Author: White Whale

What are the types of pain? Indecision/confusion, regret, fear, sadness from loss (loss of an intact qualitative gestalt, which is to say the evolution of a human situation you thought was eternal), acute physical pain/discomfort, illness. The fear of death can be called a pain, but I don’t know that death itself qualifies.

With respect to sadness, it seems to me we sometimes create images of how the world is, and feel sadness when we realize they are wrong. This is processed as a loss, even though nothing objective has changed about the world, or us. We might think someone loves us, but they don’t. We might think all people are fair and just, and realize they aren’t. The Buddhists have likely done this analysis, and it would be interesting to find it.

Inflation is conventionally measured using some combination of prices, normally the CPI and/or PPI.

However, if my basic thesis is correct that fiat money creation is simultaneously wealth transfer, then the more important measurement of inflation is indebtedness. Specifically, are the producers of labor and materials owning progressively more of the fruits of their production, or less? Materially, we are surrounded with everything we could need. Yet most Americans are in debt up to their eyeballs. Our governments, State, local, and Federal are in debt. This, too, is inflation in my view.

This line of thought, while I have not seen it put in quite that way, is perfectly consistent with the thoughts of Keynes himself, in the book that made his name: “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, government 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. – 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.”

I would further like to make a brief comment on Keynes. I was greatly influenced by the book “Keynes at Harvard”, but what he does not do in that book is discuss the actual mechanism of Keynes system. I have therefore set myself that task.

Keynesian economics is intended as a means of transfering private wealth to the public sector through inflation, delayed taxation, and unnecessary interest payments. When governments print money and generate inflation, they devalue private savings.

When they create “jobs” which are external to the actual market system, they disrupt that system. As an example, if local businessmen are forced to compete with public works jobs paying 20% more than they can pay, they will be bankrupted. This takes time, which is the value for socialists of long term public works projects. This process has been seen dozens of times in the developing world, as a result of IMF policies that are an extension of Keynes ideas. Keynes, of course, was the key voice in the IMF, along with friend and Soviet agent Harry Dexter White.

Since the projects are funded using deficits, they are paid for in the future, out of taxes, which is to say out of the paychecks of people with jobs in the private sector. Absent those taxes, that money would have been available for investment.

The key element, though, is inflation. Nothing wrecks private ownership and private enterprise more than inflation. This is obvious enough in the case of hyperinflation. Yet, the same effect–the gradual dissolution of private capital formation, and increasing reliance on credit–is seen when it is done slowly.

This brings me to a concept I call “Hyperkeynesianism”. Logically, if inflation is wealth transfer, an aspiring socialist would want as much of it as possible. Yet, price inflation is unpopular. Could one not simultaneously indebt the nation, disrupt private enterprise through public works projects, and generate wealth transfer, without generating actual price inflation? Yes: all you would need is a mechanism for spending on the one side, and for soaking up the cash on the other. Could the IMF or World Bank (I am unclear on the precise difference, which is a subject for future research) not do that? Certainly. Could foreign governments also do it. Of course.

It should be added that the crisis in Europe has had the effect of making the dollar relatively better than the Euro. This has led to warehousing of dollars as well. There are many more dollars out there, than are in our system presently.

We keep expecting inflation due to the money being spent, yet what I read is that the global supply of dollars is contracting. I don’t think this is accidental. This whole thing is a setup. Obama came into office with a plan, and he is executing it. That plan was formulated by John Maynard Keynes, as a gift to his Fabian friends.

I have reached a point of sadness with my children. I have no regrets with respect to them. I have been a good father to the extent of my ability, with good results. Yet they have emerged from childhood. They are no longer those sweet, innocent little children. I still call my youngest my “little person”, but have taken to calling my oldest my “medium person”.

Nothing underscores the passage of time like the growth of children, and it is bittersweet. Soon they will be gone, off making their way, as is the way of life and time. We have had many good times, but that doesn’t prevent a bit of melancholy as I reflect on it.

One thing that becomes clear is that you can’t really hold experiences. There is no one peak experience that will last. Everything good that happens to us passes. This is a fact, and there is no use whining about it.

The only possible wise adaptation to this is to learn how to continually integrate NEW positive experiences. It is so easy to lapse into the past, to rehearse times long ago, to “remember when”. This is death.

Throughout my life, when confronted with difficulty, my response has always been to attack, to not wait for events to come to me. How do you attack this melancholy? It seems the first step is to acknowledge it, then to accept it has no true merit, and need last only as long as I want to hold on to it. I think it is often easier to hold on to a known melancholy than to accept the possibility of unknown positive experiences.

So many lives have second and third acts. The example that comes first to mind is Colonel Sanders, who achieved close to nothing remarkable until his mid-60’s, and died one of the most recognized and respected faces in the world. His last decade must have been a lot of fun, not least his charity work which his wealth enabled him to fund.

Grandchilden will be a lot of fun, if I get any, and there is in the end this light hiding throughout this field of dreams that I get glints of from time to time. I feel it, and see it in my mind. I choose to believe–with evidence–that this world is much more interesting and beautiful than we are capable of realizing while we wear out our bodies and our clock.

To smile in doubt is an act of courage, one which I hope to be equal to the rest of my life.

Watched the movie with Gary Cooper. Still not willing to dedicate the time to the book. Few thoughts.

First off, the characterizations were comic book-like. Howard Roark may as well have been Batman. This is not, however, a bad thing–at least necessarily–in my view. Most of our greatest pleasures come from deep feelings that are felt sincerely and without reservation. They don’t spring from reason. Reason can operate on them, but not create them. Computers can create poetry, but they can’t understand it. Sincere sentiment breaks down the walls and barriers which both define us and contain us, whose semi-oppressive presence we normally process as shelter from anomie and confusion. Yet a sense of self that doesn’t fluctuate is both a source of comfort and of imprisonment.

Phrased another way, all philosophy starts from premises that cannot be further reduced or proven. For a philosophy to “fit” us, to suit us, to meet the emotional needs underlying our cognitive work, it must conform to some inchoate, preconscious Gestalt that I label a myth. Comic books create myths: nothing more, nothing less.

Secondly, I am perfectly willing to accept the obviously true claim that all fundamental advances have to start in an individual mind somewhere. Generally, they are more likely to be found in the brilliant and in those who don’t fit in for whatever reason. The march of progress–if we assume progress in some form to be desirable, which I do–depends on such people, and any society therefore that wants progress needs to value its most creative members.

My question is this, though: what about the mediocre minds, who feel they are superior? We have all met stupid people who thought they were brilliant, and the more honest among us will be compelled to admit that we have ourselves been stupid while feeling intelligent.

What do we make, then, of the man or woman who refuses to follow the path of others, but lacks Roark’s genius? In my understanding, his character was modelled on Frank Lloyd Wright, whose monumental selfishness was ONLY excusable by the brilliance of his work. What of similarly selfish people without that talent?

We are happiest in groups. This is not to say that groups cannot be oppressive; plainly they can be, and I myself am not always the most sociable of creatures. Yet, that is where most of us find our greatest, deepest pleasure. Solitude is very valuable for creation, but it is not enjoyable.

I wonder–and I’m not the first one to wonder this, as I saw the question posed elsewhere–how Rand’s philosophy might have evolved if she had had children. Children need to be taken care of, but they can offer no payment but affection. I suppose that the Objectivist can name their price, but what if the kids turn out to be little shits? What price has been charged if the work of child rearing is not repaid? What is the value of unconditional loyalty or love?

I suppose it would lie in the work itself, in doing it well, in creating through example the sort of character in your child you envisioned. That is approximately possible.

By and large I am sympathetic to Rand’s overall project, which is countering the spiritual debilitation and parasitism that socialism breeds and relies on. As a strictly subjective matter, though, I have always felt a sort of mechanical smell in her work. I sense engine oil, and turbines in motion, and regular electrostatic discharges.

My own preference is for clouds, and approximation, and gradual shifts in color, tone and tempo. Again, this is highly subjective and “poetic”–mythic, in my terms.

These are very rough sketches, but I thought I’d note them down while the impressions were fresh in my mind.

All that is necessary to condemn this nation is to compare her history to her stated ideals. All that is necessary to love this country is to compare her to everyone else.

The first casualty in war is truth. The second is money.

Santayana once commented that “fanaticism is redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.” (not directly germane, but quotable is Churchill’s definition of a fanatic as “someone who won’t change their mind, and won’t change the subject.”

As I see it, politics serves two principle purposes for people. For genuine Liberals–whose views on an array of issues can differ quote considerably–the point of politics is to get things done. They have concrete problems they see, and they are willing to vary their means of solving them, never losing focus on the end goal. As an example, a true Liberal would realized that the ways we have been trying to end poverty in the inner cities haven’t worked. They have been tried, and they have failed. This means continuing to do what has always been done is necessarily counter-productive, since it is throwing good money after bad. We have to understand the system in place, and work that point forward to new ideas.

Yet, for many people politics serves a very different purpose. For them, it is an end in itself, since it leads to a sense of meaning, a sense of belonging, and to power, all of which motivations can be mixed together at once. Note, though, that these are all selfish, personal goals. We can take it for granted that that inner reality will invariably be cloaked in rhetorical appeals to the common good, sacrifice, and nobility, no matter where that person is on the political spectrum.

For that reason, the only politicians who are to be trusted are those who already have a sense of meaning, already belong to a community, and who do not desire power. Logically, then, good politics is simply an outflow of Goodness, generally. Logically, then, the only way to solve our political problems, in the long run, is through a reinvigorated, serious pursuit of moral virtue. I have made this case many times, in different variations.

This leads to the necessary conclusion, though, that efforts to muddy the moral waters, and to stymy or prevent coherent moral discourse necessarily lead to human suffering that is unnecessary, particularly in the long term.

Like any other problem, the problem of what to do and why to do it can be solved through discussion. The moment that discussion ends, though, without good answers, the stage is set for misery. In many respects, we are at that crossroads right now. Moral relativism is a rejection of the possibility of meaningful moral debate, since it has already rejeced in advance the possibility of an answer, outside the confines of blunt power.

Consider that the driving voices behind the formation of both the UN and the IMF–Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White–were Soviet agents. If you look at what the IMF actually does, it does not sponsor capitalism at all. It sponsors New Deal sorts of public works projects, that undermine existing businesses, disproportionately line the pockets of elites, and leave trails of debt that are never repaid.

Patently, the goal was a world filled with dictators who met at the UN to determine the fate of the rest of us, after dispensing with the US through currency devaluations that were utterly out of the control of Congress.

Here is my piece on what the Fed and IMF need to go: http://moderatesunited.blogspot.com/2010/05/going-out-today.html

HOW is a topic dealt with there as well.

Many years ago, I read some conspiratorial large black book that suggested a link between Marxism and Communism, the name of which I have forgotten. It was suggested to me by a friend whose family was politically connected. Well, I Googled those words today, and found this interesting link.

There are numerous interesting quotes from Marx here, but this will need to stand in for all of them:

With disdain I will throw my gauntlet full in the face of the world,
And see the collapse of this pygmy giant whose fall will not stifle my ardor.
Then will I wander godlike and victorious through the ruins of the world
And, giving my words an active force, I will feel equal to the Creator.

In the intervening years I have developed this notion, that of Cultural Sadeism, in which the simple desire for pain, death and destruction is expressed politically and disguised–as indeed all Satanic naratives must be–in the rhetoric of compassion and community. No proper Sadeist tells the truth, unless in so doing he can hurt someone. That is just how it works.

When you add to this the frequent admiration that Saul Alinsky expressed for Lucifer, you see a common pattern. Now, I am not a Christian, per se, but it is manifestly obvious to anyone with eyes that there are evil people in this world, those who enjoy the power that comes with being able to hurt other people.

This is, I am increasingly convinced, the task which those who run the IMF in particular, and to a lesser extent the Federal Reserve, have set themselves.

In the end, I only perceive two primal motivational structures in this world: that of Love, and that of Power. In this, I agree with the Christians. Both are mixed in most people, and each expressed to varying extents during the course of their lives.

Yet, every Bell Curve has a beginning and an end: these are our saints, and our demons. Marx was a demon, as have been his followers ever since. No beliefs in non-material realities are needed to accept this view. One simply need term him an aggressively violent sociopath, who worked through his books–as did, by and large, Sade himself–to accomplish pain and destruction.

An image that just popped into my head is that we are flickering flames, where the “wax” from which we emerge is the actual principles which inform our actions. Most people have two reasons for doing things (this insight is not original to me, by the way): the reason they give, and the actual reason. The actual reason is who you really are, which may be quite different than the face you offer to the world.

I spend a lot of time pondering the nature of self and identity, since our answer to those questions cannot be separated from our political commitments. Conservatives view “politics” as a means of preserving a way of life that already exists. If you ask them what they want for the future, that is an easy question to answer: the same as today, except that we implement our core historical ideals even better than we have to this point.

Leftists have a much larger problem. So much of their “doctrine” is actually praxis. Their “orthopraxis”, if I might be permitted that word here, is the rhetorical rejection of injustice, within which is enfolded inequality. Their orthopraxis consists in an effort to achieve rhetorical and then political dominance over anyone who disputes their leveling narratives.

Yet one searches in vain for actual positive principles by means of which they define themselves. Obviously, they are not racists, sexists, “adultists” (an amusing word I did not make up), elitists, homophobes, Christo-cenric, ethnocentric, or classist. What, then, are they?

Logically, if no differences are permitted in how we view different groups, however, they might be constituted, then the movement is necessarily in the direction of homogeneity. This flows from the ineluctable conclusions that I can’t priviledge me and mine, simply because that is what has always been done, and because those are the people I feel closest to.

For now, various cultural “others” are permitted their identities. For the purposes of western leftists, the current dichotomy between Us and Them in our own cultural system–which is to say the Politically Correct versus everyone else–is sufficient to let pass the racisms and sexisms of other nations and cultures. They presume such cultures are on their side, since they are speaking AGAINST the posited oppressions of the people–the non-PC–in our own culture who have “hurt” them.

It is an undifferentiated ocean of rhetoric backed by praxis, but unbacked by articulated or articulable principles. Why should difference be eradicated and not negotiated, for example? To take a concrete example, how is it that leftists can be so plainly bigoted against white Christian males that they refuse to accept their mere existence, and yet claim to be enlightened?

The key, here, is not what they think, but what they DO. Action is the point of propaganda, not coherence. In fact, mutability is a primary intended outcome of propaganda, since the needs of the Party change.

All of this matters because when you look at, say, the outcomes of the World Bank, which was founded by Leftists, you see they have been appalling. Yes, rich white men have played their part and made their fortunes. But on balance, the INTENT of the thing was to build a Communist world–also an invention of rich white men, I might add–which looks like 1930’s America, but forever and with an infinite array of surveillance gadgets to keep the people thereby “saved” from ever mounting an effective resistance.

How do people seek these things? How do they fail, after decades and generations of potential learning, to learn the lessons?

One can only explain this by positing that for leftists their belief system is an article of faith. If they do as they are told to do, if they repeat the mantras they are given, they are rescued from the tyranny of freedom. They don’t have to think about who they are, and what to do.

In a culture in which traditional values survived–take as an example any intact culture which the Left wants to “protect”, say South Vietnam before it was invaded by the North, or Sudan–these questions would have been answered for them. Gender roles, social roles, cultural patterns, all would have been assigned.

In the modern world, though, so much of what we took for granted has been destroyed. Space has been cleared for a “New World”, but no one knows what it might look like. Marx never spoke to it, and in neglecting morality, discouraged consideration of it as more important than impersonal historical and economic forces.

Yet as Emerson rightly said, history, proper, is biography. There is no history outside the concrete decisions of individuals, as leaders and in groups. We CANNOT build a positive future without the cultivation of good decisions, which themselves depend on coherent moral codes.

One tends, in studying history, to think of groups as relatively static in their motivations. One tends, as an example, to think of the Federal Reserve and IMF as composed of people who cannot be swayed from the conviction that what they do is acceptable. Yet, people do wake up, at times. A good example is Whittaker Chambers, who outed a whole spy ring in Washington, although he was ignored by FDR and Truman for some years.

Such things are possible. People can reach new decisions, based on perceptions that are new to them. One never knows how things will play out, but, again, it helps a lot if you have a means for making decisions, and a plan.