free market capitalism Archives

Politics is Already Dead

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Politics is Already Dead

October 14, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out today at $1,994. Gold closed up at $1,187 per ounce. Oil closed at $46.59 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 1.98%. Bitcoin is trading around $252 per BTC today. My attention is currently focused heavily on the gold sector in the equities market. Many gold stocks were beat up and left for dead, having fallen 90% from their previous high. This sector has steadily traded higher over the past few weeks, including a brief pull-back, potentially indicating the gold sector has formed a bottom. Has the next gold stock bull cycle begun? It could be a big one.

Dear Journal,

Little Maddie celebrates her first birthday next week! Wife Rachel has been hard at work planning the party. She has been very busy picking out decorations, sending out invitations, putting together a food menu, picking out outfits (Madison’s and her own), getting her hair cut, wrapping gifts, cleaning the house, ordering her husband to clean the house, and acquiring all necessary items from the store. I notice a twinkle in Rachel’s eye as she talks about the birthday celebration with excitement. Madison couldn’t care less.

With wife Rachel in frantic planning mode, I take the time to savor the onset of Autumn here in the mountains of Virginia. As the leaves slowly transform into majestic shades of yellow, orange, and red, I casually work to stack wood in the garage and get kindling ready for winter. I sit and enjoy a Harvest Pumpkin Brew as the early Autumn breeze gently blows fallen leaves down the gravel driveway. Soon we will take Maddie to the pumpkin patch, and we will purchase apples from the local orchard to make Apple Cider. What a glorious season!

In my previous journal entry, I suggested that technological advancements were rendering many established institutions obsolete. I want to build on that suggestion from a slightly different angle today. Continue reading “Politics is Already Dead”

The Great Opportunity for Free Markets

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Great Opportunity

August 26, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $1,873. Gold closed at $1,138 per ounce. Oil closed out at $39.31 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.00%. Bitcoin is trading around $229 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

My last entry suggested that the centralized nation-state model looks to have peaked in the 20th century. I speculated that troubling macroeconomic trends related to government interventions will lead to a “Great Reset” sooner or later – probably sooner – as these massive nation-states are forced to ramp up the printing presses in attempts to service all of their debt and unfunded liabilities.

Today I would like to point out that we are approaching a crossroads and there is a tremendous opportunity for the growth of free markets and prosperity if we can shed the 20th century paradigm of centralization. A great golden age for civilization is staring us right in the face, but few have noticed. Why? Because we have placed too much emphasis on politicians, presidents, elections, and democracy and too little emphasis on individual self-empowerment.

For starters, consider the following advancements: indoor plumbing and electricity, refrigeration, cooking appliances, heating & air systems, local and long-distance transportation, local and long-distance communication, and access to information. Each of these items were non-existent, scarce, or unreliable just one hundred short years ago. Additionally, roughly 40% of the U.S. population was involved in agriculture in the year 1900 in order to produce enough food to meet demand. Today that number is around 2% and food is more available than ever. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available at the grocery store year-round. Also, thanks to technological development, oil and gas are now more abundant and cheaper than ever. This has reduced the costs of production and distribution significantly, and it has created competition for the oil cartels and monopolies that have had a strangle-hold on the industry for decades. Continue reading “The Great Opportunity for Free Markets”

A Case for Monetary Independence

by Lucas M. Engelhardt – Mises Daily:

“Sound money and free banking are not impossible — they are merely illegal. Freedom of money and freedom of banking are the principles that must guide our steps.” — Hans Sennholz

When I was asked to give the Hans Sennholz Memorial Lecture, I was uncertain what I should speak about. Should I give an inspirational, autobiographical talk about life as a young academic? Should I present cutting edge research? Should I advocate for better policy in some “hot” political topic? In the end, I looked at the title of the lecture — this was the Hans Sennholz Memorial Lecture. So, I decided that I should present something Sennholzian — especially since I am a Grove City College alumnus, though I was never a student of Sennholz — who had retired before I was a student here.

The only problem was that I knew embarrassingly little about Hans Sennholz. I had heard him speak — in the same room where I was going to speak — once. But, I only remembered two things about him. First, I remembered his German accent. Second, I remembered a brief story that he told about his experiences in academic publishing. Apparently, Harvard asked him to write an article — I don’t think he mentioned what — so he did, they published it, and he was paid $15 for his efforts. He thought this must be some mistake. Not much later, Harvard approached him again, so he wrote for them again — they printed it, and he received another $15. He decided to stop writing for Harvard. (Sennholz’s academic publishing experience is quite different from mine. I wrote an article that I sent to one of the American economic journals. They decided not to print it, and I paid them $100.)

Anyway, after realizing that I should discuss something Sennholzian, and realizing my own ignorance of Sennholz’s work, I hit the library and reserved every book by Sennholz in the state of Ohio’s library system. As I flipped through them: Age of Inflation; Debts and Deficits; The Great Depression: Will We Repeat It?; Money and Freedom a central theme emerged, and it’s the theme in the quote that I began with: Sound money and free banking. So, I hope to present to you today what I call a case for monetary independence — that is, a case for the separation of money and State. To make this case, I will consider a number of different institutional arrangements for how the monetary system may be organized.

Fully Dependent National Central Banks

Let’s start with the worst case — a central bank that is fully dependent on the political system. In effect, in such a system, the Treasury would have the power to create money at will. Economists generally agree that such a system would lead to very high rates of inflation. Government spending is popular — the left loves their social welfare programs, while the right likes funding a large military. However, taxes are politically unpopular — especially with those that have to pay them. So, it is unsurprising that governments typically run deficits. If the government were given direct control over money creation, one can expect that deficits would be funded largely by the creation of new money, as the effects of money creation are much easier to hide than the effects of taxation or decreases in spending.

The end result that economists expect with this framework is that hyperinflation becomes a very real possibility. Historically, hyperinflations tend to occur when large deficits are funded with money creation. This isn’t shocking — a $1 bill costs just about $0.07 to print, so money production is quite profitable. It’s a cheap way of raising funds for the government, and zeros are cheap. So, as prices go up and the money loses value, the Treasury can maintain their profits simply by adding zeros. Eventually, we end up with a Zimbabwe scenario. I have 180 trillion Zimbabwe dollars that I bought on eBay for $15 — and that included protective plastic sleeves. I suspect the sleeves are more valuable than the money inside them, but the point is: zeros are cheap. That being the case, there is virtually no limit to the inflation that a Treasury could create if it were giving the power to create money directly. For this reason, most economists now suggest that central banks should be independent.

Independent National Central Banks

In some ways, the claim that money should be independent of the State is a bit blasé. Over the past twenty or thirty years, the mainstream economics literature has converged around the idea that central banks — which govern monetary policy — should be independent of the governments that they operate under. Alberta Alesina and Larry Summers (Summers is the former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, and former Director of the National Economic Council) found that independent central banks have better inflation performance — without having higher unemployment or more economic instability than countries with central banks that are less independent. Even President Obama has been clear that he supports a “strong and independent Federal Reserve” — an odd statement given that he has appointed all five of the current members of the Board of Governors, and appears to be looking to appoint more.

And the reality is that the Federal Reserve is not very independent. Dincer and Eichengreen, in a paper in the International Journal of Central Banking, ranked the United States’s Federal Reserve System as one of the four least independent central banks in the world — along with India, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia.

Beyond the institutional connections, there are clear policy connections between the Federal Reserve and government spending. After controlling for the state of the economy, a $1 deficit appears to be funded by about $0.30 of additional monetary base. So, while the Fed is not funding the government dollar-for-dollar, there does appear to be a very close connection between the two. The reason is simple: the Fed, under its current ideology, targets interest rates. If the government borrows a lot, it will drive interest rates up. So, the Fed produces more money to put into loan markets to drive rates back down to their target levels. The end effect is that the Fed is funding a significant portion of the government’s deficits.

So, is this any better than a fully dependent central bank? As many economists love to say — it depends. When the time comes, will the Fed decide to fight inflation rather than continue to fund government deficits? It is impossible to say for certain — though I will say two things. First, mainstream macroeconomists seem to have achieved a consensus that fighting inflation is a very important goal of monetary policy; perhaps the most important goal in most countries at most times. Second, the leadership of the Federal Reserve is convinced that, at the moment, inflation is not much of a concern. Whether they will change their minds in time, and have the political fortitude to stand up to a government that will, in all likelihood, still be deficit spending, is uncertain enough that I won’t speculate one way or the other.

Independent, Discretionary, International Central Banks

As we know, the Federal Reserve is not very independent. So, what does it take to make a central bank independent? Based on Nergiz Dincer and Barry Eichengreen’s research, the most independent central banks are mostly found in the Eurozone — where the European Central Bank is in control of monetary policy.

Is this international system a “better” one, though? Let’s take this to an extreme — an extreme which some people have suggested — and consider the benefits and drawbacks of such a system. Let us imagine that all central banks ceded their authority to the International Monetary Fund, which then acted as a single one-world central bank.

This system does, admittedly, have a number of very real benefits. Trade is certainly easier when there is a common currency. Decreased worries regarding exchange rate fluctuations encourage long-term investment projects across national boundaries, which can increase productivity by locating capital where it will be most productive, rather than where worries about currency stability are smallest. The IMF can be expected to be independent of any single government’s pressure to fund deficits — or at least more independent than a national central bank would be.

The drawbacks, however, are substantial. In his book The Tragedy of the Euro, Philipp Bagus suggests that the formation of the Eurozone created a tragedy of the commons in which weak economies — such as Greece, Portugal, and Spain — had incentives to run large budget deficits, funded, indirectly, by the European Central Bank. As the first recipients of newly created money, deficit-running economies can spend the money before it has its full impact on prices — thereby gaining at the expense of those countries that run more balanced budgets. This naturally creates an incentive for countries to run budget deficits — and, in fact, to compete for running the largest ones. This is a recipe for some combination of exceptionally high inflation — if the central bank were to accommodate the deficits or exceptionally high interest rates — if the central bank were to stand its ground.

While it may be that an international central bank could stand its ground more effectively than a national central bank could, recent experience in Europe raises questions about whether international central banks actually will stand their ground.

I want to make one last point about the danger of an entirely unified system: when doing risk management — and a lot of policy is really just risk management — one needs to pay attention to the worst case scenarios. As long as the central bank has discretion, the odds that — at some point in its history — the central bank is going to make a very large mistake is very high. The question then becomes: what is Plan B? We have seen in recent years that national-level hyperinflation, though terrible, has been fairly easy to recover from. The reason can best be seen by examining Zimbabwe. In its hyperinflationary episode in 2008, the internal economy of Zimbabwe was so disrupted that the gross national income per capita had fallen to its lowest level in forty years. However, since that time, gross national income per capital has more than doubled to its highest level since 1983. How did this happen? Zimbabweans abandoned their hyperinflated currency in favor of some combination of the euro, US dollar, and South African Rand — all of which were stable when compared to the Zimbabwe dollar. The adoption of a currency that is more stable gave people confidence to engage in market transactions again — which unfettered resources that had been largely unusable in a hyperinflationary environment.

This solution, though, required the existence of alternative currencies to switch to. What would happen if a single world central bank made a similar mistake? The answer is not at all clear, but I suggest that a worldwide hyperinflation, if it were to occur, would seriously disrupt the division of labor, and thereby lead to a collapse in the worldwide standard of living. The recovery would not be easy, as it would require the reintroduction of a new currency that is actually trusted by the people enough that they would accept it as a medium of exchange. Historically, some countries have succeeded at reintroducing a re-based form of their own currency — but there are also many cases, Zimbabwe among them — where the reintroduction failed.

Given, then, that there would be strong incentives toward hyperinflation, the odds of a hyperinflation actually occurring in a system with a single world central bank, at some point, are far from zero. In fact, given a sufficiently long time period, hyperinflation — or at least some form of serious monetary mismanagement — becomes highly likely. Is this risk worth the advantages? In my assessment, they are probably not.

Monetary Policy Rules

All that has been said thus far has assumed that money is produced by some human monetary policymaker that has some discretion about how much money they can produce. A popular alternative is a rule-based monetary policy. In this case, the political system sets up a monetary policy rule which, somehow, they are unable to alter. This rule then automatically decides what monetary policy should be.

There are several such rules that have been proposed. Milton Friedman’s constant money growth rule was one early — and remarkably simple — example. Friedman suggested that the money supply should grow at a constant rate near 3 or 5 percent. Given that production, on average, grows at a similar rate, this rate of growth will lead to an overall level of prices that is basically stable over the long run. Since Friedman, a number of other rules have been proposed. John Taylor famously proposed his rule which is based on a combination of recent inflation and the recent state of the economy relative to its long-term trend. Scott Sumner suggests what he calls Nominal GDP targeting — an idea not original to Sumner, nor does he claim it to be.

Rather than criticizing each of these individually, I will suggest a few difficulties with this institutional arrangement — regardless of the specific content of the rules.

The primary difficulty, of course, is the political one. Any political system that is strong enough to establish a monetary policy rule is strong enough to modify it — or discard it. So, what would it take for the monetary policy rule to be established and then left alone? We know that there are times that policymakers are actually strong enough to implement a policy, but would not be strong enough to eliminate it. I think of Social Security as an example. In this case, the policy created an interest group — and a popular one — that would fight for the policy to continue. Everyone loves their Grandma, and everyone’s Grandma loves Social Security — so it is such a popular program today that no politician would be willing to seriously attempt to eliminate it. For us to do this with monetary policy, we’d need to have a monetary policy rule that created a popular interest group that would resist any changes to that rule. How to do that is not clear to me — but I may just be uncreative at coming up with political solutions.

Even if we were to solve the political problem, these rules all share in common certain economic problems — primarily one of measurement error. Any use of economic data must acknowledge that discussing data from a scientific standpoint, such as saying that the overall price level will rise if the money supply increase sufficiently quickly, is different from saying that a particular measurement of that variable will act in a specific way. The Consumer Price Index, Producer Price Index, and GDP Deflator all seek to communicate the “overall price level” — but they all have weaknesses.

That is: the statistics that we can actually measure don’t align perfectly with the scientific conceptions that they are designed to estimate. In short: in reality, there is error in any macroeconomic measurement. For scientific purposes, this is something we can deal with. As long as our statistics are reasonably well correlated with the underlying reality that we care about, errors can be expected to, in a sense, cancel out, on average. So, as long as actual prices, on average, act like the CPI, and as long as the true money supply, on average, acts like M2, then any statistical connection between CPI and M2 would be expected, on average, to reflect the actual relationship between money and price levels.

But, policymaking is an entirely different matter — it’s far closer to engineering than science. That being the case, the errors are, in a sense, exactly what matter. If our measure of the money supply is temporarily undermeasuring the true money supply, then we’ll end up creating too much money under a Friedman rule. Is this temporary? Yes, but in the world of economics, temporary things are exactly those things that create economic disruptions.

An additional economic problem with these rules is that they assume that, in a sense, the world is, or should be, static. The Friedman Rule and Nominal GDP targeting both implicitly assume that overall price levels or total spending in the economy should not change. Why not? The Taylor Rule implicitly assumes that the equilibrium real interest rate in the economy should not change. Again, why not? The economic world is a dynamic one in which change is one of the very few constants. At its most fundamental level, economic activity is the use of resources to satisfy our preferences based on our technical know-how. But all three of these are in constant flux. We are continuously using, creating, exhausting, and discovering resources. We are continuously changing our preferences. Our technical know-how is continuously changing as we learn new things and unlearn others. Why then would we expect macroeconomic aggregates — even if we could measure them perfectly — to remain constant? So, rule-based policymaking has serious economic problems because of mismeasurement and the natural dynamism of the real world. Perhaps fortunately we will likely never experience these problems as the political problems with getting such rules established are likely to be insurmountable.

Market-Based Money

Our final stop in the spectrum of monetary independence is a truly independent currency — that is, a money that has no legal advantages or disadvantages when compared to other goods. In short: a free market in money where moneys are free to compete with one another to attain the favor of users. Anyone who wishes may introduce their own money — so I could print Engelhardt dollars in my basement — and try to convince people to use them. The only restriction would be that fraud would be banned — so no one else could mimic my Engelhardt dollars.

In such a system, I would expect that moneys would be governed by the normal, everyday actions of entrepreneurs that do so well satisfying so many of our desires. As they respond to demand and competition from other suppliers, the supply of money would grow at the pace that the market determines. If more of a particular money is demanded, that money will rise in value — increasing the profitability of producing it — leading those entrepreneurs that produce it to produce more, and drawing other entrepreneurs toward producing money that is similar — and therefore competitive — with that money.

As entrepreneurs respond to demand, one would expect that the value of a winning money is likely to be fairly stable over long periods of time — not perfectly stable, of course, as there is often a delay between a change in demand and changes in production to meet that demand. But, the market will reward those money producers that do the best job providing a money that people actually want to use.

As Sennholz observed in many of his writings, there’s something about gold that makes it a particularly good money. And that something is not just some undefinable “X Factor.” It’s a list of traits. As laid out in Sennholz’s Money and Freedom, gold is useful, but unessential, easily divisible, highly durable, storable and transportable. So, the fact that gold — in many cases operating alongside the remarkably similar, but somewhat less valuable silver — was, historically, what emerged as money on the free market. Like Sennholz, I also agree that it seems fairly likely that, if people were left to their own devices, they would again use gold as money.

The question then is: what would it take for us to establish a market-based money? When I first read Sennholz’s Inflation or Gold Standard? I read his plan for reform — and on nearly every step, I said to myself “Well, we’ve already done that.” Only a couple points remained. When Sennholz wrote Money and Freedom in 1985, his original intent was just to update Inflation or Gold Standard? — but he realized that the world had changed enough in the ten or so years since Inflation or Gold Standard? was written that a new book was required. So, he laid out a new plan for reform. It ends up very little has changed in the past thirty years — so Sennholz’s plan from 1985 is mostly still relevant to us today.

The first step: Legal tender laws must be repealed. Allow private debt payments to be written so that they can be repaid however the borrower and lender find acceptable. As Sennholz notes — this move isn’t really particularly radical. If the federal government wishes to receive its own fiat currency in payment for taxes, no one is preventing them from continuing to do so. If it prefers to borrow and repay in its own fiat currency, that is also fine. Similarly, if any private business or individual wishes to continue using paper dollars exclusively, they are free to do so. The only difference is that people would also be free NOT to deal in paper currency. To some degree, we already have this freedom in most of our transactions. When selling goods and services, businesses are permitted to refuse — or require — payment in any form they like. Legally in the US, only debt falls under the legal tender provision. Again, the legal change we’re asking for is not radical.

A second step is what I call “Honesty in Minting.” The US mint produces gold and silver coins — which have a legal tender value that is a small fraction of their metal value. Under Gresham’s Law, these coins are hoarded while paper money — which is worth far more in exchange than the paper it is printed on — is used as money. This should stop. Rather than stamping a Silver Liberty with a phony legal tender value, simply stamp it with its weight and purity. The back of a Silver Liberty should say 1 oz fine silver. I’d note that it already does include this — it just appends the rather silly “ONE DOLLAR” designation as well. This creates confusion for any business that may want to accept gold or silver coins by suggesting that the coin is worth one dollar when its metal value is worth far more than that. Simply eliminating the one dollar designation would make these coins far more usable in transactions, by allowing them to be traded for their fair value.

In addition to honesty in minting, additional freedom in the banking system would also make the market for money more competitive. For example, free entry in banking should be allowed. Banks should be free to accept deposits and offer check-writing and debit-card services denominated in any currency, or any commodity, that depositors and banks find acceptable.

Technically, you can have deposits in the US that are denominated in foreign currencies — but the minimum deposits tend to be prohibitively high — I found one account that you could open for a mere $50,000 or so. Allowing free entry for banks that specialize in foreign currencies would make the possibility of using alternative moneys real to more than just those that are exceptionally wealthy. In addition, banks should no longer be required to be members of the FDIC or Federal Reserve System. As with any organization, banks should be allowed to join if they believe that the benefits outweigh the costs, and not to join if they believe the costs outweigh the benefits.

Again, these are not radical moves. I am not calling for the end of the FDIC — though I confess that I would like to see it vanish. I am not calling for the abolition of the Federal Reserve — though, again, I am convinced that that would, on the whole, be a good thing. I am simply asking that these organizations be opened up to the normal market forces of competition from competitors who are free to enter or exit the market, producing innovative products that may operate alongside — or may replace — those products currently being provided by the Federal Reserve and FDIC.

I will close as I began, with Sennholz. The last paragraph of Money and Freedom declares to us:

Sound money and free banking are not impossible; they are merely illegal. This is why money must be deregulated. All financial institutions must be free again to issue their notes based on ordinary contract. In a free society, individuals are free to establish note-issuing banks and create private clearinghouses. In freedom, the money and banking industry can create sound and honest currencies, just as other free industries can provide efficient and reliable products. Freedom of money and freedom of banking, these are the principles that must guide our steps.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

Drought and the Failure of Big Government in California

by Ryan McMaken – Mises Daily:

California Governor Jerry Brown has announced that private citizens and small businesses — among others — will have their water usage restricted, monitored, and subject to heavy fines if state agents determine that too much water has been used. Noticeably absent from the list of those subject to restrictions are the largest users of water, the farmers.

Agriculture accounts for 80 percent of the state’s water consumption, but 2 percent of the state’s economy. To spell it out a little more clearly: Under Jerry’s Brown water plan, it’s fine to use a gallon of subsidized water to grow a single almond in a desert, but if you take a shower that’s too long, prepare to be fined up to $500 per day.

There Is No Market Price for Water

The fact that the growers, who remain a powerful interest group in California, happen to be exempt from water restrictions reminds us that water is not allocated according to any functional market system, but is allocated through political means by politicians and government agents.

When pressed as to why the farmers got a free pass, Jerry Brown was quick to fall back on the old standbys: California farms are important to the economy, and California farms produce a lot of food. Thus, the rules don’t apply to them. If translated from politico-speak, however, what Brown really said was this: “I have unilaterally decided that agriculture is more important than other industries and consumers in California, including industries and households that may use water much more efficiently, and which may be willing to pay much more for water.”
In California, those who control the political system have ensured that water will not go to those who value it most highly. Instead, water will be allocated in purely arbitrary fashion based on who has the most lobbyists and the most political power.

Numerous economists at mises.org and elsewhere have already pointed out that the true solution to water shortages lies in allowing a market price to determine allocation — and in allowing there to be a market in water — just as there is a market in energy, food, and other goods essential to life and health. Supporters of government-controlled water claim that billionaires will hoard all the water if this is allowed, although it remains unclear why the billionaires haven’t also hoarded all the oil, coal, natural gas, clothing, food, and shoes for themselves, since all of these daily essentials are traded using market prices, and all are used daily by people of ordinary means.

City Water vs. Agricultural Water

For a clue as to how divorced from reality is current water policy in California, we need only look at the government-determined “price” of water there. Even under current conditions, water remains very inexpensive in California, but for the record, city dwellers have historically paid much, much higher prices for water than growers.
For example, according to one study, water for residents of San Francisco rose by 50 percent from 2010 to 2014, but residents were still paying about 0.8 cents per gallon for water. In Los Angeles, the price growth was a little less over the same period, but the Los Angeles price was also low, coming in a little over 0.6 cents per gallon. City dwellers are told that water is incredibly scarce, but as Kathryn Shelton and Richard McKenzie have noted, the price of water is so low that virtually no one even knows the per-gallon price.

But how much do growers pay for their water? In a recent LA Times article contending that growers “aren’t the water enemy,” it was noted that growers are now paying $1,000 per acre foot. This is supposed to convince us that water prices are incredibly high. But how does this compare to city prices? An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons of water, so if we do the arithmetic, we find that growers who pay $1,000 for an acre-foot are paying about 0.3 cents per gallon for their water. That’s a little less than half as much as the city users are paying.

Now, city water is treated potable water, so we might expect a premium for city water. Historically, however, the gap between city prices and agricultural prices is much, much greater. Bloomberg notes that as of 2014, the price of water had risen to $1,100 “from about $140 a year ago” in the Fresno area. Going back further, we find that in 2001 many farmers were paying $70 per acre foot. Prices well below $1,000 are far more typical of the past several decades than the $1,000 to $3,000 per acre-foot many growers now say they pay. In fact, if we see what the per-gallon price would be for a $140 acre-foot of water, we find that a city dweller could use fifty gallons per day at a monthly price of 64 cents per month, or a per-gallon price of 0.04 cents.

At prices like these, it is no wonder that there is now a shortage of water. The price of water has for years been sending the message that water is barely a scarce resource at all.

In many cases, the low prices are enabled by decades of taxpayer subsidization of water infrastructure. A year round flow of water to both cities and growers is ensured in part by huge New Deal-era projects like Shasta Dam, and Hoover Dam, which the State of California could not afford to build, but which today California largely relies upon for water, care of the US taxpayer.

In central and northern California, the primary beneficiaries of federal water projects are growers, although it’s the city dwellers, who use a relatively small amount of water, who get lectured about conserving water. Were an actual market in water allowed, however, growers would have to compete for water with city dwellers, whose industries are far more productive than agricultural enterprises and who are likely to be willing to pay higher prices. Even when the private sector owners of water are old farming families (a legacy of prior appropriation), the water would still tend to go to those who value it the most as reflected in the per-unit prices they are willing to pay. That is: city dwellers

What Will We Do Without California Growers?

The fact remains that much California farmland is in a desert where it rains under twelve inches per year. Massive irrigation projects have made farming economical in the region, but it’s unlikely that the status quo can continue forever if California dries up and cities begin to compete for more water.

When crops like pecans, which are native to Louisiana where it rains over fifty inches per year, are being grown in central California, we will have to ask ourselves if there is true comparative advantage at work here, or if the industry is really sitting upon a shaky foundation of government-subsidized and -allocated resources.

The rhetoric that’s coming out of the growers, of course, is that California growers are essential to the American food supply. Some will even suggest that it’s a national security issue. Without California growers, we’re told, we’ll all starve in case of foreign embargo.

But let’s not kid ourselves. North America is in approximately zero danger of having too little farmland for staple crops. In fact, one can argue that some of the best farmland in the world — in Iowa for instance — is underutilized because policies like Jerry Brown’s farm favoritism send the message that California will prop up its desert agriculture no matter what.

No, if California farmland continues to go dry, this only means that Americans will have to turn to other parts of the US or imports. After all, many of the crops grown in dry parts of California are much more economically grown in more humid environments, including citrus plants, avocadoes (which are native to Mexico), and various tree nuts. And of course, it’s these crops, which are already fairly expensive and water-intensive that get mentioned when we’re told that California growers must be given what they want until the end of time. This will likely mean higher prices for some of these crops in the short run, the correct response is not government favoritism, but free trade, and letting comparative advantage work. In a world with market prices, it’s simply not economical to grow everything under the sun in the California desert. If markets were allowed to function, with real water prices and free trade, this would quickly become abundantly clear.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

Bait & Switch: Economic Development in the States

by Jeff Scribner – Mises Daily:

North Carolina recently offered Boeing $683 million in tax incentives to open a plant in North Carolina to build Boeing’s new 777X jetliner. The NC bid failed, as did those from some other states, when Boeing decided to build the 777X in its home state of Washington where there is no state, personal, or corporate income tax.

More recently, North Carolina was prepared to offer Toyota up to $107 million worth of incentives to lure the automaker’s North American headquarters from Los Angeles to Charlotte, bringing 2,900 jobs with it. The Charlotte Observer reported that Charlotte lost out to Plano, Texas. The Texas offer was only $40 million but Texas has no corporate or personal income tax and has direct flights to Japan.

Businesses do not locate in any one place solely because of the tax laws. However, as tax burdens climb, the tax treatment of the business itself, and of its higher-paid employees and executives, becomes a more important consideration. Thus the incentive packages, made up primarily of special tax abatements for a set period of time, are developed and used in recruiting new businesses.

It is apparent that the politicians — politicians as diverse as Governor Pat McCrory of North Carolina and Governor Andrew Como of New York — who try to make use of these incentives, are totally missing the point they are illustrating. If you have to bribe a company to locate in your state or bribe one not to leave, your taxes and whatever else you are using to bribe them, are too high or otherwise onerous. If this were not so, companies and entrepreneurs would move to your state without being bribed and those already there would not be trying to leave. Low taxes and a favorable business climate, like that of Texas, bring in many companies from other places, like California, where the business climate and taxes are not favorable.

Ally Bank ran a commercial several months ago illustrating this concept. The point of the commercial was that it is wrong to treat new customers better than old ones. More importantly, state “incentives” for new businesses, or those planning to leave, may amount to failure to provide equal protection under the (tax) law and may actually be bad for the state’s economy.

In April, Governor McCrory proposed a public-private partnership that would take over the economic development functions of the North Carolina Commerce Department. It is not yet clear how the partnership’s marketing would work or whether it would still offer tax and other “incentives” to attract companies to relocate to North Carolina. The budget approved by the House and Senate has no credits, instead offering grants totaling $10 million. (The Department of Commerce is in the process of determining how the grants program will be structured.) As a point of comparison, under the current incentives program, the state gave out $61.2 million in credits in 2013.

New York is mounting an effort to attract new businesses and entice entrepreneurs to start new businesses through its “Start Up New York” program. See their video ad here.

The Upstate New York economy is not good. Many of the little manufacturing companies that lived along the old Erie Canal have gone and even some of the big ones, like Xerox, Kodak, IBM, Bausch & Lomb have left, are leaving, or are diversifying out of state. In his article “The Ghost of America Future” Bob Lonsberry points out that New York has the highest combined state and local taxes, property taxes, and gasoline taxes in the country. Upstate New York is also losing population and representation in Congress. Is this a place where you would move to or start your business? Even if you get a tax break now, what happens when the time is up? Worse yet, if other businesses and population are leaving, will there be any local market for you?

North Carolina, on the other hand, has gained some of the people leaving New York. North Carolina’s traditional tobacco and furniture manufacturing businesses have shrunk. But North Carolina is home to Research Triangle Park (RTP) the biggest research park on the east coast and home to several information-technology, communications, and biotech companies. Moreover, the influx of people moving in from New York and other high-tax northern states has boosted the North Carolina service and real estate sectors. So North Carolina is a better place to move your business to or start up a new business. Then why does Governor McCrory have to offer incentives? Because, even though North Carolina is much better than New York, it is still too highly taxed and regulated when compared to many other states.

In truth, the states should close their economic development offices, cut the size and expense of their governments, and reduce or eliminate the taxes levied on businesses. They should also cut the regulatory red tape required to start a business and then operate that business within their state. Personal income taxes should also be eliminated so that companies considering moving to take advantage of the good business climate will bring their headquarters and high earners along. If you really are a good place to do business and your current businesses are doing well, you will not have to bribe a company to move in. Just get out of the way. Look at Texas!

If you are a small businessman or CEO of a big public company like Boeing, where do you want to move or expand? If a state that you are considering will offer you a “bribe” to move there, how will they treat you when you become one of the “old” companies there? If you are in the economic development office of a state, why do you think you should offer a new company something you would not offer to those already there? If you are a businessman in any state whose government will offer “incentives” to a new company, you should consider suing for equal protection under the law!

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

A Portrait of the Classical Gold Standard

by Marcia Christoff-Kurapovna – Mises Daily:

“The world that disappeared in 1914 appeared, in retrospect, something like our picture of Paradise,” wrote the economist Cecil Hirsch in his June 1934 review of R.W. Hawtrey’s classic, The Art of Central Banking (1933). Hirsch bemoaned the loss of the far-sighted restraint that had once prevailed among the “bankers’ banks” of the West, concluding that modern times “had failed to attain the standard of wisdom and foresight that prevailed in the 19th century.”

That wisdom and foresight was once upon a time institutionalized throughout an international monetary culture — gold-based, wary of credit, and contemptuous of debt, public or private. This world included central banks including the Bank of England, the Bank of France, the Swiss National Bank, the early Federal Reserve, the Imperial Bank of Austria-Hungary, and the German Reichsbank. But the entrenched hard-money ideology of the time restrained all of them. The Bank of Russia, for example, which once required 50 percent to 100 percent gold backing of all notes issued, possessed the second largest gold reserves on the planet at the turn of the twentieth century.

“The countries that were tied together in the gold standard system represented to a not inconsiderable degree a community of interest in and responsibility for the maintenance of economic and financial stability throughout the world,” recounted Aldoph C. Miller, member of the Federal Reserve Board from 1914 to 1936, in The Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, in May 1936. “The gold standard was the one outstanding symbol of unity and economic solidarity which the nineteenth century world had developed.”

It was a time when “automatic market forces,” as economists of the day referred to them, prevailed over monetary management. Redeemability of money in (fine) gold ensured, within limits, stability in foreign exchange rates. Credit was extended only as far as reserve ratios would allow, and central banks were required to keep fixed reserves of gold against notes-in-circulation and against demand deposits.

When Markets Dominated Monetary “Policy”

Gold flows regulated international price relationships through markets, which adjusted themselves accordingly: prices rose when there was an influx of gold — for example, when one country received a debt payment from another country (always in gold), or during such times as the California or Australian gold rushes of the 1870s. These inflows meant credit expansion and a rise in prices. An outflow of gold meant credit was contracted and price deflation followed.

The efficiency of that standard was not impeded by the major central banks in such a way that “any disturbance of economic or financial character originating at any point in the world which might threaten the continued maintenance of economic equilibrium was quickly detected by foreign exchanges,” Miller, the Federal Reserve board member, noted in his paper. “In this way, the gold standard system became in a very real sense a regime or rule of economic health, a method of catching economic disturbances in the bud.”

The Bank of England, the grand master of them all, was the financial center of the universe, whose tight handle on its credit policies was so disciplined that the secured the top spot while not even holding the largest gold reserves. Consistent in its belief that protection of reserves was the chief, and only important, criterion of credit policy, England became the leading exporter of capital, the free market for gold, the international discount market, and international banker for the trade of other countries, as well as her own. The world was in this sense on the sterling standard.

The Bank of France, wisely admonished by its founder, Napoleon, to make sure France was always a creditor country, was so replete with reserves it made England a 500 million franc loan (in 1915 numbers) at the onset of the World War I. Switzerland, perhaps the last “19th-century-style” hold-out today with unlimited-liability private bankers and strict debt-ceiling legislation, also required high standards of its National Bank, founded in 1907. By the 1930s that country had higher banking reserves than the US; the Swiss franc was never explicitly devalued, unlike nearly every other Western nation’s currency, and the country’s domestic price level remained the most stable in the world.

For a time, the disciplined mindset of these banks found its way across the Atlantic, where the idea of a central bank had been long the subject of hot debate in the US. The economist H. Parker Willis, writing about the controversy in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, October 1913, admonished: “The Federal Reserve banks are to be ‘bankers’ banks,’ and they are intended to do for the banker what he himself does for the public.”

At first, the advice was heeded: in September 1916, almost two years after its founding on December 23,1913, the fledgling Fed worked out an amendment to its gold policy on the basis of a very conservative view of credit. This new policy sought to restrain “the undue and unnecessary expansion of credit,” wrote Fed board member Miller, in an article for The American Economic Review, in June 1921.

The Bank of Russia, during the second half of the nineteenth century steered itself through the Crimean War, the Russo-Turkish War, the Russo-Japanese War, impending Balkan wars — not to mention all that was to follow — and managed to emerge with sound fiscal policies and massive gold reserves. According to The Economist of May 20, 1899, Russian holdings were 95 million pounds sterling of gold, while the Bank of France held 78 million sterling worth. (Austria-Hungary held 30 million sterling worth of gold and the Bank of England 30 million sterling worth of both gold and silver.) “Russia up to the very moment of rupture [with Japan, 1904–1905], was working imperturbably at the progressive consolidation of her finances,” reported Karl Helfferich of the University of Berlin, at a meeting of The Royal Economic Society [UK] in December 1904. “Even in years of industrial crises and defective harvest, her foreign trade showed an excess of exports over imports more than sufficient to compensate payments sent abroad. And, as guarantee her monetary system she has succeeded in a amassing and maintaining a vast reserve of gold.”

These banks, in turn, drew on the medieval/Renaissance and Baroque-era banking traditions of the Hanseatic League, the Bank of Venice, and Amsterdam banks. Payment-on-demand “in good and heavy gold” was like a blood-oath binding the banker-client relationship. The transfer of credit “did not arise from any such substitution of credit for money,” noted Charles F. Dunbar, in The Quarterly Journal of Economics of April 1892, “but from the simple fact that the transfer in-bank saved the necessity of counting coin and manual delivery of every transaction.”

Bankers were forbidden to deal in certain commodities, could not make loans or create credit for the purchase of such commodities, and forbade both foreigners and citizens from buying silver on credit unless the same amount in cash was in the bank. According to Dunbar, a Venetian law of 1403 on reserve requirements became the basis of US banking law on the deposits of public securities in the late 1800s.

After the fall of bi-metallism in the 1870s, gold continued to perform monetary functions among the main countries of the Western world (and the well-administered Bank of Japan). It was the only medium of exchange and the only currency with unrestricted legal tender. It became the vaunted “measure of value.” Bank currency notes were simply used as auxiliary to gold and, in general, did not enjoy the privilege of legal tender.

The End of An Era

It was certainly not a flawless system, or without periodic crises. But central banks had to act in an exceptionally prudent manner given the all-over public distrust of paper money.

As economist Andrew Jay Frame of the University of Chicago, writing in The Journal of Political Economy, in January 1912, noted: “During panics in Britain in 1847 and 1866, when cash payments were suspended, the floodgates of cash were opened [by The Bank of England], the governor sent word to the street that solvent banks would be accommodated, and the panic was relieved.” Frame then adds: “However, this extra cash and the increased loans that went with it were very quickly put to an end to avoid credit expansion.”

The US was equally confident of its prudent attitude. Aldoph Miller, writing of Federal Reserve policy, remarked: “The three chief elements of the policy of a central bank or system of reserve holding institutions are best disclosed in connection with the attitude towards 1) gold 2) currency 3) credit.” He noted proudly: “The federal reserve system has met [these] tests on the whole with remarkable success.”

But after World War I, a different international landscape was left behind. England had been displaced as the center of international finance; the US and France emerged as the chief post-war creditor countries. The mechanism of the gold standard to which depreciated currencies could be related no longer existed. Only the US was left with a full gold standard. England and France had a gold bullion standard and other countries (Germany, primarily) had a gold-exchange standard.

A matrix of unbalanced trade relationships began to saturate the international economy. Then, with so many foreign countries attendant upon its speculative boom, the US manipulated its own domestic credit policies to ease credit and exchange-standard controls. This eventually culminated in an international financial crisis of 1931. Under Bretton Woods (1944), the gold standard was effectively abandoned: domestic convertibility was illegal and the role of gold was very constrained in favor of the dollar.

“It was, at least in theory, simple enough in the old days,” wrote a wistful W. Randolph Burgess, head of the New York Federal Reserve, in 1938. “In the present strange new world, where the old gold portents have lost their former meaning, where is the radio beam which the central banker may follow? What is the equivalent of gold?”

The men of his era and of the late nineteenth century understood the meaning of such a question and, more importantly, why it is one that must be asked. But theirs was a different world, indeed — one without “QE,” ZIRP,” or “Unknown Knowns” as fiscal policy. And there were no helicopters, either.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

Government Loans: Risky Business for Taxpayers

by Matt Battaglioli– Mises Daily:

Obtaining a loan from the government now seems perfectly normal to most Americans, be the loans for education, business, healthcare, or whatever else.

Examples include Small Business Administration loans, where a potential business owner goes to the government to get startup cash, and student loans, where a college student borrows money for tuition or even living expenses. These loans can often be paid back with interest over the course of what is often several decades.

Other examples might include Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Veterans Administration (VA), or Rural Housing Services (RHS) loans, which differ from the former in the sense that they are government insured loans, yet the fundamental principle behind them remains the same: government is taking upon itself (via taxpayers) the risk behind making the loan.

Of course, private loans are also available, though those that do not employ government insurance or other subsidies usually come with higher interest rates. The higher interest rates in the purely-private sector come from the fact that the private entity making the loan must take on all the risk, instead of externalizing it to the taxpayers.

So, the reality of lower interest rates in government and government-subsidized loans means they are vitally necessary, right?

First of all, the government doesn’t “make money,” in the way that private entities do. There is only one way in which states initially accumulate revenue, and that is through taxation. This extorted wealth is originally made in the private sector. So, in order for a government to make a loan back to the private sector, that money must first be removed from the private sector via taxation.

Government Knows How To Best Spend Your Money

For private entities, however, when they make a loan and determine who qualifies for it, and at what interest rate, the private firm making the loan is basically determining at what price (i.e, interest rate) the firm feels adequately compensated for the risk of lending out this money, and for giving up direct control over that money for the duration.

To claim, therefore, that the government should be in the business of making loans because private loans are generally too costly or too inaccessible for buyers, is no different than saying that government must take individual’s money and use it in a way that the original owners (i.e., the taxpayers) themselves would determine to be reckless and irresponsible. While it is true that occasionally a government loan may be paid back with interest at the appropriate time, it would be absurd to suggest that politicians would be more knowledgeable about how a person’s money should be used than the person who originally created and owned the wealth in the first place.

But Government Should At Least Prevent Usury, Right?

Moreover, there are those who will say that private firms making loans should be restricted from charging “excessive” interest on their loans (i.e., usury). This is an example of a very well-meaning, but utterly damaging regulation. It is crucial to note the differences in time preference displayed by both the lender and the borrower. The lender’s time preference (in this case) is lower than that of the borrower’s, meaning that the lender prefers a larger sum of money in the future, and the borrower prefers a smaller sum now. To get money now, however, the borrower must pay for it in the form of interest.

This represents a healthy balance between lenders and borrowers. It is why loans are made. Laws passed that prohibit certain interest rates on loans are far more likely to hurt those who need the loans, than anyone else. As was previously stated, a firm or person making a loan must feel compensated for the risk of making the loan, and that compensation manifests itself in the interest rate. To restrict a firm from charging a certain percentage of interest on their loans will only reduce the amount of loans it gives out.

Taking Away Your Choices

If a potential borrower who is determined to be a rather high risk asks for a private loan, then their interest on that loan will be quite high, but at least in that situation, the borrower has the choice of taking the loan, or to not take the loan. In the end, the borrower will choose what he or she believes will most benefit him or her. Yes, the borrower might miscalculate and the loan might turn out to have been a bad idea, but at least the borrower had a choice.

On the other hand, if the amount of interest that could be charged on the loan were to be forced down via government regulation, then the firm or person making the loan would simply not offer the loan at all, as he or she would not feel their risk is justified by the legally-allowable interest rate.

Faced with a lack of loans, risky borrowers may then look to government and government-subsidized loans as an option, but we find here just another case of government offering itself as the (taxpayer-funded) solution to a problem it caused in the first place.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

Why the Austrian Understanding of Money and Banks Is So Important

by Jörg Guido Hülsmann– Mises Daily:

This article is adapted from the foreword to Finance Behind the Veil of Money: An Austrian Theory of Financial Markets by Eduard Braun.

The classical economists had rejected the notion that overall monetary spending — in current jargon: aggregate demand — is a driving force of economic growth. The true causes of the wealth of nations are non-monetary factors such as the division of labor and the accumulation of capital through savings. Money comes into play as an intermediary of exchange and as a store of value. Money prices are also fundamental for business accounting and economic calculation. But money delivers all these benefits irrespective of its quantity. A small money stock provides them just as well as a bigger one. It is therefore not possible to pull a society out of poverty, or to make it more affluent, by increasing the money stock. By contrast, such objectives can be achieved through technological progress, through increased frugality, and through a greater division of labor. They can be achieved through the liberalization of trade and the encouragement of savings.

The Austrians Are the True Heirs of Classical Economics

For more than a century, the Austrian school of economics has almost single-handedly upheld, defended, and refined these basic contentions. Initially Carl Menger and his disciples had perceived themselves, and were perceived by others, as critics of classical economics. That “revolutionary” perception was correct to the extent that the Austrians, initially, were chiefly engaged in correcting and extending the intellectual edifice of the classics. But in retrospect we see more continuity than rupture. The Austrian school did not aim at supplanting classical economics with a completely new science. Regarding the core message of the classics, the one pertaining to the wealth of nations, they have been their intellectual heirs. They did not seek to demolish the theory of Adam Smith root and branch, but to correct its shortcomings and to develop it.

The core message of the classics is today very much out of fashion — probably just as much as at the end of the eighteenth century. As the prevailing way of economic thinking has it, monetary spending is the lubricant and engine of economic activity. Savings are held to be a plight on the social economy, the selfish luxury of the ignorant or the evil, at the expense of the rest of humanity. To promote growth and to combat economic crises, it is crucial to maintain the present level of aggregate spending, and to increase it if possible.

This prevailing theory is precisely the one refuted by Smith and his disciples. Classical economics triumphed over that theory, which Smith called “mercantilism,” but its triumph was short-lived. Starting in the 1870s, at the very moment of the appearance of the Austrian school, mercantilism started its comeback, at first slowly, but then in ever-increasing speed.1 In the 1930s it was led to triumph under the leadership of Lord Keynes.

How Keynesianism Destroyed Economics

Neo-mercantilism, or Keynesianism, has ravaged the foundations of our monetary system. Whereas the classical economists and their intellectual heirs had tried to reduce the monetary role of the state as much as possible, even to the point of privatizing the production of money, the Keynesians set out to bring it under full government control. Most importantly, they sought to replace free-market commodity monies such as silver and gold with fiat money. As we know, these endeavors have been successful. Since 1971 the entire world economy has been on a fiat standard.

But Keynesianism has also vitiated economic thought. For the past sixty years, it has dominated the universities of the western world, at first under the names of “the new economics” or of Keynesianism, and then without any specific name, since it is pointless to single out and name a theory on which seemingly everyone agrees.

The Key Importance of Money and Banking

No other area has been more affected by this counter-revolution than the theory of banking and finance. It was but a small step from the notion that increases in aggregate demand tend to have, on the whole, salutary economic effects, to the related notion that the growth of financial markets — aka “financial deepening” — generally tends to spur economic growth.2 Whereas the classical tradition had stressed that “financing” an economy meant providing it with the real goods required to sustain human labor during the production process (which was called the wage fund respectively the subsistence fund), the Keynesian counter-revolution deflected attention from his real foundation of finance. In the eyes of these protagonists, finance was beneficial to the extent — and only to the extent — that it facilitated the creation and spending of money. Financial intermediation was useful because it prevented that savings remained dormant in idle money hoards. But finance could do much more to maintain and increase aggregate demand. It could most notably rely on the ex nihilo creation of credit through commercial banks and central banks. It provided monetary authorities with new tools to manage inflation expectations, for example, through the derivatives markets. And financial innovation was likely to create ever new opportunities for recalcitrant money hoarders to finally spend their cash balances on attractive “financial products.”

The youthful and boastful neo-mercantilist movement of the 1930s and the early post-war period did not bother to refute the classical conceptions in any detail. The theory of the wage fund was brushed aside, rather than carefully analyzed and criticized, just as Keynes had brushed aside Say’s Law without even making the attempt to dissect it.3 As a consequence, the foundations of the theory of finance have remained in an unsatisfactory state for many decades. A newer vision of finance had supplanted the older one. But was the latter without merit? The new theory appeared to be new. But was it true?

Finance Behind the Veil of Money is one of the very first modern discussions that try to come to grips with these basic questions. Steeped in the tradition of the Austrian school, Dr. Eduard Braun delivers a sweeping and original essay on the foundations of finance. Relying on sources in three languages, and delving deep into the history of capital theory — most notably the neglected German-language literature of the 1920s and 1930s — his work sheds new light on a great variety of topics, in particular, on the history of the subsistence-fund theory, on the relation between monetary theory and capital theory, on economics and business accounting, on price theory and interest theory, on financial markets, on business cycle theory, and on economic history.

Two achievements stand out.

One, Braun resuscitates the theory of the subsistence fund out of the almost complete oblivion into which it had fallen after WWII. He argues that this theory has been neglected for no pertinent reason, and with dire consequences for theory and economic policy. In particular, without grasping the nature and significance of the subsistence fund, one cannot understand the upper turning points of the business cycle, nor the economic rationale of business accounting, nor the interdependence between the monetary side and the real side of the economy.

Two, the author reinterprets the role of money within the theory of finance. He revisits the theory of the purchasing power of money (PPM) and argues that a suitable definition of the PPM relates exclusively to consumer-good prices, not to capital-good prices. Dr. Braun argues that the PPM in that sense is the bridge between the theory of money and the classical theory of the subsistence fund.

His book shows that this is a fruitful approach and a promising framework for future research in a variety of contemporary fields, such as financial economics, finance, money and banking, and macroeconomics. The current crisis is a devastating testimony to the fact that mainstream thought in these fields is very deficient, and possibly deeply flawed. At the very moment when governments and central banks, with the encouragement of academic economists, set out to apply the conventional Keynesian policies with ever greater determination, Eduard Braun invites us to step back and reflect about the meaning of finance. This is time well spent, as Braun’s readers will find out.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

The Private Equity Boom, Easy Money, and Crony Capitalism

by Brendan Brown – Mises Daily:

Amongst the big winners from the Obama Fed’s Great Monetary Experiment has been the private equity industry. Indeed this went through a near-death experience in the Great Panic (2008) before its savior — Fed quantitative easing — propelled it forward into new riches. There is no surprise therefore that its barons who join the political stage (think of the last Republican presidential candidate) have no interest in monetary reform. And the same attitude is common amongst leading politicians who hope private equity will provide them high-paid jobs when they quit Washington.

The ex-politicians are expected by their new bosses to join the intense lobbying effort aimed at preserving the industry’s unique tax advantages, especially with respect to deductibility of interest and carry income. They are also expected to do this while establishing the links with regulators and governments (state and federal) that help generate business opportunities for the private equity groups themselves. The special ability of these political actors to take advantage of the monetarily induced frenzy in high-yield debt markets — and secure spectacularly cheap funds — means they become leading agents of malinvestment in various key sectors of the economy.

What’s Makes Private Equity Run?

Spokespersons for the industry claim that the private equity business is all about spotting opportunities to take over already established businesses, and then using home-grown talent (within the private equity management team) to transform their organization so as to create value for shareholders. And this can all be accomplished, they say, without the burden of frequent reporting requirements as in public equity.

That is all very laudable, but why all the leverage, why all the political connections, and why all the tax advantages? And even before getting to these questions, why should we praise the secrecy? After all, public equity markets are meant to do a good job of incentivizing and disciplining management, especially in this age of shareholder activism. So why is private equity supposedly superior?

Perhaps there are instances where companies which are now in the public equity market cannot economically justify the fixed costs of maintaining their presence there (filing reports, auditing, etc.). In practice, though, this public-to-private conversion function of the private equity industry has been dwindling in overall significance compared to private-to-private acquisitions and new ventures.

Why There’s So Much Leverage

But why should there be so much leverage? Why could their economic functions not be achieved on a purely or largely equity basis?

After all, there are reports of private equity groups turning away would-be new participating partners offering to bring in zillions of new funds to the party. If individual investors in private equity wanted high leverage they could do this on their own account without saddling the particular enterprises with large debts.

The obvious answer to this conundrum is that the private equity groups are in fact risk-arbitragers (and tax arbitragers) between what they view as greatly over-priced high-yield debt markets (sometimes described as junk-debt markets) and less overpriced equity markets.

How Easy Money Enables Private Equity

The Great Monetary Experiment has induced such a plague of market irrationality characterized by desperation for yield that the price of junk has reached the sky. On top of this, the US tax-code incentivizes such arbitrage by allowing full deduction of interest from corporate profit. Why are some affiliates of private equity groups buying the junk? Perhaps that has to do with the benefits to be derived in the event of any particular enterprise owned by the group filing for bankruptcy. The private equity group would be in a better position to negotiate a debt-equity swap if it is on both sides of the deal.

The name of the game is achieving as high a leverage as possible and nothing brings success here like success. Specifically, as private equity investments have produced a series of great returns in recent years — as indeed we should expect from highly leveraged strategies in a powerfully rising equity market — the speculative story that their managers really have talent has attracted more and more believers who are willing to back it with their funds. One aspect of this has been the ability of private equity groups to leverage up their businesses to an extent never previously achieved as the buyers of their junk debt believe that unique talents of the partners and their managers make this acceptable. And the cost of equity to the private equity groups falls as a wider span of potential partners believes in their power of magic.

The Crony Capitalist Connection

The new business ventures on which private equity has concentrated in recent years are often in areas where regulatory or political connection is important — whether in finance, real estate, energy extraction, or providing health-care facilities. A private equity group buys the advantages of “connections” (otherwise described as cronyism) for all the small or medium-sized enterprises operating within its fold. If each one were to build up its connections independently that would be much more expensive per unit of enterprise capital.

Hence one essential feature of private equity is the taking advantage of economies of scale in cronyism. And the tax advantages secured by political connections are crucial to the private equity model. The case for a reform of the tax code which would lower the overall rate on corporate profits but end the tax deductibility of interest is strong. But how could this ever make headway against the private equity industry and its deep roots in Washington, DC?

Private Equity, Shale Oil, and Other Bubbles

In thinking about the downside of private equity for economic prosperity there is much more to consider than stalemate on tax reform. There is the specter of the infernal combination of monetary disequilibrium and cronyism producing huge malinvestment. That picture is already emerging in the shale oil and gas industries where private equity with its highly leveraged structures has been prominent. Elsewhere, the finance companies spawned by private equity and outside the ever-more regulated traditional bank sector. These have played a lead role in rapid growth of sub-prime auto-loans which have contributed importantly to the boom in vehicle sales. Private equity owned leasing companies have outsmarted their competition to provide enticingly cheap terms to aircraft carriers especially in Asia and helped fuel a tremendous boom in sales by Boeing and Airbus. Private equity participation in investing in apartment blocks has helped fuel the mini-boom in multifamily housing construction.

This is all fine whilst folks are dancing to the music of the Great Monetary Experiment. But what will happen when speculative temperatures fall across a wide range of markets presently infected by asset price inflation? We know much about the disease of asset price inflation from the past 100 years of fiat money under the leadership of the Federal Reserve. Each episode of disease is different but there are common elements. One of these is a deadly end phase featuring plunging speculative temperatures, great recession, and the revelation of huge capital squandered in previous years. The private equity story is new, but there is nothing new under the sun.

Article originally posted at Mises.org.

It’s All About How You Think!

by R. Nelson Nash
Author of Becoming Your Own Banker
Article originally published in the April issue of BankNotes

Some years ago, the late Nobel prize-winning Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor, what’s wrong with men today? The great doctor was silent a moment, and then he said, “Men simply don’t think!”

Surely, by this time in your life, you have a deepseated feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong in the financial world today. There is debt of unbelievable proportions! There is confused thinking that results in irrational behavior as a matter of course. We are treated to a plethora of information daily to substantiate this truth.

As a result of all this, I see a lot of despair and anguish expressed by a large segment of our population. I really think that it is the feeling of most people. They are saying, “What a mess we are in! What are they going to do about it? We need to get the right folks in our government offices! Get out and vote! That is our only hope!”

Of course, there is another large faction that is totally consumed with apathy. They don’t have a clue as to what has happened – and what is currently happening. You see them – and you can identify them – so I don’t see a need to elaborate this point.

The fact that you are taking the time to read this article indicates that you are searching for an answer to financial matters in your life. We hope that the efforts of the Nelson Nash Institute will be of benefit to you. Thank you for your search. The solution to any money problem begins there.

What happened to cause this deplorable situation?

These things just don’t happen by chance. There is always an underlying cause.

How Did Governments Build A Trap To Enslave People Financially?

Here in the United States two significant events occurred just over one hundred years ago:

1. The Income Tax Law – October 3, 1913

2. Adoption of the Federal Reserve Act – December 23, 1913

But, something else occurred 100 years ago: World War I – a tragic event! One that should never have happened! It was the result of unsound thinking by government leaders.

Notice that the Income Tax Law was adopted one year before WWI, and the Federal Reserve preceded WWI by just eight months.

Why is this significant? Study history and you will find that during the War of 1812 an attempt to adopt an income tax failed. Citizens wanted no part of another tax to fund the war. Apparently we had a greater proportion of clear thinkers at that time than we have today.

So – what to do? Plan ahead – because the “powers that-be” knew full well that war was imminent. But, in order to gain public acceptance create the means of funding it before the war starts! But, use some other reason for doing so! This form of deflection is necessary in order to fulfill the hidden agenda.

Wars cost lots of money! Who benefits from all this? History is clear – International Bankers, that’s who! They not only create wars but also actually financeboth sides! If you haven’t figured this out, then you need to start studying history. As a starting place please study the lives of the preeminent Rothschild banking family. Take note that it was the patriarch Rothschild, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who famously proclaimed, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”

On our website www.infinitebanking.org you will find a resource tab. Click it on and then click on the Recommended Reading List. There you will find a large selection of books on economics and history that will help you in your search for the truth about the financial world and the ways bankers carry out their goals. A good starting book to read would be The Law by Frederic Bastiat. Then read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

A word of caution – this action can lead to a beneficial compulsion to continue reading all the books listed there!

For instance, are you aware of the characters at Jekyll Island, Georgia who designed our Federal Reserve System? It is well acknowledged that the chief driving force of this scheme was Paul Warburg, a Germanborn banker. The mismatch between the story the public receives, versus what really happened behind the scenes, has rarely been so large as it was with the founding of the Fed and the advent of World War I.

For example, are you aware of how this central bank idea was made into law by Congress in late December 1913, while most Americans were busy celebrating Christmas with their families? There is plenty of information available to teach you the real history of how all this came to be if you will simply search the right sources.

Let me issue a warning that some revisionist authors make unwarranted leaps and see sinister plots when there is really a much simpler explanation, but that doesn’t mean the entire genre is misguided. A careful student of history will see that the public has been systematically misled about the origin of our modern banking institutions; this was not all designed “forour benefit.” It is not the purpose of this article to show you all this information. My purpose here is to challenge you to read and think!

Removing The Blinders

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.”― John Maynard Keynes

Probably the greatest source of our disastrous financial situation can be laid at the feet of Lord Maynard Keynes with his book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, published in 1936. Keynesian thinking has the entire world in a death grip. I well remember Richard Nixon, in a speech on TV saying, “We are all Keynesians now!” He absolutely did not speak for me, but that is the method that such leaders use to induce people to think the way they do.

Only the Austrian School of Economic thought is correct in explaining the business cycle – central bankers inflate the money supply dramatically and people behave as if the money is “real.” But, it is all an illusion – it is a lie! This inflation always results in booms and busts. What is called a “depression” is not really a “depression” – it is a return to reality! The Austrian economists point out that the real harm during the business cycle comes during the boom phase, not the depression, and that if you want to avoid the painful busts, then you must stop artificially inflating the economy. But the public has been convinced that the boom is a period of genuine prosperity. Those who benefit most from this chicanery are always the bankers.

Your local commercial bank is the primary indirect source of inflation by way of a warped law within their “fractional reserve lending system.” They are actually lending money that doesn’t exist! Note, however, that they cannot lend money unless theyhave customers. Therefore, if you have a loan at any such financial organization, then you are a part of the problem!

I got “hooked” on Austrian Economics 58 years ago and the study of the subject became a passion for me. It was this background, plus a 35-year career in life insurance sales, which led me to see there is a way to build a system for individuals to avoid the devastating effects of inflation in their lives – and to be free of the clutches of bankers. There really is a way out of the financial condition that has enslaved most people and the Nelson Nash Institute can help you discover it.

We have had a tragic change of behavior in our country during the last 100 years. Thought always precedes behavior. The easiest way to motivate people to a desired action is through producing fear in the minds of people! War is probably the ultimate method of doing so.

The State uses contingencies of crisis and misfortune to increase its power – which in turn develops the habit of acquiescence in the people.

In the words of Judge Andrew Napolitano, our country has become a nation of “sheeple.”

This is why I’m leading a movement to change the name of Washington, D.C. to “The Fear Factory.” Notice that every action that is proposed in Washington has fear as its reason for being. “The world is coming to an end if the Government doesn’t take immediate action on (blankety, blank, blank)______________.” You fill in the blank. I challenge you to examine every one of their proposals and determine the validity of my statement.

I had a personal experience with this phenomenon in 1961. I was educated as a forester at the University of Georgia, class of 1952. The Korean Conflict was two years old at that time. During my college years I was an Air Force ROTC student as part of the means of financing my way through school. As a result, all of my ROTC class had to go on active duty for two years to repay the government for the stipend they paid us while we were in college.

During the two years of active duty, I was an aerial photo interpreter with Strategic Air Command at March Air Force Base, California.

Upon completion of this obligation, I moved to Eastern North Carolina to begin my career as a private forester. I did not work for the government; Smokey Bear and I don’t agree on much of anything. It was here that I came face-to-face with the mental paralysis that Socialism causes among people. Up to that time I really never knew much about the idea itself. But, inherently I knew something was fundamentally wrong with it. It just didn’t “square” with my Christian upbringing which began when I was nine years old.

At that time the predominant agricultural product in Eastern North Carolina was tobacco. The entire production of tobacco was totally controlled by a government allotment program. Such programs dominated the thinking of the people who lived in that area of the state. I noted that this pattern of thinking spilled over into everyday life of people.

Upon witnessing all this over a significant period of time, I wondered, “Why do people think (and thus behave) this way?” This led me to become acquainted with the Austrian school of economic thought when I first read Henry Hazlitt’s book Economics in One Lesson. I became a voracious student of their teachings in 1957.

This brings us to 1960 when an article appeared in FOREST FARMER magazine about a proposed government program that would literally take over all the woodlands of private owners in the United States. Nikita Khrushchev, who was premier of the Soviet Union at that time, could not have pulled off such a program in that country! I could not sleep for several nights after reading the article. “How in the world could this be happening?” I thought.

In 1961, I was encouraged to write a memo on this proposed program and send it to a number of publishers and media outlets that would expose the absurdity of the idea. One of those places was NATION’S BUSINESS magazine produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. My memo crossed their path at exactlythe right time! They knew the proposed program was “coming out of committee” soon and was to be voted on in Congress – and hopefully (for the bureaucrat proponents), to become law of the land. The editors at NATION’S BUSINESS were looking for a way to create a story for their magazine that would expose the nonsense of this Socialist proposal. And, so, they contacted me to help in developing it.

In June 1961 I became the subject of a feature article in NATION’S BUSINESS entitled, “Pattern for Federal Takeover of Your Business.” If you care to look it up, simply Google “NATION’S BUSINESS MAGAZINE JUNE 1961” and you will find it starting on page 34. You might find it interesting because the author, TaitTrussell, did a thorough job of isolating the methodology of every activity that exists in governments throughout the world.

The article was reproduced in large quantities by the Association of Consulting Foresters. Bottom line – we were able to defeat the program before it ever got out of committee and voted on by Congress. All this stuff is a lot of work for anyone that is involved so I won’t bore you with minute details.

However, I learned this about anything that goes on in Washington, DC. Bureaucrats take one segment of the economy, they accumulate bogus data, then they run this stuff through “their crystal ball” and conclude that we will all perish from the face of the earth unless the government takes over this particular economic activity.

During my experience with this event I became acquainted with many of the people advocating the idea. The architect of the proposed program to take over the timberland of private landowners was Undersecretary of Agriculture, Mr. Murphy. Upon defeat of the project, all Mr. Murphy could up offer up was, “I had heard that we were running out of timber and I just wanted to help.” Murphy knew absolutely nothing about timberlands or the forestry world.

None of the concerns expressed by the program were true, but that fact doesn’t matter to these folks. They just talk to themselves within the “D.C. Beltway” andbecome believers in their own nonsense. During all my work on this project I discovered that the Department of Agriculture was under some severe criticism at that time and this program was created to divert attention from their real problem.

This all reminds me of Argentina’s efforts to reclaim the Falkland Islands in 1982. The real reason for the action was because of the horrible economic conditions in Argentina at the time and they needed a smoke-screen to divert attention from their economic misery. If you have seen one government idea, you have seen them all!

Yes, we defeated the attempt of takeover the timberlands of private landowners in the U.S.– but another program of like kind appears again and again and again! When will people ever learn?

There Is A Way To Change Your Financial World

Let’s go back to the WWI – August 1914 began the bloodiest century of all time. I am soon to turn 84 years old as I write this, and thus, have witnessed most of this irrational behavior.

Yes, we do live in some interesting and deplorable situations in the financial world – but, it doesn’t have to be that way for any one individual person. However, this is going to require a significant change in the way that one thinks.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explains the human nature of people to His listeners.

Matthew 7:13-14 says, “Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

If Jesus were teaching us today, I think He would probably say, “Why do you folks want to follow those who are always wrong? – Is your mind really all that dull?”

While growing up in Athens, Georgia, I was amember of Prince Avenue Baptist Church. All churches encourage young folks to express their understandings of the vital things of life. I remember, at age 15, I was asked to make such a presentation at a Sunday evening service. I laid the foundation for my talk by pointing out that we know our world through our five senses that we all possess and that our brain determines our evaluation of what we experience. And that our attitude toward these things is all-important in determining outcomes in life. In other words, I could “change the world – my world – by changing my thinking.”

I continued, stating that, as you change your thinking, your attitude will change. As your attitude changes, your belief and actions will follow, and “a peace that transcends all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.”

In Romans 12:2 St. Paul is teaching that we should not “conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.” I believe that Paul is teaching that we should secede from the way the world thinks. That you have to abandon the thoughts and behavior of the world in which you live. Here I am drawing on this ancient text to demonstrate to you that all of the relevant points of this article can be found there.

Furthermore, consider that the conscious mind can only entertain one thought at a time. Thinking is hard work and mankind is a lazy beast! The result of this idleness is rote behavior with most people. And so, we all have a paradigm by which we live our lives. This is the work of our sub-conscious mind.

When we ask, “Why is it that people behave the way they do?” The answer is quite obvious. It is all because of the way they think. That is the paradigm they have created for themselves sometime in their past. Most of our personal, everyday behavior, is determined by our untrained sub-conscious mind. It is as if we are on autopilot!

My personal observation reveals – that there is not all that much conscious mind thinking – going on in our world today.

However, we should take caution. There are certain caveats that appear in life. In other words, beware of an “open mind!” Without careful filtering you can get a lot of garbage thrown in there. We are totally surrounded by worthless noise! The financial world is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Develop the ability to recognize nonsense and don’t waste your valuable time on it!

On long airplane flights I use my “noise-cancelling headset” – a product manufactured by the Bose Company. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had such a device built into our minds to block the nonsense that dominates our every-day world? You can create one.

Consider what St. Paul counseled his followers to do a couple of thousand years ago in Philippians 4 verse 8. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”

Confiscation

Now, let’s turn our attention to the Internal Revenue Code.

According to the Commerce Clearing House Standard Federal Tax Reporter, as of 2013, it now takes 73,954 regular 8-1/2” x 11” sheets of paper to explain the complexity of the U.S. federal tax code. Additionally, the IRS continually makes changes in the Code. These constant changes are sometimes humorously referred to as “The Accountants and Lawyers Relief Act.”

Personally, I don’t know of anyone who has read the entire IRS code. I have read that the first nine pages contain the definition of income. The next 1,100 pages describe exceptions to the code.

Read just a few of the exceptions to the code and you can very easily understand what the entire IRS Code is really saying. Essentially, “We own everything and we are going to allow you to do these certain things.”

The object of the IRS code seems to be the outright control of your life and make you think that your blessings come from government instead of from God!

For example, tax-qualified retirement plans were all created under the guise of “giving you a taxbreak.” First, there were pension plans for corporate employees, then came HR-10 plans for partners and sole proprietors, and finally, IRAs for individuals, and, lastly 401(k)s.

Now, everyone has an exception to the IRS Code available to them. Think about it. If the government really wanted to give you a tax break all they had to do is cut out the taxes! Do you really think they want to do that?

And so, I ask, “When government creates a problem (onerous taxation) and then, turns around and grants you an exception to the problem they created (such as in any tax-qualified plan) — aren’t you just a little bit suspicious that you are being manipulated?” That leads to another question – “then, why are you participating in them?”

This entire confiscation scheme is similar to the modus operandi of the Mafia! They create a problem and then sell their victims protection services against the problem they created! For an in-depth explanation of what I am saying here I suggest that you read The Income Tax: Root of All Evil by Frank Chodorov. Just how blatant can an activity become before people take notice? It is the perfect example of the elephant in the room, but no one seems to recognize it!

Now, Let’s Talk About How You Think

I was introduced to The Foundation for Economic Education in 1957 through its monthly journal, THE FREEMAN.

I was particularly drawn to the writings of Leonard E. Read, the founder of the organization – along with cofounder, Henry Hazlitt, plus several additional greatthinkers. Over a period of time Leonard became my good friend and mentor. What a privilege it was to know, to talk with, and learn from such great minds as these two! Neither of these two had college degrees but they were voracious readers.

Among many other great writers, Leonard admired the works of Albert Jay Nock. I urge you to read Nock’s book, Our Enemy the State, published in 1935.

Another of my favorite authors is Mike Rozeff, a retired finance professor, who is a frequent columnist on LewRockwell.com. On July 16, 2013 he wrote an article entitled, “Don’t Go Back to The Original Constitution.”

Mike observes that a great many Americans who are unhappy with various facets of America’s political system, laws, rights, and justice system think that the solution is to “go back to the original Constitution.”

They do not understand that the original Constitution is a major cause of our present woes and troubles. For further understanding of the validity of this observation, I suggest you read Tom DiLorenzo’s book, The Curse of Hamilton. DiLorenzo points out that upon separation from the mother country, England, in 1776, our Confederation of States became “Jeffersonian” – following the thoughts of the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. But, while Jefferson was away in France as ambassador, in 1789 we became “Hamiltonians” – right back into the mercantilism we escaped from while we were subjects of English rule!

Mike Rozeff continues to note, “One man who recognized and explained this – and related developments – many years ago is Albert Jay Nock in his 1935 book, Our Enemy the State.” In the following I will provide some quotations from Nock’s book, with my commentary in parentheses.

• “Every increase in State power necessarily accompanies a decrease in social power. Increases in State power – reduce the disposition among people to use social power – and it indoctrinates the idea that social power is no longer called for.”

• “Government conceptually is not the same as the State.” (This confusion of the two is so prevalent that I recently spent several hours trying to explain the difference to my wife.)

• “Government does not arise from conquest and confiscation. The State does.”

• “Moreover the sole invariable characteristic of the State is the economic exploitation of one class by another – every State known to history is a class-State.”

• “Statism is the concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry.”

• “Whatever noble government protective of rights that the Declaration of Independence suggested the influential and leading colonists were after a State, that is, an instrument whereby one might help oneself and hurt others; that is to say, first and foremost they regarded it as the organization of the political means.”

• “The U.S. Constitution did not place the principles of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine in the Declaration concerning government into practice. To the contrary it intentionally set up a State, and a State that could become more and more powerful over time.” (For proof of Nock’s assertion, simply observe what has happened in our country since 1789.)

• “The ‘government’ was set up under this Constitution to do the work of the State — that is, to bring into effect the political means and exercise political power, was not from its birth a government consistent with the Declaration of Independence.”

Government schools do not teach this fact to your children! If they did so, then the agenda of Hamiltonians would be exposed.

The World In The Grip Of An Idea

As I began reading THE FREEMAN, the publication of The Foundation for Economic Education, I was also drawn to the work of Dr. Clarence B. Carson. My wife and I worked on his Board of Directors for over 20 years. He was a dear friend of ours. Among many other books Clarence was the author of The World In The Grip of an Idea (1977). On page 454 of that book he, like Rozeff and DiLorenzo, echoes Nock’s assertions:

“There is a crucial distinction between the state and government. The worship of government is attended by the same difficulty as the worship of humanity. The difficulty is that actual governments have flaws, or rather those who run them do. The state is an abstraction; it is pure; it can even be an ideal.”

Carson continues:

“Power vested in the state cannot be misplaced, for it is the natural repository of all power over a given territory. Sovereignty, absolute sovereignty, is its prerogative, its reason for being.”
On page 245, he says:

“The thrust of the idea that has the world in its grip is to take away the independence of the individual… the aim is to concert all human efforts for the common good.”

My mentor, Leonard Read once wrote a piece entitled, “There Ought To Be A Law” — that was not the way Leonard thought, he was merely being ironic. Leonard was reflecting on the confidence that most Americans have in the idea of The State. “Whatever the ideal an individual might have in mind the State must compel everyone to comply. We must force people to see the wisdom that I possess.”

Along the lines of everything we have said thus far, another of my favorite authors is Butler Shaffer who teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He makes these invaluable points that seem tosummarize everything:

“Whether mankind is to survive, or bring about its own extinction, will depend largely on the premises that underlie our social organizations. Will they exist as voluntary, cooperative systems through which individuals can mutually achieve their respective interests; or will they continue to function as herdoriented collectives that allow the few to benefit at the expense of the many?

The answers to such questions are to be found only within our individual thinking. Secession does not begin at the ballot box, or in courtrooms, or in signing petitions, but in the same realm where you lost your independence: within your mind, and your willingness to identify with conflict-ridden abstractions.”

And so, how do you secede without seceding? You simply don’t play their game!

All the foregoing in this article is evidence of mankind’s worship of the State — a mind-set that is totally irrational! The idea of “the State” is nothing more than mankind trying to play the role of God (in the pagan sense of the word). The book of Exodus in the Bible plainly tells us that, “God is a jealous God.” Obviously He won’t put up with that nonsense! History demonstrates that fact conclusively. All of mankind’s efforts to displace Him are doomed to failure. The fact that this takes place over a long period of time completely eludes mankind.

Look at what this mind-set has done to our present financial world.

•Unbelievable debt throughout the world. Financial slavery everywhere.

• People who are totally dependent on a government program.

• People who put confidence in a tax-qualified financial plan, even though all government programs have a perfect record of failure when compared with their stated objective.

• Mind-numbed robots that cannot seem to think for themselves.

Reclaim The Power

We hold the key through social power – voluntary and private social relations, including associations and economic exchange. And so, I ask, “Do you have the courage to examine your own thought processes and determine if you are, indeed, a STATIST?”

Or, do you have the courage to secede from the thinking that predominates in our world?

If you do then join together with those who have found the financial freedom that can be obtained through theInfinite Banking Concept (IBC) as taught by the Nelson Nash Institute. Your world will never be the same again.

Our mission is to educate and inspire the public to take control of their financial lives.

Our vision is a free society characterized by creative financial solutions independent of government intervention.

Please see the April issue of BankNotes for the original article and others like it.