"Nevermore."

I feel as the Raven; a herald unwanted. I hope through persistence, hopefully, I’m not forgotten. It is ever the bearer of bad news who is demonized, who is mocked and verily, patronized.

”Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil! –
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted –
On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly I implore –
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!”

Bailouts and stimulus checks, and other interventions made by government are not balms of Gilead. The only solution:

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

And what do I mean by crying nevermore?

Imagine an entity sending false hope to finance institutions about future consumer demands. The owners then, being assured of bail, expand in anticipation of additional future consumer demand for services and goods which in fact don’t exist. The owners then come to the frightening development that demand has not materialized. This is when the recession (market correction) occurs.

The net worth begins to be revealed and foreign investments withdraw support. The many companies assured of insurance by bail out are in danger of crippling the entire country: so then more intervention is needed to obfuscate the danger of net worth being revealed. This way foreign investors keep their hands in the cookie jar. What happens though, is that the bail out continues in a way that doesn’t solve the problem but merely keeps things running. Things keep running, including everything that is parasitic and a drain on the economy.

The intervention delays the inevitable correction. It makes the correction worse by destroying net worth. It makes the correction worse by destroying actual wealth.

Merely this and nothing more.

Inflation accomplishes the exact same crime. Inflation is not prices rising; it isn’t gold and silver jumping all over the place. Inflation occurs when the purchasing power of the currency is weakened. How is this accomplished?

Imagine that we have 1 dollar per person circulating in the economy. Let us then say the net worth of that 1 dollar is actually 1 dollar. Now let us say that we print off another dollar per person in hopes that people will spend it which in theory ‘stimulates’ the economy. (Stimulus check anyone? I’ll take a rain check thank you.) So we now have 2 dollars per person circulating. How much do you think they are worth when put together?

Technically: the 2 dollars per person is worth the original 1 dollar per person. But it did get some of us to spend. This means the currency has been reduced to 50 cents of real value. Prices rising in consumables and other goods are indicative of a market’s reaction to a dollar which lost value – thus prices go up.

The central banks and the fed work cooperatively to print off money which only serves to make people feel safer in misallocating capital in hopes for future profit. You see its not just Wall Street who is the criminal. When government officials babble about eliminating the root cause – they aren’t talking about themselves – which is a pity.

This it is and nothing more.

Now let us look to the incredibly stupid, pathetically and fundamentally idiotic move to ban short-selling. When stock becomes too high for a speculator, he shorts the stock and pushes it back down. If stock appears undervalued he buys shares thus pushing the price back up. The prices are now being hidden because of the ban.

But the problems don’t stop there. Speculators aren’t the only ones who short stocks, hoping to gain from this. People short stock to limit exposure to downward price slides.

Disaster Scenario: A company sells a credit default swap on an investment bank. This is an insurance contract. A default on the bank with its own bonds will trigger the swap to give a payout. The very existence of the credit default swap allows for investors to be more willing to buy the bonds of that bank. The investors have insurance against a potential default.

Imagine an insurance company issues a large amount of credit default swaps on that investment bank. Rumor has it that the investment bank is carrying ‘toxic’ mortgage-backed assets. The shares would plummet and the investment bank would find short-term funds hard to find for continued operation. Its bonds would default and the insuring firm might suffer losses because the credit default swaps were triggered.

Protection from share price volatility for the insurance company can be attained by shorting a sizeable chunk of said shares of the investment bank. So the insuring company is now hedged against sudden drops in shares. Any losses to be had by a credit default swap are offset by the gains made in short sales.

The SEC has removed one of the market’s methods on containing risk. The firms vulnerable to this credit crisis are unable to find buyers of their bonds, thus not able to raise capital. Capital is what is needed to fight this.

Only this and nothing more.

People have a short memory. Last year in fall, a correction was beginning to take place. We saw prices in commodities fall, we saw stocks diminish. However; the Federal Reserve and central banks worked together to prevent the functioning of a market correction. The fall of prices stopped. Everyone thought this was a recovery, but really – the consumer was hit the hardest. Oil reached a new time high. Over the next year the Federal Reserve lowered target funds rate seven times increasing our money supply (inflation.) There is a count of about 30 interventions made by the fed within one year and people still insist we have a free market. We have a count of 30 interventions within one year and people blame the free market!?. These are crimes of intervention. These interventions comprised of provision of treasury securities (for which there actually is a market) to investment firms in exchange for the said firms’ mortgage-backed securities (for which there is obviously no existing market).

Despite the criminal intervention which led us to where we are, the natural laws of market equilibrium (or disequilibrium) are not to be ignored. A brain dead easy way of seeing a market reaction to all of this lies in watching gold. The nationalization, the socialization and the intervention allowed for gold to jump a $100 per ounce in 24 hours.

Logic follows that government and central banking intervention through tools like inflation and taxation actually destroy savings. Says Law holds that more savings are needed to create wealth for future investment and that inflation and taxation are nothing more than theft. To this I respond:

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Conventional Stupi- I mean Wisdom..

Hopefully I can at least teach someone something about the financial crisis at hand. As it stands my thoughts are hardly my own. My thoughts go hand in hand with quite a few economists and quite a few journalists. I merely relay observances in such a disgustingly simple, disturbingly generalized, and woefully short rant as to hope to achieve a listener.

We’ve proven ourselves ignorant of fiscal policies and their ramifications. Mainstream news promotes only the most popular agenda and depicts myth alongside fact. The apparent problem is that people pay attention to the easiest ‘facts’ and never for their lives are willing to dig into the implications stated. Remember the idea of separation of state and church? What about the separation of market and state?

The Austrian theory of the business cycle makes clear a distinction between primary and secondary depressions. Turmoil and trouble in the financial sector is indicative of a secondary depression. However; the cause is the primary depression. This primary depression is a distortion in our mixed-economy’s capital allocations system.

Ignoring theory, the fact is our country is burdened with a vast divide between consumption and production. A completely banal and simplistic read of Adam Smith’s Wealth of the Nations would help even the village idiot to gain a bit of insight on this dilemma.

The problem is monetary policy and largely, fiat “out of nothing” currency. It is the nature of nothing to be nothing. A dollar with any purchasing power means that our imports are of a substantially lower cost. A dollar like ours makes imports costlier. Our reliance on monopoly money has proven the case for the imperative to return to gold backing so I’ll move on.

Trade imbalance is only a symptom. If for example we lower interest rates (the price of time) thanks to government, which are aimed at boosting consumption, we exacerbate the true issue and elongate the business downturn. Instead of consumption driven goals, we are in a state that savings and fewer imports are a necessity. Says Law holds true here. Savings and not spending, creates wealth for an economy.

The information is out there. People knew in the early 80’s that there was an issue with our system, that there was a discrepancy between lending and production. People knew the inevitable downturn would be of a highly significant nature. Downturns are natural.

So let us fast forward a quarter of a century. The expanding monetary policy and its bosom buddy, the bailout guarantee, have disrupted capital gains allocation. Because bailouts were guaranteed people didn’t practice any restraint and the competition was forced to also play the same game in order to bother playing in the same field. Guess what? They can all play dirty because at the end of the game, government, the fed, and the taxpayer work together to bail the criminals out. Logically does this mean we should continue this parental behavior?

Luckily there are economists who are certain that an increase in savings, a reduction of imports and decrease in consumption are a moral imperative for our nation. Luckily debt accumulation has peaked (though our nation is willing to figure out ways of increasing it). Luckily our crisis has reduced foreign creditors’ willingness to extend further loans which would only increase our debt. This is called a market solution.

The socialization of the mortgage market and our recent bailouts will reveal disastrous effects soon enough. Goldman-Sachs economists are speculative and cheery that this will only ride out for about 3-5 years. The pain has only begun and we’re all masochists.

It was Murray Rothbard’s great achievement, his magnum opus to reveal that the Great Depression occurred because it was manufactured. Manufactured and prolonged by policy implementations meant to prevent the cyclical business down-turn. It is the nature of history that people did not pay any attention to the 1920’s business down turn and realize that it was over within 18 months because the market was free to correct itself.

The conventional stupidity is that the Great Depression was some disaster that government and the fed needed to fix. The most disturbing view is that of Bernanke and his notion that inflation (thus theft of the highest order on the people) is the hero of the day.

This is the largest socialist operation in our history. You’d think we’d learn from our mistakes:

What should have happened in 1929 is precisely what should happen now. Let the price system prevail! The government should completely remove itself from the course of action and let the market reevaluate resource values. That means bankruptcies, yes. That means bank closures, yes. But these are part of the capitalistic system. They are part of the free-market economy. What is regrettable is not the readjustment process, but that the process was ever made necessary by the preceding interventions.

Let me state this very plainly: I do not believe for one second that if the government fails to nationalize Freddie and Fannie, the world as we know it will come to an end. Those who are saying so are trying to scare the population, the same as with every other major demand by the regime. It was the same with NAFTA, the WTO, the war on terror, the war on bird flu, the nationalization of airport security, and everything else.

- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Emergent Social Interaction

Individualism By Any Other Name

I’ve been holding a rather interesting discussion on the prospects for privatized ownership of land and services. Spencer Heath addressed this notion by concluding that society could only outgrow slavery to the state by utilizing land properly through free-market methods. His methods were in opposition of the Georgian ideal that land should not and could not be owned (a collectivist scheme by any other name.)

In the book “Politics versus Proprietorship,” he hinted that political governance was indeed an enemy of the market. The notion of ownership in Heath’s book is much like the stewardship of wealth. “To own was to owe.”

Were socio-economic relations so poor under pre-Norman England? What is interesting is that this conception borders Gandhi’s muse of wealth except takes it to a present day setting (neo-feudalism). The nobility who comes to own the land through natural rights is in effect, servants to the people who wish to live on it. In order to benefit: one must ensure beyond a doubt that the tenants of the land are happy.

Murray Rothbard succinctly addressed this notion:

The Heathian goal is to have cities and large land areas owned by single private corporations, which would own and rent out the land and housing over the area, and provide all conceivable "public services": police, fire, roads, courts, etc., out of the voluntarily-paid rent. Heathianism is Henry Georgism stood on its head; like George, Heath and MacCallum would provide for all public services out of rent; but unlike George, the rent would be collected, and the land owned, by private corporate landlords rather than by the government, and the payment therefore voluntary rather than coercive. The Heathian 'proprietary community' is, of course, in stark contrast to the scruffy egalitarian commune dreamed of by anarchists of the Left.

To better illuminate why this is not a form of tyranny by another name Spencer Heath:

To obviate the essential tyranny (coercion) of political administration the proprietary authority, suitably organized, must extend its jurisdiction, and thus its revenues, by itself supplying police and other community services without coercion, out of its own revenues and properties, and thus raise its own values and voluntary incomes.

In anarcho-capitalism it becomes apparent that fees and dues for police and courts would develop towards specialization. It is obvious that one landlord would be unable to apprehend all the needs of each area of society so thus would rely on a codependent competition. In other words, more lords of jurisdiction would develop, this process eventually creating guilds of competitive for-profit services. This specialization due to its privatization means that private ownership must also accept its losses. Thus why it is hard to take advantage of others as is possible through our current political system. The essential truth is, people are not reliant on the market. The market needs the people.

Heathian anarchism is thus a proprietary community containing multi-tenant properties such as hotels and apartments, shopping centers, places of entertainment such as parks and even educational districts for schools. The concept of multi-tenant property is the opposite of traditional real-estate development. It would be in the landlords best interests to provide community service and other pleasing luxuries in order to hope that people would wish to live on their land and benefit from an active participation in maintaining land value and voluntary rent.

While history is a subjective matter, the empirical information available reveals that there is a growing population and land is limited. The private single-family household is one that is quite new, but also a passing phase. Multi-tenant income property, shopping malls and the like, are a development of the past half-century. This approach should eventually infiltrate the public sector accepting the burden of water, waste management, energy and maintenance. Different jurisdictions of property would compete in a business-like manner on how best to provide protection from crime. This is a distinct improvement over monopolistic government if one understands the fundamentals of the market and service.

And while it is obvious that this build isn’t the standard proprietary zone defense formula, there is no doubt, that needs must be met – and the competing security agencies would develop methods that sell best to the consumer.

It is not enough to look into the means of land and its utilities eventually becoming a servant of the private sector. We must look at the eventual decentralized powers of technology and its inevitable passage to the hands of the common man. It has been the mistake in the past to assume the government would be the only entity capable of controlling technology. But because of the wealth of information available for this argument (and its eventual straying from the origins of the topic at hand) I must continue this at another time – with a tighter focus.

What Nonsense?

What Nonsense?

Freedom is indeed personal. But is it indeed true that my very act of defending a concept achieves the very opposite of what I intend? What of the cost of remaining silent?

How then would I explain to those who are ignorant, that anarchists do not practice the business of preaching foolish and wild acts? The apolitical philosophy has nothing in common with violence or a state of chaos. The state of existence to which I hold can never come about without it first entering the heads of the common mind. I cannot allow myself to be defenseless to misconceptions without first arming myself to the teeth with logic.

So in accepting that my ideal cannot come to pass, I accept that people who are nothing more than nihilists will be called anarchists. I accept that people would call me a fool whether or not I can dance circles of logic around their blustering protest. Fate dictates that every new idea be blasphemy. Then when change begins to take place, the sins of the previous order are blamed at our footsteps. This is old news.

So yes, I believe in the necessity for a displacement of our current system of injustice. So long as man rules man there will never be peace. I believe in humans and their worth over the empty words and laws which man has currently made and will eventually make. I would call for a complete disintegration of the principle for authority. If for this you condemn me, continue to call me a fool. I never said that I believed we will change our ways. I only believe that we must for the very notion of liberty to exist. Until then, I let my thoughts pour.

Lysander Spooner's Dilemma

If there be such a natural principle as justice, it is necessarily the highest, and consequently the only and universal, law for all those matters to which it is naturally applicable. And, consequently, all human legislation is simply and always an assumption of authority and dominion, where no right of authority or dominion exists. It is, therefore, simply and always an intrusion, an absurdity, an usurpation, and a crime.

On the other hand, if there be no such natural principle as justice, there can be no such thing as injustice. If there be no such natural principle as honesty, there can be no such thing as dishonesty; and no possible act of either force or fraud, committed by one man against the person or property of another, can be said to be unjust or dishonest; or be complained of, or prohibited, or punished as such. In short, if there be no such principle as justice, there can be no such acts as crimes; and all the professions of governments, so called, that they exist, either in whole or in part, for the punishment or prevention of crimes, are professions that they exist for the punishment or prevention of what never existed, nor can ever exist. Such professions are therefore confessions that, so far as crimes are concerned, governments have no occasion to exist[…] - Lysander Spooner, "Natural Law," Section V

Onus probandi

Logic dictates that the burden of proof must be placed on any positive claim. Necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit. “The necessity of proof lies with he who complains.” A common misconception is that the anarchist (whether or not they are a collectivist or individualist) has the burden of proof.

However; both statists and anarchists make positive assertions about social organization. Both parties agree that markets should exist. The statist is forced to make an extra burden of proof. That social organization needs to be constructed on such a massive scale.

The statist is incapable of shedding this extra burden once they admit they make a positive claim. In this, we naturally win.

Let’s move on.

Geometric Argument

Let us assume there are three people on a deserted island. A third person happens to have access to a larger portion of resources. A majority rule is enacted and the two work together to reallocate the third lucky person’s extra resources. This is taxation. Now, replace those three people, with millions of people and you see where I’m going. Now that is what I consider organized crime of a massive scale.

Freedom's Imperative
by Jim Davies

Proving that Market Anarchy is the only justifiable organizational system by demonstrating that self-ownership is axiomatically true and that Market Anarchy is the only organizational system built on that premise.

The Problem of Collectivist Obligation

(1) One or more of three possibilities must be obtain:

* Morality does not exist.
* Morality is determined by the individual (realism, subjectivism, etc).
* Morality is determined by the collective (autocracy, utilitarianism, etc).

(2) Morality necessarily exists, because:

* Morality is axiomatic (cannot be denied without direct contradiction).
* Morality is a necessary fact for all moral agents.

(3) Either morality is determined by the individual moral agent, or the collective, or both. (from 1 and 2)

(4) Collectivist obligation is inter-subjective relative to the collectivist belief system.

(5) Any moral obligation towards the collective would have to be demonstrated objectively (i.e. as a fact that exists independently from the group).

(6) It is impossible to go from inter-subjective propositions to objective propositions, as any given sum or network of inter-subjective propositions must still remain grounded to the belief system.

(7) It is impossible to justify the passage from collectivist obligation to moral obligation. (from 4, 5 and 6)

(8) Morality cannot be determined by the collective. (from 7)

(9) Morality can only be determined by the individual moral agent. (from 3 and 8)

Hence:

Moral Argument

A moral principle or system, or a political principle or system, is invalid if it is asymmetrical in application (to locations, times or persons). Can also be called "universality." Argument made by Murray Rothbard in his book The Ethics of Liberty.

Gun control is invalid because it sets one principle for one group (state exploiters)- you can have guns- and another principle for the rest of us- you can't have guns. Taxation is invalid because theft remains criminal in all other instances. If it is just for some people to steal in the name of the "common good", then it should be good for everyone. And so on.

I Confess..

I cannot help it. I’ve argued heatedly and I’ve held the coldest of discourse. When one mocked me or made preconceived notions of the love for my theory – I tempered it with heavy-laden logic. I perceive it is this logic that is indeed, heavy; indeed leaden. For while it is one thing to utterly confound my opposition to my beliefs with wit and intellect – it is another to completely lose them by attacking with disregard for emotions and attention spans. Once boredom in your opponent is conceived, the point of displaying the thought (no matter how strong the argument) is fruitless.

That person will never again wish to hear another ounce and entrench themselves deeper in the ways they find comfortable. It is the nature of those with the mental faculty for satisfaction to despise those who are mentally active.

I will attempt to infuse much of my own personality into the subject at hand, giving reasons sufficient to myself. I hope that personal reasons coupled with logic-ridden generalizations may help illuminate that the political is indeed personal. There are many who would protest that I stick to cold rationale only. In the past I’d agree with those sneering philosophers. (They make the best of comrades). However; this protest seems more borne from the hatred for emotional appeal than is within reason.

We are human. The surface is comprised of logic. The bulk beneath is raw ore. To attack emotional appeal – one must fairly attack the logical portion of our beings.

Always I’ve maintained a craving. This craving grew in direct opposition to conventionality and tradition. This craving evolved to disagree with fads and fashion. This hunger grew for something that wasn’t force fed down the throat. This taste spat out the spun out details of elections and wars. It digested subjective history on administration and facts on bureaucracy. It was pleased at first. But I grew hungry to know: what about the people? Who paid for all these wars? What did they say in their homes those who never fought? Wasn’t the Civil War predominantly one for growth of Federal Government and not one of slavery? The dissatisfaction grew only when I was but eight years old.

I grew older and the disgust bloomed with it. I grew further angry that life was a never ending tale of bureaucracy. I learned fury when I looked on my classmates in quiet disbelief – seeing them for the cogs they were. I grew angry knowing, our education was one which meant for us to fit in with society. What of an education for us where the only notion was to enrich our heads with knowledge? Knowledge: not for the sake of upholding traditions which stagnate. Knowledge: not for the sake of keeping things as they are. Knowledge: not for the sake of making the same mistakes repeatedly.

Wisdom fed to us not for remedy! Lessons to nourish and strengthen the individual. The problem was never how to find a way to relieve distress, to feed poverty or shelter the homeless. The problem was never to make people codependent sops begging on the kindness and charity of others. The solution was to find a way for everyone to stand on their own feet.

I once believed that the Constitution could possibly protect almost anything (concerning the people). I loved the ideals for our country. Long thought, and a war between reason and lesson allowed me to conclude that the victory of the political in our great nation – was a husk. People believed rights on paper gave them their rights. Finally, the idea of a majority rule was found to be nothing more than a minority rule. The only desirable notion of society is one, where no one is compelled against their will to live or abide by a rule made with vested interest.

It was clear to me from the start that in order to attain actual liberty, one must have liberty in access to resources. Hence my interest in economics and the trade of values. So then what were those resources? How would a commoner in this era vulgaris come upon them when they are withheld and denied?

Motives are one thing, but everyone disagrees on the execution thereof. One common theme is ownership and possession of land.

American-borne Socialists would plead that land become property of state. The land would then be divvied out by committees representing a majority of local communities. The state would exercise theft on a large-scale, redistributing surplus to those who wouldn’t produce as much. The idea is old – through legal enactment, they wish to confiscate estates and declare the property for all.

This wasn’t satisfactory (though it was charming at first to my more compassionate side.) It was a reason I thought myself democratic at the tender age of 14. The social principle of equality is such that I couldn’t help but love it. I grew to abhor it within a few years.

In the end the weakened individual must still get permission to work. The individual would still be a chew toy for a mass of regulations and bureaucracy. While material comfort became more easily a ‘right’ to all, there was a delegated power assuming it knew best how everyone should live. Once that weak individual found labor, they would find that it wasn’t anything they truly wished to do. No, they would be demanded to work jobs that were deemed most necessary for society. This design is exceedingly simple – and Socialists are praised for its apparent simplicity.

However; by channeling efforts through the current system – they must confront the judicial power. Reforms of weaker character have done the same in the past. It seems certain that a socialist reform for redistribution of the land would then be deemed unconstitutional. And we’d be back to the drawing board. It was about this time, my conclusion was democracy was non-existent in our country. Rather we were a republic by definition. I began to entertain right-wing understandings.

So why anarchism? (Market Anarchy to be exact.) The title bears to mind violent ignoramuses, disturbers of the common people; disturbers of the peace. I could through a process of elimination muse on the different economic systems and reveal why each is quite unsatisfactory for me. I can just as easily filter through each form of anarchism with its secondary natures of communism, socialism, individualism, primitivism, syndicalism, pacifism and all other contrived ‘isms’. I’d be then raising a debate that those who identify as anarchists are more than willing to debate about. It is apparent that one form of anarchy is neither correct nor ideal as it then leads to another form of governance.

It seems to me to be a question of wealth but most importantly: its exchange.

It is the question of the nature of ‘value’ and the necessity for a ‘standard’ in asset exchange. Spooner I believe addressed this issue by revealing that wealth itself is neither material nor immaterial – but rather a flux between the both. Wealth begets wealth. One with a keen mind has the tools at hand to produce material wealth. Adam Smith comes to mind.

How many thousands of years must we debate over the trivialities of the superiority of one form of commodity over another? Let there be an end to a monopoly on the ‘necessity’ for a form of wealth. I’m sure someone starving for thirst would cast aside diamonds for water. Wealth is in the eye of the beholder; it is subjective. Let each community attempt a different form of money for exchange. It is quite apparent that there are currencies which rise to the top due to their liquidity and their prevalence within the market.

Centralization of wealth itself is the problem. Decentralization would not counter anything currently in place but for the ability to amass riches to a ridiculous corporate level to the detriment of competing small business. And while it is plainly good when a company reaches large-scale the negative effects are only attained through state-supportive monopolies and protectionist (specialist) agenda.

This is hailing of course from the theory for voluntary association. Not where we are placed side by side and expected to exist in peace as the current system dictates. Anarchism easily defines not utopia but heterotopia.

Now as to the application it becomes readily apparent that technology affords us a method for attaining this ideal liberty. Every machine is one of complexity and never is it conceived by one person. Always the different tweaks and developments are those of many (not always for profit) but for solving problems at hand. Take a look at Edison and the light bulb. He wasn’t the creator of the light bulb – he merely had access to patents and copyrights. His innovation came 70 years after the original. Since the creation is one of many and not ever of one – no one man deserves exclusive possession to it.

Technology is about production. The streamlining of production allows for goods to be produced at ever cheaper levels (and always for profit). It seems inevitable that technology may be able to outgrow monopoly.

The idea is simple: the way to liberty lies in plainly seeking land out and settling upon it and utilizing it. Each community should be absolutely free to make its own regulation (if it so chooses). There should be no imaginary line dictating regulation to people who live hundreds of miles in distance from each other, living with different interests and customs in mind. It seems to me, that the privatization of the public sector is the necessity.

The idea is simple: the way to liberty lies in not creating systems for the masses, but in allowing the minority – the individual ability to cope with the differences in ‘classes’. The way to liberty cannot be controlled and should not be controlled. Ever is it mankind’s method for wrestling with a world he has no right to conquer. Worse is it man’s method for controlling other men. It is not our place to rule others and it is not our place to be ruled. If there is a ruler – it is the ineffable, it is the ‘god’ construct the church maintained a knowledge monopoly over. If there is a ruler, we answer in the next life and not in this one. So instead of making it hell on earth – we should be attempting to build a heaven by all constructs now. Ceaseless is our struggle because we attempt to exercise dominion over the petty material things which easily rule us.

The aims of anarchism are only measurable in what one opposes. If one opposes the current state driven capitalist system – then that is the measure of anarchy for them. If one counters the selling of individual rights to another through the process of outdated marriage – then that is the measure of the feminist anarchism, ad infinitum.

It knows isolation is undesirable and impossible for the good of man. This system is one of mutual needs and collaboration. It is a system where resources are not taken away from the individual but rather, asserted as the natural birthright to all. It is a system where we retain our dignity above the pageants of wealth and class.

I despair knowing full well that my ideal shall never come to pass. I despair in my love for a theory knowing full well that the mass of our kind are too blind and witless to ever effect change. But I do not despair that I should remain silent to the ones I know and love. I do not despair that I’ve fallen for an ideal: freedom.

To life..

Note to self: Try this more often.

Sleep might be more of a money-maker than you thought.

Sleeping_Entrepreneur A new poll by Fortune Small Business found that 84% of entrepreneurs said they developed business ideas or solved work-related problems while sleeping. The results were featured in a broader package of stories on the benefits of adequate sleep for entrepreneurs.

Alan Stafford, an executive coach and self-described “sleepworker” interviewed by Fortune Small Business, offers tips on how entrepreneurs can boost their creative and problem-solving juices during sleep, such as identifying business problems that need to be solved right before falling asleep, waking up slowly instead of with an alarm clock and keeping a dream journal on the nightstand.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised: I find some of my best ideas come around dawn in the hours I’m drifting in and out of sleep before actually climbing out of bed.

How about you? Ever have an inspiration while you slept? Or are you too busy to sleep much in the first place?

I'm not entirely surprised. I'm also completely sympathetic. Work weeks stretch out too far these past few months, and I know that it'll be like this for the duration of my life. Its a lifestyle and choice in this case.

Yes, I'd prefer working a lot to having a life. I haven't had a martini lunch in a few years. But again - not going to really complain. The only regret I have is the lack of sleep I actually win. I'm going to try this more often - and when I go on vacation I'll be sure to email myself thoughts to developing leads for the business. It's odd - I'm going on break and I can't just stop working. That would be a travesty. Really the projects can't handle a week off. I'm more or less forcing myself to go and try and handle it with some measure of relaxation.

In the back of my mind while I'm partying it up - I'll also be thinking about how to come up with the right mindset to speak with some potential sellers.

There is a certain amount of rational to this.

See the economy isn't so bad as it is in a correction. Everything investors have put money into is being revealed. We've seen six (I believe) credit companies go under. When the mistakes are shown to be numerous - the obvious thing is to drop them. Cut them. Like pruning a tree. Has anyone noticed some restaurants are risking loyalty with downgraded and poorer quality products? I certainly have. And they aren't receiving my business if they intend on keeping their cheap products at the same rate.

Yes, its costly to be an entrepreneur at this point in time. But - thats the gist of it. To those who make it past the intitial hurdle of costs there are alternatives. To those that make it when all others have lost - they'll come out quite successful. That's half the battle right? Survival.

Instead of cheapening the product - they should be looking to alternative types. I know we have. Instead of lower-quality we've been investing in alternative media for sales. We've alternated the sales of products to reflect seasonal needs. Focusing on selling short term, low cost equipment parts (vs the machinery that requires quite a bit of investment). Instead of allowing the sellers to monopolize on this and raise their prices - we've agreed instead to buy into bigger bulk - to keep the costs down overall. It works out for both buyer and seller.

In the end - loyalty from the customer is what keeps business afloat. If business owners continue to charge the same price but cheapen the product - they lose. This is the time to obfuscate problems by innovating on a variety of products at lower rates.

The worst part is things just don't cost more as that our dollar has dropped in value. Thus we can measure the worth of our dollar by the increase in prices on goods. I try not to cringe when I do spend. I know its ultimately not worth the extra stress if I absolutely have to have it.

So here's to a vacation, to business, to life. I'll see you all in a week.*

*Sooner if I have to update. >_<

I'm Not Smiling..

Politics brings out the worst in everyone, which is one good reason to completely depoliticize society. This way we can all busy ourselves in productive work or leisure, instead of wasting vast time watching these clowns on television promise the impossible to us.

What we are being offered on television is two flavors of dictatorship. One party imagines Athens, with fairness and justice for all, international brotherhood and sisterhood, a world free of hate and discrimination in which all wealth is shared and no wealth is made at the expense of nature.

Of course, this is an Athens of their own invention, since the original's culture and accomplishments depended on free trade, private ownership, sound money, and low taxes. What the Democrats are offering is a monstrously larger state that assumes control of all property, the crushing of private initiative, and an end to economic freedom.

Note that they don't talk about this. But that is the core of all their plans for fairness and justice: an increased use of violence in society, and an increased centralization of political power. Often the person who recommends this path imagines that he will be the dictator, and that his plans alone will prevail.

They don't consider that the state they advocate is also wholly capable of doing things that they do not like, like crushing civil liberties and starting wars all over the world. Note that the Left's critique of Bush's big government is not that it is crushing liberty; rather, they believe that government power is being used for the wrong purposes.

Another problem with these people: they can't stand capitalism. They resent the commercial society. They have not come to terms with the fact that without capitalism, most of the human race would starve the death. Why do they hate it? Because wealth under capitalism will always be unequally distributed.

They favor a different form of dictatorship.

Now to the Republicans, who imagine themselves creating a modern form of Sparta, with military strength and a disciplined citizenry unified in the drive to national greatness, courage, and heroism. Along with this comes support for national service (the draft) and a demand that Congress stop meddling in executive-branch matters.

They also say that they are for free enterprise, but what they really mean is that they support their main constituents who are large corporations dependent on government contracts and privileges. That goes for the banks and the mortgage companies too, whose interests they defend through a fiat-money system that further fuels state growth.
This too is their version of dictatorship.

It is long past time for both of these parties to admit it. They won't of course, so it is incumbent on the rest of us to at least recognize it for what it is. It is often said that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the parties, but there is little reflection on what precisely they have in common. It comes down to a love of some version of dictatorship, of which they believe they will be the administrators.

What is the alternative? It is pure liberty, a word that is used only as a slogan in public affairs these days. By liberty, I mean only one kind: a life without badgering from the state. There is nothing on God's green earth that the state can do better than we can as individuals and communities and voluntary associations. What I mean by liberty is no more or less than firing the state as the administrator of society.

The politicians are forever talking about their plans for us. We should reject them all, left, right, and center. Would this leave chaos in its wake? Not at all. It would leave the orderliness of the private-property society.

As Mises wrote,

The truth is that the choice is not between a dead mechanism and a rigid automatism on the one hand and conscious planning on the other hand. The alternative is not plan or no plan. The question is: whose planning? Should each member of society plan for himself or should the paternal government alone plan for all? The issue is not automatism versus conscious action; it is spontaneous action of each individual versus the exclusive action of the government. It is freedom versus government omnipotence.

Mises wrote those words in 1949. People said that he was being hyperbolic, that he was nuts and inflammatory. Surely our system has nothing in common with the German system we had just fought a war to destroy, and nothing in common with the Russian system that was becoming our new enemy.

But people forget that in the 1930s, it was conventional wisdom that our essential choice was between two forms of dictatorship, socialism or fascism. People were more open back then, using these words not in a derogatory way. Here we are all these years later, and we no longer speak with deference toward socialism and fascism as systems of government.

Even so, the intellectual assumptions remain the same. Watch the conventions with an eye to what the political class wants to do for you. Everything they promise has a flip side of what they want to do to you. And the power to do these things has to come from the violence of the state, and using that violence requires a form of total control over government and society. They may look nice and sweet. They may claim to love you and your family and community. But their political ideology is actually steeped in hatred for your liberty and property. They seek an end to your freedom to seek a better life.

They seek dictatorship. All the rest is illusion.

Daily Article by Llewellyn H Rockwell, Jr.

At least I'm Far from Hitler..

The Political Compass™ has charted the most prominent names in the 2008 US Primaries. They have been evaluated through scrutiny of public statements, manifestos, interviews and, crucially, voting records. Our apologies for those not included.

It is important to recognise that The Political Compass™ is a continuum rather than consisting of hard and fast quadrants. For example, Ron Paul on the social scale is actually closer to Dennis Kucinich than to many figures within his own party. But on the economic scale, they are, of course, far apart.

When examining the chart it's important to note that although most of the candidates seem quite different, in substance they occupy a relatively restricted area within the universal political spectrum. Democracies with a system of proportional representation give expression to a wider range of political views. While Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader are depicted on the extreme left in an American context, they would simply be mainstream social democrats within the wider political landscape of Europe. Similarly, Hillary Clinton is popularly perceived as a leftist in the United States while in any other western democracy her record is that of a mainstream conservative.

Traditionally, political worldviews have been categorised as 'left' or 'right', according to the weight they give to various values. The left-right line was established for the French National Assembly of 1789, and has become simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?


If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line it's fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.


That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That's the one that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So we've added a perpendicular scale, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities exisited in Spain during the civil war period You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process. The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( i.e. an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (i.e. extreme deregulated economy).




















Note where I sit. I'm rather pleased with my placement far from the Fuhrer and Chief.

What this plot reveals is that I actually vouch for true 'freedom' on both an economic and social scale. Most people speak as if they understand what liberty is - which usually plots them up above - touting their philosophy as the be all end all.

I end with a quote about democracy. By its very principle - it is hypocritical. Please pay attention to Voltairine de Cleyre.

Vain delusion! Government is unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. Try it, if you don’t believe it. […]

“I go to the White House; I say: “Mr. President, are you the government?”

“No, madam, I am its representative.”

“Well where is the principal? – who is the government?”

“The people of the United States.”

“The whole people?”

“I was elected.”

“Elected by whom?” the whole people?”

“Oh no, by some of the people; some of the voters. The majority vote of the whole was for another man, but I had the largest electoral vote.”

“Then you are a representative of the Electoral College, not of the whole people, nor the majority of the people, nor even a majority of the voters. But suppose the largest number of ballots cast had been for you: you would represent the majority of the voters, I suppose. But the majority, sir is not a tangible thing; it is an unknown quantity. An agent is usually held accountable to his principals.

If you do not know the individuals who voted for you, then you do not know for whom you are acting, nor to whom you are accountable. If any body of persons has delegated to you any authority, the disposal of any right or part of a right, (supposing rights are transferable), you must have received it from the individuals composing that body; and you must have some means of learning who those individuals are, or you cannot know for whom you act, and you are utterly irresponsible as an agent.

Furthermore, such a body of voters can not give into your charge any rights but their own; by no possible jugglery of logic can they delegate the exercise of any function which they themselves do not control. If any individual on earth has a right to delegate his powers to whomsoever he chooses, then every other individual has an equal right; and if each has an equal right, then none can choose an agent for another without the other’s consent.

Therefore, if the power of government resides in the whole people, and out of that whole all but one elected you as their agent, you would still have no authority whatever to act for the one. The individuals composing the minority who did not appoint you have just the same rights and powers as those composing the majority who did; and if they prefer not to delegate them at all, then neither you nor any one, has any authority whatever to coerce them into accepting you, or anyone as their agent. Upon your own basis the coercive authority resides not in the majority, not in any proportion of the people, but in the whole people.”

Hence, the necessary “overthrow of government” as a coercive power, thereby denying tyranny in another form.

Advice from a Caterpillar

In order to combat the state spread policies of destruction we need an economically informed public.

Not many read into economics. However; once started, it can evolve to a new way of studying the very movement of society. I've been consumed for months after picking up on one article by the Mises Institute.

It is not without much thought that I've finally decided upon a course of action. Now in the past few months as I worked, I toyed heavily with pursuing Economics, most notably Austrian Economics. However; events dictate a slightly different path - and one that is not entirely unwholesome for me. No; it is quite palatable. I will be pursuant of a BSBA after my work is done here. When that is accomplished I'll be finishing up with an MBA/MIS. That is, Masters in Business Administration combined with Management Information Systems. Because of the locality I believe Sin City is my appropriate future abode.

It is exciting to realize in a mere reading that so much of what our society takes for granted is false. After a mere session one feels compelled to start spreading the truth. Which is in essence why I've decided to place my 'faith' in this one art of studying social behavior. Forget everything you knew about sociology and psychology; learn everything about economics. It cuts to the root of the matters of interpersonal exchange. Economists may differ in light of favoring the Keynesian model and the Free-Market faith - however; they both at least address the movement of our society.

To better understand this let us take a look into inflation. The majority of people view inflation like a disease. It rushes through like a tidal wave, creating an interesting arrangement of wreckage. Damage is obvious - causes are not. At this point we see everyone pointing their fingers at everyone else. However; when you understand economics, you realize of course that the value of money is more affected by its quantity. You realize that only one institution contains the ultimate power of creating money out of thin air. This is without limit: it is the government-connected central bank.

As an example I take from someone who mentioned this earlier today. It is a readily apparent fact. This is what happens when we stray from in specie (in coins and not in paper money.) This is what happens when you place faith that the government is to have a hand in the invisible hand of markets.

I took this from someone on here but have abbreviated their sn. *Let me know if its ok to use your full sn!

"The price of gasoline and other petroleum products haven't gone up substantially in many years.

The value of the individual unit of currency used to purchase the above products, has been invisibly devalued to the point where we're not appreciably paid more units, but everything costs more units.

In 1900, 1 troy oz of gold = 10 barrels of oil = 20 American dollars. The only part of this that has changed, is that an American dollar is now worth only roughly 2 cents, and falling in geometric progression.

Coincidentally, if you take separate charts depicting the skyrocketing prices of commodities over time, for example: gold, silver, platinum, oil, whatever, and you superimpose them on one another, they will virtually form one single line. If you then flip this chart upside down, you'll have a chart virtually depicting the precise collapse of the dollar due to hyperinflation over time." - sc82

Economics forces our minds to comprehend society. It forces our minds to analyze many different views. We are changed from the ordinary consumer or even producer, to one that views the interests of all consumers and all producers. Instead of the short term we are forced to view the long term. This long term visual aids in spotting the effects of governmental policies. Hazlitt covers this in the first chapter. This book is rather interesting in that it was written 60 years ago and yet, reflects our society ignoring the time differences. It remains a powerful book of which anyone can read.

Commerce being the interpersonal netting of society must be defended. Entrepreneurs are changed to great heroes. Producers have plights. Unions are not necessarily defenders of rights; they are priveleged cartels of which exclude people who need work. Regulations are not for consumer protection. They are cost-raising messes lobbied for by producers attacks on other producers. They are fights carried out by big corporations against smaller private businesses. Antitrust is no longer a safeguard against the excesses of the corporate branches but rather, a bludgeon used by the big players against smarter competitors.

It helps us fit facts into the assemblage of a coherent world theory. The battle is not in court, it is no where near the election polls. The presidency has no hand in it, nor the legislature from which all our free-rides for freedom are damned. The battleground of the economist concerns a domain of existence of which is more powerful in the long run. This domain concerns the ideas of the individual trying to grasp the wheels of the world.

Knowledge is not merely for knowledge's sake. Remember:

"Energy is recognized as the key to all activity on earth. Natural science is the study of the sources and control of natural energy, and social science, theoretically expressed as economics, is the study of the sources and control of social energy." (reprint in Keith, Secret and Suppressed, 203)

Ipsa scientia potestas est. So let us take control of knowledge and wrest it from those who do everything to blind side the public. It is the well-being of society. It is freedom and the flowering of civilization that are at the precipice. The abstract ideas of cause and effect ultimately decide our direction in society.

Liberty is the only true economy.

[...] 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. [...] I am sure the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas [...] But soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

– John Maynard Keynes

*Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. New York: Harbinger. 1965.

*art by hobofarmer@deviantart.com

"Sic Semper Tyrannis"

O, be some other name! What's in a name?

That which we call democracy by any other name would smell as stink.

Well, what is the root of money? Who printed the said money? It is not our vices that our evil, it's the behemoth behind the scenes restricting both cash and life flow. It's our demonocracy which creates these currencies. It's the government that says,

"Your money (taxes) or your life." Well I suppose life is important so I'll grudgingly pay the tax before I run.

The modern day person whom attacks capitalism attacks the very structures of civilization. Ever do we see the growth for taxes. Taxes of which allocate the riches of the actual producing people to the unproductive leeches of society. In essence, the ideals of the rose-like democrat are the foundations of sharing impoverishment.

I find it deeply amusing, that those who collect near the water call themselves democrats preaching the ideals of equality and freedom. It is the democracy that runs counter to personal freedom. In this equation – we find that personal freedom apparently doesn't necessitate equality. But hey, who said I vouch for equality of poverty? The current problems of our nation's welfare are set from the ground up (or rather from the ivory tower of government down). These people who live in constant despotism as a whole are not really given much to escape it. In fact it seems that in order to allow for mega corporations their wealth, the government must allow for a community of the poor. The reasons I state this are very simple. Let me lay it down for you.

Common economics actually states that prices would rise when the demand slows. Well, the reason for this is simple: merchants would raise prices on items no longer in demand if only to make up for lost profit. But what if one merchant were to do this and not another? Well take a wild guess at which merchant will actually make more money, sell more goods, and have an easier time – moving on to a better marketable good. Hint: it is not the greedy sedentary and lazy capitalist that wins in this scenario. Heath wrote a book on the necessity for heterotopian playgrounds of markets. I'm not going to even try and summarize.

It is in a society such as this that the aristocracy actually diminishes and crumbles and the poor find purchase in creating wealth for themselves. If any one person cannot make a living – it is of their volition and they need not take part of this society. Rather they should find a commune that is likely to develop in the wild. A commune of socialists that demand everyone is equal out of the spite, out of the envy. It is this fertile ground of democratic ideals that blossom out of hatred for those who can make a living. It is an envy that grows counter to those that can make something beautiful.

The misunderstanding of capitalism now is due to the government's involvement with private firms. Indeed, the government is at fault for allowing any one company to monopolize itself to disgusting proportions at the cost of driving off the competition. At the cost of driving off someone who would otherwise limit the power of any one company. I don't know how to make it seem any simpler. If the people who call themselves democrats plead for justice and liberty – then they must learn that what they are asking for is more taxation, less privatization, more welfare, and definitely – more warfare. This last word doesn't sound like it really stands for freedom. Indeed, those who call for more government are nothing more than servants asking for a tyranny. These are masochists who are slaves who want masters. They are lazy and want someone else to do the work.

The misunderstanding of capitalism is due to the warping done by progressive taxing, by centralized banking authorities, by pure paper currency, by drug prohibitions, by gun prohibitions, by affirmative action and employment mandates. Capitalism is further perverted by the government ran healthcare system, by the federal departments of mandated education, by centralized energy, by homeland security. The term capitalist is overrun with the gluttony of the DEA, SEC, FTC, FDA, BATFE, it is overrun by minimum legal wages, price controls, tariffs and welfare. In essence the free economy does not exist. In essence our economy is completely targeted by the government – and in this parasitic development - I say – no more.

So why do so many oppose capitalism? It could be the above referenced roots. Or it could merely be, envy and ignorance.

Helmut Schoeck from Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior (1966).

"What is decisive is the envious man's conviction that the envied man's prosperity, his success and his income are somehow to blame for the subject's deprivation, for the lack that he feels […] A self-pitying inclination to contemplate another's superiority or advantages, combined with a vague belief in his being the cause of one's own deprivation, is also to be found among educated members of our modern societies who really ought to know better. The primitive people's belief in black magic differs little from modern ideas. Whereas the socialist believes himself robbed by the employer, just as the politician in a developing country believes himself robbed by the industrial countries; so primitive man believes himself robbed by his neighbour, the latter having succeeded by black magic in spiriting away to his own fields' part of the former's harvest. (pp. 23, 51)

So it follows that one man's prosperity is usually blamed for the lack thereof in another. It is silly to think so since, we can see that those who make their lot better have strived and worked incessantly with industriousness to apply reason to the problems of life. It is this success that unreasonably sustains the belief that success is automatic, that it need be shared equally. So if one merchant produces more he must have stolen it from his neighbor? – I laugh. But unfortunately this is no laughing matter; it is thus further blamed on the social system that allowed this one merchant to take from another. The system is argued that it must be corrupt.

"[Capitalism] crowns the dishonest unscrupulous scoundrel, the swindler, the exploiter, the 'rugged individualist" […] As conditions are under [State-fertilized] capitalism, a man is forced to choose between virtue and poverty on the one hand, and vice and riches on the other." - Ludwig von Mises

So, capitalism does not bring to mind reluctant commentary, it in fact bears self-righteous arguments. It isn't merely a statement of "capitalism doesn't work" it is filled with venom; it is filled with "capitalism is the institutionalization of exploitation." I safely argue back that democracy is the institutionalization of envy and ignorance.

All taxes, sales, income, excise, land, these are your favored fruits of redistribution. Redistribution under the name of democracy. Income taxes however are the most flagrant, nay blatant form of theft. If taxes truly were proxy it would be on a per capita basis. Not an accelerated percentage of one's income.

Now onto the secondary nature of reviling capitalism: ignorance.

What we find here is that the reason economics is so difficult to adjust to is that to truly understand it – one has to be self-reflecting, ideal and logical. Social science is the study and control of human behavior. However, one cannot study human behavior as one studies the qualities of an atom. An atom is fixed in nature – a human is unpredictable at best – which is reflective of economics. To better theorize the behavior of the 'ends justifies the means' really means "to get what I want – I'll do anything I want." That is the needed basis for the study of econ. One needs to say – "what could someone do to get to point B?"

This inability to self-reflect is abundant in America. Mandatory schooling stamped out critical thinking in students K-12 since they are forced to sit and marinate in 'facts' that are 'true'. The problem again is not the numbers (since numbers don't lie) but the amount of numbers which definitely lie.

For those who attack capitalism, they may as well state they are primitivists who attack civilization itself. Go on and worship your state; the false idol it is.

Your attacks consist of malice, envy, and ignorance of true education. If democratic/socialistic people get what they want – it won't be the end for just capitalism – but the end of education, science, technology, art, rights, prosperity and be nothing more than a mockery of 'civilization'.

It will be the end of the means. So I hiss: "Sic Semper Tyrannis."

*Artwork by Eblu @ Deviantart.com

"Whatever Will Be.."

Whenever a choice is present, we sacrifice a value. So we see every action has a cost. This is known as opportunity cost. This is a key concept in economics.

This implicates that when faced with decisions, we attempt to reduce the mistakes made. This is a simple concept to understand; however, difficult to apply.

The first requirement to making any good decision is good judgment. You have to recognize that nothing comes without factors, that many different variables have costs and benefits. Each concept must be applied – if you truly are shrewd with your choices.

Here’s the pivotal point. If you come to a decision, there is no turning back. The past is past. If you focus too much on lost opportunity, you make a grievous error. People who overpaid for an item may find that they refuse to sell it, because they can’t accept the loss. They’ve already paid the cost of making this ill choice in purchase. Selling only makes them admit they made a mistake.

A simple enough example: I was invited on a date. I had to politely decline as I made the choice of hanging out with my friends. All evening long I spent wondering if I should have ignored principle and risked the rewards of the date offered. Just thinking of this took my mind off the enjoyment of the evening. I realized that there was no changing my decision. I could have theoretically called him up and requested to hang out, but then I would have lost time and may be perceived as fickle and dishonest. The date was no longer viable for the evening. The opportunity was no longer a cost to staying where I was.

This was a cost in opportunity at the time of the question. And there I was, contemplating on the price when it was no longer something necessary to worry on. The focus on what was sacrificed imposes further costs to any further benefits already being garnered in an evening of enjoyment. Once anyone comes to a decision, they shouldn’t worry about potential debts. They can’t fix it. We can’t hit pause or rewind. And if we could, why - we’d run out of batteries in our remotes for playing with the buttons.

Stop letting thoughts undermine present enjoyment. The lesson of opportunity costs reveals a lesson in guilt for future decision making strategies. It shouldn’t make us feel worse – as this is much like self-flagellation. This leads to a depression of sorts again, invoking future costs.

I make the mistake of pondering what could have been all the time. Thankfully, I can look at the lessons of Economics concerning Opportunity Costs, and realize that what will be, will be. Someone I once knew said, “Que sera, sera.”
I make the mistake of pondering what could have been all the time. Thankfully, I can look at the lessons of Economics concerning Opportunity Costs, and realize that what will be, will be. Someone I once knew said, “Que sera, sera.”