Author: White Whale

I’ve had a couple of days to digest this, and wanted to make some observations.

1) When you devalue a currency, it is like putting your nation on sale. How do you increase exports? Cut your price and your margin. This works both ways: for those with money, all tangible assets in this country get cheaper.

What should have happened is that when the Fed announced the devaluation of the currency was a run on the dollar. Problem is, inflation is always relative, isn’t it? And the Europeans have screwed up more royally than we have, and the Chinese have had their country on sale for some time.

Thus the dollar is strengthening, ironically. What those who came up with this policy, though, could have reasonably expected was an immediate discount. Which leads to

2) In concrete detail, we have to grasp what is actually happening. First, the quote from Keynes that should be burned into everyone’s mind, since it was quite honest, rare for him:

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become ‘profiteers,’ who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.

Well, the number is now more than one in a million, is it not?

Who gets this money? How does this process work? The fact is, we can’t know for sure, since the Fed is–when it wants to be, and breaks no law in so doing–as secretive as the CIA, and less supervised.

But it seems safe to say that what will happen is that checks will be written to large member banks, say Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. In December, a $50 billion check will be written to each, in exchange for Treasury Bonds they hold, at what may or may not be (likely not) their actual market value. Self evidently, if they could sell them more dearly, they would. They haven’t, ergo. . .

Now, it is far from clear those bonds were not purchased initially with money ALSO provided by the Fed. My suspicion is that they were.

Remember, we are not even privy to who all the stockholders are in the system, much less who is given money for what. We do know that the people voting the money out are collecting it as well. They vote themselves money over an expensive breakfast, then figure out how to spend it over an expensive dinner, with cigars and brandy, and hookers and coke, according to their taste.

Anyway, they get these huge checks, and then, what? Well, the skies the limit. GE sits on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, by design the de facto head of the system. Why not buy a bunch of GE stock? Jeff’s a good guy, they got a lock on the lightbulb market, and tons of Federal dollars flowing to their green technologies. GE stock goes up, and now these banks have a larger position in GE. They now, to be clear, OWN a part of GE which they have purchased with fiat money.

And the price of GE stock is higher than it would have been, had the number of dollars in circulation remained constant. This is inflation in the stock market, which will affect the valuation of other stocks in unpredictable but real ways.

Maybe they buy a bank in China, if the Chinese will let them. They start making loans to Chinese corporations, and in so doing get an ownership claim on them.

Maybe they buy a diamond mine somewhere.

Maybe they buy a Brazilian energy company. Or Mexican. Or Nigerian.

Whatever they do, they now own things that they didn’t earn. The money was given them.

I want you to be clear on this. This is literally like me giving you a checkbook with effectively no limit, that you can use to write checks to anybody for anything. Anything. Do you think you could make money like that? Find some winners? And what if you don’t? What if your trip to the racetrack flops? Well, you just write more checks. This is what the Fed does for its core members.

And yet all of us suffer from this process, as Keynes pointed out. This is a formal system for wealth transfer and economic dislocation. Inflation can only happen when somebody gets something for nothing.

3) My suspicion is that the timing was intended to disrupt Republican momentum. If my thesis is correct, that our recovery is jobless since those with capital are scared of Obama and his policies, then we should have seen a collective sigh of relief in the form of hiring in the immediate aftermath of the election. Yet what has happened? A new doubt has been introduced, which will mute this effect considerably, lessening the ability of Republicans to point to the manifest connection of conservatism and economic dynamism and growth.

4) The effect of this money injection will be to keep interest rates on the debt artificially low. This will make the trainwreck we are heading towards less obvious. Currently, we are paying some $400 billion annually on our debt. Given fixed interest rates and our current annual deficits, that is expected to be some $600 billion annually by 2012.

But given our debt, rates should be rising. Given the risk of default over the long term, what we have to pay investors to get them to buy our bonds should be going up. Thus, absent this action, that $600 billion might have been $800 billion, or even a trillion.

Yet, we are still being taxed, through inflation. We will still, in effect, be paying that $800 billion, since the buying power of our currency has been debased. As Keynes noted, this form of taxation, of property confiscation is very subtle, and understood by very few. He himself understood it to perfection. He made a fortune on currency trading. He was a genius, just one committed an evil doctrine, that of Fabian Socialism.

5) It occurred to me this morning that when a debt is paid, that is deflationary, since money lent is inflationary only as long as it is out. This is an open thought I will have to develop further in some cigar smoke, but you can follow my logic in my piece on Money Creation.

Net: it is hard to know who these people really are, and what their real intentions are, but it is plainly obvious that getting and staying really, really rich is a key element.

As I have stated in other essays, it seems to me that the quest for power and the quest for righteousness really are the two primary forces in our political world. Leftism is just one particularly vicious iteration of an age-old desire to rule the world. America is the best-run experiment in world history of a nation based on sincerely held ideals. We have many enemies in our midst, but we can still prevail, in my view.

It all starts with awareness. Share this link if it made sense to you. Copy it and call it your own. Restate it in your own words. Modify it to correct what you see as my mistakes. Above all, though, keep the spirit of wanting the truth and understanding foremost in your mind, and act on it by doing what you can to educate everyone around you.

My own metaphysics posit that the good go to heaven, no matter their metaphysics, and the evil to hell of some sort.

As I visualize it, hell is a version of the monkey trap. In this trap, used throughout Asia, in my understanding, something desirable to the monkey is placed at the bottom of a bottle, which itself is tied to the ground. The opening to the bottle is big enough to let through an open hand, but not a fist.

The monkey grabs the whatever–for stereotype’s sake lets say a banana–and refuses to let go. Since it won’t let go, it is easily captured.

As I define it, this is the sort of desire that is damaging.

Hell, then, is a repeated happening that arises out of the unresolved compulsions of the person there. What I want to emphasize is that the goal is NOT punishment, but learning. Yet to the precise extent that person refuses, over and over, learning, the system IS punishment.

Hitler: he finds himself as a young boy–say 11–in a Yeshiva School. Whenever he reads the Torah, it is upside down, and backwards. They give him tests, and he flunks every one. Then he gets held back.

The next year, the same thing happens. This goes on for 1,000 years at least.

In his real life, he never got a high school diploma. How much more traumatic to be held up in a Yeshiva?

Jean Paul Sartre. I really don’t like this guy, since he was a piece of shit. He was a Stalinist long after it was known what that meant, a misogynist, philanderer, and Speed Freak. Given what he thought was his genius, I see him in a classroom, too. He is expected to listen, essentially forever, to a dull, unoriginal teacher, who misunderstands everything he said. Yet he can’t speak, without being punished. This goes on for a 1,000 years.

Stalin I see ice-fishing. He catches something, and it is an enormous fish which swallows him whole, then shits him out. He emerges to cold water, and an inability to breathe. He gets to the surface, then the shore. Once there, he has no options but to put his line in again. Then he gets swallowed again, and it starts over.

Mao is pursued everywhere by a horde of rats. No matter where he goes, or where he tried to sleep, a large group of rats follows him. He can’t rest. He can’t stay in one place. Always he is in flight from the rats. This lasts for 10,000 years.

Pol Pot. I actually find it easier to sympathize with Hitler than this piece of shit. Hitler had his people torture people for information. The National Socialists killed because they, in their idiocy, thought it scientifically necessary.

Pol Pot set up many torture chambers, where people were put through a very systematic pain regimen prior to being shot and their bodies dumped wherever happened to be convenient.

Him, I see hanging upside down from a rope, and people beating his head with bats. This is the most unpleasant vision I’ve had, but if you really get down to it, had Hitler killed proportionately as many people as Pot, then it would have been in the 20-30 million range AT LEAST.

Anyway, I was drinking my nightly Truth Serum, and this is what occurred to me.

Another installment in my semi-occasional Bad Poet’s Society series.

My mirror died today.
Or maybe yesterday: I can’t be sure.

Once I was there;
now I am gone.

The memory of my always hungry
always keen eyes
Is already fading.

Something is missing, but I
can’t see what. My self?

Where was I before? Once I lived among the
living.
Now I walk among the living, dead.

I have fallen up: not into an abyss, but
onto a clouded mountaintop

Where I see no forms or shapes.

Darkness, that is my element.

Yet darkness has no mirrors,
and I miss myself already.

The City on the Hill, a two act drama.

Act One.

In the year of our Lord 2009 it was decreed that in order to foster prosperity and economic recovery, a city would be built on a hill, composed of federal employees paid to sit and surf YouTube and Facebook all day. It was decreed that they be paid one third more than private sector people employed to do largely the same thing, since such money would stimulate the economy.

The city was built, and lo and behold private businesses soon surrounded it. Movie theaters were built; strip malls were built; restaurants–especially sushi bars–were built. Soon enough, our 5,000 internet surfers had created 10,000 private sector jobs.

Everything was well. Paul Krugman flipped off Friedrich Hayek, and said “Screw you, buddy, we rule”.

Act Two

Then the money ran out. All the Federal employees were let go, and all the businesses that depended on them folded. Everyone moved away and never came back. Paul Krugman was seen wringing his hands, wandering off into the sunset, muttering “if only we had spent more money”.

The End.

Greetings!!

Tonight I would like to talk to you, middle America. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I used to wonder about you, when I was flying around the country. I thought: who lives THERE? Now, I have realized that what I should have been asking is: how can I help those people? How can I message them?

And pondering it, I have decided guns really aren’t that bad. I asked one of my agents to show me his gun just today. I didn’t touch it, since it looked dangerous, but I can see how you would want one of those things in areas where there are wild bears.

And religion. Honestly, I can tell you some of my best friends are religious. Seriously. I even go to church myself. I pray and everything. I can see how people would really get into that, especially the singing. I’ve always like the sound of someone singing in the distance.

So what I wanted to convey today is that we really aren’t that different, you and I. Tonight I’ve even asked the White House chef to make something called “biscuits and gravy”, which I understand is also a very popular African American food. I want to understand “y’all”, such that we can communicate, talk, and discuss.

So if you think I’ve been neglecting you, fear not. I haven’t had arugula in over six months. That’s how plain my tastes are becoming. I’m really just one of you. I’m even thinking about taking a spin around the White House lawn on a riding lawnmower, and wearing an International Harvester ballcap.

We’ve got two years. Let’s make this a great thing, shall we?

There are two principle narrative in evolutionay biology, each unable to account the actual data we see. The first, that of Darwin, is that random change (mutation) couple with random benefit (natural selection) has over vast expanses of time worked to counter the natural entropy of our universe.

The problem with this account is that it makes predictions that have been disproven. Specifically, it predicts that all species at all times are in the process of modification. All mutations which are not harmful will be retained, and selection between divergent groups will only happen gradually, again over vast expanses of time. Thus we should not have to look for “missing links”. They should everywhere. Every species we look at anywhere should show patterns of change over time. They don’t. What we see is the sudden appearance of a species, and then NO alteration for vast periods of time, then it disappears again.

Clearly, species evolve over time. One can track changes in moths and insects. One can trace genetic progressions in humans. Yet, we always find the species when we first see it already morphologically evolved. This is absolutely contrary to his thesis. To be clear, we have fossil fields where we can look at vast expanses of time, and have fossils from each era. They stay the same, with only minor alterations.

To solve this manifest problem, evolutionary biologists, rather than considering the (for them) horrible notion of incorporating field theories back into biology, chose to look at the actual record, and work backwards. Their only justification for this were the foundational ideas that biological systems are best understood as self organizing machines, that of course there is no God, and that the record did not support Darwin.

Thus you get Punctuated Equilibrium, in which huge evolutionary changes happen, relatively speaking, quickly. But the entire contribution of Darwin, which made his ideas plausible, was the combination of chance, natural selection, and huge amounts of time. With Gould, the time disappears. Some catastrophe happens, the animals are placed in a do or die situation, and the ones that survive evolve rapidly.

Yet, this posits precisely an interaction between the biological system and the environment. It presumes, in effect, that DNA rolls of the dice can be skewed in favor of survival, that the slot machine can be fixed. Yet, there is no provision anywhere in any theories for this.

We see this notion of ecological niches, in which animals coexist until they can’t any longer, then the species which has best adapted to the situation survives, and everything else disappears. Yet, what this would lead us to expect would be a continuity of fossils for long periods, then the disappearance of many, with the winners continuing. And this still doesn’t explain how rapid, beneficial mutation can appear simply because it is needed.

I firmly believe that if we can learn the political lessons in front of us, that the Left (and possibly some secretive very rich people for whom some have been fronting) has been lying to us for well over half a century, and if we can grasp the meaning of the corruption of climate science for the Global Warming scam, then at some point it will become possible to question the materialistic narratives of the emergence of life from within the scientific establishment. You have to have this idea that “everything you ‘know’ could be wrong”. Most people who earn Ph.D’s assume that whatever the truth is, it’s in their labs, and not elsewhere.

I further believe that a time will come when we wonder how it was possible for us to be so stupid for so long.

As I think about it, this really is an effort to redefine in a permanent way the relationship between our personal space, and the space of an increasingly overreaching–literally–State. What they are saying is that “We have the right to strip you of clothing, or strip you of your dignity: your choice.”

For what? For what concrete good? Israel doesn’t do this, and they have had no hijackings in decades, despite being the number one target. No American plane has been hijacked since 9/11, despite not using procedures like this.

People this has nothing whatever to do with security, and everything towards bending reality towards a New Normal in which the State can monitor the most intimate aspects of our personal lives. It really, truly is the beginning of 1984.

To quote Paul Krugman, in another context: be afraid, be very afraid. Then be angry, and make sure this bitch hears enough noise that our Socialist in Chief has to fire her or retract this totalitarian policy.

The way you break people is not through harshness, but through gradually demanding more and more submission–in seemingly small, seemingly necessary ways–until they lose their sense of self entirely. We are far along in this process in this nation, and this is just one more step in that direction. Enough is enough. Our government has NO right and NO justification to demand that everyone who flies on a PRIVATE airline take their clothes off, or get molested.

If you think about it, actually, in large measures has the airline industry not been taken over by the government? Have we not created a federal police force that does not answer to any of the States where it works, and is largely beyond the control of Congress?

Why is it I can’t opt out of security? Why is it airlines cannot set their own level of security? Some people are so fearful that this sort of screening is what they would want. Most of us are fine walking through a metal detector, and leaving it at that.

Frankly, my preference would be an airline that carefully profiles its passengers, and only bothers to check people who fit the demographic profile of terrorists. We skip the metal detector entirely. I suspect that would work just fine. As things stand now, rather than violating a few peoples “rights”, we violate the rights–severely, in this case–of EVERYONE. Are they going to grope children too? Or force them to pose naked?

This is utter and complete lunacy, and if it stands this alone will be a major issue in 2012. I personally will never submit to it. It is degrading, and goes far past the boundaries that should exist not just between individual citizens, but more particularly between the State and the citizen of that State.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

This is called “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”. In any chaotic system, the exact starting point can lead to wide variations in result. I sometimes call this “the tip of the spear”, which can be infinitely sharp.

I was sitting in a bar tonight, contemplating a woman. Common enough occurence. What I was wondering is if some one thing I had said or did, or some one or several parts of who I am made a large difference, such that what could have been a rewarding relationship was ended before it began. That rough thought process, I suspect, is common enough as well.

This in turn led me to begin pondering chance more broadly. If some one person had not come in, and given me the chance to talk with her, would that have made the difference? Given a chance, I can be very persuasive. Pondering, I decided I had done some 75% of what would have constituted perfection, and the appearances all indicate that still would not have sufficed. I’m an odd duck. Charming at times, but very unique in my worldview, and way of doing things. It is what it is. I like myself, and have no plan to change–or pretend to change–for anyone.

Pushing even farther out, though, I got to thinking about randomness as an aspect of human experience. How do we manage it? For primitive people, it is sticking together in groups, and doing what has always worked. Yet, their degree of chance fortune and misfortune was no doubt much greater than our own, where accidental premature deaths are no doubt much lower than they were, say, 10,000 years ago.

How do we turn “the tip of the spear” into something which almost always works the same way, rather than leading to wild swings in outcome?

Edward de Bono uses the concept, in discussing perception generally, of what he terms “catchment areas”. No matter where rain falls on one side of a mountain, it flows the same way. The same applies on the other side. In effect, the rain is funnelled from a large area to the same spot. It is organized and channelled.

Likewise, what is the role of insurance of various sorts? Is it not channelling chance such that no matter what happens, the same rough outcome is achieved?

And this can be broken down according to my four cultural tasks. For example, someone who believes nothing will be thrown into chaos, given a sudden tragedy. Someone who is a committed Christian will also be hurt, but recover more quickly, and endure far less internal anarchy and dissolution.

Someone who believes in an account of the nature of reality that is non-scientific–which does not accord with observable facts–will be thrown into a tailspin if something happens that cannot be accounted for within that world view. People who believe in science, understand that all truth narratives are contingent, and they expect the unexpected (at least the more intelligent people).

Politically, if you have a narrow, very rigid system of governance–say the rule of the tribal elders–and the elders are killed in a war, you are in trouble. If you view all political organization as originating in individual perception and volition, then you can adapt to anything.

Economically, free markets are the paradigmatic self organizing system.

All in all, it seems we have managed risk well, and can do better. As I said in a post a couple of days ago, if we solve all the material problems of the world, we will have to create new challenges for ourselves, but that can be done with intention, and with a mind to the evolution of such challenges.

Hope this makes sense. Bit tired.

It seems to me the most creative acts humans can perform occur spontaneously, as internal states. If you think about it, courage is a creative act. Where fear would normally be present, bravery appears. It appears as the outflow of principles which a given person has chosen, and as a result of instincts.

When you look at art, what you are seeing is the physical artifact of a state someone has chosen, that of receiving and transmitting new ideas. Where do plotlines come from? Visual images? Musical arrangements? Dance moves?

At some point are they not non-existent, then suddenly appear, in rough form? And is that rough form not then steadily sculpted with yet more new ideas, until the artist rests?

I would submit that it is this creative gestalt which is most important. The art produced is merely the means needed to achieve the end of creative engagement with life and work (which are in large measure the same thing).

It is perhaps stretching the facts to call it a spiritual discipline, but I am very fond of a system of movement and affective awareness articulated in English by Tarthang Tulku, which he called Kum Nye.

Even the first exercise is quite interesting. You sit comfortably, spine straight. Cross legged is best, if you can swing it. Then you consciously relax every muscle in your body, for some ten minutes. Then you spend ten minutes simply processing every sensation that arises. You don’t reject it, or build it: you just watch it. Finally, you visualize something that has made you happy, feel that feeling, then build that feeling, like blowing a small ember into a fire. You can in this way CREATE a feeling of happiness. Try it. Then get the books, parts I and II.

Love, too, is a creation. So much of what is called love in our world is nothing but compulsion, quite often sexual in nature, but sometimes a belief that the other person will somehow solve your problems for you.

Consider this thought experiment: what if we had no genders and no sexual desire? What would love look like then? Would it not look much more like CHOOSING to love someone, consciously?

As I have defined it, love is a desire to help other people create themselves. It can manifest, depending on the context, as both compassion and confrontation. It can be helping someone carry their load, and it can be watching them carry their load without lifting a finger. Always, love is about what is actually beneficial for the other person, and not what feels good for you. War can be an act of love, as can opposing war. In my world, the only absolute principles are the need for individuals to reject self pity, persevere, and learn something every day. Always, you have to ask yourself what the details of each unique situation are, and do what you can to build other people, such that they are independent and able to love others as well as themselves.

It seems to me most of the brutality of modern art flows from a rejection of the possibility of individual moral growth. If individuals cannot grow, then logically their internal states are of little intrinsic importance. That individuals cannot grow, qua individuals, is an intrinsic conclusion of any philosophy dedicated to the principle that everyone is equal not just in rights, but their innate personality traits. The lazy equal the industrious. The intelligent equal the stupid. Socialist leave no room for qualitative distinctions of this sort.

This leads directly to art which is not FOR something–for building communities, for building trust or other virtues–but which rather rejects the very possibility that art COULD be for such things. Yes, it can be used as propaganda, but not for love.

Such an attitude, on the contrary, brings much ugliness. Cows chopped into sections, and preserved. Crucifixes in urine. Paint trails from paint cans with small holes in the bottom, swinging around on a string. What are any of these ideas trying to build? Nothing.

Socialism is always a DETRACTION from human culture. It is not a humanism. It is a form of cultural suicide. Do not even the Chinese, now, want to look back on their own long history with something other than the contempt which was de rigeur under Mao and the fascist punk kids he brainwashed so effectively?

Ideas have consequences. The task I have set myself is showing clearly what the paths are between which we must choose.

Hopefully the foregoing makes sense. I have delayed posting it, since the feeling which gave rise to it is entirely non-verbal, and I wasn’t sure I could convey it.