Essays

Present Shock and the Fantasy of Change

"Millennials (born 1982-2004) are pursuing high-cost university educations in the belief that multiple degrees are now essential to being offered a job. Even as evidence piles up that the economy has changed in fundamental ways such that even advanced degrees no longer inoculate the owner against financial insecurity, millions of young people feel they have no choice but to indebt themselves and spend scarce family resources on a questionable-value education. The underlying assumption here is the present will endure, and change will be marginal. The idea that the narrative of history suggests major disruptions of the status quo are cyclical and thus inevitable doesn't register." Continue reading →

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An Important History Lesson: Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic

"Why did the German government not act to halt the inflation? It was a shaky, fragile government…More than inflation, the Germans feared unemployment. In 1919 the Communists had tried to take over, and severe unemployment might give the Communists another chance. The great German industrial combines — Krupp, Thysen, Farben, Stinnes — condoned the inflation and survived it well. A cheaper mark, they reasoned, would make German goods cheap and easy to export, and they needed the export earnings to buy raw materials abroad. Inflation kept everyone working. So the printing presses ran, and once they began to run, they were hard to stop." Continue reading →

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The Recession That Never Ended: 2008-2013 (and Counting)

"Huge leaps in the income and wealth of the top 5% mask the decline of income and wealth of the bottom 95%. Average all wealth and income and it appears that the economy is expanding to the benefit of all, when it fact only the top 5% have escaped the recession; the recession never ended for the bottom 95%. An even better way to create an illusory expansion is to simply not measure trends that would reveal a deepening recession. For example, what percentage of student loans are purposefully taken out as a substitute for income, i.e. used to pay basic living expenses rather than education?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Recession That Never Ended: 2008-2013 (and Counting)

So you want to invent your own currency

"Our ability to exchange without knowing where things come from blinds us to the real core of the economy: not money, but the physical things we must wrench from the ground by human effort, which is underpinned by agricultural systems, and energised by sunlight, water and soil. The more we abstract and fetishise money as a thing in itself, the more we lose sight of its sources and its goals. We get confused, and feel disempowered relative to those who wield larger flows of it. Sealed off from inquiry in its hermetic shell, money distorts our perceptions of one another. We can’t seem to remember that it is merely one means of exchange among many." Continue reading →

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David Galland: Mexico Invades Syria!

"Could the attack trigger a quick and violent sympathetic public uprising in Saudi Arabia, sending the Saud family on the run and oil prices to $200 or more? In terms of consequences of a less violent nature, what if the Russians and the Chinese, the latter being Syria's largest trading partner, decided to protest by dumping some of the massive amount of US dollars they hold? I could go on, but won't. Instead, I'll leave off by saying that, given the risks vs. the rewards of yet another Western attack on the Middle East, I personally couldn't be more opposed to it. Hopefully there are enough people in what's left of the degraded Western democracies who feel the same way." Continue reading →

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The Syria Endgame: Strategic Stage in the Pentagon’s Covert War on Iran

"Regime change in Damascus is not the only or main way for the US and its allies to prevent Syria from standing with Iran. Destabilizing Syria and neutralizing it as a failed and divided state is the key. Sectarian fighting is not a haphazard outcome of the instability in Syria, but an assisted project that the US and its allies have steadily fomented with a clear intent to balkanize the Syrian Arab Republic. Regionally, Israel above all other states has a major stake in securing this outcome. The Israelis actually have several publicly available documents, including the Yinon Plan, which outline that the destruction of Syria into a series of smaller sectarian states is one of their strategic objectives." Continue reading →

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Mike Gogulski: Is America still a democracy? Who cares? It’s DANGEROUS!

"If you look at the visible signs of how the country has been developing for the last 25 years, the signs of the emergence of a police state are obvious and everywhere. The Department of Homeland Security recently purchased something like one billion rounds of high-powered rifle ammunition. These are not to be used in wars. The US government has just purchased three bullets for every man, woman and child inside the country. When you add to these things the endless American wars that have been going on since 'peace' after World War II, the question becomes: 'Is America a democracy? Who cares? It’s DANGEROUS!'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMike Gogulski: Is America still a democracy? Who cares? It’s DANGEROUS!

Gangs Remain Key Unaddressed Problem in Gun Debate

"Gun homicides are overwhelmingly tied to gang violence. In fact, a staggering 80% of gun homicides are gang-related. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gang homicides accounted for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011. That means that there were just 2,200 non gang-related firearm murders in both years in a country of over 300 million people and 250 million guns. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and New Orleans all have very high per-capita murder rates. Individual police estimates usually find at least 65% and often more than 80% of all murders in those cities are gang-related." Continue reading →

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The NSA and Its “Compliance Problems”

"For ordinary citizens, 'compliance problems' with the law are better known as 'crimes' (or possibly civil wrongs) and these lead to judgment debts, fines, and possibly even jail time, depending on the severity of the lack-of-compliance. But for government officials such notions are irrelevant — legal compliance problems are just something you file a report about, and send to another bureaucrat higher up in the government chain, so that he can bury it on his desk. Unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon. The notion of the rule of law is the wellspring of an endless stream of hypocrisy in the modern social-democratic welfare-warfare state." Continue reading →

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Murray Rothbard: Fighting for Oil? [1990]

"The U.S., by its embargo, blockade, and continuing threats of war, has already managed to raise the price of crude to $40 a barrel! In fact, it would be more plausible to suppose that the aim of the massive Bush intervention has been to raise the price of oil, not to lower it. And considering Mr. Bush's vice presidential visit to Saudi Arabia specifically to urge them to raise prices, his long-time connections with Texas oil and with Big Oil generally, as well as Texas's slump in recent years, this hunch begins to look all too credible." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMurray Rothbard: Fighting for Oil? [1990]