharmaceutical company’s best-selling series of medical textbooks) defines an adverse reaction to a vaccine: “Encephalitis is inflammation of the brain that occurs when a virus directly infects the brain or when a virus or something else triggers inflammation…. Encephalitis can occur in the following ways: A virus directly infects the brain. A virus that caused an infection in the past becomes reactivated and directly damages the brain. A virus or vaccine triggers a reaction that makes the immune system attack brain tissue (an autoimmune reaction).”

Thus, an adverse vaccine reaction that causes brain damage (encephalitis) has the same result as a complication from an infectious disease like measles. In vaccine safety studies, manufacturers can disguise the neurological damage caused by the vaccine they are testing by using another vaccine (or another substance that contains an aluminum adjuvant) known to cause neurological adverse reactions as placebo. The standard language they use is: “Adverse reactions were no different than placebo.” They don’t mention that the placebo causes neurological adverse reactions.

Another trick they use is to compare adverse reactions to a fully vaccinated population that has neurological damage from those vaccines. They claim it is unethical to compare vaccine adverse reactions in their new product being tested to unvaccinated controls, because the unvaccinated would supposedly miss out on all the great benefits of vaccines. This is a cheap statistical trick to camouflage adverse neurological reactions from vaccines.

Products in the Pipeline

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s (PhRMA) 2010 Report on Medicines in Development for Infectious Diseases boasts, “Among the medicines now being tested are…145 vaccines to prevent or treat diseases such as staph infections and pneumococcal infections.” The report didn’t include “medicines in development for HIV infection,” and stated, “A 2009 survey by PhRMA found 97 medicines and vaccines are in testing for HIV/AIDS and AIDS-related conditions.”

The current CDC-recommended vaccine schedule contains 70 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18. PhRMA obviously would love to double or triple that vaccine burden by cramming the new vaccines under development into the ACIP-recommended schedule.

A Government-Subsidized, Captive Market

ACIP vaccine recommendations are a godsend to pharmaceutical manufacturers. The simple ACIP recommendation that so many doses of such-and-such vaccine should be given at such-and-such age is transformed into public school attendance mandates by the alchemy of drug industry sales reps, state health officials and gullible state legislatures. The business model of vaccine manufacturers relies on compulsion—you must take their product, or else. Imagine you were in business selling something and you could snap your fingers and compel everyone to be your customer. Normal businesses have to attract customers with an attractive product and compete with other providers of that product. Compulsion is a nice way to capture an involuntary market, isn’t it?

Since most people won’t pay hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket for every vaccine, manufacturers must find someone to foot the bill. They have been very effective in coercing federal and state governments and health insurers into subsidizing their products. One little-noticed feature of the Affordable Care Act (the Obama administration’s healthcare reform program) is that health insurers must provide subsidized vaccines to their customers. Big Pharma’s vaccine business model consists of taking choice away from the individual and getting someone else to foot the bill.

Filling the Profit Void

Pharmaceutical companies are losing patent protection on about $140 billion of blockbuster drugs (such as Lipitor) over the next few years. Their research departments have produced few product replacements with blockbuster potential (sales greater than $1 billion/ year). This pending loss of business is causing a wave of layoffs and restructurings within the industry. Also, disastrous drugs like Vioxx have caused between 88,000 and 139,000 heart attacks and about 40,000 deaths, according to FDA estimates cited by epidemiologist David Michaels, current head of OSHA for the Obama Administration, in his excellent book Doubt Is Their Product.

According to Michaels’ book, Merck exploited the FDA drug approval process by gaming the placebo and claiming that the higher rate of heart attacks observed in Vioxx clinical trials was due to the placebo (naproxen) preventing heart attacks. According to Michaels’ book, “Merck chose the interpretation that implausibly credited naproxen over the one that more plausibly indicted its own drug and it embarked on a four-year defense of this almost ridiculous hypothesis.” Incidentally, Merck is a primary manufacturer of U.S. vaccines. Its corporate behavior with Vioxx certainly discredits its ethical credibility with regard to pharmaceutical safety studies.

Pharmaceutical companies now tout vaccines as the Holy Grail that will help replace the lost revenues from expiring patents on blockbuster drugs that will face generic (cheap) competition. But the numbers don’t add up. Vaccines are currently about a $25 billion market. As previously mentioned, patent expirations amount to about $140 billion. Pharmaceutical companies desperately need to grow that $25 billion vaccine market in a hurry. Hence the big push to create, license and mandate new vaccines.

Popping the Vaccine Bubble

Now, if you are in the pharmaceutical industry charity market, you can donate your body to Merck and other vaccine manufacturers by volunteering to be a human pincushion for every vaccine recommended by the ACIP or in development. That is your decision, and I fully support your right to vaccinate yourself into oblivion.

However, if you (like me) do not agree with forced medication using products that may have been approved using safety studies involving bogus placebos, then you probably face persecution by your allopathic doctor, public school or employer (flu vaccines are now mandatory for many healthcare workers). I fully support your right to refuse vaccines. In fact, the position of the American Medical Association (AMA) on informed consent states that with regard to patients, “He or she can make an informed decision to proceed or to refuse a particular course of medical intervention.” Please notice the word refuse. It is our right to refuse “a particular course of medical intervention.” Notice it doesn’t say “except vaccination.” Informed consent is the backbone of medical ethics. You have the right to say no. Doctors who assert that you do not have a choice about vaccines are violating this medical code of ethics.

Contrast that AMA official position on informed consent with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) position on “terminating” vaccine refusers: “If, after discussion about the importance of vaccination and the risks of not vaccinating, the parent refuses, the pediatrician should document the discussion and have the parent sign a waiver affirming his/her decision not to vaccinate (i.e., AAP Refusal to Vaccinate Form). If the situation becomes such that you are no longer comfortable having the parent/patient in your practice, the AAP manual, Medical Liability for Pediatricians, Chapter 3, offers resources for risk communication and termination of the physician-patient relationship.”

The Basis for My Choice

My daughter Lyla died within hours after receiving her hepatitis B vaccine at the age of five weeks. We subsequently had two more children and I looked closely at the rate of vaccine adverse reactions contained in the FDA Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) versus the risk of contracting an infectious disease and the risk of complications from that disease. As a professional statistician who provides econometric forecasts for institutional investors, I am qualified to make decisions based on statistical models. That is what I do, day in and day out. My conclusion? I would have to be a total idiot to vaccinate my children.

If mainstream pediatricians are going to “terminate” patients like me (like a pest control company), then perhaps my family is better off not being a captive of such a totalitarian doctor in the first place. For others in favor of vaccine choice, I’ve written an article entitled “How to Terminate a Relationship With an Uncooperative and Combative Pediatrician.” Sadly, most pediatricians wouldn’t know what to do with themselves and their practices if they weren’t vaccine pushers. As mentioned above, they are simply the agents of a medical system that is addicted to a vaccine bubble. Vaccine refusers should find trustworthy medical professionals who support the AMA’s position on informed consent.

Ghosts in the Machine

Bubbles always have corruption hidden under the surface. Look how the mortgage and banking industries are now choking on lawsuits and destroyed reputations. Corruption in the vaccine bubble probably exists in ghostwritten medical journal articles (penned by pharmaceutical companies but supposedly authored by respectable doctors). Ghostwriting has recently become a huge issue in medical research. We have yet to find out which vaccine studies were ghostwritten by industry flunkies.

Another area of corruption is front groups. Front groups using straw-man citizens are a standard PR technique to hype a product. Full Frontal Scrutiny, a joint venture between Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Center for Media and Democracy, describes the technique as such:

A front group is an example of what is known in the PR trade as the “third party technique.” The idea behind the term is that when one person (the first party) wants to persuade someone else (the second party) to believe or do something that benefits the first party, it helps if the message comes from a seemingly disinterested, independent source. As Daniel Edelman, the founder of Edelman PR Worldwide, has stated, “A third party endorsement can position a new brand so that it’s poised for great success or, conversely, can blunt a serious problem before it gets out of hand and proves disastrous for a particular product or for a company overall.”…

“The best PR ends up looking like news,” bragged one public relations executive. “You never know when a PR agency is being effective; you’ll just find your views slowly shifting.”

When you see supposedly grassroots groups lobbying for vaccine mandates, you may be seeing the invisible hand of just such a PR agency.

Another prime example of corruption in the vaccine bubble is Paul Thorsen, a Danish epidemiologist who is under federal indictment for fraud. Thorsen allegedly absconded with millions of dollars of CDC money. Thorsen’s Danish data forms the backbone of several scientific studies the CDC uses to claim that vaccines and thimerosal (a mercury-containing vaccine preservative) do not cause autism. So far, no one seems to care that a principal author of those studies stands accused of fraud.

One other noteworthy fact with regard to vaccines and autism: In the DTaP package insert, autism and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are listed as “adverse events reported during post-approval use…. Events were included in this list because of the seriousness or frequency of reporting.” So much for CDC denials of a vaccine/autism link.

Vaccines are in a bubble. Pharmaceutical companies are working on hundreds of new vaccines that they are drooling to make mandatory to replace their vanishing blockbuster drug patents. If you choose to resist the vaccine bubble, many people (and doctors) will regard you as loony, in the same way people looked down at those who didn’t buy into the NASDAQ bubble in 2000 or the housing bubble in 2007. But look how those people turned out when the bubbles burst—postponed retirements, foreclosures and underwater home equity. Is that what you want?

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

College Alternatives

submitted by jwithrow.college alternatives

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
College Alternatives

March 20, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,090 today. Gold is up to $1,170 per ounce. Oil checks in at $46 per barrel. Bitcoin is still trading around $262 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.96% today.

Yesterday we opined that the proverbial needle was rapidly approaching the student loan bubble and that the American system of higher education would shrink significantly once the bubble popped. Today I feel it prudent to discuss why this is not such a bad thing.

We briefly analyzed the student loan racket yesterday and discussed how students currently graduate college with a mound of debt disproportionate to the job market and income-prospects they face. This is enough to warrant questioning, but the ills of the college system run even deeper.

We have discussed at length the problems inherent within the public school system here and we have noted how the system systematically conveys a lack of purpose to students. Students are force-fed a medley of politically correct information on various subjects and they are expected to memorize and then regurgitate this information. They are told this is important so they can get good grades which they need to get into college. This is a very vague purpose which tends to lead students away from critical thinking and introspection thus few students really discover and cultivate their individual talents and passions.

To the students’ surprise, the higher education system simply expands upon this vagueness of purpose. Students arrive at these beautiful campuses expecting to learn the secrets to success but they soon find out the college curriculum is mostly more of the same – memorize the chapters in this standardized textbook and regurgitate the information on the test. Oh, and this textbook costs $200 but don’t worry you can get a student loan to cover it. So our student quickly learns that college is not a fountain of knowledge but rather just another system to be gamed.

This model of education encourages what Napoleon Hill, in Outwitting the Devil, referred to as ‘drifting’. Hill defines ‘drift’ by saying “people who think for themselves never drift, while those who do little or no thinking for themselves are drifters”. Hill continues: “A drifter is one who permits himself to be influenced and controlled by circumstances outside of his own mind… He doesn’t know what he wants from life and spends all of his time getting just that. A drifter has lots of opinions but they are not his own.”

The habit of drifting is exactly what the American higher educational system reinforces. Just as high school students were told college acceptance is their ultimate goal, college students are told a high-paying job is the ultimate goal to be pursued. Their focus then is on building best possible ‘resume’ (with as little work as possible) so as to impress the corporate recruiters who show up at job fairs on their campus every spring. Further, the college grading system reinforces the fear of making of mistakes already deeply imbedded in the minds of the students who have completed twelve years of public education. Errors are ridiculed and scorned in college just as they were in high school so the necessity to conform is hammered home even harder.

So upon graduating college most students: lack a defining sense of purpose, have been cultured to avoid mistakes at all costs, and are knee deep in debt. Naturally, they are compelled to take the first job that offers them a decently salary and a health insurance plan regardless of their actual interest in the particular job or industry.

Welcome to the rat-race.

Hill would admonish me for focusing exclusively on the negatives so I will humbly labor to present some positive alternatives to the current model of higher education. Mind you, the current system operates under the institutional model and that is a large part of the problem. The best alternatives are individualized in nature thus they require a break from the institutional way of thinking; simply replacing one institutional model with another will never accomplish much of anything.

Where to start?

Life is meant to be lived. Life is about freedom. Governments and institutions infringe upon personal freedom but try to convince you they are morally justified in doing so. Despite these constant infringements, we have the ability to claim more individual freedom today than ever before in modern history. Technology is the great enabler. It is also the great decentralizer.

The college years are a time to learn how to live independently and to explore various interests and passions. As we have pointed out, college does a poor job of facilitating real learning. I would suggest that college also does a poor job of aiding students in learning to live independently. Cramming two eighteen-year-old kids into a room the size of a single office and forcing them to share a bathroom with even more eighteen-year-olds is not realistic prep for the real world unless the kids plan to live on a commune somewhere. Likewise, living with four or five other twenty-year-old kids in frat (and sorority) houses doesn’t really facilitate independent learning unless the kids want to make a career out of party planning.

At the same time, college towns are a great place to meet people with all kinds of backgrounds and cultures. They are also great places to meet people with similar passions and interests. This exposure certainly fosters a tolerance for different ideas as well as the potential to form lasting partnerships with others of like-mind.

College Alternatives Number One: What if our eighteen-year-old, instead of enrolling in college, simply moved to a college town of their choice? They could take on internships with local businesses for low (or no) pay to explore traditional career paths. They could organize or attend meet-up groups for students with similar passions to share ideas and knowledge. They could work to develop online business opportunities around those passions and interests to learn what works and what doesn’t. They could potentially sit-in on select classes of interest if they wanted to as well. Though the overall curriculum may largely be a waste of time, there are certainly individual classes that are interesting and valuable. Whether it’s art or computer programming or classic literature or astronomy or whatever, the professor would probably be thrilled to have someone in the class who is actually interested in what he has to say… everyone else is simply interested in getting a good grade and moving on within the system. And I am sure our eighteen-year-old would do all kinds of other interesting things that I have never thought of before also.

All with zero student loan debt. Sure there would be living expenses but they would pale in comparison to tuition, room, board, and textbooks. If the parents had employed the Infinite Banking Concept for our student then living expenses would already covered for several years at least.

College Alternatives Number Two: what if our hypothetical eighteen-year-old spent a year traveling internationally? They would experience all sorts of different worldviews and cultures and probably learn a foreign language or two in the process. Maybe they would observe a growing trend somewhere which could lead to a tremendous business or investment opportunity. Maybe they would become a freelance travel writer and make a career out of the experience. Maybe they would blog about their travel and build a readership that would lead to income opportunities. Maybe they would see an underserved community and start a niche charity dedicated to a singular mission.

College Alternatives Number Three: Suppose our eighteen-year-old has been homeschooled and permitted to develop skills around a particular passion already? He could go directly into his chosen field either by starting a business or by seeking out internships and mentors in the chosen industry. If he already knows what he would like his first career to be then there is no reason for him to pursue additional generalized education at this point. The beauty of this scenario is that our eighteen year old will have twenty years of experience in his industry by the young age of thirty-eight. In all likelihood financial success will have followed his career mastership and he will be free to then explore other interests or passions if he desires something new and exciting. The notion of working in a single industry for one’s entire life and then retiring to go fishing and piddle around the house all day is a New Deal relic that will die off when Social Security implodes. Mastering two or three different careers over one’s lifetime will be extremely common going forward. And following this individualized model will leave plenty of time for fishing and piddling should you so desire as well. After all, it’s not work if you are doing what interests you.

These are just three examples of many possible college alternatives. With a little vision and a little faith, anything is possible.

More to come,

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Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift currently in motion please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Fear is the Enemy of Mankind

submitted by jwithrow.fear

Napoleon Hill listed the effects of fear in his famed Think and Grow Rich. According to Hill, it:

– Paralyzes the faculty of reason
– Destroys the faculty of imagination
– Kills self-reliance
– Undermines enthusiasm
– Discourages initiative
– Leads to uncertainty of purpose
– Encourages procrastination
– Wipes out enthusiasm
– Renders self-control impossible
– Takes the charm from one’s personality
– Destroys accurate thinking
– Diverts concentration of effort
– Masters persistence
– Eradicates will-power
– Destroys ambition
– Beclouds the memory
– Invites failure in every conceivable form

Fear is even more dangerous than our dishonest money and the Federal Reserve System.

Politics, advertising, media, military/intel, and others all work to instill fear in us on a daily basis. It is important to discern whether or not our fear is justified and either dismiss it or act accordingly.

Playing to Develop Healthy Minds and Bodies

by Kimberly Allen, DC, DACCP – ICPA.org:playing

Having fun with your child is important, but good play routines can last a lifetime.

It is a parent’s responsibility to stimulate their child’s developing nervous system with every motion and activity. These motions are helpful in developing neurological pathways. Parents also need to remember that although “educational” video games have been developed for babies up to young adults, they do not stimulate the same neural pathways in the brain as active play activities. Play activities should include stimulation of all five senses (sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste). The following are some different play activities you can use to incorporate neurological development techniques into your child’s daily routine.

• Visual (sight): Tossing beanbags, blowing bubbles, taking photos with a camera, dancing with scarves or movement with different colored scarves for the infant, using both hands to draw shapes and letters or to hold objects, and tracing letters or numbers on a person’s back and having them traced upon own back.

• Tactile (touch): Different textures (smooth, rough, uneven), splashing water in a bathtub, building blocks, examining natural objects such as feathers and pinecones, petting and feeding animals, eating snacks with different textures, hugging, and manipulating small objects such as Legos, puzzles, and lacing beads.

• Auditory (sound): Dancing or moving to music, humming, musical chairs, beating rhythm on instruments, singing sounds where words need to be added (“Old McDonald had a …” Or “B-I-N-G-O”), and jumping rope while chanting or singing.

• Smells and Tastes: Introduce the child to different smells and tastes and look for appropriate reaction. For example, a sour face in response to a sour taste. Have the child name different smells such as coffee, fruits, and perfumes.

• Vestibular (equilibrium/balance): Spinning in circles, balancing on a teeter-totter, jumping on a bed, climbing on jungle gyms, sliding down a slide, walking on uneven surfaces (sand, grass), crawling through small spaces, allowing child to reach with right hand across the body to any object on the left and vice versa, and also tummy time for infants.

• Proprioceptive (sense stimuli): Pushing and pulling toys or wagon; tumbling to the ground; pillow fights; playing catch with a ball; kneading dough; getting in or out of seatbelts, jackets, boots, shoes, and socks; playing horsy; stretching up to the sky; obstacle courses; and pouring water or sand from one container to the next.

These activities are excellent sources of play techniques that will stimulate the development of your child’s neural pathways. Please remember that even though play is important, safety is more important. Some activities may cause injuries similar to that of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Shaken Baby Syndrome was originally referred to as a “whiplash” injury. Shaken Baby Syndrome occurs when a child is shaken violently in a to-andfro fashion. Such violence can cause hematomas (bruising) in the area between the skull and the brain, retinal hemorrhaging (bleeding in the eyes), and, less commonly, fractures to the skull.

Though most people feel that Shaken Baby Syndrome occurs only as an act of violence, it can also occur during play activities that were never meant to harm. These activities include:

• Repeated and vigorous tossing of a child into the air. This allows a “whipping” motion of the head and neck.
• Jogging with infant on back or shoulders. Just because the infant is in a carrying restraint does not mean that head is supported in a neutral position.
• Bouncing the child on knee or swaying the leg back and forth, creating a to-and-fro motion and a “whipping” motion of the head and neck.
• Swinging child around by ankles. The child will attempt to move head against force of motion. This can cause “whipping” of the head and neck.
• Spinning child around in circles. The child’s head will feel very heavy and will often fall backwards, causing the “whipping” motion.

Signs and/or symptoms of brain stem swelling (e.g. Shaken Baby Syndrome) include: constant crying, stiffness, inability to wake up or sleeping more than usual, and vomiting. If you see any of these symptoms in your infant or child after any play or injury, take them to their doctor immediately. Please use caution at all times in order to best protect your infant or child from such injuries.

Just remember, having fun is important, but good play routines can last a lifetime.

Article originally posted at Author Joe WithrowPosted on Categories WellnessTags , , , Leave a comment on Playing to Develop Healthy Minds and Bodies

The Coming College Collapse

submitted by jwithrow.college

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Coming College Collapse

March 19, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,093 today. Gold is checking in at $1,166 per ounce. Oil is floating around $46 per barrel. Bitcoin is down to $262 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 1.94% today.

Big news this month… two colleges died! Sweet Briar College in rural Virginia recently announced its own funeral scheduled for the end of the 2014-2015 academic year. Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga also pronounced its coming death scheduled for May 1, 2015.

Sweet Briar is a small liberal arts women’s college with less than 750 students and Tennessee Temple is a small Christian university with less than 500 students so these are certainly niche schools that faced challenges not yet encountered by their larger peers. I think it would be unwise to dismiss these closures at outliers, however. Instead, this may be foreshadowing the coming student loan bubble collapse and the growing obsolescence of traditional higher education. Beware bubble, the needle approacheth.

Indeed, the Obama administration is now pushing a “student aid bill of rights” chock full of government regulations, controls, and oversight… what could be a better sign of the impending college collapse than that? And the federal government already finances or guarantees ninety-some percent of all student loans as it is.

College is still the holy grail of success in many American minds but that sentiment is gradually changing. Colleges, in most cases (specialized fields of study being the exception), are little more than glorified diploma mills. Everyone goes to college primarily to receive a degree that is seen as a ‘certification’ of sorts to work a corporate job. That’s why college graduates list their degree at the top of their resume and they mention it first thing in job interviews – having a degree demonstrates that they are qualified to hold a job.

So the system works like this:

1. Kids are told to get good grades in high school so they can get into college.

2. As high school graduation approaches, kids are hustled through the college application process. They are encouraged to apply early to as many schools as possible to give themselves the best chance of getting in. Critical thinking and introspection can wait.

3. Once accepted into college, the kids are walked through the student loan process. It is understood that they don’t have enough money to pay for tuition so someone else must lend it to them. And that someone else is probably the federal government.

4. Colleges raise tuition each year because the federal government is willing to finance or guarantee nearly all student loans sans sound underwriting guidelines.

5. Students apply for new student loans at the higher tuition rate for each subsequent year in college.

6. Students graduate with massive student loan debt and face a competitive job market because nearly all of their peers have a bachelor’s degree as well.

As you can see, the student loan racket is perpetuated by cheap money supplied by the Feds. The only reason colleges can raise tuitions significantly each and every year is because a very large percentage of the population attends college. The only reason a very large percentage of the population attends college is because the Feds supply them with cheap money to do so with few questions asked.

But there’s a catch. When we talk about this cheap “money” supplied by the Feds we are really talking about credit. This credit is created ex nihilo (out of nothing) – it only exists as an electronic record on a computer network somewhere in the “cloud”. Unlike real money, credit can vanish just as quickly as it appeared in the first place. You can’t put it in a safe. You can’t put it under your mattress for a rainy day. Credit is intangible.

The current model of higher education depends on constant credit expansion. Students don’t pay for college up front; they finance it as they go by obtaining multiple loans over time. Their continued enrollment depends upon their ability to get the next loan. It is assumed by pretty much everyone – parents, students, guidance counselors, professors, university presidents, Wall Street CEOs, government officials – that this system of constant credit expansion can continue into the future.

The word credit is derived from the Latin credere which means “to believe”. Credit depends on trust; it’s all a confidence game. And we are starting to see the trust in American higher education teeter. This trust will continue to degenerate as student loan debt continues to pile up and the job market continues to be flooded with bachelor’s degrees. This process is accentuated by the mountain of debt being accumulated by the federal government – the same group that finances the student loan bubble.

When the trust disappears, so does the credit… probably to the tune of trillions of dollars overnight. What happens then? Common sense suggests that colleges would be forced to reduce tuition drastically if students actually had to pay for college themselves. But have you been to a college campus recently? The campuses are pristine, the buildings are luxurious, and the amenities are plentiful. Have you looked at your alma mater’s annual financial statements recently? What does its long-term debt look like? How about its pension liabilities?

The fact is most American colleges would be insolvent if it weren’t for the Fed’s exponential credit expansion. If you think the credit can expand forever then this fact doesn’t really matter. But if you think the credit will eventually dry up then we are likely to see many more Sweet Briars and Tennessee Temple’s to come.

So do not despair, dear Vixens and Crusaders, you will not be the only alma mater-less Americans for long.

Until the morrow,

Signature

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift currently in motion please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

There’s No Political Freedom Without Economic Freedom

by Patrick Barron – Mises Daily:freedom

Can we have political liberty without first having economic freedom? Is the form of government predetermined by the form of economic organization? At first blush the opposite would seem to be self-evident, i.e., that our form of government determines all else, including our economic structure. But Mises advises otherwise. In Human Action (page 283 of the Mises Institute’s scholars’ edition), Mises explains (my emphasis):

“Freedom, as people enjoyed it in the democratic countries of Western civilization in the years of the old liberalism’s triumph, was not a product of constitutions, bills of rights, laws, and statutes. Those documents aimed only at safeguarding liberty and freedom, firmly established by the operation of the market economy, against encroachments on the part of officeholders.”

Likewise, in The Law by Frédéric Bastiat (page 49 of the Mises Institute edition),
Frédéric Bastiat has this to say (my emphasis again):

“Political economy precedes politics: the former has to discover whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact which must be settled before the latter can determine the prerogatives of Government.”

Economic Freedom Is the Foundation of All Freedom

These insights counsel us that attempts to pass laws — or even constitutional amendments — to ensure our political liberty will be wasted as long as our economic freedom continues to be usurped by government. In other words, limited government will fade in the face of the modern regulatory state, and no laws can protect us from its deprivations. Economics not only trumps politics, it determines its very form.

The root cause of economic interventions is the mistaken belief that government can improve our lives by making economic decisions for us. As I explained in an earlier essay, by their very nature, economic interventions by government are coercive in nature. Voluntary cooperation in the marketplace, on the other hand, requires only access to an honest criminal justice system to enforce contracts and protect property rights.

Government mandates require government coercion for their enforcement, including, for example, the mandate that everyone contribute to the government’s Social Security and Medicare programs. Although the public requires no government mandate to buy any of the wide ranging retirement savings and health insurance products available on the free market, government must force us to participate in its Social Security and Medicare schemes.

Absent the mandates, few would participate, because many understand that these programs are fatally flawed transfer taxes — Ponzi schemes of sorts — posing as retirement savings and healthcare plans. There are no real profit-producing assets from which to pay the plans’ distributions, merely the promise by government that it will continue to force others to pay you in the future as it forces you to pay others in the present.

These programs must be maintained by the police power of the state, and what may appear to be widespread acceptance of the Social Security and Medicare mandates is really the vociferous support of those receiving benefits. Meanwhile, the taxpayers who understand the reality of the program continue to pay to stay out of jail.

Economic Regulation Requires Coercion

The more government meddles in the economic sphere — which should require no regulation at all, since it is completely voluntary — the more police power is necessary to force us to comply. All government agencies possess huge enforcement mechanisms that not only can confiscate our property but take away our freedom. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is little more than a government-supported extortion racket, finding nebulous health and safety violations in the workplace that apparently do not concern the actual workers themselves, who haven’t been chained to their machines for quite some time now.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shuts down businesses and threatens entire industries for violations of arbitrarily established environmental standards that are of little concern to the people affected. Smokestack emissions and the like are local environmental issues for which one would expect a wide variety of standards across the nation. Undoubtedly the people employed by the giant steel mills of Gary, Indiana tolerate smokestack emissions that Beverly Hills residents would find unacceptable. These arbitrary EPA standards are depriving Americans of the opportunity to work at higher paying jobs: their freedom to tolerate more pollution in order to enjoy a higher standard of living has been usurped by government.

Speaking of jobs, just try practicing some profession that requires a government issued license, even if the parties using your service do not care whether you have one or not. Better yet, employ someone who is willing to work at a wage rate below the proscribed minimum or who is willing to work without healthcare or family leave benefits. The police power of the state will descend upon you, even though there is no dispute between you and your employee. Want to reclaim discarded furniture, refurbish it, and sell it out of your house? Better not try to do that without a business license and a store front in an area that is properly zoned. Do you want to hire “an able bodied man” to do some heavy lifting at your place of business? Uh, oh! The discrimination police will put you in your place, which may be a jail cell if you cannot pay their fine.

No truly limited government can perform these police functions, so expecting a limited government in a world where such regulations are common falls into the category of a cognitive dissonance. In laymen’s terms, we are just kidding ourselves that we are a truly free people with a government that is subservient to our wishes and exists primarily to protect our life, liberty, and property. Keep this in mind the next time you hear that some new economic regulations have been proposed or implemented. Concomitant with these regulations comes an ever more powerful and coercive government.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

Movement and Infants

by Rae Pica – ICPA.org:movement

Besides the fact that they were built to do so, there are a great many reasons why infants need to move. The truth is, even though their movement capabilities are extremely limited when compared with even those of a toddler, movement experiences may be more important for infants than for children of any other age group. And it’s not all about motor development either.

Thanks to new insights in brain research, we now know that early movement experiences are considered essential to the neural stimulation (the “use-itor- lose-it” principle involved in the keeping or pruning of brain cells) needed for healthy brain development.

Not long ago, neuroscientists believed that the structure of a human brain was genetically determined at birth. They now realize that although the main “circuits” are “prewired” (for such functions as breathing and the heartbeat), the experiences that fill each child’s days are what actually determine the brain’s ultimate design and the nature and extent of that child’s adult capabilities.

An infant’s brain, it turns out, is chock-full of brain cells (neurons) at birth. (In fact, a one-pound fetus already has 100 billion of them!) Over time, each of these brain cells can form as many as 15,000 connections (synapses) with other brain cells. And it is during the first three years of life that most of these connections are made. Synapses not used often enough are eliminated. On the other hand, those synapses that have been activated by repeated early experiences tend to become permanent. And it appears that physical activity and play during early childhood have a vital role in the sensory and physiological stimulation that results in more synapses.

Neurophysiologist Carla Hannaford, in her excellent book, Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head, states: “Physical movement, from earliest infancy and throughout our lives, plays an important role in the creation of nerve cell networks which are actually the essence of learning.”

She then goes on to relate how movement, because it activates the neural wiring throughout the body, makes the entire body—not just the brain—the instrument of learning.

Gross and fine motor skills are learned through repetition as well—both by virtue of being practiced and because repetition lays down patterns in the brain. Although it hasn’t been clearly determined that such early movements as kicking, waving the arms, and rocking on hands and knees are “practice” for later, more advanced motor skills, it’s believed that they are indeed part of a process of neurological maturation needed for the control of motor skills. In other words, these spontaneous actions prepare the child—physically and neurologically—to later perform more complex, voluntary actions.

Then, once the child is performing voluntary actions (for example, rolling over, creeping, and walking), the circle completes itself, as these skills provide both glucose (the brain’s primary source of energy) and blood flow (“food”) to the brain, in all likelihood increasing neuronal connections.

According to Rebecca Anne Bailey and Elsie Carter Burton, authors of The Dynamic Self: Activities to Enhance Infant Development, whenever babies move any part of their bodies, there exists the potential for two different kinds of learning to occur: learning to move and moving to learn.

Still, recent evidence indicates that infants are spending upward of 60 waking hours a week in things— high chairs, carriers, car seats, and the like! The reasons for this trend are varied. Part of the problem is that more and more infants are being placed in childcare centers, where there may not be enough space to let babies roam the floor. Or, given the number of infants enrolled, there may be little opportunity for caregivers to spend one-on-one time with each baby. This means, in the morning, an infant is typically fed, dressed, and then carried to the automobile, where she’s placed in a car seat. She’s then carried into the childcare center, where she may spend much of her time in a crib or playpen. At the end of the day, she’s picked up, placed again into the car seat, and carried back into the house, where she’s fed, bathed, and put to bed.

Even when parents are home with baby, they seem to be busier than ever these days. Who has time to get on the floor and creep around with a child? Besides, with today’s emphasis on being productive, playing with a baby would seem almost a guilty pleasure! And if the baby seems happy and safe in a seat placed conveniently in front of the TV, in a bouncer hung in a doorway, or cruising about in a walker, then what’s the harm? It’s a win/win situation, isn’t it?

In fact, it isn’t. Being confined (as one colleague says: “containerized”) affects a baby’s personality; they need to be held. It may also have serious consequences for the child’s motor—and cognitive— development.

Other trends in today’s society having an impact on infants’ opportunities to move are the inclination to restrict, rather than encourage, freedom of movement and the misguided belief that early academic instruction will result in superbabies. (In 1999, 770,000 copies of infant software— “lapware”—were sold!)

Humans are meant to move and play. The inclination—the need—is hardwired into them. Babies, in fact, spend nearly half of their waking time—40%—doing things like kicking, bouncing, and waving their arms. And while it may appear all this activity is just for the sake of moving, it’s important to realize a baby is never “just moving” or “just playing.” Every action extends the child’s development in some way.

Article originally posted at Author Joe WithrowPosted on Categories WellnessTags , , , , , Leave a comment on Movement and Infants

Microbusiness for Students

by Mike Smith and Carol Topp – HSLDA:microbusiness

Does your homeschool student want to start a business? Then they might enjoy starting their own microbusiness—while they’re still a student. Find out more with accountant Carol Topp. That’s next on today’s Home School Heartbeat.

Mike Smith: Our guest today is Carol Topp, a CPA and the founder of Micro Business for Teens. Carol, welcome to our program today!

Carol Topp: Well Mike, thanks so much for having me. It’s a joy to talk to you again.

Mike: Carol, how can young people take something they enjoy and turn it into a business?

Carol: Well, they do what most business owners do—they find a need that they can fulfill and they meet that need, and someone will pay them for it. So they might meet needs with any talent or skill that they might be good at or better than somebody else.

Mike: What’s a practical first step for starting up a small business like this?

Carol: Well, I think you start with thinking about, obviously, what you’re good at. So kids don’t always give themselves credit, but sometimes they’re better at some things like algebra, Spanish, piano, pet care, pet cleaning. And you start thinking about what could I do to offer these services or offer my talents or skills to somebody else. I call it creating a mini-market plan, where you just think about, “Who could I help? How could I charge them? How can I find them?”

Mike: What’s the very first practical step they should take?

Carol: They should start by listing what they’re good at, and then try to say, “Is there a need for what I am good at?” It’s a good place to start, because there’s your natural skill and talent. It’s much easier to start with something you’re talented in and then say, “Is there a need out there for what I know, what I can do?”

Mike: Well Carol, let’s say a teen listening to this program wants to start his or her own business. What kinds of businesses have worked well for students, in your experience?

Carol: Well, I think teenagers typically think about selling a product. Girls typically like to sell jewelry or something like that. But I try and encourage them to think about a service that they can offer instead. Because products have a lot of problems; they have shipping and inventory and sales tax—but services don’t! So you know, the typical services that kids have always done, like babysitting and lawn care, are great. But there’s a lot of other wonderful ideas like tutoring, teaching music lessons—I have a virtual assistant who helps me in my business, and he’s only seventeen.

Mike: Carol, are there a couple of success stories that you could share with us?

Carol: Yeah, I want to share with you one about Emily, who was homeschooled. She started ballet lessons in her basement; she called it Modest Dance, because she saw a need for young girls to have a modest form of ballet lessons. That was wonderful. And she can be found on a video that was produced over at Microbusiness for teens, so people can see her in action.

Mike: Carol, can you give our students some tips on how to keep their businesses organized?

Carol: Well, since I’m an accountant I will tell you recordkeeping is the lifeblood of a good business, so you need to keep a good record of income and expenses. And this might mean a student needs to learn how to operate a spreadsheet, which is a very useful skill to have in life. He also might need some skills in time management, which would mean having a calendar and a day planner or keeping a schedule. And parents can do a lot to help with that as students learn these very important life skills of time management and money management even while they’re just teenagers living at home.

Mike: Well Carol, that’s excellent. But we know that any business involves a risk. What should these students do if things don’t go exactly as planned?

Carol: Well, I think students should start without debt, because that greatly reduces their risk. So that’s the first thing. Plan well, try to start a business without any debt, and you’re less likely to have any problems. But also, I think that you can learn from your failures. I used to tell my daughters, “There’s no failure, there’s only feedback.” Take those mistakes, take those failures, learn from them, and do something better the next time you start a business or the next time you serve a client.

Mike: Sometimes it can be hard to get clients to take you seriously, especially when you’re young. Carol, what can teen business owners do to overcome this problem?

Carol: Well, they need to look and sound very professional. So they need to dress well, if they’re meeting their customers face to face. They need to look that customer (and it’s usually an adult) in the eye, stick out their hand, shake their hand, call them Mr. or Mrs. All these things boost the teenager’s confidence, as well as helping them come across as serious about trying to serve the customer well and trying to be a success in their business.

Mike: Well those are the positive things they should do, Carol. What are some negative things they should avoid?

Carol: You know, I think teenagers should avoid starting a business with a friend. Avoid partnerships. They’re usually fraught with problems, and the friendship can be damaged if they go into business with a friend. I think going into business with your sibling, a brother or sister, is fine, because mom and dad are there to help negotiate problems. But I’d say one of the biggest pitfalls I see is starting a business with a friend. It’s almost always a mistake.

Mike: Well Carol, what are some legal issues that micro business owners should know about?

Carol: Well, they need to know if they do business under a fictitious name, they need to register that name with their state or county government. So I just usually encourage teenagers, just use your own name, although they think it’s a lot of fun to come up with a name for their business—but that involves sometimes a cost and paperwork.

But also if they are doing any kind of food preparation, they need to be aware of health laws, to keep that food hot or cold. If they are driving anybody anywhere, there’s laws about that. And sometimes there’s laws about even childcare, like how many children you can care for in your home. So just some practical things to think about—if I want to run a business dealing with food or children, look into the laws in your county, in your state.

Mike: Carol, are there some good resources to guide our young entrepreneurs through these issues?

Carol: Well, I didn’t find a lot, which is why I wrote my series called Micro Business for Teens. And so the website microbusinessforteens.com will be very helpful. I think the Pinterest page, where teenagers like to hang out, is very helpful; I share a lot of my ideas and tips on starting a running a microbusiness. I also have a podcast. And there’s a wonderful video that was produced by a public television station here in Ohio that teenagers can watch. They can find it on my website and on Youtube.

Mike: Carol, thanks for joining us this week, and especially for giving us all this helpful information—we really appreciate it! And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.

Article originally posted at HSLDA.org.

Baby Crawling: How Important It Really Is

by Bernardo R. Sañudo Diez, DC – ICPA.org:baby crawling

There is nobody in the world as busy as a one-year-old baby, possibly the most productive year of his entire life. So numerous and so different are all his experiences; he goes up and down and touches, smells, feels, and tastes almost everything that comes into his grasp.

His brain needs to put some order to the myriad of experiences he is coming in contact with; it needs to “file” and organize the areas where culture, beliefs, ideas, and knowledge will be stored along all the life of this being.

The baby is too busy: without his knowledge he is growing and his nervous system is maturing. He accomplishes this by performing many activities, including resting to replenish his strength, doing happy but unarticulated movement of his hands, and kicking the air with his little legs.

As time passes, he is able to hold his head and observe the world that surrounds him with a more horizontal and vertical point of view. After accomplishing this task, he will no longer be satisfied by just lying down—he will enrich his world by remaining upright, gaining perspective and depth of spaces and objects.

This tri-dimensional world floods his brain with stimuli that have to be reorganized, learning and re-learning all the time. Consciously he does not know what he is seeing or touching but this miraculous organism will store it and file it anyway. He is so fascinated with all that surrounds him, he is not aware that his spinal column is strengthening. Around six months of age, he is able to sit by himself and gain strength and liberty for his arms, giving him more options in movement and activities to enrich his world.

The joy of playing—throwing and reaching for objects and toys which are farther and farther away from him makes him crave for more and this is how he first discovers “rolling” and then finally, starts to crawl.

Virtually all parents accept that crawling is a milestone all babies must master, but in spite of this, not many realize why it is so important, or how to motivate their babies to accomplish and get the most benefits from this skill. It is very common to hear some parents say that their baby did not crawl or did not want to crawl. In many cases this is because parents do not have time to properly stimulate their babies to develop this skill. Also, because in our busy schedule we need babies to walk in a very short time, we cut them short of a major stage in their physical and neurological development by putting them in a walker or forcing them to walk early.

Crawling not only means a new way of locomotion: as he moves from one side to the other, a lot of very exciting things are happening inside his little head. More and more studies show that crawling has a paramount connection between the physical and neurological development of the baby which, in the future, will be of major importance in his academic and extra-academic performance.

Crawling allows babies to create connections between both cerebral hemispheres. When the baby coordinates his movements to move in one direction, he mostly first moves the right arm and the left leg and then the left arm with the right leg in a reciprocating motion; this is called cross-crawl patterning. Motor nerve impulses to the extremities originate in each side of the brain cortex and cross in the brain stem in an area called the corpus callosum to supply required motor activity to the opposite extremity. This means that when the baby crawls, both hemispheres must communicate and interchange information very fast. What makes this incredible is that these same patterns, or neurological routes, are the same that later in life will be use to perform more difficult tasks, such as walking, running, passing one object from one hand to the other, or even taking notes in a class while listening to the teacher.

The body of the baby must remain in equilibrium and advance in an orderly and organized fashion. The axis that it is formed between the joints of the hips and shoulders should rotate opposite to each other while the baby crawls causing some torsion in the baby’s spine. This torsion will tonify and model the structures of the spinal column, preparing them for an erect posture when the baby starts to walk. The curvatures of the spine, especially the ones at the neck and lower back area, will start to form, setting the basis for the correct spinal model which will accommodate for a proper spinal function and posture. This is very important for the chiropractic doctor because it sets the beginning of a healthy spine.

In addition, when the baby crawls, his body acts against the weight of gravity, developing his vestibular and propioceptive systems. Furthermore, when crawling, the baby touches different surfaces and textures and this will develop the sensibility of his palms and fingers, allowing him in the future to grasp and hold small objects such as a pencil or crayon to draw, write, or play a musical instrument. These two systems will be of utmost importance in his future neurological and cognitive development.

Another area where crawling is very important is the visual aspect of baby’s development. Crawling helps the baby measure the world that surrounds him; the distance between his eyes and his hand when he is in the crawling position will become fundamental in everything he does and will have an impact in his future development. This is called optical convergence, which helps us to know at what distance an object is located, its volume, and its size. It helps the baby to know how the distance from the sofa to the floor and if it is safe to go down face or feet first. This ability will be important in the future in order to clearly see things that are near, such as letters and pictures in a book, or things which are far away, such as words or drawings in the classroom and be able to accommodate far and near objects instantly. Knowing the distance and volume of objects will also help him with puzzles and brain-teasers and will also set the basis for reading and writing skills. So, binocular and stereoscopic vision, convergence, and accommodation will all be developed by crawling, which in due time helps the baby to solve problems, jump obstacles, and understand spatial relationships.

As stated earlier, crawling creates neurological connections which criss-cross between the right and left brain hemispheres; the more the baby crawls the faster these connections will interchange information. This process will transform the brain and produce the phenomenon of lateralization, in which one hemisphere becomes dominant in certain activities and skills. When you throw an object to a baby he will try to catch it with both hands because the information reaches both hemispheres at the same time. But in an older child, he will catch the toy with one hand or the other. His brain will decide which hand is closer or which hand is more skillful to perform the task.

A newborn infant has a crawling instinct right from birth, but babies will usually be ready to crawl between 8 and 10 months. There are different styles of crawling but most of them allow for simultaneously bearing weight on both arms and legs and alternating the movement of opposing extremities. All babies have their own rhythm and time. There is no use to compare the development of infants of the same age, but it is clear that babies without this experience almost always will have some degree of delay in the performance of skills explained before. Crawling is key in developing crucial brain activities and skills that will allow the baby to succeed and to relate to his world in a more complete and satisfying manner. We should stimulate this activity by giving the baby “floor time” every day: placing him belly down to strengthen his neck, arm, and back muscles and placing colorful objects in front of him to encourage forward movements. And always remember to cheer him and to transmit love and confidence.

Article originally posted at Author Joe WithrowPosted on Categories WellnessTags , , , Leave a comment on Baby Crawling: How Important It Really Is