Globate Climate Change Fraud

The University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit was recently hacked and data has leaked onto the internet demonstrating intentional data manipulation to demonstrate the validity of global climate change. Mish and The Market Ticker have done some good summary work on the topic.

This should come as no surprise, as many were already anticipating this type of fraud, but what is so amazing to me, is the collaborative effort by so many to defraud the world.

Read Mish's take on the hacked data and further musings of his here. Also read Market Ticker on it.

Mish linked to this video interview of Tim Bell, a climate change skeptic, who anticipated this kind of fraud.



-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

One of My Patented Rants

This was originally an email, and I've revised it slightly to fit the context of a blog entry. I decided this might be a benefit to others beyond the intended recipient. I invite criticism and questions on it.
--------------------
I have been a skeptic of the organic food movement for as long as I've been aware of it, and am only now recently beginning to understand the dramatic shift that our food system has undergone in the past fifty years. My thinking on these matters is still not wholly formed, as I have not come to solid conclusions on many things yet.

But, what I am beginning to learn, that what may look crazy by the majority of people, may in fact be completely sane. Not only that, but it may also be likely that the 'sane majority' may actually be the crazy ones. I mean this quite honestly, I'm not just being cute. The older I get, the more I read, and the more I observe reality, the more apparent it becomes that what most people accept as the real world is really a construct of how those in power wish things to be. I'll grant you that this sounds conspiratorial and perhaps a bit looney, but hear me out.

Think about how companies try to get your money--our money. Think about something as simple as a cake mix. Betty Crocker wants you to buy their cake mix rather than buy flour, sugar, and whatever else separately to make a homemade cake. Stouffer's and countless other companies want you to buy prepared frozen meals rather than make your own meals. I'm not even merely picking on just food companies here. Ours is a consumerist culture where value is only derived and the GDP only goes up when money changes hands--particularly when it is recorded for tax purposes. Wall Street and Washington want America and the world to perceive the American economy as strong and robust. To accomplish this, money must be spent and recorded to be included in statistics that in turn will generate confidence in the stock market and thereby the economy as a whole.

I talked to one of my aunt's a while ago about how her family lived prior to the '60s. It is an interesting story to hear. For the longest time family farmer's like my dad's family lived by and large without cash and without municipal trash service. Family's were self-sufficient, and could barter for those things they couldn't provide for themselves. They bought few things with actual money--something that began to change in the '60s. What changed? I'm not entirely sure, but clearly the consumerist culture began to accelerate and make it increasingly difficult for families to live without money.

Society no longer rewards self-sufficiency, it in fact punishes it quite severely. Taxes and regulations continue to push it to the margins of our society because such people bring little value to what society desires--money, wealth, GDP, stock markets, and most importantly taxes. They do not serve the interests of major corporations. They have rejected the industrial and consumerist culture that wants all farms to use huge expensive machinery, that cages animals in inhumane conditions feeding them food that would kill them without antibiotic intervention.

Better health is a byproduct of the world view shift, but it is not the sole reason I've begun to push for change. This is a matter of a spiritual mandate for good stewardship of the earth, its resources, and those resources under my influence.

I believe it is immoral what the industrial farming models are doing to our land, our animals, and our bodies. I believe it is immoral that our government works in collusion with industrial agricultural companies to eliminate small farmers who take stewardship seriously and are working to provide an alternative food system. I believe it is immoral that chickens are kept in cages so crowded that they cannot sit, that their beaks are clipped so it is easier to eat corn mash, that they wallow in their own feces, that they must walk over their dead until they decompose and fall through the caged floor. I believe it is immoral that cows are fed a diet of chicken manure, cow fat, and corn--all which would kill them were vets not kept on staff with antibiotics. I believe it is immoral for pigs to be kept in small cages where they are unable to nurse from their mother and as a result would bite off the tail of the pig in front of them were the tail not cut off at birth to eliminate the issue altogether. I believe it is immoral for farmer's to not rotate their crops and give their field a rest. I believe it is immoral for farmers to so over fertilize their land that it runs off into our streams and rivers polluting them and killing animals and vegetation in its wake. I believe it is immoral for animal feedlots to turn manure into a pollutant rather than compost it and use it as fertilizer. I could probably go on and on given the time and the inclination.

I feel as though blinders have been removed from my eyes and I am only beginning to see the true state of affairs in this world. We let ourselves become blinded to that which we do not want to see. We want comfort, we want ease. We want cheap food, we want to amuse ourselves with things other than the matters of life.

I recently read a book by Wendell Berry called The Unsettling of America which I would suggest reading. It is a remarkable book with insights that few raise and even fewer contemplate. The industrialization of our nation has not been the blessing that most would have you think. Our once agrarian society was marked by community--an interconnectedness that is foreign to most Americans--particularly urban and suburban America. Husbands and wives would work together, in tandem where they lived and with their children. Industrialization fractured this once connected system. Husbands and fathers left the home for most of the day, leaving all domestic matters to the wife and mother. Children became the domain of women alone, surely leading to the feminization of men. Women became justifiably dissatisfied with their seemingly subservient and isolated role. And men became disenchanted with meaningless and unfulfilling drudgery either at the factory or the office.

I'm not yet sure what to do with this argument, as it is difficult for me to refute it. But I definitely sympathize and would like to mend it somehow. I know it wasn't a utopia before, and I don't mean to imply that it was. But life was at least whole. Families were together and wholesome food was the norm, not the exception.

Most people have lost the sense of what real life is. Real life is family working together, preparing food together, eating together, and playing together. There is no shame in any of those things, nor should one be valued over the other. There is a connectedness between all of them. If one is stressed over the other something will be lost.

We moderns want the pleasure without the work. We want the food without the preparation (and cleanup). We should not be surprised that life become dysfunctional when we neglect the work or preparation.

These are the things going through my mind right now, and you're welcome to think about them too. They are important issues that should not be easily dismissed. Don't let your biases dismiss them. Think critically and logically about them. I dismissed them for too long myself and am only beginning to open my mind to these truths. Just because our society tells you something is true, and you want to believe it is true, doesn't mean it is true. Think about how truth was abused and isolated with the Israelites. There was a mere remnant that knew and believed the truth. Think how few are Christians. Truth is not welcome to most. It should not surprise us that truth is hard to find and hard to hold fast to. Think on how the prophets were abused and rejected. Think how Jesus himself was abused and rejected. When you realize these things, you will begin to realize that much of what you believe is false--not merely about food, but about life.

I don't expect, plan, or care to force anyone to believe or do these things I say. The whole problem is that the force of society and government has been brought to bear upon truth to diminish its power. I want to see a fair fight. I want those opposed to these ideas to deal with them with intellectual and spiritual integrity.

I have decided to no longer uncritically accept things as they are. I will no longer compromise principle in favor of expediency. If there is a viable alternative to that opposed to truth and righteousness, I will endeavor to pursue it. I recognize the road will be difficult and will likely result in mocking, but this is the call of the Christian, is it not?

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

We Who Dared Say No To War

I just started reading We Who Dared Say No To War, a book of American anti-war writings from 1812 to the present. The book is edited by Tom Woods and Murray Polner. I am enjoying it and have already been very impressed by two particular speeches. The first was by Alexander Campbell, in his "Address on War," given in 1848 in relation to the Mexican-American War, in which the United States gained control of disputed territory in Texas, California, and New Mexico.

The whole speech is excellent, and may be read online. Here is the thrust of his argument:

"(1) The right to take away the life of the murderer does not of itself warrant war, inasmuch as in that case none but the guilty suffer, whereas in war the innocent suffer not only with, but often without, the guilty. The guilty generally make war and the innocent suffer from its consequences.

(2) The right given to the Jews to wage war is not vouchsafed to any other nation, for they were under a theocracy, and were God's sheriff to punish nations; consequently no Christian can argue from the wars of the Jews in justification or in extenuation of the wars of Christendom. The Jews had a Divine precept and authority; no existing nation can produce such a warrant.

(3) The prophecies clearly indicate that the Messiah himself would be "the Prince of Peace," and that under his reign "wars should cease" and "nations study it no more."

(4) The gospel, as first announced by the angels, is a message which results in producing "peace on earth and good will among men."

(5) The precepts of Christianity positively inhibit war - by showing that "wars and fightings come from men's lusts" and evil passions, and by commanding Christians to "follow peace with all men."

(6) The beatitudes of Christ are not pronounced on patriots, heroes, and conquerors but on peacemakers, on whom is conferred the highest rank and title in the universe: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God."

(7) The folly of war is manifest in the following particulars: First. It can never be the criterion of justice of a proof of right. Second. It can never be a satisfactory end of the controversy. Third. Peace is always the result of negotiation, and treaties are its guaranty and pledge.

(8) The wickedness of war is demonstrated in the following particulars:

First. Those who are engaged in killing their brethren, for the most part, have no personal cause of provocation whatever.

Second. They seldom, or never, comprehend the right or the wrong of the war. They, therefore, act without the approbation of conscience.

Third. In all wars the innocent are punished with the guilty.

Fourth. They constrain the soldier to do for the state that which, were he to do it for himself, would, by the law of the state, involve forfeiture of his life.

Fifth. They are the pioneers of all other evils to society, both moral and physical. In the language of Lord Brougham, "Peace, peace, peace! I abominate war as un-Christian. I hold it the greatest of human curses. I deem it to include all others - violence, blood, rapine, fraud, everything that can deform the character, alter the nature, and debase the name of man." Or with Joseph Bonaparte, "War is but organized barbarism - an inheritance of the savage state," With Franklin I, therefore, conclude, "There never was a good war, or a bad peace."

No wonder, then, that for two or three centuries after Christ all Christians refused to bear arms. So depose Justin Martyr, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and so forth.

In addition to all these considerations, I further say, were I not a Christian, as a political economist even, I would plead this cause. Apart from the mere claims of humanity, I would urge it on the ground of sound national policy."

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

The Limits of Power - Review Part II

In Part I of my review of Andrew Bacevich's book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, I wrote, "America has become a profligate, self-serving nation, bent on bringing its power to bear upon those that will not serve its interests or appetites."

Bacevich continues his criticism of American foreign policy by arguing against the myopic morality tales often cited to cast American military power in its best light. He writes:

"From time to time, although not nearly as frequently as we like to imagine, some of the world's unfortunates managed as a consequence to escape from bondage. The Civil War did, for instance, produce emancipation. Yet to explain the conflagration of 1861-1865 as a response to the plight of enslaved African Americans is to engage at best in an immense oversimplification. Near the end of World War II, GIs did liberate the surviving inmates of Nazi death camps. Yet for those who directed the American war effort of 1941-1945, the fate of European Jews never figured as more than an afterthought.

Crediting the United States with a "great liberating tradition" distorts the past and obscures the actual motive force behind American politics and U.S. foreign policy. It transforms history into a morality tale, thereby providing rationale for dodging serious moral analysis. To insist that the liberation of others has never been more than an ancillary motive is not cynicism; it is a prerequisite of self-understanding. (pages 19-20)

He continues to expose the myth of American Exceptionalism by reviewing the methods employed to expand our borders. He writes:

"How was expansion achieved? On this point the historical record leaves no room for debate: by any means necessary. Depending on the circumstances, the United States relied on diplomacy, hard bargaining, bluster, chicanery, intimidation, or naked coercion. We infiltrated land belonging to our neighbors and then brazenly proclaimed it our own. We harassed, filibustered, and, when the situation called for it, launched full-scale invasions. We engaged in ethnic cleansing. At times, we insisted that treaties be considered sacrosanct. On other occasions, we blithely jettisoned solemn agreements that had outlived their usefulness.

As the methods employed varied, so too did the rationales offered to justify action. We touted our status as God's new Chosen People, erecting a "city upon a hill" destined to illuminate the world. We acted at the behest of providential guidance or responded to the urgings of our "manifest destiny." We declared our obligation to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ or to "uplift little brown brother." With Woodrow Wilson as our tutor, we shouldered our responsibility to "show the way to the nations of the world how they shall walk in the paths of liberty." Critics who derided these claims as bunkum--the young Abraham Lincoln during the war with Mexico, Mark Twain after the imperial adventures of 1898, Senator Robert La Follette amid "the war to end all wars:--scored points but lost the argument. Periodically revised and refurbished, American exceptionalism (which implied exceptional American prerogatives) only gained greater currency. (pages 20-21)

He summarizes later, "...the defining characteristic of U.S. foreign policy at its most successful has not been idealism, but pragmatism, frequently laced with pragmatism's first cousin, opportunism." (Page 22)

This in essence is the best of the book. He skewers presidents and their advisers throughout the book--including everyone from Kennedy through George W. Bush. He is most hard on Reagan, Clinton, and both Bushes as they have been the ones most responsible for the state of affairs in Washington.

This book will surely be distasteful to conservatives who live under the illusion of American Exceptionalism, but it will also serve to disillusion those who believe that Barack Obama will bring meaningful change to Washington. In his conclusion, he anticipates Obama's victory and recognizes that no politician will be able to deliver change because:

"The real aim is to ensure continuity, to keep intact the institutions and arrangements that define present-day Washington. The veterans of past administrations who sign on as campaign advisers are not interested in curbing the bloated powers of the presidency. They want to share in exercising those powers. The retired generals and admirals who line up behind their preferred candidate don't want to dismantle the national security state. They want to preserve and, if possible, expand it. The candidates who decry the influence of money in national politics are among those most skilled at courting the well-heeled to amass millions in campaign contributions." (page 171)

So what to make of all this? Bacevich has his own ideas, and they are good, insofar as they go. But real change must occur within the people of the nation. As Bacevich even testifies, the people are as responsible for the state of affairs as the politicians are. Let us repent and change. That is the only way.

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

The Limits of Power - Review Part I

Last week I linked to Peter Leithart's review of Andrew Bacevich's book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. I just competed the book myself, and will add a few words.

Bacevich is highly critical of contemporary America. In his introduction he writes:

"Realism in this sense implies an obligation to see the world as it actually is, not as we might like it to be. The enemy of realism is hubris, which in Niebuhr's day, and in our own, finds expression in an outsized confidence in the efficacy of American power as an instrument to reshape the global order.

Humility imposes an obligation of a different sort. It summons Americans to see themselves without blinders. The enemy of humility is sanctimony, which gives rise to the conviction that American values and beliefs are universal and that the nation itself serves providentially assigned purposes. This conviction finds expression in a determination to remake the world in what we imagine to be America's image.

In our own day, realism and humility have proven to be in short supply... Hubris and sanctimony have become the paramount expressions of American statecraft." (page 7)

Bacevich sees America as a proud, and aloof nation. We in essence are our own idol, and seek to proselytize the rest of the world. But that is not all.

"The collective capacity of our domestic political economy to satisfy those [self indulgent] appetites has not kept pace with demand. As a result, sustaining our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness at home requires increasingly that Americans look beyond our borders. Whether the issue at hand is oil, credit, or the availability of cheap consumer goods, we expect the world to accommodate the American way of life.

The resulting sense of entitlement has great implications for foreign policy. Simply put, as the American appetite for for freedom has grown, so too has our penchant for empire." (page 8)

He writes more on the profligacy of America in chapter one. He writes:

"If one were to choose a single world to characterize that identity, it would have to be more. For the majority of contemporary Americans, the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness centers on a relentless personal quest to acquire, to consume, to indulge, and to shed whatever constraints might interfere with those endeavors." (page 16)

"The ethic of self-gratification threatens the well-being of the United States. It does so not because Americans have lost touch with some mythical Puritan habits of hard work and self-abnegation, but because it saddles us with costly commitments abroad that we are increasingly ill-equipped to sustain while confronting us with dangers to which we have no ready response. As the prerequisites of the American way of life have grown, they have outstripped the means available to satisfy them. Americans of an earlier generation worried about bomber and missile gaps, both of which turned out to be fictitious. The present-day gap between requirements and the means available to satisfy those requirements is neither contrived nor imaginary. It is real and growing. This gap defines the crisis of American profligacy." (page 17)

So at the heart of Bacevich's criticism, America has become a profligate, self-serving nation, bent on bringing its power to bear upon those that will not serve its interests or appetites.

More to come...

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

The Meaning of Capital, Part III

We've discussed the importance of capital and its development in the previous two posts--now for a look at our contemporary understanding of capital. Recall that Hernando De Soto wrote the "essential meaning of capital has been lost to history. Capital is now confused with money..." (The Mystery of Capital page 43) De Soto theorizes that this has happened "because modern business expresses the value of capital in terms of money." I agree with this thesis, though I believe that paper money has led to or at least exacerbated this confusion.

Money was once limited by the amount of silver or gold in circulation, and represented capital in a one to one ratio. But through fractional reserve banking, deficit financing, and the central bank's ability to print paper money the true capital represented by money became diluted with money which had no value, and in fact represented debt, not capital.

This co-mingling of money representing capital and money representing debt has led to great confusion over what is capital, and the notion that wealth may be generated by adding money into circulation. But as Herbert Schlossberg has written, this is a wicked impulse, as it attempts "to create value ex nihilo and imitate the creative power of God." (Idols For Destruction page 92)

Recall again De Soto, who writes, "Third World and former communist countries are infamous for inflating their economies with money--while not being able to generate much capital." Let that sink in. We are using Third World tactics to maintain our economy. What does that mean for our future? Again, reflect upon this.

America was once a great manufacturing nation, but over the past twenty years we have moved to a service economy. We have used hedonics and other gimmicks to show GDP growth all the while, our productive capacity is diminishing. The fact that our trade deficit exceeds $30 billion per month is evidence that we are living on capital. Rather than live within our means, we are have chosen to live on credit, delaying the inevitable day of reckoning when all our debts become due.

Again, I must quote Herbert Schlossberg. I've written on this quote before, and will again, as it is imperative that we take to heart this lesson:

"Consuming capital is perhaps the clearest sign that greed has come to dominate our economic life. That is the moral meaning of such phenomena as pollution and the transformation of farming into a mining operation through the depletion of the topsoil and the draining of the underground reservoirs. A decline in wealth ought to mean that consumption diminishes, but a moral failure prevents that from happening. Instead, a way is found to continue consumption at its former levels: living on capital. Thus the capital stock is raided. Roads, bridges, and buildings deteriorate, long-term borrowing finances current consumption, and the individual base falls into obsolescence. Paul McCracken of the University of Michigan calculates that the industrial capital stock is now falling instead of rising at its historic annual rate of 2.5 percent. We have hardly begun to pay for this in unemployment and reduced output. As more capital is destroyed by policies of taxation and inflation, people will remove it from uses that make it vulnerable. Saving will seem increasingly improvident, and more capital will either be consumed or placed into such unproductive forms as precious metals and collectibles. In any case, funds will not be available to build factories, schools, and barns. As the capital stock continues to be consumed, the pauperization process feeds upon itself. People persist in maintaining their standard of living through more capital consumption and currency depreciation. The system eventually collapses." (Idols For Destruction page 281-282)

Food For Thought on Energy

I've linked to the Crash Course by Chris Martenson before, so if you've watched it, this video will not be news to you. In this video, Chris looks at energy in a ten minute presentation that ought to at least give you pause.

What would happen if oil became scarce?



-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

The Realignment of Currencies

Nathan's Economic Edge posted some videos from a Glenn Beck show where he interviewed Damon Vickers, the Managing Director of Nine Points Capital Partners.

The interview begins around minute 7:00 in the first video. The first six minutes are not news to regular readers of this blog, feel free to skip them. The interview is remarkable, in that Vickers anticipates a realignment of global currencies. His argument, in essence is that America is unable to compete in the manufacturing sector. Countries like Bangladesh can pay their employees $0.70 or $1.00 per day--of course America cannot compete with that.

Vickers argues that "the dollar is way too high and other currencies are way too low. What you're likely to see is a realignment of currencies. Beck and Vickers continue their discussion and argue that we're "going to live closer to the standard of Mexico than you are of America.

Here are the numbers: Mexican per capita income was $14,200 compared to America at $47,000. What are the implications of such a drop in the standard of living? I'm not certain, but it is frightening to ponder what must happen for this realignment to occur. But consider if this were to happen and our nation's debts must be paid--hyperinflation becomes a not-so-unlikely scenario as our debts must then be repaid in appreciated dollars, which would devastating to the American economy. The temptation would then, of course, be to inflate away.

The first two videos are definitely worth watching, the third is not directly related to the topic, but also worth watching.







-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

More Wilson on Education

My admiration and respect for Douglas Wilson is difficult to hide, so why bother. The man is a brilliant cultural critic. He's got another great post on higher education as a follow up to yesterday's.

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

The Meaning of Capital, Part II

In my previous post we learned that capital is "a permanent value, that multiplies and does not perish"--meaning that it is of lasting consequence and may not only be preserved, but multiply in value. Fertile farm land is perhaps the best example of capital, as it holds value due to its ability to produce food for human consumption--the most basic of human needs. Paper money on the other hand, is a perfect example of what capital is not, though may represent. Paper money operates on the whims of perceived value. A one trillion dollar note form Zimbabwe has virtually no value beyond being a collector's item--its value has been lost because the government responsible for printing it printed too many of them.

Clearly capital is of the utmost value, and must not only be preserved, but enhanced for the survival of our species. "Machinery, buildings, and lands" are the things that provide sustenance and protection in their most basic functions, but may also add comfort, luxury, and development in their more enhanced functions.

But capital is not all that is required--as human creativity, skill, and labor must be employed to shape, develop, and enhance the capital stock. Land without a skilled farmer is of little value. A hammer without a skilled carpenter is dangerous and unproductive. A building with a leaky roof or drafty window compromise the value of the shelter.

I will again bring Herbert Schlossberg and Idols For Destruction into this discussion. Schlossberg writes:

" If we understand capital, in the broadest sense, to be any asset--material or non-material--that produces continuing benefits of any kind, then its importance becomes clearer. With the biblical norms increasingly spurned by an idolatrous society, the family structure, the intellectual competence, the legal foundations, and the economic base--in other words, the capital--are all decaying. Therefore, the stability, peace, and prosperity they should be producing will increasingly be lacking." Idols For Destruction
page 317

Schlossberg also defines capital as producing "continuing benefits." This is the aim of holding capital--to reap more and more from it. In a way it is like living off of interest--as long as the principal remains intact, this may continue as long as interest rates are maintained. But as soon as the principal is tapped into without replenishment, it is only a matter of time before the principal is expended entirely.

Next, we'll look at our current situation.

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

Christian Higher Education

Doug Wilson has a great post on Christian higher education. I commend the piece to you.

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

A Good Summary of the Looting of America

Here is a great article summarizing the manner in which America is being looted.

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

The Meaning of Capital, Part I

I am reading Hernando De Soto's book The Mystery of Capital right now and encountered a helpful definition of capital, as well as how it has been lost and distorted in contemporary use:

"Simonde de Sismondi, the nineteenth-century Swiss economist, wrote that capital was "a permanent value, that multiplies and does not perish... Now this value detaches itself from the product that creates it, it becomes a metaphysical and insubstantial quantity always in the possession of whoever produced it, for whom this value could [be fixed in] different forms." The great French economist Jean Baptiste Say believed that "capital is always immaterial by nature since it is not matter which makes capital but the value of that matter, value has nothing corporeal about it..."

"This essential meaning of capital has been lost to history. Capital is now confused with money, which is only one of the many forms in which it travels. It is always easier to remember a difficult concept in one of its tangible manifestations than in its essence. The mind wraps itself around "money" more easily than "capital." But it is a mistake to assume that money is what finally fixes capital. As Adam Smith pointed out, money is the "great wheel of circulation," but it is not capital because value "cannot consist in those metal pieces." In other words, money facilitates transactions, allowing us to buy and sell things, but it is not itself the progenitor of additional production. As Smith insisted, "the gold and silver money, which circulates in any country, may very properly be compared to a highway, which, while it circulates and carries to market all the grass and corn of the country, produces itself not a single pile of either."

Much of the mystery of capital dissipates as soon as you stop thinking of "capital" as a synonym for "money saved and invested." The misapprehension that it is money that fixes capital comes about, I suspect, because modern business expresses the value of capital in terms of money. In fact, it is hard to estimate the total value of a collection of assets of very different types, such as machinery, buildings, and land, without resorting to money. After all, that is why money was invented; it provides a standard index to measure the value of things so that we can exchange dissimilar assets. But as useful as it is, money cannot fix in any way the abstract potential of a particular asset in order to convert it into capital. Third World and former communist nations are infamous for inflating their economies with money--while not being able to generate much capital." The Mystery of Capital, pages 43-44.

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

Raw Milk

I have come across favorable words for raw milk several times over the last few months, most recently in Joel Salatin's writings. Most recently, I encountered an article written by Joseph Mercola on the health benefits of raw milk. I'm curious if any of my readers have any experience with it.

Those that favor raw milk argue that it is full of nutrition unavailable in pasteurized and homogenized milk. Joseph Mercola writes, "It's not uncommon for people who drink raw milk to report improvement or disappearance of troubling health issues--everything from allergies to digestive trouble to skin problems like eczema."

Realmilk.com defines real milk as:

• Coming from real cows, not a specific Holstein bred for quantity, not quality
• Coming from cows that eat real food--namely grass during spring and summer, and hay, silage, and root vegetables during winter
• Unpasteurized
• Not Homogenized
• Contains butterfat
• Contains no additives

I have requested a book from the library entitled, "The Untold Story of Milk that looks to be a good source of information on the topic.

If you want to read up on raw milk online there are many good resources including this one and this one.

I also recommend watching this video:




-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

Is Nidal Malik Hasan a Patsy?

The official story about the Fort Hood killer, Nidal Malik Hassan, is that he is an Islamic extremist with connections to terrorists, and has been under investigation for months. But this official story rests upon some very tenuous foundations and may simply be a ruse to cover-up an even more unseemly story.

Skeptics raise many doubts about the official story:

• "There is no way a psychiatrist - basically an intellectual desk jockey - shot off hundreds of rounds with two pistols and hit about 40 people without being subdued by someone. Come on! He wasn't a trained assassin or a special ops commando shooting up a mall. He would have had to reload and that means putting one of the pistols down and reloading the other with seasoned combat vets in that deployment center. It only takes seconds to reload, but it only takes a second to subdue him."
• "No way! That would be impossible. Even if he had two semi-auto pistols [according to early reports he used a 9mm and a .357 revolver to gun down over 40 people] he would still have had to stop to reload and someone would have jumped his ass. Most people on base aren't carrying [weapons], but MPs are and they would have been there in a heartbeat."
• "I spent 10 years at Ft Hood. There is no way this 'official' story is legitimate. No way would a room full of combat vets allow this one shooter to get off over 100 rounds! And, it is not normal for the outside security guards to be there. They are at the MP station, and at the main gates. This means the room full of soldiers processing must have been pinned down; multiple shooters is the only plausible scenario. This sounds like Maj. Hasan has been used, and perhaps is a patsy."

It does seem unlikely that one Army Major with limited weapons training could use two handguns to shoot one hundred rounds in five minutes, hitting forty people, some multiple times, before being subdued himself.

But the questions alone are not the only source of concern. The initial reports from Fort Hood raise further doubts as many people were reported to have claimed with certainty that there was more than one shooter.

Signs of the Times lists the early reports that are in direct conflict with the now official Army story:

The initial reports said that 7 people had been killed and 12 wounded in a shoot-out. Reuters relayed that two gunmen had been dressed in "military uniform." One had been taken into custody, but the other was still "on the loose."

Sgt. Major Jamie Posten, speaking on the phone from the base, told CNN that there was definitely more than one shooter involved:



This was also reported by MSNBC, which added breaking news that the shooter still on the loose was now surrounded at the base's postal exchange or commissary, completely separate buildings from the Soldier Readiness Center (where soldiers undergo medical screening prior to deployment), and was armed with a high-powered sniper rifle.



Read the rest and investigate for yourself. We may never know what really happened, but is it not plausible, perhaps even likely, that several men, as first reported, are responsible for the attack at Fort Hood and that Major Hasan was a shooting victim, and now patsy, in an attempt to deflect attention from the true killers and their motives, and placing the blame upon the "Islamic extremist?" I urge you to think for yourselves, and doubt the state line. The state has their own interest in this story, and the truth may have no part in it.

The Sign of the Times editors end their article well:

"Now that Hasan has woken from his coma and begun talking, it will be interesting to see how the propaganda machine reinforces its image of him being the 'Islamic extremist lone gunman terrorist'. How can we verify that any statement he makes through the corporate press has not been made under duress? How soon before we hear him confess, "Yes, it was me, just me, I hate America for it's freedoms! Muslims, stand up and unite against the tyrants!" etc.

What fate awaits Nidal Malik Hasan?

Everybody knows what happened to Lee Harvey Oswald. "

-------------------------------------------
Buy and store gold abroad at BullionVault.

Get free shipping on your gold and silver purchase at Lear Capital.

Capitalism, God, and Greed Part IV

Herbert Schlossberg argues similarly, "Consuming capital is perhaps the clearest sign that greed has come to dominate our economic life. That is the moral meaning of such phenomena as pollution and the transformation of farming into a mining operation through the depletion of the topsoil and the draining of the underground reservoirs. A decline in wealth ought to mean that consumption diminishes, but a moral failure prevents that from happening. Instead, a way is found to continue consumption at its former levels: living on capital. Thus the capital stock is raided. Roads, bridges, and buildings deteriorate, long-term borrowing finances current consumption, and the individual base falls into obsolescence… We have hardly begun to pay for this in unemployment and reduced output. As more capital is destroyed by policies of taxation and inflation, people will remove it from uses that make it vulnerable. Saving will seem increasingly improvident, and more capital will either be consumed or placed into such unproductive forms as precious metals and collectibles. In any case, funds will not be available to build factories, schools, and barns. As the capital stock continues to be consumed, the pauperization process feeds upon itself. People persist in maintaining their standard of living through more capital consumption and currency depreciation. The system eventually collapses." (Idols pages 281-282)

Coming back to Wendell Berry again, he writes, "To have even the illusion of infinite quantity, we would have to sacrifice both flesh and spirit. It is an old story. Evil is offering us the world: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." And we have only the old paradox for an answer: If we accept all on that condition, we lose all. What is new is the guise of the evil: a limitless technology, dependent upon a limitless morality, which is to say upon no morality at all. How did such a possibility become thinkable? It seems to me that in the assumption that we can live entirely apart from our way of making a living." (Unsettling of America pages 78-79)

The leading nations, America in the forefront, have abandoned all pretense of living within its means. Rather than recognizing the world has limited resources and limited productive capacity, we have chosen to live off the future of our children. Our money is no longer representative of capital accumulation, but of debt. This paradigm shift has led to a cataclysmic shift in consumption. Consumer goods—food, clothing, gasoline, electricity, etc. have all become far too inexpensive. The world is awash in money and credit leading to gross distortions in the supply and demand of virtually everything. By consuming our children's capital we have not only assumed massive debt, but we've tapped into the resources our children will one day lack.

Many fear that our children will be shackled with debt, as they must, because our debts are insurmountably large. Others believe we will default on the debts. Either option is unfortunate and potentially catastrophic. But perhaps the more frightening prospect is the legacy of capital destruction currently underway.